Blog - Freaks

The sixth-grade science fair was less about science and more about showcasing the student’s idiosyncrasies.

My brother and I spent the Winter inserting motors harvested from innocent appliances into the wall outlet in the basement and recording the results in our notebooks.

The results usually included the motors jumping out of our hands, spinning impossibly fast and bouncing around the room like a pinball.

And also blown fuses. (“Geez mom, I don’t know why the power keeps going out.”)

I don’t remember why we had to perform those “tests” – they really had nothing to do with his perpetual motion machine (made of legos, of course) or my nail+wire+battery=magnet.

The electro-magnet can be turned on or off just like my freak-magnet. I prefer to leave my freak-magnet on as it makes life more interesting.

And now I’ll talk about the project du jour: I designed a logo for a company called Pretty Fluffy Chicken – PFC develops recipes, cocktails, and blog content for clients like General Mills, a cantaloupe grower in California and a law firm looking for a custom cocktail for an event.

This could only be the brainchild of the ladies from JSTK.

Anyway, here’s the logo:

Consider the following multi-purpose items:

• Airplane seat cushion —> flotation device
• Pop can —> pipe (for tobacco use only)
• Puppets —> mittens
• Pencil —> weapon
• Mr. Potato Head —> drug mule
• Van —> meth lab
• Goat —> wife
• Human skin —> lampshade, a la Ed Gein
• Ice pick —> lobotomy tool
• Human hair —> dress

The list goes on.

Sometimes an item is designed with a second purpose in mind (Mr. Potato Head) but not always. Congratulations to all the clever folk that breathed new life into an everyday object.

The Zeichen Press mail bags are full of requests for No Solicitors signs. Your requests have not fallen on deaf ears! (Except for you, Anonymous – I can put my own shoes on.)

Greeting cards don’t always fit into a category and that is okay; think of the card as that conversation piece in your living room:

Thanks, regrETSY!

This is a lot of build up for a new card.

Fine, here it is:

I know this is the second Zeichen Press card that references bacon wrapping.

I KNOW.

I think I’m talking about Halloween.

How did this holiday evolve from scooped out turnips and Hallowmas wassailing to full-grown women wearing sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costumes?

“Trick or treat!” They’d say, as I open the door. I would hand them each a Butterfinger and watch them scamper off to the next house.

Adorable!

Anyway, in the spirit of the season, Lucy took it upon herself to carve a block of linoleum into a bat.

The bat inspired a new card. Maybe one teenager could give to another to communicate solidarity? Maybe one bat enthusiast would send to another bat enthusiast? Is it a Halloween card? I don’t know, do whatever you want. I can’t make all the decisions.

Oh, and the carving tools found their way into Jen’s annual Pumpkin Carving Party:

On a recent episode of Hoarders (Monday, 9pm A&E) we witnessed an extra strange living situation: A man (struck by almost immeasurable grief) shared his home with 2,385 domestic rats.

I say that his grief was almost immeasurable because, although he had a great amount of grief, there was an obvious rat to heartache ratio. 2,385 rats : 1 deceased wife.

To see the number of rats in one area was amazing – they poured like water through every possible (and rat-made) nook and cranny. The bottom of every wall and door had been chewed to bits and the floor was lost under a carpet of rat feces.

But in just a few hours, the team trapped and caged the rats, shoveled out the house (why didn’t they just burn it to the ground??) and left the man.

The before was so ridiculous that even the after looked like a pair of soiled underpants.

Oh, well.

Another thing: Sometimes I don’t believe the weight-loss/makeover Before & After photographs. It’s hard to know.

Before:

After:

Is this transformation even real??

And now, witness the magic of the Zeichen Press warehouse Before & After:

(It’s okay to cry.)

Before:

After:

The swarm of bees came at me like a swarm of bees and stuck their stingers efficiently into my face and left arm. 

The disfigurement that followed was sideshow-worthy and while I’m as eager as the next gal to take the show on the road, I knew this hideousness was only (sadly) temporary.

My forearm doubled in size and I considered tattooing an anchor on it a la Popeye (the sailor man).

Don’t worry, a can of Raid was emptied into their home/my trellis/the doorway to the shop. I’ll be getting back to work as soon as this Benedryl wears off.

Two cousins sat in the front seat of the Chevy Malibu.

The car was parked in the driveway and they waited while it ran and the radio played. “I love this song!” the older cousin was delighted and grinned grotesquely.

The meaning of the song was completely lost on the girl. Many other things were lost on the girl. Like: braces, a toothbrush, a proper haircut, and not wearing her uniform on picture day.

The younger cousin would not lose this opportunity to educate her older cousin. She cupped her hands to her mouth and whispered seriously, “he’s talking about naked ladies.”

It would take years for the older cousin to make sense of what she heard. What could the lyrics, “My angel is in center field” have to do with naked ladies?

ANYWAY, we’re doing a project with my cousin (Sarah Gute) and her husband (Brian Gute).

They’ve ordered the usual: Logo. website, marketing plan. Rototilling. Diaper changing.

Stay tuned!

Dynamite magazine was full of hard-hitting news for kids growing up in the 1970’s.

But the best part of the magazine were the centerfolds. I wanted the Hang in There! poster so bad. It would have looked sweet on my closet door – right next to my Jackson 5 poster.

Struck by nostalgia and surrounded by (more) kittens, I took it upon myself to recreate the magic moment of the earnest kitten:When I was all done forcing the kittens to perform adorable stunts, it was time to make videos of people reading Zeichen Press cards.

Let me explain: Beneath various cards in our online shop, there will be a link to a video of someone (it could be you!) reading the card aloud. Why? Because even the lazy and the ne’er do wells have a right to Zeichen Press cards.

Boo Radley’s-> 232 N. Howard Spokane, WA 99201

ANOTHER profile for that special series dedicated to bringing our readers biased reviews of shops that carry our goods.

Aside from worm farms and taxidermy, I am most attracted to gift stores filled with oddball items. I know I’m not alone – at least not in Spokane, Washington. Boo Radley, that pasty (and super oddball) character from To Kill A Mockingbird, has opened a gift store. I say, good for him! I will put on my ham costume and let him walk me home anytime.

A few items off of the shelves:
Minding a calendar would never be a chore if I had this:

And how about all of the babies that would enjoy being tucked into their cribs with one of these?:

This looks educational as well as delicious. I’ll take 3:

Remember when I talked about my naming skills? No? That’s okay, I barely remember it myself. Anyway, I did a project with The Carney Group – I named a product that debuted at the 2011 MacWorld Expo to much adulation. Wait, that’s a pretty strong word. To much curiosity. They made the Top 3 Happening Booths but I think that had more to do with the bearded CodeWeavers COO dressing as Cher (I think that’s Cher?? Yucky!)

than the name I chose for the product – which was, by the way: Impersonator. See, it’s software that let’s your Mac run Windows apps without running Windows.

So brilliant.

David Pogue of the New York Times called it “hilarious” and one of the most creative pitches he’d seen all year.

I wonder if he meant last year because otherwise it would just be one of the most creative pitches he’d seen in January. I also wonder if he meant it was one of the most disturbing pitches he’d seen.

I wrote a lot of funny lines and made some cool logos

BUT all of my creative was for naught.

For naught.

They wrote their own lines and made their own logo. That’s cool. I don’t even care. I don’t. I totally let it go. Totally. I’m fine. Oh, here’s a little video I made (rejected by them – which I’m totally fine with. I am. I’m fine. It’s cool. Whatever. It doesn’t even bother me.) to go with the name. Close the blinds and turn on the projector, here’s IMPERSONATOR:

The No-Coast Craft-O-Rama is behind us and – like so many weekends – it’s all a blur.

I do remember Jen yelling “yahtzee!” whenever someone ordered the Show Special (two eggs, a slice of bacon and Texas toast with a dozen cards). And I remember feeling drunk with power. The top-selling card of the weekend was:

That tells me that Minneapolis is full of a lot of weirdos. Like me.

This card was also a big seller:

And that tells me that Minneapolis is full of a lot of moral ambiguity.

That reminds me! We had a snowstorm on Friday!

Luckily nobody had to eat anyone else to survive. Whew, right? That would not have been great for sales.