• The gallery is now more of a proper gallery and less of exercise in randomness.
• There are now little icons for designs that you can also get in other forms. Like, if you can get a certain button design on a shirt, there's an a little shirt under the button that will take you right to the shirt page, and vice versa.
• I've streamlined the shirt pages a bit, there are cute little icons to take you to the various shirt styles and there are no longer preset color combinations. You can just pick the shirt color you want to go with a design.
• I've added a new shirt supplier, The Union Jean Company. I'm still in the process of working everything out with them, but the shirts are nice, a more basic unisex T that comes in more sizes. They're union-made in the US.
• oh and I've added a ringer-style shirt from AA.
• I've updated the shirt sizing page a bit and got more informative with the care and washing instructions...
• I added information on sweatshops to my politics page. It's quite a rant, but I think too many people were forgetting what a sweatshop really is.
• There's an updated 'about mushycat' page.
• I've added a wiki, I'll be writing there a fair bit. Right now it's a bit thin because as always, I've been busy. (wikis are great. I've been using one on my laptop to organize all my ideas.)

A lot of you have been asking when the next proper update is going to be. I have this problem, I've never been content to sit still, and I've been working on a million things. Being only one person, I don't always manage to get everything done in a timely manner, and I'm always off pursuing new things as well. I've started drinking coffee though, so hopefully that will help. : ) Seriously, now that I have the web site cleaned up and moved, new stuff will be coming soon. I equated the old site to a messy desk, and I just can't get anything done on messy desk. Now that it's clean...

Some of the things I've been working on:

• vegan guitar straps using organic cotton and hemp plus recycled materials.
• embroidered patches
• a cute little tofu press using sustainably-grown wood
• custom shirts and other things and so far it's looking good, I just have to do more testing.
• bags
• vegan cold process soap (no melt-and-pour laziness).

I'm not saying these things will be making it on to the site right away, but new buttons and shirts and other things will be added soon.

If you find any problems with the updated site please email me and let me know! I've done as much as I can to check things out but things always slip by. You'll have my undying love if you help me out!

June 10, 2005: bleep bleep bloop
I built a 'coffee' table to go with the sofa from my last entry. All coffee tables need joysticks, don't you think? The wood is all leftover scraps and the arcade controls I've had sitting around for years from another project. I haven't wired things up yet, but once I do they'll be for old school MAME action.

June 01, 2005: busy busy
Can I just say that pulling a squeegee all day is really hard work? Because it is.

I somehow managed to forget to update the contest last month, so this month there are two winners!

When an idea floats into my head I tend to get a bit obsessive about it, and if it's well-formed enough I can't help but build it... I do this all the time but here are a couple of things I just built that I thought would be nice to share. The first is a sofa I made almost completely out of cheap 2x4's. I wanted to replace the old yucky futon with something that was cozy in the sense of creating little spaces, not overly cushion-y cozy which I'm not into. The L and the corner panels do that pretty well. I do need to make a bunch of pillows though.

April 29, 2005: Hug a tree
I just looked at the calendar this morning and saw that today is Arbor Day, otherwise known as plant/hug/love a tree day. We planted a cherry tree just yesterday! Circled by a mulch basin (shredded fall leaves from the leaf mold), watered by a greywater system (laundry rinse water) and planted with help from a wheelbarrow found in the trash (reuse! recycle!).

April 13, 2005: Script problems
Something is up with my web host at the moment, my scripts seem to be throwing an error where there was no error before. I'm working on it!

Update: My web host updated to faster servers without telling me, some wrinkles had to be ironed out. Everything should be okay now, but if you have any problems please email me (ken@mushycat.com)!

April 11, 2005: Spring means... taxes.
Well there's nothing like doing my taxes to remind me of just how hard I work and I just how little I make. But that's okay because my needs are simple and few and money doesn't mean anything as long as I can keep doing what I do. And feed the kitties.

Update? Update you say? Ah yes I hear you and it will certainly happen, perhaps even soon! I have a remarkable capacity for laziness, like, the other day I could only find one chopstick and I decided that spearing my food was good enough (and even quite clever) rather than fishing around in the sink (or even glancing in its direction). Of course I was balancing two dozen shirts on my head and packing buttons at the same time, so hopefully you get an idea of what 'lazy' really means to me.

March 09, 2005: Gallery Update
I finally updated the gallery and put new photos on the shirt pages! Thanks to everyone who sent in pictures! You know I love you.

March 09, 2005: Danelectro Pedals for sale
I've been feeling a little out of it lately, I think it's this extended winter weather. I am tired of this Winter Wonderland and getting ice out of the gutters. I want little flowers to peek up out of the ground darnit.

To help pay the heating bill I'm selling my Danelectro electric guitar effects pedals. They've just been sitting around and I prefer that someone be using them.

They all work and are in great condition, just the occasional scuff mark. They run off of a nine-volt battery or a power adaptor (neither of which I'm including). They sound good and they're fun, plus they look neat. The big pedals are made out of the metal, the little ones are plastic. You like strawberries, I like lemons.

I don't have any of the original packaging but I'll ship them securely of course.

They'll all work with bass guitars too (or cellos if you have a pickup) and the Surf & Turf compressor is especially nice with a bass.

If you want to find out more about them just click on their names, they're linked to a google search where you'll surely find lots of info. If you click on the froogle link you'll see how much places are selling them for, just for comparison. Shipping is $2 each for the little pedals, $4 each for the big ones.

Just email me if you want one. They need good homes. *sniff*

February 22, 2005: Well that wasn't too bad.
It turns out that my jury duty is over already. They were choosing names randomly to create pools to be picked through for cases and I never even got called. After waiting around all day the jury manager just said that we could go home and that was the end of that. No week long ordeal. No having to explain my take on the injustices of the justice system to the judge. ah well.

Quite a contrast to last time I had jury duty where I had to sit around for days and then go before the judge (it was for a case related to the Crown Heights stuff in Brooklyn way back when). For $15 a day.

All that stress for nothing. Though I was mind-numbingly bored all day. I can't read with people chattering around me, and I'm not the kind of person who can just chill out. If I'm not working on something I might as well be comatose. I'm taking the night off though. : P Video games!

February 14, 2005: Who will be my valentine?
Unfortunately I've received a summons for jury duty at the end of the month. I doubt that I'll actually get picked for a trial because of how I look and because of my politics (also, I know about my rights and Jury Nullification of Law, and they rather you didn't). I will however probably have to sit around for a week waiting and doing nothing, like the last time I got called for jury duty in Brooklyn.

The upside of this is that I might not be able to work very much for that week. I feel this is an undue hardship for a self-employed person such as myself, but I doubt they will care. They don't even compensate you for transportation. Anyway, orders might be delayed for that week and I'll certainly be slow in answering email. So please understand. I will do everything I can do get orders out before and during.

If I think I might get your order out in longer than the usual time (up to two weeks for button/sticker orders, 1-4 weeks for apparel/mugs) I'll email you to let you know.

tired and stressed,
ken

February 03, 2005: inga! inga! rah rah rah!
As you may know, I have a little monthly high-score contest going with the silly little button concentration game I wrote. It's just for fun for you all, and the winner gets 10 buttons usually. This month though, there's a very special prize. Because of her amazing amazingness, inga muscio sent me a signed copy of 'cunt' to give away. I can't imagine anything cooler. Thanks inga!

I've been working like crazy on some really cool new things (and getting orders out of course!). I have this strange compulsion to make new stuff, every aspect of it is so interesting, from doing research, to saying to heck with the research and just going for it, to coming up with a process. It does tend to stress me out and drive me a bit batty though, but such is life. I'm sure you understand.

January 09, 2005: postcards and stuff
Hi! I just wanted to take a moment and make something perfectly clear. It may not be an important distinction to all of you but it's rather important to me, and it speaks volumes about how I approach what I do. All of the things I make, I make specifically for you. Meaning, when you order something, it's not a matter of me picking things off of shelves and putting them in a mailer. I don't keep a stock, nothing is pre-made or mass-produced in bulk. I make everything myself with you in mind. I think that part of the problem in the world is that so many things are just made to be made, in the hopes that someone will want them. That's too much of a disconnect for me. That's not the way I do things.

You might never be able to tell looking at, say, a button, that I made it just for you, but I did. It's just a small distinction and maybe it doesn't really matter, but it's how I do things just the same. *shrug*

The only exception to all that used to be the postcards, but I'm making those myself now as well, which makes me happy. You'll be seeing new postcards soon.

Of course the downside is that it takes time for me to make things for you. Hopefully you'll find the wait worthwhile.

[/end cheesystuff]

January 03, 2005: I would like some more sleep please.
oh dear, it was just so lovely to have some time to relax, but now I'm back. I'm going to start handling emails and orders properly today, so thanks to everyone for being so nice and patient.

I actually started out my 'vacation' by getting sick! Most people work themselves sick, I got sick by not doing anything. oh well. And then for the last few days I've been hosting my own version of This Old House because a poor little uglycute possum went to die inside of the floor of the front room. A dead possum lying next to a heating pipe equals a big stink, let me tell you. So he had to go, and then the carpet above him had to go, which revealed that some of the flooring needed to be fixed, and so on and so forth in the usual way that these things heap up.

I did also work on something that will make button updates easier for me to do (the time/work is always daunting) so of course that means there will be more button updates. Soon. Oh, and also something not-entirely-new, but done in a new way that allows for much more possiblities!