From the Seattle Times: Robert Shields of Dayton, Washington, has written the world's longest personal diary over the past twenty four years.

So, you say, lots of people keep diaries. Wait, there's more. Much, much more.

Mr. Shields has written nearly thirty eight million words over the last two decades - in five minute increments.

I can't even begin to tell you the details contained therein. Consider it sufficient to say - there is a lot more than you ever wanted to know about Bob's bodily functions in his journal.

Ms. Booger, one of the kids

• 4/8/99:
• I know - is this pathetic or what? A YEAR??? No WAY.... Sheesh. I TOLD you I have a short attention span. :) Okay, if TT was a houseplant - it'd be fossilized. I swapped my dear old 486/Windoze 3.11 for a nice new Celeron 333 with Win98 in December and it's taken me this long to get all the stuff I used for my webpages upgraded to the 32 bit architecture, whatever that means. Unfortunately some artwork from you is trapped in the ex-computer and may take a while to retrieve and post. I am SORRY if this means YOU.
  
  
• I am grateful for all of your email and mailart and submissions and carry huge amounts of guilt (lapsed Catholic, what can I say?) for tardy or nenexistent replies. I'm working my a** off (yeah, right, I wish) doing web page design, typesetting, and teaching computer classes with my Dad. The classes are AWESOME - they are sponsored by our local Senior Center and everyone in them (30 students) is 65+. Gotta tell you - 88 year old Mrs. Nickerson knocks my socks off! NEVER underestimate your Grandma or Grandpa.
  
  
• I was fortunate to win one of the sooper-dooper grand prizes in the Uncle Walter's / MJ Stamps carving contest. I got a ton (well, it feels like it) of Uncle Walter's Carving Blocks and a DREMEL Carving Tool. With some special bits for working softer materials and some patience I'm beginning to get the hang of carving with a fast fast fast spinning bit...I may even branch out to wood. Me, the non-artist. Imagine that. Then again - the Uncle Walters stuff cuts "like buttah" as Babs would say.
  
  
• You may have noticed on the way in that I have renamed TT - the TT Archives. Since I can't seem to catch up anymore with submissions - goodness, I can't even keep up with remembering to put my shoes on when I go to work - I won't encourage you to send me stuff anymore. Doesn't mean TT won't be updated - it just emphasizes the truth of the matter. I'm lucky though that most of the info on the TT pages won't go out of date and it'll still be a resource for carvers and digital artists for years to come. And send me email once in a while - old folks love mail. :) Stole that line from Susan Burke - a fellow redheaded Creatures 2 nut. That's what I've been doing lately, BTW, breeding Norns. It brings out the biologist in me.
  
  
• Have a GREAT SPRING (and summer, fall and winter, in case I fall into another black hole)! And the headaches? Yeesh
  
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• 3/25/98:
• I know - is this pathetic or what? Three months. Sheesh. I TOLD you I have a short attention span. :) It isn't that I haven't been on line or updating the Tabloid Trash pages - I seem to find the time and energy to do THAT - just haven't gotten in here to let you know what's happening around here. Sometimes, even *I* don't know what I've updated, and what's been languishing. The whole sprawling TT complex is about 17MB now and still growing sprouts here and there. Thank goodness these pages aren't houseplants - they'd be flat-out dead from neglect or from too much loving kindness.
  
  
• Repeat: If you haven't checked out the Carving Consortium Mailing List, you should - Linda Berman has done us all a huge service starting up this mailing list. I've taken part in a couple of the swaps, Tribal Arts and Fishes, and the resulting books were spectacular. They are online at Tabloid Trash - just look for the links at the top of the CARVING sites on the TT front page. When you check them out - you won't be able to resist taking part in the exchanges. It's like having Nick Bantock for a pen pal. (Twenty times over!)
  
  
• HUNDRED PROOF PRESS has bought the Detailed Rubber Stamps catalog. As some of you know - I loved working with Anne and Debra Jane at DRS and sold them a couple hundred carvings. They finally burned out on the the rubber stamp business and closed down operations a couple years ago and the images they owned were placed under a magic spell and were waiting for a prince to come along and kiss them - oops, wrong story - they were just waiting for someone with the proper sensibilities to come along and say HEY, I want to sell these images. Ann Moneypenny is the hero(ine) of this story, she just put out a supplement featuring lots of DRS stamps (including my Elvis and MM stamps), PLUS many beautiful classic rubber images. Imagine, this company has been doing the rubber thing for twenty years! If you're interested - you have to contact HPP via snail mail - though email and a web page are in the works after the new catalog is finished... 100 Proof Press, P.O. Box 299, Athens, OH 45701. She accepts credit cards and sells mounted, and both trimmed (with cushion), and untrimmed UNMOUNTED stamps.
  
  
• Leaning Margaret had another birthday this week. Ask her about the stamping crustacean.
  
  
• The migraines? Thanks for asking, but don't ask. :)
  
  
  
  It wouldn't be a real web journal if I didn't indulge in a little family stuff.
  This is my (no longer available) "little" brother, Donald, who's living in California.
  It doesn't seem very long ago that I was walking him to school
  and now he's married to the best thing that ever happened to him. Hi Terry!
  
  
  
• 1/1/98:
• Here we are in a new year and the journal called out for an update. Best wishes to you and here's hoping that we'll all get lots of inspiration and time to carve in 1998. Most of all I want to wish my faithful friends in my mailboxes a happy, healthy New Year! And if you haven't checked out the Carving Consortium Mailing List, you should - I've taken part in a couple of the swaps, Tribal Arts and Fishes, and the resulting books were spectacular. Next one for me is Seascapes. If you know me at all - you'll know that I can't resist warm water and palm trees... See you there.
  
  
  
• 9/17/97:
• *Still* in the migraine tunnel. Geez, will this headache NEVER go away? Still wanted to say hello and let you know that Tabloid Trash isn't on the skids - I have carved a few things and have been enjoying the Carving Consortium email in spite of my ongoing headache. I even grabbed a couple of hours of fun showing my friend Timmy how to carve. He carved a bat (for Halloween), a panda bear with bamboo (love those black & white critters - easy to carve) and the Boy Scout fleur-de-lis. Check him out - look like he's having a great time? I know I did.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Finally to ol' Leonardo duh Fitchi - my Mona Mailart partner - I send my best and most sincere wishes for a rapid recovery. Leo decided to trump my migraines and raise me a quadruple bypass on September 4th... Send him an email if you want. If you'd like his snail mail - let me know...
  
  
  
  Somebody has to chase the cows off the tracks! (Dad)
  
  
  
• 8/6/97:
• Still in the migraine tunnel. Ack. C'est la vie - it'll pass. Soon I hope. :) Wanted to tell you about the Carving Consortium. It's a listserv started by excellent carver, Linda Berman. There are over fifty carvers (no, we're not all over fifty, silly) who are sharing their thoughts and techniques via email. I joined this week and already feel comfortable hanging out with these folks. I'm sure that you'll feel the same if you decide to subscribe to the list - even if you are still contemplating your first carving. It's free, it's handled in a professional fashion, and best of all, there are swaps and projects to take part in, if you're looking for inspiration. Contact Linda at unity@negia.net for the details, and tell her Rusty sent you.
  
  
  
• 7/23/97:
• Took the day off from work. Back in the migraine tunnel again. Ack. C'est la vie - it'll pass. A couple new things here at TT - The MONA documentation is going out to all entrants... see the Mona Mailart front page for info. I've added a NEW Carvers Gallery. You can get there from the TT front page and details on submissions are included at the bottom of the gallery page. Spoke with one of my mailart heroes yesterday - The Sticker Dude. Happened to catch him at work in Photoshop with Tom Kerr, artist extraordinaire. Clickez vous the postoid below and see the sheet they put together. Their new catalog is available now - for information click to their web site...
  
  
  
  
  
• 7/14/97:
• Things have been hectic since I got back from Florida, I got the latest TT out into the mailstream and then when I sat down to update this page - we had no phone! Wire go boom somewhere out there and I wound up carving and stamping mermaids while I waited for NYNEX to get it together. (Thanks, NYNEX - I needed that!) What follows is the rundown on the Orlando RS convention...
  
  
• Just got back from two weeks in the Sunshine State. Built this latest visit to Momz around the Orlando RS convention. Now, you ask me, how come I don’t attend the Boston show, which is just 90 minutes from here, but I fly all the way to Florida for the Orlando show? Simple - parking. If I drive to Beantown - I have to find a parking place - if Momz drives me to the show in Orlando - she has to find a place to park. Makes sense to me.
  
  
  
  Art Snyder's Knees, Mary Jane Hopper and me...
  
  
  
• I loved the show. My ONLY complaint - the AC just wasn’t cutting the heat being expended by eager, slathering RS maniacs on Saturday. Bummer - because everyone (including the RS vendors) I talked to was saying that the heat was wearing them out. I agree - I was breaking a huge sweat just looking through the Viva Las Vegastamps! unmounted trunk - and it wasn’t just the excitement. (Stampo - hope you’re feeling better soon.) The vendors weren’t very happy to have people leaving early due to something that the Sheraton could have remedied easily enough. (They blamed the vendors for having lights too close to the thermostat. Wouldn’t that have made the AC kick ON?) Sunday - the AC was better but the hall was only half full.
  
  
• On to the good stuff - lots of vendors, (though I was hoping to see Arizona Stamps, Too! with their mermaids and airbrushing demos, and Rubber Poet - would have loved to finally meet ya F2F!) lots of stampers and some real rubber masterpieces and beautiful handmade papers to be found. So, did I buy any rubber? Duh. Did plenty of that. Most of what I chose are line drawings or so exquisitely designed that I had to have the real thing. Rubber - mounted - indexed. What a splurge!
  
  
• Added some goodies to my tropical stamp collection with some palm trees, clouds, a rocky shore and a cove from Stampscapes, and a mermaid on a rock (coincidentally, the one on the cover of the latest RSM) from A La Art. Got a Pelican portrait from Stamp Cabana, and some silly beach people and appropriate vacation sayings from VLVS. Hmm - what else? A nice postcard size antique map image of the New World from Just For Fun - I carved a great schooner last night to use with it. Finally got a chance to buy the Dolphin Boy from Portfolio that I’ve long admired in mailart from pals who know my fixation on all things wet. Also grabbed a couple sheets of unmounted stamps - they sure make your bux go farther, even if it is a pain in the butt trimming and mounting them. The people at Magenta are just as nice as their images and I enjoyed visiting with Stamp Out Cute - both purveyors of “classic” images - beautiful engravings and woodcuts from yesteryear. Now...to sit and stamp!
  
  
  
  Mary Jane and Patti at their first show...
  Click the photo for another one...
  
  
• The highlight of any of these shows is meeting people you know through the mails. Went incognito on Saturday and concentrated on looking and buying so I only chatted here and there. Sunday, when things slowed down a little - I got a chance to meet Mary Jane Hopper and Patti at MJ Stamps (Catalog: $5 to MJ Stamps, 404 N. Glenwood Ave., Clearwater FL 34615-5709). MJ is the official Dremel Carver and has put together a great catalog featuring her carvings and other images she’s been collecting over the years. Check out her new online CAT-alog... at http://home1.gte.net/hhopper/index.htm.
  
  
  
  Art Snyder of RSM meets Rusty of TT
  
  
• Also had a good visit with Art Snyder and his family at the RubberStampMadness booth. He’s a friendly, funny guy and much taller than he writes. Gotta tell you that this latest issue of RSM is my favorite ever. I learned a lot just studying the featured "underwater" mailart in the centerfold. There's also tons of information for stampers of all levels of experience. If you don't get RSM you're really missing out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 6/16/97:
• Here I am - still alive, but really feeling the migraine hammer lately. The other distraction is the weather - here in Massachusetts we wait a very long time for the nice weather and it would be silly to sit inside with my hands on the keyboard when I could be out in the garden weeding and reading. So - consider this my summer vacation. I'm off to FLA this week, too. Going to the Orlando Rubber Stamp Convention as a spectator/addict, and if you're there - say hi. You'll recognize me. The rest of the week I'll be snorkeling and diving the warm waters in the springs and the Gulf of Mexico with any luck. Wanna go hang out with the manatees. Oh yeah, and I'll get a chance to play with my "grandpuppies." They'll be seven weeks by then and full of P&V!
  
  
  
  1995 Jacksonville RS Con - Shark Bait (me), Gator Bait & Ms. Stamponetti
  
  
• 4/29/97:
• Geez, this has been the longest break I've taken since I started the What's New page. Don't get me wrong - I *have* been working on Tabloid Trash and adding new carvings on a regular basis. I just haven't been dropping in here to update this page. Been very busy at work, too, lately. I do desktop design/publishing for a print shop/copy center and my part time job keeps creeping toward full time. I use a PowerMac and recently added a monster Pentium to the network - so I'm constantly spinning in my chair from one keyboard to the other. The best new addition is the ColorFlare system - which allows me to use a top of the line Canon Color Copier as a big ol' color printer. Beats the heck out of my inkjet at home. :)
  
  
• The other project I'm working on for Tabloid Trash is a collaborative effort with joey know. We found that we are both "collectors" of old postcards. Of course, my tastes run to the strange and tacky - his run to elegant old downtown hotels and other classic architecture. You'll have a chance to see it soon. If you love mailart and/or reading other people's mail (a la Griffin & Sabine) - you'll enjoy seeing both the hand tinted imagery and the messages we've painstakingly transcribed from these oldies but goodies. Have about half of the PCs laid out on the page and still have a pile to go. Soon, we promise.
  
  
  

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