Birgin Oopses, Surpiseses, And Aww Shitses

[ygmir]

^^ and dog collars can be just straight up sexy!

Oooh, Lucky, I never knew you were that kind of girl...

[Eric]

I tend to not trust the cheap blinky shit and I hate turning into a darkwad by accident. I tend to be out all night and when the batteries on those $0.25 lights start to dim at 4-5 AM I get sad.

I get the strands that use 2-3 AA batteries (google "fairy lights battery"). I have multiple kinds, and you can wrap them around anything (I have two hats wrapped in one style, my bike wrapped in another). Not only did they last the entire week on the playa without dying, I've used them since on the same batteries. I tried the super-cheap blinkies with the watch-style batteries in 2012, and I really didn't like them because of the dying issue you're talking about.

[BBadger]

I tried the super-cheap blinkies with the watch-style batteries in 2012, and I really didn't like them because of the dying issue you're talking about.

Yup. There's really no way to get around the longevity of LED light sticks besides manually retrofitting them with outside batteries. No matter what you pay, no matter what "quality" or region of manufacturing, they're going to dim and give out at the same rate.

[Savannah]

I tend to not trust the cheap blinky shit and I hate turning into a darkwad by accident. I tend to be out all night and when the batteries on those $0.25 lights start to dim at 4-5 AM I get sad.

I get the strands that use 2-3 AA batteries (google "fairy lights battery"). I have multiple kinds, and you can wrap them around anything (I have two hats wrapped in one style, my bike wrapped in another).

I use these, too . . . I've got at least 5 strands, currently. Love them. The first time I ever wore 'em was in the Christmas edition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was dressed as a particularly Christmas-y Dr. Frank-N-Furter during the floor show. The music rose to a crescendo in front of the RKO Radio Tower with me standing there wrapped in Christmas lights, red tinsel and antlers, and there was a dramatic silence, in which my friend Kelly yelled piercingly across the theatre, "LIGHT UP THE OTHER NIPPLE!"

(The crowd went nuts.)

. . . But I digress.

I'm also excessively fond of some "Pet Lights" blinkies that are supposed to clip on to a dog collar, but I will hang on anything--a belt, a hood, a bag. I've used the same three pet lights for two Burns, and am going to use a tiny screwdriver to investigate what kind of batteries they use (hearing aid batteries, I think) so I can replace them when they die. And I think I'll get a few more, too. They're cute, and so useful.

[GreyCoyote]

The first time I ever wore 'em was in the Christmas edition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was dressed as a particularly Christmas-y Dr. Frank-N-Furter during the floor show. The music rose to a crescendo in front of the RKO Radio Tower with me standing there wrapped in Christmas lights, red tinsel and antlers, and there was a dramatic silence, in which my friend Kelly yelled piercingly across the theatre, "LIGHT UP THE OTHER NIPPLE!"

(The crowd went nuts.)

. . . But I digress.

Those of us who are mammary-obsessed would naturally call those "Blinky-Binkies".

[Savannah]

Well, nothing was actually showing, it was just a funny thing to yell across a crowded theatre.

[Milayna]

I definitely did not anticipate the hell my hands would go through out there. I brought lotion my first year, but my cuticles cracked and bled anyway, plus no matter what I did I could not seem to get the playa out from under my nails.

Second year I made a little hand kit with heavy duty hand cream, cuticle oil, nail clippers, and a nail brush. I soaked my hands once a day in lemon water, and then cleaned them up with the kit. This small thing seriously made my burn SO MUCH more comfortable.

[forty_eight]

I stitched EL wire onto the front and back of a vest not considering that I'd have a backpack on for most of my nighttime adventures. I was worried about the EL wire breaking, so it was kind of a pain.

Superoverprepared and overpacked

I still ave like six 2.5 gallon water jugs in the garage.

I changed the wheels on my skateboard to soft wheels, and I think it was a mistake. The ramp at Sk8 Kamp gets slippery with all that playa dust. I'm sure that I coulda used harder wheels out there.