#I also have to fix my printer (for a couple of months now I've been delaying it by not having to print anything)

[lucianinsanity]

Dropped water on my computer by accident last night and now some letters don't work (5,6,g,h and both click buttons [it has them two times but it's still frustrating])

I don't know when I'll go fix her so I might just connect the keyboard of my older computer to her and see if it works well

[frogsandfries]

I had to grab some stuff just to finally cover my sister's birthday books, so I've already placed the order for this pay period, but I believe Yes paste is going in the cart for next pay period, and the hard drive is making its way up the backlog.

I'm also getting more cat toys, particularly toys that I can use while I'm stuck at my desk during the day. I also finally bought them a water fountain. I'm going to switch out the bowl in the bedroom/bathroom area.

I also still need a vacuum for all the hairy, sheddy creatures that live in my carpeted apartment, so I'll have to work on that. Luckily, the shopping list of other, smaller, important items IS shrinking.

Then, I think after the vacuum, I can get some bookshelves. I'll have to move the air conditioner to make room for the bookshelf, whenever that happens. Probably on the next couple months. I'd say it was dumb to bring an AC to a place that a) I definitely don't need it, and b) it's not allowed to be used anyway, but look, I was used for three years. I left that apartment in the condition it would have been without me.

Another huge-ticket purchase I need/want to make is, I left my decrepit Uggs. The leatherworker that I was able to contact said most likely they were beyond repair, and I was too upset. But I really liked them, so I'll just get an extra sole put on the new pair. I need a few pieces of footwear to complete my personal collection: Winter shoes, closed-toe sandals, slippers and some kind of cushiony skate shoe.

I'm obviously either going to have to start saving and/or stop spending now if I want to move next year, which I don't know about quite yet. I've been looking into the city I want to move to, the best that I can with no car. It's a very US-western city, one major, multi-lane street lined with franchise businesses. It's supposed to be The Place for creatives, and has a cost of living ticket to match. I don't know how I feel about that. But hey, I moved to New Mexico in the first place with no idea what I'd be walking into and it's been fine.

Anyway, here's going new printer cartridges are the fix for my printer because I've got a major itch to print some more books.

[csleko]

Oh, has it been a while since I posted a cosplay thing? As best I can tell, I never actually posted the Boba Fett gauntlets I made...last year...

Main reason for that being that I never actually technically finished them. I mean, I finished printing, gluing, and painting them, but when it came to attaching things to them to actually make them wearable, I ran into some issues.

Since then, I've got myself another 3D printer. Another filament printer. A bigger one that's a lot less hassle to work with than my first one. Got a magnetic flexible build plate that I don't have to lay tape down every time I want to print something. ALSO, I found out that some of the other problems I had with the old one were actually due to crappy cheap filament that kept breaking in the feed tube, so it wasn't totally the old printer's fault, but it still did kind of suck.

ANYWAY. I'm in the middle of reprinting the gauntlets, and I'm learning a lot about the pros and cons of resin vs. filament when it comes to cosplay pieces.

Resin pros:

Smooth and ready to paint fresh out of the curing bucket.

Much, much, MUCH faster than filament printing because print time is dependent on height, rather than volume.

Smaller detailed parts are clearer.

Resin cons:

Bigger pieces are prone to warping while printing, which can prevent parts from fitting together correctly. (Which is what happened to the gauntlet pieces.)

Large costume pieces can be very heavy and uncomfortable to wear.

Resin printing is messy in general, and involves toxic chemicals.

Filament pros:

More flexible, so less likely to break.

Much lighter, making it a better choice for large wearable pieces.

Easier to print in ways that reduce or prevent warping. (Also if warping does occur, you can potentially fix it with a heat gun.)

With the right settings, supports are much easier to remove.

Filament cons:

Very long print times, especially if you use smaller layer sizes to preserve finer details and make smoothing easier.

Smoothing out prints involves one or several very labor intensive processes. Regardless of method, you will frequently question how smooth you *really need* it to be.

Filament printers involve many more moving parts, so maintenance can be troublesome.

Obviously, you can make the best of both types of printing by printing bigger, less detailed parts with filament, and smaller detailed parts in resin. Which is what I did with the gauntlets.

ALSO. I'm working on getting stuff together to start making YouTube videos about the cosplay stuff I've been doing. It's still a couple months out right now, but yeah. That's a thing I'm planning. Got the equipment, got a logo done, working on an animated intro. Really just need to clean up my work area and do a bit of painting. Keep an eye out if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[epicmusic42]

Adventures: Instrument Edition

Also known as 'if I visit family, there must be chaos'

So, being the absolute nerd and honestly far more impulsive than people seem to realize, I discovered the existence of an instrument known as a hurdy gurdy. Like, a month later quarintine happened and I probably listened to about 40% hurdy gurdy music, 30% various podcasts and theatre performances, 50% Q-roommates. Yes, I'm aware that math doesn't add up.

Then post-quarintine, a word which here means after semester and moving when I no longer has the spoons to give a shit about whether or I died this year, I ended up going out to eat with a friend who was also stuck in the 'technically quarintine should not be over but our county hasn't even hit 50 cases yet and I need socialization' point of their life. We got to talking as you do, and she mentions a music project she wants to do. And I am like 'Yes!? Please!! I need this in my life so much'

Except one tiny problem: said friend is an absolutely lyric writer...who knows basically nothing else about music. I, on the other hand, have dabbled a decent amount and have a working knowledge of music theory. So I offer that if she gets musicians I'd be happy to help with stuff because even if I could plausibly steal the guitar back from my brother I honestly do not enjoy it enough to rebuild the calluses.

A month later, I am still obsessed with the hurdy gurdy and still obsessed with my friend's idea. I ended up kinda idly looking up stuff about hurdy gurdies and building them or buying them and etc etc etc. Ended up finding this amazing thing called a nerdy gurdy, which is basically just a kit for a hurdy gurdy that makes it plausibly affordable. It's still $300+ for the kit. I do not buy the kit though a part of me desperately longs to.

I'm sure you can see where this is going at this point.

I did sit on this idea for a little over a fortnight. I looked into how feasible it would be to do all my own cutting, into where I could get the wood cutting done, etc. All of the files for the kit are available online for free so it's not like I couldn't do it at all. I consulted with my parents on what they thought of it. I messaged my friend and asked if they still wanted to do the music thing they mentioned and that I was considering acquiring an instrument within the next couple of months and would happily help if so.

She absolutely still wanted to do the thing and we talked about plans and stuff. Then I consulted with my parents, I did some research, and I ordered the wood parts from someone who does them in America currently. I got the files and asked a friend with a 3d printer to print them for me. I made plans to visit my parents so I could make my dad help me locate the mechanical parts and use his workshop.

Spoilers: the Nerdy Gurdy Instructions suck ass. Like. Horrifically. I am figuring this out. I am surviving. But they sucks ass.

However, after...much less time than I expected tbh, I'm about a third of the way done. Dry fittings are complete and all pieces accounted for, some of the pieces have been successfully glued together, some less successfully, others remain unglued, and everything has been stained. I still need to paint the keys, pick up most of the mechanical parts, and do the actual assembly. But, assuming no major accidents, I've already put in about half the time I'll end up spending on this.

Now, I did say instruments plural.

This is because, after having considered it for both several weeks and all of an hour, my mother decided to buy an accordion. Said accordion has a busted keyboard and is possibly horrifically out of tune. It is also cool as fuck. I am not currently allowed to disable it to clean and discover what needs to be fixed in it, but I have been told that if she hasn't by the next time I'm down here I may. With possible implications that I may be allowed to walk off with it. She also informed me today that the keyboard we have is, in fact, mine.