I also put up the super adorable robot stickers Will made.  He made these by hand, cutting all the little pieces out and hand-numbered each one. That’s a lot of work for stickers! (And a lot of robot love.)

Included in the box was a CD compilation I put together called “For Eller” - if you didn’t find it, it’s behind the metal plate on the back of the Solitary House piece.  As promised, here is the track list:

1.  The Blob - This is credited to The Five Blobs, written by Burt Bacharach
2. Zombie Jamboree - Charmer
3. The Mummy - Bob McFadden and Dor
4. Weerdo The Wolf - Frankie Stein and his Ghouls
5. Hillbilly Werewolf - Raymen
6. Release The Bats - The Birthday Party
7. Halloween - Siouxsie and the Banshees
8. Dracula - Gorillaz
9. Frankenstein - Jad and David Fair
10. The Story of the Stairs - Jeffrey Letterly (From the most excellent Calling All Fiends compilation)
11. Immortal Gentleman - Lights Out (Aired August 31, 1943)
12. Spider - Lights Out (Aired May 18, 1943)

I hope you enjoy the CD.  Happy Halloween.

I just put up one of the items from the last package. It’s pretty cute, I’m not just saying that because I made it with my own little hands. Tell yourfriends.

We settled in Sunday for… well, for hoping.  I’d contacted the guy who sold us the shop and asked if he had any thoughts about the plate burner.  He was kind enough to stop by and take a look.  There’s a counter on the front that we thought was for tracking burns, but it was a photocell control.  He reset that, and verified the circuit breakers hadn’t triggered, but it still was no go.

After some head scratching, and a lot of thinking, I theorized that the safety switch that keeps you from burning your face off might have gone bad.  After a conference with Will, we jury-rigged a bypass.

Victory!

We burned a couple plates and got something printed (after a crazy amount of futzing with the paper feeder).  We’re back at it.

But my first action was to put a warning sign on the plate burner.  Burning our faces off for the sake of art would be a little much.  Don’t worry.  The Plate Burner is perfectly safe as long as it’s off.

Mungo opened the top and didn’t see anything that looked especially broken, not that we would know what the issue would be, but we were hoping there would be a bright red wire that was disconnected.

So we’re exploring some other options for getting plates made, we have 3 projects on deck, 2 are totally ready to print which makes being incapacitated all the more frustrating.

Since then, we took a shot at using the other press.  That didn’t go quite so well.   We have a bit more learning to do on that one, and probably some refurbishment.  We got lots of inky paper out of it though.  Very inky paper wrinkled and torn up.  Then I turned a knob.  There was a noise from the innards, and the suction system stopped sucking.

I’m not allowed to touch knobs anymore.

Our replacement part came.  It wasn’t quite perfect, but Will filed it down and it fit just right.  The Chief is back up and running.  We set about printing stuff for the May box.

Then the Plate Burner quit working.  We think (hope) it’s just the bulb.  I guess we’ll find out when it gets here.

In the meanwhile, we cobbled together a box for May, and it’s been shipped out.  You all should be getting them very soon.  We’re already looking into the June box.  Let us know if you have any suggestions.

We snapped a bit of plastic on the Chief (the larger offset press). So a new ‘paper stop deflector’ is on its way to us. I think of anything we could have broken on the Chief this is probably the cheapest part to replace as it’s one of the few non-metal components.

We’ve got a brand new and mostly empty etsy shop set up. If you haven’t received your subscription box and you like surprises you might not want to peek. We’ve only gotten one order so far but the order was from Studio Foglio which is so amazingly cool! I had to restrain myself and not slip them a sycophantic note with the shipment. Phil, Kaja, hope you like the stationery.

I really like the Maker Faire event in general. It’s a great idea, it’s fun, it’s got good exhibits and presentations, but I haven’t really figurde out how it can turn out so well when the organization appears to be so… disorganized.

We got really minimal guidance as to our role on education day. We camped out in the foyer of the main building and made noise as middle-school kids came through then again as they went out. Some kids were really into it and came and talked to us but the acoustics in the room were such that we could barely hear anyone unless everything was turned way down.

Eventually one of the organizers came in and suggested we roam around so we did that until some lady came over and said that our noise was “really great” but if we could just turn it off while some MIT grad was talking that would be just super. In my mind she then wrinkled up her nose and gave us a condescending little wave as she walked off but that’s probably fabricated.

We were all pretty burnt out so we packed it in, went to a greasy-spoon, checked into the hotel and zoned out for some hours then went out for supplies.

The Faire proper was fun, more people were interested in the project than I expected. I am unfairly biased because discordant noises make me want to crawl into a cave and listen to the croony voice of Bryan Ferry. Standing around shaking sticks and saying the same thing over and over is tiring. We passed out a few business cards, met some weirdos, and got to see a lot of our friends. So not a bad way to spend a weekend all-in-all. Let’s just gloss over the bitter, biting cold on Sunday, yes? Yes.

Pictures on my flickr here.

See you there!

Right now!

Mungo, Will, and I are hard at work and we think you’re going to be pleased with the results. You may look at some of the stuff and say to yourselves; ‘I don’t know much about offset printing, but I don’t think this was printed.’ You will be correct. More things will be printed as we learn how to use things (better). We’re still giving you guys some fun and awesome stuff, and no one hates fun or awesomeness.