Dave's Page of Greed

OK, here's the list of things I'm thinkin' would be pretty nice to have, but for one reason or another I'm not likely to get myself anytime soon. Updated December 11, 2007, the "My How Time Flies" edition.

The thing about gift lists is that they tend to have "things." These days, I can get most of the things I want. The mostest specialest gifts are things I can't easily buy, which usually translates into something involving planning or diligence. A ski trip or Chistmas caroling, for example, involve a certain amount of planning and organization that tends to elude me. Objects like the Ice Age video tape or the "Cut Car Costs*" book involve some legwork and research that deter me from hunting the darn things down myself. That's why my list is full of things that are hard to find. It's the finding that's the gift, more than the thing itself.

* As it happens, I have managed to get my hands on a second edition copy of the book, and it does indeed feature the cover I worked so hard on. So that item's no longer on the list. Too bad.

Events

Invitation To Ski: Every year, I tell myself that this year I'll go skiing more than just two times. And every year, I ski twice, once, or not at all. Such a waste of my senior year PE class. Sigh. But it's not really that much fun to go skiing alone, and planning ahead, well, yea.
Car Wash Afternoon: As any fund-raising youth group or school organization knows, it's a lot more fun to wash a car with friends. Every summer I think "I should invite some friends over, and we can all wash our cars together." And then I don't get around to it. Will there be enough buckets & sponges, who can come when, blah blah think think plan plan. Phooey.
Roller Skating Afternoon: My old rollerblades have some pretty worn wheels; I've convinced myself that roller skating it's one of those things I just did for a while until I got bored. But my old skates weren't quite the right size, so even though they were a gift from my grandparents, I bought a new pair a couple years ago at a big closeout sale. They still look new. I've probably used them three times, and always by myself. Roller skating is one of those things that are perfect for a bunch of friends to do on a sunny summer afternoon, perhaps ending in a barbeque in the park or something.
Christmas Caroling: Somebody willing to organize Christmas Caroling at rest homes this December. I've got the music, the lyrics, and the pitch pipe. I just don't have the organizational skills to actually invite people, schedule a practice, call nursing homes and the like, and otherwise do the logistics.

Books

Flatland: There's an annotated edition of Flatland, written by Edwin A. Abbot out. How cool! Or rather, it was out. Now it's out of print out, so it's harder to find.
Art Bookbinder Contact Information: My final project in college for Art of the Book was to print a limited edition of Jabberwocky in three languages. What I'd love to do now is have copies of this work bound by different professional book binders, the ones that see bookbinding as an art. I would give the binder a copy of the unbound pages and tell them to bind it as they see fit. The tricky part is, there aren't many bookbinders working at that level any more, and they tend to be hard to find. Mostly, it's people who are binding for conservation. Conservation binders can put a good binding on an old book and save it from falling apart, but they're focused on as inexpensive and as fast as possible, not ornate, elaborate bindings involving leather, tooling, gilding, marbling, and other binding arts. Just getting a list of three or more people who are still binding by hand as an art form would be fabulous.

Audio/Visual

Soundtrack, "Mars Attacks": Best use of the theremin in twenty years. Way out goofy music for Planet Dave.
Tip of the Freeberg: Oh, this has got to be hilarious. My junior high librarian was an old-time radio nut, and eventually had hundreds of hours of early radio on cassette to check out. I've heard Fibber McGee and Molly, Our Miss Brooks, X-Minus One, and many other classic radio series, including "The Stan Freberg Show." "Tip of the Freberg" is a collection of material from that show. You should be able to locate it at any well-stocked music store. Laugh.com will be happy to tell you more about it, or you can check Amazon. Y'know that whole "John." "Marsha." "John!" "Marsha?" "John?" etc. routine? He wrote it; it's on here.
Lindernotes: The last composition I did in college was actually completed the year after I graduated. Two friends of mine who were a year behind me commissioned a work that they could perform together at the end of their senior recitals. (Senior recitals for non-performance majors were typically half an hour long, so usually two seniors would combine theirs to make one event long enough to be worth going to.) The challenge was that one of them was a trombonist, and the other an alto. Well, I didn't feel I could come up with anything really good with just those instruments, so I added one more. A mutual friend of all of ours, Kirsten, was a good percussionist, so I wrote Lindernotes for alto, trombone, and vibraphone.
Needless to say, it's unlikely to be performed again any time soon. The title comes from the commission, which was a handful of Linder chocolates and a copy of the tape of the recital.
Payment is incomplete: I never got a copy of the tape. Getting one involves hounding John Wetherington (the trombonist, last seen teaching high school music in Tacoma) to pay up, since I have learned that the university doesn't archive student recitals that long.

Technology & Tools

Precision router fence: I've become very fond of my router. Well, both of them, both the computer-y network-y box that routes packets to and from the Internet, and the spin-y, wood-shaping-y tool that's so very handy when doing home remodeling. But it's the latter that I'm referring to at the moment. My ongoing struggle is cutting things straight and true. I've slowly been adding to my stock of gizmos that measure, or adjust with precision, but there are still things that are really hard to do. Rockler's currently got a fancy router fence/jig kit on sale that looks to really fill in some of the remaining blanks.

Clothes

Black suede moccasins: I've had some medium brown mocs for years, and the hole in the bottom of one of them is just getting too big to patch with duct tape anymore. I bought them in, um, 84? I'd have gotten black then, but Minnetonka size 12 was too small, and the light brown, dark brown, and black weren't available in 13, so I had to settle for medium brown 13s. Pathetically, that's still all they make: the model 882 softsole fringed moccasin, medium-brown only, up to size 13. Boots that run up the leg would be cool too, but they're more expensive, and the slipper-shoe kind are fine. If somebody can locate a place in the greater Seattle area that might have them, a gift certificate would be perfectly fine.
A tie tack from my opal: Some years ago, when I visited Sydney, I purchased some opals. Most were gifts, but I kept a couple for myself, thinking they'd make great tie tacks. Lo, there they sit to this day. If somebody knows how to mount a stone on a tie tack setting, let me know and I'll hand you/send you the rock. It's a rock opal, so it's brown stone with veins of opalescence running through.

Games

Many Card Games: There's been a boom in smaller games since Cheapass Games hit the scene. Look at any well-stocked game store, or order online from Contagious Dreams. A few I find particularly interesting include The Last Card, Target, and Overthrone.
Hoyle's Card Games 2008 New: I've been playing Pinochle, Hearts, Spades, Canasta, and other card games against my computer for years via Hoyle's Card Games 5. Some time soon I'll be 'upgrading' to OSX 10.5, which will break my copy of Hoyle's. I don't even remember where or when I bought it, but it was released in August of . . . 2001. (It thus can only run under OS9, and the latest version of the Mac operating system no longer includes/supports OS9.) Fortunately, the company that inherited Hoyle's from Sierra On-line actually had the brains to make their 2008 version Mac-compatible again (unlike the '07, '06, and probably a number of previous versions). You can read about it on the game's home page, but it makes sense to actually buy it at some place like Amazon.

Car Parts

Seat Belts for the Packard: I'd like to say this will be off the list before Christmas, but I'm old enough to know better now. The thing about the Packard belts is that they had a unique mounting system, and requires specialized mounting hardware. Until/unless I can find somebody who has original seat belts, and is willing to either sell them to me, or let me borrow them long enough to have replicas made, the car will be seat-belt-less. That's not good. So I just need to resign myself to drilling some extra holes in the car to mount some "normal" seatbelts to hold people down until the day I can get the "right" kind installed. I've provided some form buttons (I couldn't get normal links to work, here) to the specific seat belts for the

and the

.

Other Stuff

Pads of Paper from Levenger: I've gotten notepads from Levenger before, and some of them are almost gone. The Levenger pads are exceptionally well-designed, and are made from paper selected for its suitability for use with fountain pens, which many of you know I greatly prefer over nasty ball-points and the like. They've just introduced some cool new designs; I'm especially covetous of the isometric grid pad. They've got a sampler pack which looks very yummy.
Ice Age Video: As some of you know, one of the many things I did while at Wizards of the Coast was play a character named Lim-Dûl at some conventions to promote the Ice Age Magic expansion. We even made a short promotional video of Lim-Dûl and Freya in a sorcerous battle. I don't have a copy of that tape. Magic Hour was the production company.
Entering a Design Contest or Annual: There are these largish magazine/catalogs for designers that showcase designers' works on sale at most larger art stores. They feature samples of various designers' works for various companies. I think my stationary design for Alexandria is a lot better than much of what these things show off, and It'd be so cool to enter it (letterhead, biz card, envelope) in some design contest or annual. Somewhere there is presumably contact info and rules and all that sort of thing, but I don't know where.
Chocolate Chip Cookies: Classic Toll-House-style, no nuts, "blonde" (lightly baked). A perennial fave.