My 2009 tax return was spent on a button machine almost as a joke. The money probably would've been whittled away on books, DVDs, and bars if left to its own devices, so it seemed as good an option as any to blow the cash on something with a price tag larger than $20. I've always drawn comic strips, greeting cards, etc, to entertain myself, friends, and bored coworkers, and a pinback button felt like another usable surface to cover in jokes and strangeness.

Worst case scenario, the machine gets used a few times and then stuffed in the back of a closet waiting for the inevitable evening when friends are over goofing around on the porch, and someone says something funny, and someone else says, "haw haw, that'd be funny, on, like, a button!" and then my eyes could light mischievously and I would scamper inside saying, "hold on just a sec..."

I'm excited to report that more than eight years later, the button machine has spent exactly zero days stuffed in the back of a closet.

-beanforest