Arcane BoxShip - Episode 69: Big Box Theory...I don't fucking care titles are stupid. Why do they let you make them so long? Holy fuck I can just keep going. Has anyone every written a title this long? I feel like a god...Oh no, I've gone way too far...th
about 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 12:24:12 AM

Hey Cardlords! 

February marches on, fucking stupid and snowy as ever. We've pretty much been living without friction for the last six weeks. Everyone just slides out of their door and is pulled by gravity into a steep valley where we all compete for resources until the thaw. Life in the ice basin is hard, but to show our deference to the Ice Lord we put glitter on fucking everything. So it's fucking sparkly as fuck. Surely you know all this from the famous Toronto tourism video Visit Canada's Glittery Ice Hell. 

Shipping Shit

I've just been over here shipping out boxes like a fucking maniac. I'm thinking of getting my hands replaced with tape dispensers. Just look at the benefits:

Another ~400 packages just left my box dungeon, and the final ~400 are getting packed this weekend. It might sound like I'm a prisoner to these boxes, gently screaming for help from behind my greasy keyboard...But sitting in a steamy haunted basement packing boxes with your friends is actually pretty fun. That should give you an uncomfortable picture of how boring my life is normally. It's kind of the same as it is now, but without the friends or the boxes. Well, replace the friends with a circle of glassy-eyed sock puppets, and the boxes with paralyzing dread and you're pretty close. Now put party hats on those puppets and you're even closer. Make it about 6% more squalid. Liiiiiiitle more. Ok you're there. Does it smell like melted umbrellas and baby corn? Yeah. Ok, you're there. 

Here's my shipping progress depicted as two geometric yellow penises with their tips pressed together:

Arcane Photo Challenge

It's great to see people posting pics of the various accursed items they've received! Can we start a really stupid and meaningless inside joke? If you take a pic of your new deck, please pose it on your favourite towel, and include a potato (preferably damp) and maybe one other extremely mystical object of your choosing (like a hot dog pierced by a twig, or a bundle of your least favourite spoons). That would really moisten my knees (That's an expression, right?) and probably also do some kind of magic. I think if we do a big enough magic, our crops will really prosper. You want prosperous crops, right? Who doesn't want prosperous crops? I WILL DESTROY YOU WITH THE HEFT OF A MILLON BURNING POTATO MAGICS...Or we can just talk it out. I really think I can make some persuasive arguments about the benefits of crops.

I think that's pretty much all the information I can muster for now. If there is any further information you require, please email [email protected]. I have no idea who will respond, but try it. Maybe you can convince that person to work for me. Let them know that my box supply is currently rated as 'ample'. 

That is all.

-EVAN

Arcane Boxship pt. 11 - Revenge of The Boxening
about 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 12:00:48 AM

Hey there! 

Happy Valentine's day! I hope you all got fucked very romantically, or masturbated near your most sensual scented candle, or fell asleep watching a salacious episode of Frasier. I, personally, like to spend Valentine's day crying into an old sock and looking at my neighbour's cat through vaseline-smudged binoculars. There is no story behind that. Do not enquire with Toronto PD 14 division. 

It's been really exciting to see that people are receiving their Arcane Bullshit winter care packages. I know it's a drag to see other folks gloating about their newfound divination superpowers when you haven't received anything yet. It must be like when I see a complete stranger petting my neighbour's cat. You probably want to put a rough burlap bag soaked in marinara over their head and drive them to a dense thicket two suburbs over and just leave them there to be consumed by goldfinches. Please don't do that. First of all, it doesn't even work. But also, your package is being prepared, and you'll be able to join in the gloating very soon. Which brings us to...

Shipping Update

I put in a couple full days of packing last week and mailed out another 300 packages yesterday. I am really exploiting my (already tenuous) network of friends to make this happen, so much of the credit definitely has to go to exploitation. I don't know where I'd be without it. Big thanks to Exploitocrates, inventor of exploitation.

The big old shipping progress bar currently looks like this:

That's almost halfway! At this rate I can probably still hit my goal of having everything done by the end of the month, but there's always a chance things will get fucked up somehow. On that note, if anything is fucked up with your order just let me know. I'm already here worrying about shit 24 hours a day, so it won't bother me at all. Send me an email and I will fix your problem. And not like how my landlord said he'd fix my hallway light; I will actually get off my ass, put down my taco, put on my action pants, and do some fucking action. That's my Evan Doherty "Action Guarantee 👌".  

Here are some pictures of my crack team of boxmen boxing it out hardcore in the Arcane Boxship box dungeon:

So there you have it. Another week of barely-noteworthy events turned into a whole fucking rambling essay, complete with photographs of menial labour! Maybe next week I'll include a gallery of photos I accidentally took inside my pocket!

If you're in the province of Ontario, Alberta, British Colombia, New Brunswick, or Saskatchewan – have a great Family Day! As we all know, Family Day festivities include kneeling around the "family bucket" and squeezing out the maple syrup we've been saving in our hair since Christmas. What are your Family Day traditions? 

I love all of you to an extent that is appropriate, as per our capitalist contract. 

-EVAN

Peace of Ship
about 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 09, 2019 at 12:43:39 AM

Hey, happy Friday to all my Friday people! That's right! Have you heard the good news from the holy book of days (which is what I call a calendar)? It's Friday.

Before I launch into another 1500 word treatise articulating my full list of objections to the weather, let me take precisely one moment to acknowledge how much I love reading your comments. I assure you that even though I don't always respond, reading them usually makes me spit take madeira onto my twin white borzois (that's a cool new euphemism I'm trying to get going). Sometimes I even fall right off my ebony reading throne. I mean, I don't read them. My trained gibbon reads them to me through a radio while my head is immersed in a vat of scorpion venom and root beer. Well, that's on our "to-do" list anyway, right after she finishes cleaning the mink feces off my collection of eggs that resemble famous eggs. But the point is, I totally read the comments and they are often very witty, intelligent, and in perfect harmony with the spirit of Bullshit. This project was obviously a very bad idea, but it's been really fun to interact with so many wonderful people. I will have that to think about when I inevitably go bankrupt and have to sell my plasma at a farmer's market. 

Shipping Update

I've spent the last couple weeks developing a system for distributing Bullshit across the earth. I'll admit, it's been a bit slower to start than I had hoped, but things are starting to become pretty efficient. The weather has been less helpful than I imagined. The warm wind from Venus that was supposed to guide my whale stomach dirigible across the heavens to deliver your wares never showed up, so I've had to fall back on regular earthly postal devices. If any primary school teachers need ~5 tons of whale stomach for arts and crafts, hit me up.  

I'm sending out rewards to 'early turd' and 'straight shit' backers who didn't enhance their order with add-ons first, just because they're the easiest to pack while I figure out my process. For some of the first few I hadn't learned how to do tracking and shipping notifications, but from now on, everyone should be receiving email notifications when your package ships. The "standard issue" box that 'Early turd' and 'straight shit' backers are getting is a really gorgeous piece of mail, and I'm excited for folks to start getting these.

So far, my overall shipping progress looks like this:

I know this could easily be a bar graph comparing my grade 11 math test scores against the national average, but I find it reassuring to see that progress is happening (no, not with my math skills). 

I'll be sending out another batch of things next week. It's going to take a while, and we may go a bit beyond the month of February, but everything will eventually be delivered. I know in many ways this project is just like Fyre festival. Yes, Ja Rule has played an integral role from the beginning. Yes, I told a lot of people that I own Pablo Escobar's island. But it's not like that at all. We are actually going to deliver all the blowjobs we promised.

Haha. He joked about a thing I vaguely remember from three weeks ago. 

Emoji drum solo:

🥁🥁💥🥁🥁💥🥁🥁💥💥🥁💥💥🥁🥁🥁💥🥁🥁💥🥁🥁💥💥🥁💥💥🥁

Soooooooo, I think that's really all the news for now. This is kind of the last part of our journey. I promise I'll stop being so weird and do a super sentimental post later and we can all cry the tears we deserve.

-EVAN

OPERATION ARCANE BULLSHIP
over 5 years ago – Sat, Feb 02, 2019 at 12:56:01 AM

Hey, Happy Friday!

Remember when I said that I didn't want anyone to have a bad time during this campaign except me? Let the bad times begin! I just fucking picked up all 2K Arcane Bullshit decks and it went like this:

• Shitty Canadian winter vomits forth the white flakes of interminable inconvenience (never visit Toronto in February)
• Car is stuck in snow
• Car is loosened from its icy prison by no fewer than 12 stout men (Toronto, while frigid, is a great place to meet helpful bearded strongmen)
• Car travels to the furthest reaches of Mississauga (which has one mall, but is otherwise just airplane hangers and road rage. Sorry to that one guy who thinks it's nice. OK, you're right, they do have good Indian food.)
• Car is loaded with almost 2,000 lbs of boxes labelled 'Arcane Bullshit', much to the delight of average confused warehouse employee #6 
• Car is stuck in snow no less than 4 times
• Eventually everything is fine
• Tacos are consumed

So that's that. The end part was actually nice. The part with the tacos. That was like eating triumph wrapped in a corn tortilla. That whole process, in case you missed it, was actually a powerful spell designed to consecrate your decks with special Canadian winter frustration magic. It is unlikely that I will ever elect to repeat this process, so you folks have really lucked out. The results of this magic spell are as follows:

• You get two extra days of Crabfest at Red Lobster
• Your deck will be protected from most species of seahorse
• Your deck will be invisible to this one woman named Elaine

So now we can commence OPERATION ARCANE BULLSHIP. 

I'm sure the process isn't going to be perfect, but throughout this cold as fuck month I'm going to mail out MOST (if not all) of your stuff. Sit tight while I sacrifice all my bloody sweat tears, destroy the last of my healthy relationships, and experiment with various meal replacement products and central nervous system stimulants. 

Here are some other things...

King Shit Rewards

All 10 of the King Shit reward tier commissioned pieces are now done. Here are the last 5, in all their personalized glory: 

Posters

To everyone who ordered a poster – those have all shipped out now. They had to be mailed in separate poster tubes, so I figured I'd get that over with. You should all be receiving your tubes within the next few weeks. If your tube does not materialize, please file a grievance with the Tubemaster General. (That's me.) Email [email protected]. Or, if you prefer, use my actual real working email: [email protected].

Guidebook

I realize that some people who contributed to the campaign are not actually getting a physical product. Some of you came in at the "Verbal Diarrhea" reward tier and chose a random word for a booklet you might never see. I want to correct that by sharing a digital version of the guidebook. Everyone who reads this post can check that out here:

http://arcanebullshit.com/guidebook/ArcaneBullshit_Booklet.pdf

Social Shit

Finally, I just want to remind you that I have absolutely no promotion or marketing plan so if you want to show off any bullshit you receive from me on social media, that would be very welcome.

That's everything for this Friday. I will update you on my gruelling shipping process and the anxiety dreams it causes next week.

-EVAN

What hast thou Kickstarted?
over 5 years ago – Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 08:02:37 PM

Hi. Am I shocked that it's Friday again? No. Not this time. I've come to accept that time is a languid white cat, stalking us relentlessly through the sticky corn maze of life. The ground is a revolving wheel and our boots are full of minced cabbage and frozen orange paint. Each Friday is just another toll of the Big Old Spooky Bell™. Here I am, Friday. *screams at sky* IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT!?!? 

I don't know. I'm bored. I know that a fucking storm of responsibility is about to shit all over my soul. There will be just over 1200 packages to ship around the earth. I am mostly ready for that. For now, I'm just waiting...What hast thou Kickstarted?

OK nevermind, I'm fine. I'm not even unravelling at all you guys. 

On a more responsible note, here are some scraps of news:

Addresses

You probably received an email in the last few days asking you to confirm your mailing address as we move toward the shipping phase of this journey. If you need to update your address, contact me immediately ([email protected]). We're running out of time for that to happen. Shipping will be ongoing throughout the month of February and maybe into early March. Don't expect to get your stuff right away. I'll do my best to prioritize orders going outside of Canada and the US, but the timeline for delivery will be pretty inconsistent. Wait a reasonable amount of time before you assume that your order was appropriated by your shadow, devoured by a time bison, or lost in a fissure between this universe and the one where everyone is named Dennis. 

King Shit Cards

I've been drawing again, which has been really fun. A lot of these special backer requests have pushed me to try out new things. So maybe down the road you can expect to see art with more degenerate frills, like the supposed "third dimension". Maybe. Here are the first five special cards I finished:

I'll share the other five next week. They're all pretty great, but no, you probably won't ever see these added to the deck. I'll probably continue doing commissions at some point though. Shout out to Joel H. Lantz, who probably thinks I've been ignoring his comments when secretly I'm spending a lot of time thinking about whether a duck would hold fruit like this:

or like this:

I think that's everything for this week. By next Friday I should be gearing up for ship-storm 2019, so brace yourselves for way more logistical details than you could possibly be comfortable reading!

-EVAN