Yrnamehere's Profile

If it is not articulated, it is not an action figure.

It's a cool idea, but the scales are too small. If you're going to do a figure of yourself, at least do it in 1/6 so you can see all the details. And forget the whole figure. All you need is a 1/6 head to be printed out and then you can use any of the zillions of 1/6 bodies and clothing options to make your own custom figure.

Definitely not a cobblestone design. Even fake cobblestones would have to be rounded on top.

In the alley where I live (I have a carriage house type thing) the city finally replaced the main throughway with non-dyed stamped asphalt a couple of years ago. There were a couple of residents who freaked out because the alley was originally paved with real brick and this was a gross violation of historical precedent or whatever, but luckily they were a minority and the stamped asphalt was put in.

So no one gets the wrong idea, I am generally in favor of historic preservation, but in this situation, the asphalt was absolutely the correct decision. 1) The city had the money and was willing to do the work which was a pretty big deal 2)The city had not done any work on the alley for decades (I know because I've lived here that long) and it was more pothole and hotpatch than brick so the historical value was pretty much shot anyway 3) there was no drainage and the alley was almost impassible in heavy rain or snow 4) Garbage and recycling trucks rumble through twice a week or more and brick will not stand up to that kind of abuse over years and years of use.

The city did a great job with the work -- the alley drains now, there aren't any potholes and it looks a million times better.

It's not a hypothetical question for me. When the light hits my house just right, it is pretty much the same color as the orange house in the picture. My house is a DC alley house so it isn't visible to regular street traffic, but even if it were, it would not stand out all that much. Where I live on Capitol Hill, none of the colors in the Italian picture would cause anyone to bat an eyelid.

Although it was repainted to more conventional colors some years ago, when I was growing up there was a house a couple of blocks away that was painted lavender and pink, complete with little ledges (mounted to the house exterior) by every window each holding a wrapped present. No, I don't have any idea why, but it was the wrapped presents that really made the house stand out, more than the colors.

My home security is iron bars and gates. Some people might think it's like choosing to live in a jail cell, but I like it and it gives me a real feeling of security. I can leave my windows and doors open and not feel like I'm asking for trouble from local miscreants.

Where I live, most break-ins are opportunistic crimes based on the easiest looking target. It's not the work of master criminals given to a lot of long term planning. The harder a place looks to break into, the less likely anyone will try.

I would guess that most of the OMG you painted brick!?! people don't live in a place where brick houses, are commonplace. If they were from a place like DC where brick is incredibly common and probably 90% of it is painted, it probably wouldn't even ping on their how-could-you radar. I've lived around painted brick all my life and I can't ever remember seeing a house with the paint bubbling off or anything like that, even with our horrible humidity. I have seen houses with paint flakes all over them, but that's because the home owners started on a repainting project, did some portion of the scraping and then just stopped and left their uncompleted project on public viewing.

I think the house in the post looks great and perfectly normal.

My alley house was originally made entirely of brick, although some point most of the brick on the front and back walls downstairs was replaced with a lovely cinder-block and I-beam combination. There was also another structure attached to the house that was demolished some decades ago. However long it was, the unprotected brick exterior of my place was completely exposed to the elements and was in terrible, terrible condition: crumbling brick, crumbling mortar, an absolute nightmare. When we finally got around to renovating the house, the brick was parged and is now completely covered up (and painted!). The front and back of the house had already been stuccoed by previous owners. I know people think it is a desecration to do that to brick, but what are the alternatives if if the brick has been significantly compromised either by previous owners or the forces of nature?

In comparison, a little paint is nothing!

Rococo, on the one hand the most completely exquisite, over-the-top, ostentatious expression of absolute wealth and power on the other hand, just remember that none of the palaces where this stuff lived in context had indoor plumbing or climate control and very few, if any, of the people that lived in them ever took baths as we understand the term.

Also, I don't just live in the middle of a city, I also live within a few blocks of an actual-honest-to-God-located-in-an-otherwise-residential-neighborhood-coal-powered-power-plant. Thank you Congress for being such awesome thoughtful neighbors!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Power_Plant

So I get to have all the joys of 21st century pollution with all the benefits of 19th century pollution too! Don't you wish you were so lucky?

Wow, does every thing need to be analyzed to the point that you won't show your three year old Swing Time because they aren't old enough to discuss the implications of the Bojangles scene? The easiest thing to do of course would be to use the fast forward button, but even if you didn't, no three year old would even recognize what was going on or relate it to the real world in any way shape or form.

I don't get this. We are all grown up people here who presumably were exposed to 20th century culture (good bad and ugly) in our youth and I bet most of us watched or read things as children that we know now contain racially or socially offensive elements and yet we managed to survive into NPR listening adulthoods without joining the Klan. Are the same parents who are so concerned about Swing Time not letting their kids read the Little House books? Because if they are not, that is just sad.

Going back to the post, I appreciate the intent behind the timeline, but the idea as a whole is pretty silly. A year in a kid's life is like ten years for an adult. By the time she is nine, the films she watched at five or six will be ancient history. Your kid doesn't need a foundation course in the history of cinema to appreciate Do-Re-Mi -- if you want to show her The Sound of Music, why don't you just do it? If you start watching it now when it is all just sounds and colors doesn't mean she won't want to watch it over and over again when she is older. God knows I did, with that very film, when I was a kid.

It seems to me there is also a basic disconnection here. You want your child to have a foundation in movie history which is good, but our current liberal sensitivities mean you don't actually want her to see the content that many of the most influential films contain. The Birth of a Nation is probably the most influential film of early cinema, but I can't imagine many parents are going to show that to their kids no matter how film literate they want their kid to be.

I got two of the Ikea Fixa toolkits a few months ago and I've used at least one tool from each kit every week since then:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00169254/
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30169257/

The tools I use most are the multi-bit screwdriver, the tape measure, the level, and the hammer. One thing that seems minor that I've gotten a hell of a lot of use out of is the plastic cap that fits over the hammerhead so that the hammer can be used more like a rubber mallet.

I also have a Black & Decker corded electric drill (borrowed from my dad), but I'm going to give it back to him and get a corded hammer drill since one of my walls is brick and it is much better for masonry.

I also recommend having several sizes of clamps, especially if you do any DIY involving gluing. For bigger items, something like a one-handed band clamp (http://www.amazon.com/Wolfcraft-3681404-One-Hand-Ratcheting-Clamp/dp/B000JCLNQ4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1346126531&sr=8-4&keywords=clamps+strap) can be a lifesaver.

Someone has to say it: Ikea. I'm not saying it is good choice, I have the Attest staples in my kitchen and I hate them, but they are solid and fairly cheap.

Replacing them with something of a similar size, but not as horribly ugly is one of my house priorities. I've been looking off and on for months now, and nothing has grabbed me, or if it has, it's been way too expensive for the number I need.

I was actually looking at the Lee Valley site earlier today, not for my kitchen, but for new hardware for some furniture I'm refinishing. I've gotten it into my head that labeled bin pulls are exactly what I need, but finding them for a price I'm willing to pay is another story.