Here is a giant paper star I made.  It took up five sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 paper cut in half lengthwise.  Applying that logic, I could make a star twice as big as that with ten sheets uncut.



I also have a 2 litre bottle of small paper stars that I'm slowly filling up.

hanson are still a band.... something is worng with the world... i thought theyd all be models for the barbie factory or something by now... i thought one of tehm was cute when i was 11, until i realised he wasnt a girl 

Last I heard of them, they were making news for covering Radiohead's Optimistic.
But that's off topic.  Kickass shirt!

The precise function of the Oblique Strategies is nebulous, but in general they are used as creative prompts.

A note about my version of the deck that I have posted up in Word format.  Since none of the recipients were musician types, I culled most of the cards that were applicable to musical processes.  If you download the file, feel free to reinstate those cards in your version.

Also, here's another downloadable and printable version of the Oblique Strategies made by a Matthew Davidson.  His version has smaller cards and entails more paper waste because of the spaces in between the cards, but it's another option.  http://www.stretta.com/~matthew/resources/oblique/oblique.pdf

is there a standard set of sayings or did you make up your own?

You can make up your own, but I based my decks on previous editions of the Oblique Strategies.  However, I put in some blank cards so the recipients could make up their own if they wanted to.

Argh! HOw did you manage to cut all the cards the same size. I don't want to use a ruler!

I cut them very carefully with scissors.  When I made the document, I arranged the cards on a table with light gray borders and made sure the lines were all equidistant so that when it printed out all I would have to do was follow the dotted lines as I cut.  The cards weren't perfectly rectangular, but when I stacked the cards they looked handcut in the good way.

these cards are inspirational. they seem to help you take your mind off of other things and let your brain relax a little. i have one question though. do they have to be a particular size.

They can be whatever size you want.  It pretty much depends on the size of your box.

Gray Plasti-kote sandable primer and Rustoleum glossy black.
I did it in a parking garage and was messed up from the fumes for several hours.

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

^This website will tell you everything you could want to know about the Oblique Strategies. 
"The Oblique Strategies are a deck of cards. Up until 1996, they were quite easy to describe. They measured about 2-3/4" x 3-3/4". They came in a small black box which said "OBLIQUE STRATEGIES" on one of the top's long sides and "BRIAN ENO/PETER SCHMIDT" on the other side. The cards were solid black on one side, and had the aphorisms printed in a 10-point sans serif face on the other.

The deck itself had its origins in the discovery by Brian Eno that both he and his friend Peter Schmidt tended to keep a set of basic working principles which guided them through the kinds of moments of pressure - either working through a heavy painting session or watching the clock tick while you're running up a big buck studio bill. Both Schmidt and Eno realized that the pressures of time tended to steer them away from the ways of thinking they found most productive when the pressure was off. The Strategies were, then, a way to remind themselves of those habits of thinking - to jog the mind."

Ok.  I got more pictures.  The white deck is from the handmade decks I was going to send out and gave up on.  The blue deck is the one I made for myself.  What's nice about handwriting the deck is that you can arrange the phrases all over the card in different formations.  Give you a little more flexibility, but it is more time consuming.  What's nice about printing them out is that it looks much cleaner and neater and all you have to do is cut them out, but you don't get the same touch.

I discovered Brian Eno about two years ago through a Lester Bangs interview and have been a big Eno fan ever since.  Shortly thereafter, I became fascinated by the Oblique Strategies, which is a deck of simple cards with enigmatic prompts on them like "Water" and "Shortcut: A man trying to increase his virility by shoveling peas straight into his lap."  I made my own deck by cutting up sheets of cardstock and writing out all of the strategies by hand.  It was fun and I still use that deck.

Last November, it struck me that homemade Oblique Strategies decks would make wonderful Christmas gifts for four very dear friends I met over the past year.  At first, I was going to do all four decks by hand but that soon became impractical in light of the Christmas deadline and upcoming finals.  Instead, I made a word document, culled the 120 best cards from all editions of the deck, and formatted it for easy cutting.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the printed decks.  However, I uploaded the document file I used.  It is in an unusual font so it may not show up well on many computers.  http://home.ripway.com/2004-1/50863/ObliqueStrategies4.doc

Pretty cards were only half of the work.  The decks had to have equally elegant boxes to go in.  After finals, I finally made a trip to Micheals and got four little trinket boxes, primer and glossy black spray paint.  While I was doing the actual painting, I covered the metal parts with rubber cement.  In hindsight, that just made things more difficult and I shouldn't have bothered with covering them because they would have come out fine anyway.  And here is a finished box.



The boxes made it to their destinations in time to still be considered New Years gifts.

I'm starting to feel as if I am the only person here who does not like the taste of Altoids... I love the tins, but I put the candies into little baggies to unload onto my friends.... lol

I used to love Altoids.  After awhile, I noticed I would get a bad taste in my mouth less than an hour after I ate an Altoid.  The sugar was no good for my teeth.  Also, after I found out gelatin came from cows, I wasn't so enamoured.

So, now I eat smints.  No sugar, no icky aftertaste, and no animal products as far as I can tell.

I have a Minolta DiMAGE Xt.  It's very small and you can take damn good pictures with it.  It doesn't have fantastic zoom, but it's good enough.  It came from Costco and it was $270 if I recall correctly.  Not too bad for a digital camera.

It doesn't take conventional batteries, but instead comes with a rechargeable battery pack and charger.  I took it with me yesterday and found that the battery lasted all day if I took most of the pictures with the lcd turned off.