Toymaking - A Doll's Umbrella Stand

 

From Toymaking at Home, another free download from Project Gutenberg.  I can't find a copyright date but it appears to be around or just after WWI (it's also in the public domain according to the Internet Archive so - before 1923?).  

There's no table of contents but this little piece of furniture - to be constructed of matchsticks - is on page 28.

Gotta Keep Those Numbers Up

 

They'll do anything to get us to attend training.

We Wish

Girls and Their Toys

I know, I know.  There's something seriously wrong with me, but I really want one of these.

Just Because

It Takes So Little To Amuse Me

Je suis Gilles Favor -  chef de piste.

I am sitting here giggling to myself and watching Rawhide.  In French.

Party Games

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ALL ABOUT KATE

This game will furnish amusement at an evening entertainment, but may also be played after a ladies' luncheon. The questions, on sheets of paper with spaces allowed for the answers, are distributed, and fifteen minutes given for answering them. Each answer is composed of one word ending with the letters c-a-t-e; for instance: Kate is a good pleader (advo-cate). When fifteen minutes have elapsed each player signs her name and passes her paper to the person on her right. The answers are then read, and the player having the most correct answers wins a prize.

Questions—

1. Kate is a good pleader. (advocate)
2. Kate judges judicially. (adjudicate)
3. Kate is apt to use other people's money wrongfully. (defalcate)
4. Kate is very frail. (delicate)
5. Kate sometimes gets out of joint. (dislocate)
6. Kate makes everything double. (duplicate)
7. Kate loves to teach. (educate)
8. Kate takes out ink spots. (eradicate)
9. Kate helps people out of difficulties. (extricate)
10. Kate is good at constructing. (fabricate)
11. Kate gives a pledge of security. (hypothecate)
12. Kate sometimes invokes evil. (imprecate)
13. Kate is perplexing; hard to understand. (intricate)
14. Kate often prays earnestly. (supplicate)
15. Kate makes wheels run easily. (lubricate)
16. Kate uses her teeth. (masticate)
17. Kate is not always truthful. (prevaricate)
18. Kate can foretell events. (prognosticate)
19. Kate makes an affirmative. (predicate)
20. Kate gets smothered. (suffocate)
21. Kate points out clearly. (indicate)
22. Kate makes business combinations. (syndicate)
23. Kate goes into the country. (rusticate)
24. Kate will now move out. (vacate)

From Bright Ideas for Entertaining, 1905, available as a free download from Project Gutenberg.

Camouflage

...you're doing it right.

Have You Ever Noticed?

How the triangle player gets to go nuts for about 20 seconds?

Some days when I'm feeling depressed, I listen to this and imagine it being danced by a squad of senior staff non-commissioned officers.  In combat boots.  And tutus.

Well, Dang

I can't get today's image to post. Will try later.

Bah, Humbug

The world is too much with me right now, so if no one minds I'm suspending blogging until the New Year.

Due To Technical Difficulties...

I'm at a conference for the next three days, so figuring out our configuration issues is going to have to wait until Saturday. Pfui.

A Word From Management

I am in the process of setting up our new PC so no posts today other than this one. Regular blogging resumes tomorrow (sorry!).

Please Stand By

As you can see, I'm fiddling with the blog look. I may get the kinks worked out of this one; and then again I may decide to go back to the old template.

Font Geek Humor

(h/t to William the Coroner).

I'm With The Guy In the Moustache

I'm positive we didn't have this problem back in the old Corps

(vintage ad from Patricia at Agence Eureka).

Soldiers in Sweden are complaining that the military-issue brassieres they have to wear are too flammable.

I really couldn't make this up, could I?

Until These Guys Put Bayonets on Their Trombones

I'll get my thrills from the Silent Drill Platoon (I refer you to minute 1:57).

Rainmakers

A nice wet day today with the sound of tires swishing past on the wet street and the drip of raindrops through the leaves. Many, many years ago, I was in a coffeehouse near Detroit listening to Odetta. As background for one of her songs she showed the audience how to make a rainstorm using only our hands to create the sound effects.

I had forgotten all about that night when I saw this on YouTube by a Slovenian jazz choir. Anyway, listen to the first 1:45 with your eyes closed while they make it rain.



Neat.

Three (Hundred) Faces of Eve

I've seen this before but the skill involved in blending the pictures still amazes me.