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A few guidelines for painting with a roller: a curmudgeonly how-to

Posted October 10th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

A friend asked me today why he kept getting streaks while painting. This was my response. Bear in mind, rolling is the easy part of painting. 90% of the work of painting is in cleaning, preparing, cutting in, and cleaning along the way. However, during my few months as a professional painter, I learned these nuggets of wisdom from some very experienced painters.

  • If the surface is flat, use roller covers with a 3/8″ nap
  • If the surface is textured, use roller covers with a 1/2″ or greater nap
  • Matte/flat paint hides surface imperfections better and is usually more attractive in any setting. Glossy paint, on the other hand, is more durable and water resistant, making it appropriate for bathrooms and kitchens. Intermediate finishes such as satin and eggshell are popular for doors and moulding, due to reasonable washability without the full shine of glossy paint. (When I say glossy, I mean semi-gloss. Full gloss is for institutional bathrooms and shit like that). More expensive acrylic-latex paints are durable even in flat finish. They have superior washability and water resistance. My favorite.
  • Do not dip the roller in paint or ‘pull’ paint up the pan under the roller. The correct way to get paint on the roller is to roll it down the pan until it merely touches the pool of paint, lift it, and start rolling from the top again, repeating until the roller has an even amount of paint all around.
  • Depending on the texture of the wall, one application of paint to the roller could cover about the size of your body or more. This varies widely by paint type and brand.
  • Roll the paint out until there are no streaks. Streaks generally occur along one or both edges of the roller and are a sign that you need to keep rolling and spread the paint more.
  • A ‘roller mark’ is an unavoidable mark left when the roller changes directions. These flatten out considerably during drying, especially with good paints. Try to make your last roll over a given wet patch go floor to ceiling. This minimizes roller marks at eye level.
  • Use new roller covers frequently. Don’t bother ever trying to wash one, because they lose their quality very quickly. Essentially, once you get paint on a roller cover, you can never wash it or let it dry. You can paint up to two rooms with one cover if it never gets dry, but that is rare. Plan to have a fresh roller cover handy at all times.
  • If you or a previous tenant over-applied paint and allowed raised streaks or drips to dry in place, then those streaks will show through several subsequent coats of paint. Flat/matte finish pain is much better at concealing those once they are there, and you can use a medium sanding sponge to gently even them out before applying another coat. Be careful; if you sand too hard or scrape off the drips, you’ll probably rip the paint and need to spackle and sand again to get it smooth.
  • One coat is almost never enough, unless colors are very similar. However, it is extremely rare to need more than two coats.

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The Emperor found guilty of murder, shoots lightning from fingertips at judge

Posted April 13th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

The Imperial Emperor, sporting frosty white Jheri Curl, was convicted today of the 2003 murder of aspiring actress Lana Clarkson, according to the LA Times.

Click the Emperor for the full L.A. Times story

Click the Emperor for the full L.A. Times story

The Emperor reacted predictably when he shot thousands of volts of electricity arcing through the air at the judge, who fell to the floor convulsing violently and letting out an unholy shriek.  Before the bailiff could draw his light saber, The Emperor halted his attack, apparently due to a little electric blow-back attracted by the small steel Barack Obama button his highness decided to wear to his sentencing.

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The greatest typo since the Mormon Church accidentally allowed blacks

Posted April 7th, 2009 by admin | 2 Comments

Ho. Lee.  Shit.  Check out this story about how the student newspaper at BYU identified Dignitaries of the Church of Native-American Jesus as apostates rather than apostles.  Prolific reproducers of not so impressive genetic diversity, and prolific misspellers as well.

Oh and I was hardly kidding about black people.  Native American Jesus had a change of heart in 1978.

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Great new (and new-ish) albums

Posted April 7th, 2009 by admin | 1 Comment

Peter Bjorn and John just came out with a new album.  Without Indie 103.1, I don’t know who’s supposed to promote this stuff.  Living Thing is an awesome follow-up to their smashing debut album Writer’s Block.  The sparse, catchy melodies are what you’d expect, but the songwriting and production have moved forward to remain timely and fresh.  It’s still growing on me, and I think this is an album that can stay on repeat for a week or two.

While I’m still slowly awakening to the awesomeness of their first album, Cookies, 1990’s has come out with Kicks, another fun, “let’s be promiscuous and shake a leg” rock and roll novella.  These guys are wholly underappreciated.  Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning for their show at The Echo June 16th.

Filter Magazine recently awakened me to the utter greatness of Apollo Sunshine.  Their somewhat recent album Shall Noise Upon fully blows my mind.  It’s epic in scope and winds from fun rock/pop to Wall of Sound to psychadelia and back.  It also has my favorite ’secret song’ of all time.

If you want to listen to these and don’t know how, you can do what I do and subscribe to Rhapsody for a few bucks a month, or you can check out lala.com, where you can listen to any song once (the whole song) for free, add a song to your streaming playlist for $0.15, or buy a song outright (for instance, to burn) for a more normal price.

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The Drooler

Posted April 3rd, 2009 by admin | 3 Comments

It was an emotionally complex moment for me.  Sitting at a diner bar (in a bowling alley) at 8:30 a.m. or so, wedged between a clean-shaven, gelled-up salesman and a lanky, bent old man, I was taking the first bites of my egg & swiss on rye.

The old man stopped eating and pressed his fingers into his sternum.  At first I’m thinking “maybe this dude’s having a heart attack”, but the look on his face was not one of panic.  Somehow, massaging his breastbone strangely, this was routine.

He bent forward over his plate of scrambled eggs.  “He’s totally dying” I thought as I tried to continue eating calmly.  He was clearly not looking for help, and this guy, about 80, had “do not resuscitate” written all over him.  He pursed his lips and spit in slow motion, as if he was at the point of mortal exhaustion.

The clear gob of fluid stretched slowly down to the plate of eggs.  Maybe he massaged it up from his chest somehow, this pathological spittle, or perhaps fluid from his lungs.  Focused more on his plate than anything, he ineptly dabbed his face with a napkin, not even succeeding in breaking the tendril of goo still linking his face to the plate.

Mind you, I am eating my breakfast.  Disbelief suspended nausea.  No one else at the Diner seems to have noticed, and I got the sense that the staff new better than to ever look at this guy.

He put his napkin over his spit and ate a few more bites.  He alternated between eating and spitting for the next few minutes while I finished my sandwich and hash browns.  He sucked at using  a napkin, but he did manage to get up, pay his check, and leave without making a mess of the counter or floor.  After what I had witnessed, I was amazed to see him walk.  He never looked at me or anyone else, nor did I hear him speak.

As I made my own way out of the diner, I saw him in the bowling alley sitting alone at a table while his wife bowled with her friends

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Trader Joe’s Dragonfruit Water

Posted March 30th, 2009 by admin | 1 Comment

Joining the bandwagon originally piloted by Vitamin Water, Trader Joe’s now sells “water” that is actually a sugary beverage.  With 13 grams of sugar per serving, and 2.5 servings per bottle, we’re talking about 33 or so grams of crystalline fructose per bottle - about 8 teaspoons.  Imagine a coffee with 8 teaspoons of sugar!

I do think that eventually the FDA will ban the marketing or labeling of sugar-added beverages as ‘water’.

"A naturally flavored water beverage w/essential nutrients, taurine, chromium & electrolytes.

"A naturally flavored water beverage w/essential nutrients, taurine, chromium & electrolytes.

What the Scott Farkus is a water beverage?  Uh, not water!  Half and half contains water.  Wine contains water.  Even Everclear contains water.  “Water”, when referring to a beverage rather than a chemical, is usually a term we reserve for nearly 100% pure H20, maybe with a few milligrams of minerals or electrolytes per liter.

By selling a sweetened beverage and labeling it ‘water’, manufacturers are pretty much just crossing their fingers that a consumer won’t read the label any further.  Nobody buys orange juice expecting Sunny D, and likewise I think a lot of people think Vitamin Water and similar imitations are actually low-calorie, healthy drinks.

Trader Joe’s is really hitting the consumer below the belt, because people shop at their outlet specifically for healthy items.  One shouldn’t really be worried about being duped into junk food at TJ’s, and one usually doesn’t have to be.

This is a disturbing moment in my long relationship with Trader Joe’s.  Let’s hope they wise up before the FDA or a more widely-read blog embarrasses them.

Dragonfruit Flavored Water: It’s What Plants Crave!

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A bobcat walks into a bar…

Posted March 26th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

And fucks you up :-)

Then they shoot it :-(

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Fuck Tropicana and their continually misleading labeling on Ruby Red products

Posted March 24th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

There are three kinds of Tropicana Ruby Red:

  • Ruby Red 100% Grapefruit Juice
    This is the good stuff.  It’s perishable, acceptably fresh grapefruit juice with some pulp.  This is the only Ruby Red product that has the flavor and nutrition of pure (albeit pasteurized) grapefruit juice.
  • Ruby Red 100% Juice
    A cocktail consisting mostly of reconstituted ‘filler’ juices, like white grape juice, flavored with some grapefruit juice and other natural flavors.  The result is a watered-down, more sugary-tasting version of grapefruit juice.  The really fucking devastating part is that the labeling is confusing enough that people who actually read labels might assume they are getting the real deal.  After all, it says Ruby Red 100% Juice.  When I’m shopping for juice, I’m mainly looking for that 100% Juice labeling.  If you like real grapefruit juice, this product is undrinkable.
  • Ruby Red 100% Vitamin C
    Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, this should not even be legal.  The labeling is still flirting with the hope that a consumer will think they are getting real grapefruit juice.  Look how close the labeling is to the other Ruby Red products.  This is a sugared cocktail beverage.  The unconscionable douchebags at Tropicana sell this product most in poor neighborhoods, where they exploit ignorance in both vendors and consumers.  This is not a healthy beverage for children or adults; vitamins do not under any circumstances make drinking sugar water a healthy choice.
This is the real stuff.  Usually comes in a carton, 16 oz. or 64 oz.

This is the real stuff. Usually comes in a carton, 16 oz. or 64 oz.

This is the white grape juice cocktail that may contain traces of grapefruit.  It grosses me out, but for those who think grapefruit juice is too bitter, this is the choice.  The labeling is criminally deceiving.

This is the white grape juice cocktail that may contain traces of grapefruit. It grosses me out, but for those who think grapefruit juice is too bitter, this is the choice. The labeling is criminally deceiving.

Do not drink the Kool Aid!  This stuff should not exist.  It's label implies that it is a nutritious beverage, even though it essentially Hi-C.  Way to contribute to the obesity epidemic, Tropicana.  I wonder how much better their margins are on the watered-down Ruby Reds...

Do not drink the Kool Aid! This stuff should not exist. It's label implies that it is a nutritious beverage, even though it essentially Hi-C. Way to contribute to the obesity epidemic, Tropicana. I wonder how much better their margins are on the watered-down Ruby Reds...


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The not-so-extinct North American camel spotted at Whole Foods

Posted March 20th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

Camels evolved in North America, and lived here exclusively until a few million years ago.  They disappeared from the fossil record of North America fairly recently, and many believe they were hunted to extinction by early human settlers.

Through some twist of evolutionary luck, and contrary to centuries of established scientific dogma, the North American camel lives on.  I saw a whole herd of them at Whole Foods yesterday.

I did not have my camera with me, but I sketched one of the creatures in its natural, post-yoga foraging habitat:

Can you spot the camel in this picture?

Can you spot the camel in this picture?

Alas, the North American camel is alive an well.  Apparently, it’s not doing too bad either, given the prices at Whole Foods.

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The increasingly lude ‘Coho’ bots.

Posted March 18th, 2009 by admin | No Comments

Check out this message I got from HeinousCoho:

HeinousCoho: Describe the smell of your 'private area' in four words or fewer.

HeinousCoho: Describe the smell of your 'private area' in four words or fewer.

Apparently, something called Project Upstream is sending random messages to two people and then hooking the two people up to instigate a conversation.  Neither person knows that they ’sent’ a message first.  Usually, (or, as in my case, always), the messages are ignored by both parties.  After receiving a few of these, I Googled around and found only the nixiepixel article above, though she links to some other info as well.

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