I love postcards. I have a small collection on my fridge - the more colourful, the better.
I particularly like the old / antique / vintage postcards that can be found by scouring the internet on sites such as Ebay, Amazon and the like. These cards can be tourist cards, art deco cards (my personal favourites!), military and propaganda, and various other subjects.

I read up on how to care for antique postcards, as little is known on this topic in the general population. According to Vintage Postcards it is easy to damage a postcard by keeping it in an album sleeve that is identical in size to the postcard itself. Inserting and removing the card from such an album can in itself damage the card. The album sleeve / holder should be larger than the postcard itself. Some storage holders can also contain damaging chemicals that break down and form acidic oil which damages the cards. The albums / holders that are free from these compounds are triacetate, polyethylene, polyester or Mylar, polypropylene or uPVC (unplasticized polyvinylchloride). For more information, visit Vintage Postcards - they have the care instructions covered.

I love postcards of landmarks - especially of my town, Melbourne.













It has been a long time since Flinders Street Station looked like this. For one, it didn't have that monstrosity Federation Square clashing styles hideously on the opposite corner. Don't get me started...grrrrrrrrrrr. Okay, I'm fine now.




















I especially liked this one of Benny Leonard, lightweight champion of the world (1920s). It reminds me of the picture of Rocky Marciano (who of course was the world heavyweight champion 1952-1956) in the movie Rocky I.

My favourite cards would have to be the Art Deco postcards.













There is something about this style that makes everything seem kind of magical. And it always makes me want to travel. Especially on planes and trains. Not so easy to travel on ships these days, unless you want to be caught with a bunch of B&S Ball weirdos who are into wife-swapping!

Damn. I brought the tone down again. Where was I? Ah, yes, the magical, wonderful world of antique postcards. *sigh*.

Happy Valentine's Day to all (for the 14th)!! I submitted my Great Expectations post for the Valentine's Day blog carnival. For some reason it hasn't made it into the carnival, but obviously you can read it here. I am not one to hold a grudge (*sniff* *sniff*) so here it is - the Bestest Blog Valentine's Day Carnival hosted by Cathy:



I really enjoy Blog Carnivals. In this Valentine's Day Carnival There are a lot of funny and touching stories - I don't know about anyone else but I can spend all day reading these posts. So, spread love to the world and read all about luuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrvvvvvvvvvvvvvve.

xxoxoxoxo

This relates back to my earlier post "Gadget Gift Ideas!" After careful deliberation, weighing
up all the options and going to numerous online and real stores, I decided on....(drumroll):





Isn't it cute? The Creative MuVo TX FM 1GB Mp3 Player. (RRP$128.00)

The thing I like best about it is this - you don't have to possess a degree in advanced
electronics to use it. In fact, I pretty much worked it out in 2 minutes flat!!
All you have to remember is press the wheelie thing IN to select something, and
FLICK the wheelie thing to the right or left to scroll through stuff.
Transferring songs and podcasts to the player is easier than I thought it would be.
On your computer, make a couple of folders, (name them "Nirvana" or "The Clash" etc.
- and don't pirate the songs!! Buy the CD.) then put the songs in the folder and you are
ready for the MP3 Player.

Turn the player OFF.

Pull the player apart (see diagram above) so you have a USB plug showing. Plug the
USB into your computer's USB port, if it's Windows XP, it will automatically install the
drivers - otherwise you can use the installer CD that comes with the player), then open
the player (it will show up as a removable disk).

Copy the folders + songs to the player.

In XP right click the "Safely remove hardware" button at the bottom right of your taskbar.
(see diagram below)


For those of you who know CSS, think people are stupid when they put a space instead of a slash
or a <>....

I apologise. These instructions must seem slightly cave-man-like. Uh.

(hehehe...I'm pretty happy with this one!!)

However, there are some of us (even some nerds!!) that find using some machines could be
so much easier if someone just spelled it out. I mean, think of the time it would save!!!
Yes, you can work stuff out, but if you can get the answers straight away it makes things
that much simpler. Well, that's what I think, anyway.

But I digress. The point is, I like taking this little player on my walks, I made a folder called
"Walking", filled it with a lot of up-tempo songs (so I won't slack off on the pace!!) and
I just choose "Shuffle folder" and I'm away.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Tech Tags: drawings gadgets creative MuVo MP3 plater 1gb instructions