jeff yen

Body Parts ‘n’ Crafts

I went to IKEA today to pick up some more coffee, having drunk (drank?) the last of mine yesterday. I'm down to finishing the espresso Christine left in the freezer. She thought it was instant coffee... connoisseur that she is, she enthused about the taste but declared it was strangely gritty.

Cowboy coffee made with espresso grounds is actually not that bad, especially if you're patient. The fine grounds eventually settle to the bottom of the cup, where they form a thick muddy paste that is reluctant to budge even when you're tipping the cup back for the last dregs of -- admittedly sludgy -- coffee. Yes, I am actually too lazy to decant into another cup. Nevertheless, effete as I am, I prefer normal coffee grounds that I can put through my Swissgold filter to effect that marginal, but essential, degree of separation that keeps me just above "hobo" status.

IKEA, being fairly nearby, stocking halfway decent coffee grounds, and not least having 3RMB hot dogs that are actually discernibly made of Meatâ„¢ rather than the slightly gluey, spongy concoction that normally passes for sausage filling around here, was the natural choice.

Incidentally, I still haven't been able to figure out what's inside the Chinese version of hot dogs. The flavor is not unlike an American hot dog of the lowest possible order, but the sensation is acutely peculiar. The entire experience is somewhat like eating a wet, hot, Saran-Wrapped, meat-flavoured sponge cake. I have also seen lifelong vegetarians (a couple of whom who are vegetarian for religious reasons) tuck into these with aplomb, which just adds to the mystery. But I digress.

I hopped the subway, worked my way through the crowds, got some coffee, a couple of kitchen implements, and a hot dog. Perfectly normal, aside from the 300,000 or so Chinese shoppers who accompanied me on my expedition; which, this being a Shanghai IKEA, does not quite lie outside the norm.

So, nothing special.

Fairly ho-hum.

Outside, on my way back to the subway, I walked past some guys crouched on the sidewalk, selling feet.

This is also not actually an unusual occurrence, given certain specific thresholds of unusuality and foot origin. Feet are a regular appearance on menus here, and chickens, ducks, and pigs regularly sacrifice their lower extremities for the ravenously snackaholic Chinese public.

These, though somewhat dessicated, were the size of saucers. They had large, black claws, along with some patches of dark fur and stringy-looking flesh. There were three sitting there on a yellow towel, one just a stub with all of the phalanges missing.

I glanced briefly at them and moved on, not really registering what they could be. Then, halfway across the street, I stopped and thought for a moment, then turn around. Pulling my camera out of my backpack, I started recording video and held it casually as I walked back towards them.

Sadly, there were now a couple of cops approaching as well, and the men were being harangued by a guy in a slightly pink shirt, possibly an incensed citizen or some kind of official in plainclothes. The paws had been packed up, and the men were looking distinctly shifty and eager to get away.

The policemen seemed uninterested; I am willing to bet all the coffee I have in the house that the poachers were simply lectured for a while longer by the Man In The White Shirt That Was Washed With A Red One By Accident At Some Point, and then skulked off to find some other Scandinavian big box home goods store outside of which to vend toes.

I made two passes with the video camera and walked away; I didn't get any good footage, but I was able to pull a couple of barely usable stills.

So that was my weird story for today; i.e., I'm Pretty Sure I Saw Some Guys Selling (Panda?) Bear Feet Outside IKEA.

----------------------

When I'm not coding all night and sleeping for two hours and then coding all day, or surreptitiously videotaping poachers, I have to occupy my time. My latest little obsession has to do with my Kindle 3, which has arrived thanks to the good graces of my parents' friends, who were kind enough to bring it in their carry-on luggage from the States.

My obsession is actually not with the device itself. While I'm happy to be able to read long-form documents in comfort again, what I'm actually obsessing about is the fact that it didn't come with a case.

Even my old Sony Pocket Reader, which I partly picked because it was the cheapest reputable one I could find, came with a basic but perfectly serviceable neoprene slip cover.

The Kindle, despite supposedly being a "premium" reader, comes with nothing. I suppose this is in order to help defray hardware costs by way of increasing sales of their self-branded covers, which by all accounts are satisfactory in that they perform the function they are meant to, but provide little in the way of real value to justify their cost. They're also fairly bland, and have some serious flaws; for example, you can apparently crack your Kindle if you try to open the cover the wrong way.

So, even though I'm using (and quite happy with) my velcro wrap for the time being, I decided I wanted to try and make my own cover. I mean, I have an entire fabric market next door, complete with two tailor friends, and I just met a custom leatherworker down there the other day.

Making a case should be the easy part; I've made some cardboard cutouts from the Kindle box for the covers, and have mocked up a basic pattern already. I just need to set the measurements, ask the leather tailor to make a rawhide back and a suede inner, and stitch them together over the cardboard. Believe it or  not, the Kindle box was the stiffest cardboard I could find; 'hard-back' books and journals here are about as robust as an unwrapped Kraft single, and I can't find classic 3-ring binders with chipboard inserts anywhere, they're just sheets of semi-rigid plastic.

The conceptual problem I've been having is how to attach the Kindle itself to the cover. Most commercial solutions I've seen use elastic bands, but I feel like they're kind of flimsy, don't hold the device in place very well, and cover up parts of the interface. Plus they look kind of ugly.

Most DIY solutions I've seen just make a big pocket for the Kindle to slide into, which is even worse, since it covers up most of the keyboard and all the ports/switches/buttons on the bottom. And it's hideous.

Up till now, the front-running candidate for me was adhesive velcro strips; stick one side to the back of the Kindle, stitch or stick the other side onto the case, and you have a velcro-attached Kindle. The problem is, that glue is industrial strength, and I'm not at all sure I want a permanent velcro strip on the back of my Kindle. There's also no telling how well the glue would hold on the suede inner, and the solution is far from elegant.

Other options seemed unlikely to be effective and/or outside the scope of my capabilities. Ryan C. suggested fabricating some metal pieces, but I seem to have temporarily misplaced my metal shop. I briefly thought a grippy silicone back with retaining tabs and snap fasteners would be perfect, but of course I don't have any silicone, molds, or knowledge of how to even begin going about anything like that. Most other options would have required drilling holes/notches/grooves/slots in the Kindle, at which point having some permanent tape on the back of it started looking pretty attractive.

Today, walking through the supermarket, I think I found my answer. It was so simple, I was shocked it didn't occur to me earlier:

Baoke brand "Sagacious" ballpoint pens.

They have 0.5mm tips, black gel-based ink, cost 4.9RMB per pair, and they're made in Shantou City, Guangdong. Appropriately for their stature, the words "FINE PEN" are etched into them in no less than two places. They are, by far, the pinnacle of gel-ink based writing technology that can be had for 4.9RMB at the Nanpu Bridge branch of HaoYouDuo Supermarkets (a Wal-Mart company) in central Shanghai.

Yeah, I don't care about any of that. I just want the pocket clips. Note the little plastic bumpers on the end, those are important too. Maybe. I originally bought these because the standoffs would help prevent scratches, but now I think I may remove them and epoxy on a piece of rubber to help grip the Kindle in place, or cover the whole thing in leather or fabric and stitch/glue on some kind of grippy surface.

I bought a pair of pens (5RMB), long-nose pliers (10RMB), and shuffled off home to... actually screw this, I'll just post a few pictures, this should make sense:

I was initially pretty dumb about bending the clips, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to get the right kind of leverage. Luckily, the bottle opener on my Gerber Curve ended up being the perfect size and shape for the task.

I'll eventually need six of these for a secure fit, two pairs on the sides (I may Dremel two clips short to fit in the pre-cut slots on the Kindle's left side) and one slightly off-from-center pair for the vertical. I'll have to sacrifice use of either the USB or headphone port while the case is in use. Since I don't intend to use the headphone port, that's probably what will get blocked.

Then I'll find an old seatbelt (or a new one, it's not like anybody uses them here anyway) or some kind of good strappy material, and cut it up to make straps; cut slots in the suede inner, ask the tailor to put buttonhole stitching around the slots for reinforcement, and thread the straps through them. Attach the straps to the clips, slide the Kindle onto the clips -- which I will also wrap in something for appearances/scratch proofing (heat-shrink tubing would be perfect, if I could find it), and that should do it.

Anyway, I mostly posted this part for Ryan to see, since he wants to copy me.

Nerd love, bro.