Month: February 2023

How to waste your money and sticker paper

By brilokuloj

If you know me, it is not a secret that I absolutely love stickers, and labels and patches and all kinds of stick-on things. It was one of the first hobbies I got into as an independent adult and it has kept me sane in times of extreme duress, including and especially right now! So it only made sense to me that, as a sticker-lover and an artist who enjoys using printers, I would want to design my own.

Turns out it’s goddamn hard though. It takes a lot of time, and initial investment. I certainly am up to my shoulders in free time recently, but that is the same reason I don’t have money to spare.

So here’s my journey of trying to make my own stickers, all from the (relative) comfort of my own home. Did I succeed in my quest? No, I did not.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ Valentines donuts: a banal donut

By Eggware.XYZ

It’s Valentine’s Day, and you know what that means! That’s right, it’s time for all the chain coffee shops to release their seasonal weird pink sludge!

This time of year, Dunkin’ Donuts has released the “Cupid’s Choice Donut” (Bavarian ‘Kreme’ filling, strawberry frosting, and sprinkles) and the “Brownie Batter Donut” (brownie batter filling, chocolate frosting, and sprinkles), both heart-shaped for the season.

Yeah, not very creative. Dunkin’ Donuts (it will never be ‘Dunkin’ to us) is not exactly the place where you get fine cuisine. It’s joked that Taco Bell’s menu is the same five ingredients shuffled around, but at Dunkin’ Donuts things are even worse. Only a fool would order anything except a donut here, and the only real variety is if you want a yeast donut or a cake donut. Frostings, flavors, fillings – it all blends to be one beige blur of ring-shaped pastry.

That doesn’t stop them from trying every holiday season, though. Back in 2020 they had their Spicy Ghost Pepper Donut, which seriously tested us. Last year, they had a Cookie Butter Cold Brew, which we weren’t around to review, but it was Just Fine. They also had a cookie butter-topped (filled? something like that) donut, which we did not get to try, because we currently live in an area where any seasonal fast food product is at least a dollar more than advertised and most of the time doesn’t even exist.

But hey, we managed to get the heart donuts this year. Let’s make the most of it, alright?

How to make Toy for Cat

By brilokuloj

Or, how can we set and achieve realistic goals?

In 2011 I decided to get into sewing, with the express and singular goal of sewing my girlfriend a life-sized plushie of Slowpoke, her favorite Pokemon. Nothing gave me this idea except my weird, strange little brain, that when she said Slowpoke was her favorite Pokemon I thought “I’ll make you one!”

I started practicing sewing, literally just the basic stitches, on scraps of old underwear I wasn’t wearing anymore. Then I eventually got that pink and cream fleece, and I started teaching myself how to draft my own patterns, with the help of many many online tutorials by the likes of much more accomplished people (Abby Glassenberg, I owe you my life).

My girlfriend didn’t just put up with my piles of unfinished projects, she encouraged me through all of it. I knew she was ‘The One’ because she believed in me no matter how often my hobbies shifted. I felt supported. We moved in together. We got married. We adopted a cat.

And, as it turns out, sewing is just a great basic life skill for me. Even as I stopped making plushies as frequently (after finding out most people are not willing to pay for the amount of labor that goes into a project), I could mend my clothes in a snap so I wasted less money on new shirts, I was much more dexterous with my fingers, I built up better pain tolerance, and – most thrillingly – I discovered that 3D art is just… my favorite thing ever. As I got better at sewing, I got more into 3D modeling, because 3D models helped me visualize sewing patterns. All of my disconnected hobbies constructed me, a fully-realized person.

I did not ever make that Slowpoke. I still don’t know if I could; the ears were always the thing that stumped me the most. Now I don’t even know if I should; she is no longer into Pokemon.

But that Slowpoke taught me a lot. And, as sort of a sappy thanks to my wife and all of the people who supported me (even unknowingly, like Abby Glassenberg), I am going to walk you through the internal process of me designing my latest sewing project: a toy for my cat. It’s about as much of a tutorial as my disordered brain will let me make!

Can I offer you an egg substitute in these trying times?

By Eggware.XYZ

As you surely may have heard, a dozen eggs is currently worth $5 (five big ones) in many places in America. This may be the very thing tearing the fabric of our nation apart, as eggs form the basis of most breakfast foods, the most important meal of the day. It’s also testing our patience, since we have Egg in our goddamn name, for God’s sake.

But, since we have Egg in our goddamn name, you can trust us when we say that we’re Egg experts (eggsperts? huh that’s unfortunate – ed). We’ve assembled a top five list of quick, easy and fun substitutes for eggs in your day-to-day cooking, whether you’re baking, frying, or eating five dozen of them raw.

The Laundromat and the Single Red Die

By brilokuloj

There are a few known universal pains of being an adult: going to work, washing the dishes, and doing the laundry.

I am nearly 30 and yet, to this day, I have still managed to somehow avoid ever stepping foot inside a laundromat. I have always had access to a washing machine, whether it was in the basement or in a nearby room in the complex. Well, I guess people might consider that last thing a laundromat (especially because you have to pay for it) but at least I don’t need a car to get to it.

But recently, our apartment complex’s laundry room has been shut down, on account of the Big Plumbing Project that has been ruining my sleep recently. So, no washing machine. I have to go to… THE LAUNDROMAT.