Stamp of the Day: Zip codes! (postnummer)

This stamp oozes 1970s in its bubbly, rainbow-colored design, don't you think?  And it is celebrating the zipcode (or reminding people to add it to their letters, or both).  I love its happiness...

Bits and pieces from the internet: stringy edition

The Ford Focus orchestra, a must see: LINK
Update: More info on the Ford Focus orchestra here.

And here is a stringy favorite! Check it out. (I love the sightings.)

I believe Sweden still is String Cheese free.  That is good for them. Except, maybe Swedes can buy it now.  I just read on the all-knowing Wikipedia that is actually comes from Europe.

Let kids make things with strings, and other things.  Make them into makers.  (Wired)

Real packages uses string. Except the US post office do not allow string anymore.  It is all tape, tape, tape....  (Shorpy)

Swedish telegram for AREA

..HAPPY BIRTHDAY AREA. STOP. 17 YEARs. FANTASTIC. STOP. WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR PRESENTS AND A GOOD BIRTHDAY DINNER. STOP. LOVE AND HUGS FROM SWEDEN. FULL STOP.

A great thing, if you get minimized

Awesome mailbox #36, originally uploaded by Hobo Matt.

I love things like this, whimsical and well-designed. Do you think any mice will find their way up?

Volcanoes and other odd and ends

I am sitting here at home with a sinus infection and in between doing work work, gardening, and walking on the road to get fresh air, doing dishes and drinking tea, and sleeping and sniffling with a headache, I find little gems online.

How about this modelmaker, using body parts as backgrounds: ski slope, paint job, and bee keeper?

And this old photo of a combined beer garden, barbeque joint and gas station from 1940's Louisiana? I bet that bbq was good, not so sure about the beer :).

And in case you haven't noticed yet, a volcano is erupting on Iceland, and the three last times this volcano has erupted it is followed by the giant and dangerous volcano Katla erupting under its glacier, which in the past has led to 'little ice ages' with very cold winters the following years.  Keep yourself posted on this... 

Katla was also the name of the fire-spouting fierceful dragon in the faraway country Narnia in Astrid Lindgren's book The Brothers Lionheart, a book I loved as a kid and still have in my bookcase.

The postcard is from 1918, the last time Katla erupted on Iceland.

Mail from friends

I have noticed that most mail today is bills and advertising. I miss the time when I had long nice handwritten letters to come home to after school/work. I know, the internet is fast and so, but I sometimes feel it´s to fast. Maybe the same way PP feel about fast travel? Rather train than plane, an a nice letter in my new mailbox from time to time....

To illustrate this I´ve chosen two matchbox labels.

Stamp of the Day: Ett skepp kommer lastat

(In English: A ship is full?)

These days stamps are all multicolored and fancy, but this is what stamps used to look like in the old days. One color, often bleeding into the paper, fuzzy details, but still great design and fonts, and a piece of history. Here is a steamship and mail tender in a harbor, maybe New York city? It does have skyscrapers. PP can probably tell us what kind of steamship it is. Is the little boat the mail tender or a tug boat? I wonder when it cost 10 cents to mail a letter, today it is 41 cents. Imaging when a regular letter took 4 months across the Atlantic - last week it took only 3 days from New Jersey to Sweden. Nowadays everything is so fast, back then you could take your time. I think it affects our brains, this rush-rush about everything.