If you’re taking advantage of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday sales… take the time to consider some of my Christmas themed maze T-shirts from Tee Public or Red Bubble!
You can customize the color of the shirt, choose from many styles, and get the same designs on all kinds of merchandise like coffee mugs, stickers, and pillows.
I had some time recently, and I wanted to see what the process was to publish a print-on-demand book from Amazon. I grabbed a bunch of my smaller easy mazes with no discernable theme that I had previously posted here & on Instagram, and assembled them into a book. All of them were scanned in & maybe fixed a bit with paint.NET, and I put the pages of the book together with OpenOffice, so my only cost came down to the pens & paper. (Not sure how to quantify time & sanity.)
At any rate, I present to you – So I Finally Made a Maze Book: Easy Mazes by AiXeLsyD13
It was very simple to publish with Amazon. This gave me the confidence to put together another book, perhaps with a bit more coherence, and definitely with a much better cover. I have already started drawing new mazes in a neat little box template so they’re a bit more consistent. What’s a good number? 30? 50?
Also, I need to get all of these older mazes scanned & into a book too. I have some pages that are bigger than my scanner bed though. Perhaps a trip to FedEx Office or Staples is in order.
I just kind of set the price arbitrarily to make a little bit off of publishing. I’m not looking to get rich, but it would be nice to finally make income of off artistic output after decades of ostensibly doodling. (I won’t delve into my musical endeavors which are break even at best but probably a negative sum game. 🤣)
Luckily the creative outlet for me is just that, an outlet. I think we all need to express ourselves artistically or through sports, gardening, or other hobbies.
It also suggested I make a Kindle version, so I did that too. I am not sure if the concept will work there. Can you draw on a Kindle screen with a stylus or your finger? Can you print from a Kindle? I must confess I don’t have one. I am still a fan of books in the traditional form.
If you have ever enjoyed my mazes, or have been one of the awesome people that has completed them and sent in the solution – I humbly ask you (if you’re so inclined) to purchase a paperback for around $6 or a Kindle book for around $3 and let me know what you think. Should I do more? Did you enjoy it? Is the quality any good?
Really, I ask you to try even if you have never solved one of my mazes. Now is a good time to start!
It might make a good gift for kids or adults. It’s a nice way to pass some time or zone out.
If you do buy, can you leave an honest rating/review? I feel like that goes a long way with Amazon.
If you can’t buy or are really not interested, that’s OK too! I would ask you to maybe share the link around.
My thoughts on the next one are that I probably need a table of contents, to maybe title the mazes, and… should I include the solutions in the back? That’s one of my issues. I like to draw the mazes, but don’t really solve them. I may need to reach out for help on that part & pay someone to complete them so I can include the solutions (and make sure they’re solvable).
I probably need help with a title, too.
Thanks for reading, tanks for considering, and please share this link on every social media platform known to humankind: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH2FMH7W
I think I’m over it, but I recently had some bad Harley Benton related GAS. Look how awesome and cheap these things are! You know I have a thing for weird guitars. You know I have a thing for cheap guitars. This one like the Travecaster is cool. That’s on another list.
And, in the ridiculous category, these keep popping up…
Someday I will have $1000 to waste, or I’ll build one with those killer V-shaped boomerang pickups. I’m just glad I bought the Vader knob for my Strat before it was $75!
What’s giving you GAS lately? Would you buy any of these? Let me know in the comments.
Check out my other wish lists & all my current guitars:
I did some drawing, scanning with the HP app on the phone, and coloring with paint.NET this year. Please, if you print & solve or them on your phone, PC, or tablet… share the solution! You can share it here in the comments, or tag me on Instagram, Twitter, or whatever social media is popular nowadays. I generally try to grab @AiXeLsyD13 on all of them.
I have them in color, & in black & white.
Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Have an Easy Fast for Yom Kippur, Happy Yule, Happy Solstice, Merry Yuletide, Ramadan Mubarak, Blessed Kwanzaa, Cathartic Festivus, or whatever holiday you celebrate!
Enjoy one of my Christmas Playlists to get you in the mood while you’re trying to solve these mazes, or share yours with me! Check out my other mazes if you’re ready for more! You can work on these while dinner is cooking, or tonight while youre trying to get to sleep & waiting for Santa!
I’ll be making my Decadent Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes tomorrow, but the White Trash ‘Taters would be just as good. Ham with gravy, green bean casserole, & brussels sprouts are also on the menu!
Our church put out a call for video submissions for the Christmas Eve streaming service. Here is what we contributed.
I threw it together into one video and added some cheesy effects and titles.
This is…
Check out live & archived videos from the church here: https://www.facebook.com/hillschurchexport/live
So, happy Star Wars Day! Be sure to check out my old Star Wars related posts for some goodies. Maybe click on a picture or two and you’ll get a surprise. (Check out the Star Wars Mix Tape or Dark Lord of the 5th Day posts if you’re in a YouTube mood… and last year’s post.)
Excellent news on the content of the Star Wars Blu-ray set today, check out FlyGuy.net for all the details: Star Wars Blu Ray Press Release & Details…Check out Disc nine!!
If you need other ways to celebrate the day, check out “10 Easy Ways You Can Celebrate Star Wars Day” from Death Star PR.
Nerd alert. We’ve all seen the “vs.” threads on message boards, and I believe there’s even whole sites dedicated to them… be it comic book characters, TV show casts, movie characters, or sci-fi icons. A lot of geeks like to argue about completely hypothetical situations for fictional characters for no apparent reason other than because we can.
I noticed that I’m following both Brent Spiner and Anthony Daniels on twitter… and is struck me that they’re in the same category as a golden-hued “tin man” of sorts in their respective powerhouse franchises.
This is a vs. that I’d love to see. Has this been done? Probably. I didn’t Google it yet… I’m almost afraid to. I don’t want the discussion to be biased from my point of view anyway.
Why not Data vs. C-3PO? I started a hashtag just to see what would happen: #datavsc3po. It will be interesting to see if it takes off at all. A few people are on to it. On twitter? Please throw in your 2¢! Or, you can comment on this blog with your thoughts. I’d love to see all out stories… perhaps I may write up a scenario myself.
It was brought to my attention rather quickly that R2-D2 must accompany C-3PO… they are after all, a set. Then, it was suggested that if C-3PO gets a sidekick, then Data must be able to utilize Geordi La Forge. (Oddly enough, I’m also following Levar Burton on twitter, and it was brought to my attention that R2-D2 does indeed tweet – to make this “legit” though, does Kenny Baker tweet?)
I’ll digress here by saying that yes, I do realize that the actors are not the characters that they play, and that they have had other rolls in life… and I realize that they might be mildly annoyed by such discussions.
Oh well, this is what geeks do. So, please join me and the people who have already started discussing this so far.
P.S. – Did an image search for “C-3PO Data” and this came up. So, someone has paired them before, albeit in a completely different manner.
From: Eric Carroll me@myemailaddre.ss
To: Customer Service Mellon Arena info@mellonarena.com
Sent: Mon, November 30, 2009
Subject: Horrible seats for Star Wars: In Concert
Hello Mellon Arena Customer Service & Ticket Sales,
I am taking the time to write to you this evening to express my disappointment in the sale of our seats for yesterday’s Star Wars: In Concert event at the Mellon Arena.
While I understand that we purchased the “cheap” $33 seats (two of which somehow magically totaled $93.40 instead of $66.00 for various dubious Ticket Master fees — including a “printing fee” in which I used my own paper & ink — which are not your fault), I feel that your integrity is to be called into question when considering the vantage-point from exactly where we were expected to sit throughout the show.
I would think that you would be familiar enough with your own venue to know that the seats in section E13, row M are blocked from seeing anything above a certain height at the other end of the house thanks to the lower edge of section F hanging directly above us (and directly in our field of vision). I would also think that you would know what this height is, and that the screen coming in for this particular show was being touted as “a three-story-tall, high-definition LED super-screen — one of the largest ever put on tour.“
Apparently I am quite wrong, my friends.
Please see the attached image from my cell phone so you can fully appreciate the vantage point from which we were expected to view the “live music and film elements … synchronized in order to create a full multi-media, one-of-kind Star Wars experience.” You’ll note the bluish-white line behind the orchestra that is the very bottom of the giant partially-visible screen where the movie clips played.
I can tell you that the ushers in our area got an ear-full from several other angry concert-goers (including my wife who had purchased the tickets for me as an early Christmas present). Our row had cleared out of all but 4 people by the time the 2nd song had started. I would have left also, but the concert had started, and I wasn’t about to miss any of what I could actually see by running around like a madman trying to find a seat.
I did notice several rows almost empty down to the right of the floor, while seats to the back & sides were full… surely this is a commentary on the outrageous prices charged for the show? It only made it all the more infuriating that a seat with a better vantage point sat empty during the performance.
In lieu of trying to “sneak down” into the “better” seats, at intermission, we made the trek down & back up to section F and asked an usher there for permission to sit in any unoccupied seats. We were pointed to some open seats, and several others filtered in around us with the same idea as the show came closer to starting again.
From this height, the speaker array on the right still blocked a good portion of the screen, but at least it wasn’t cut in half… and from here, we could actually see the “laser show” being projected on to the ceiling.
While I found the concert itself and exhibits throughout the arena to be an exhilarating experience, the full multimedia-experience in the arena was sadly stained by the poor choice of Mellon Arena to sell seats with a substandard view of the main event.
I have been to countless events over the years at the Mellon (& formerly the Civic) Arena — from concerts, to Penguins Games, to circuses, to I think even a truck & tractor pull with Bigfoot & USA-1 when I was a tiny young lad. They have all been great memories… and this is the only time that I have felt wronged by the venue.
I hope that you take these thoughts into consideration when selling seats for the remainder of shows throughout the last standing days of the arena. You’re making memories for people, please try to make sure that they’re positive ones, and that they’re not marred by poor logistics. I’d ask for our money (or half of our money) back if I thought it would get me anywhere, but I am more concerned about the experience than the money.
Thank you for your time, I hope that this is passed on to the appropriate parties, and I do look forward to a response.
Regards,
-Eric Carroll
me@myemailaddre.ss
World (and Lunar) Domination 