How Embarrassing!
FIELD NOTES
It’s entirely possible I love journals more than I love writing in them. The end result is a fantastic discrepancy in my personal ratio of notebooks-to-writings. I’m working hard to change that, however. Armed with my favorite pen of the moment, I’ve been scribbling away daily. So far, so good.
It was in this spirit that I decided to “subscribe” to quarterly mailings from the Futura loving folks at FIELD NOTES. I just got my first pack in the mail and the Spring theme is a Packet of Sunshine, fitting for the bright yellow goodies that lay within.
I do tend to prefer something a little larger for everyday writing, but it’s tough to resist a pocketable little pack of memo books. Added bonus: The full set came in graph paper variety.
I love graph paper.
The inside back cover offers some suggested applications. A few of my favorites:
- Shoddy Sketches
- Financial “Planning”
- Escape Routes
- Gambling Debts
The subscription price is a bit spooky at $129 for the year, but in terms of sheer quantity, you’re getting some serious value. My pack doubled the promised number of books by tossing in a couple packs of the brown covered notebooks. At this point, they’re hitting gift giving territory in terms of quantity. I have a hard time believing I’ll be through 12 little memo books by the time the Summer shipment rolls around.
What’re your favorite notebooks to scribble stuff in?
Little Red Cart
Pupatella is Italian slang for doll, but if you find yourself in Arlington, Virginia on a Thursday or Friday morning, it’s also the name of a little red cart that makes the most delightful Neapolitan pizzas imaginable.
You travel around the world enough and you start to realize a great number of awesome places have a whole culture built around the food cart. Pupatella isn’t going to single handedly make Northern Virginia street cart food relevant, but it’s a nice step in the right direction.
Find them at the intersection of 9th St N and N Stuart St in Arlington, VA, just outside of Ballston Metro on the Orange line. They’re open most Thursdays and Fridays for lunch, but they’ve got a restaurant in the works at 5104 Wilson Blvd.
Tracing A Zombie
I made (traced) this lovely little Popcap Zombie using ArtStudio on my iPad, with the help of the Pogo Sketch. The Sketch makes the whole experience way more fun than just using your finger.
Betting Against The American Dream
This song, from episode 405 of This American Life, does a pretty remarkable job of explaining the recent financial crisis in the span of a Broadway showtune.
Edit: The link went down over at TAL, so I snipped the song out of the episode.
Paris is Jazz
Once upon a time Malcolm McLaren met a young lady at a Parisian party. I can only assume that happened before 1994 happened, because in that year Mr. McLaren released a solo album appropriately titled Paris. This album was utterly panned upon its release and for good reason!
Still, in 1994 when I stumbled upon this album, Paris sounded really far away (and it was — I didn’t get there for another 7 years), but this album represented a tiny fraction of what it might mean to go there.
I dug the album up in my iTunes upon Mr. McLaren’s passing earlier this week and I can’t say that it’s a very good album, but it’s definitely sincere. It’s the album of a man so in love with a city that he just had to declare that love with every forced metaphor and cliched image he could muster. Still, I got a kick out of it as a precocious 17 year old, so maybe you will, too.
This track is called “Jazz is Paris,” which should give you an idea of how the rest of the album plays out.
The Pogo Sketch
I ordered a Pogo Sketch from the geniuses over at Ten One Design. It’s a pen sized stylus to use on a capacitive touch screen, like on your favorite iDevice.
Even though the Sketch’s existence predates the iPad, Ten One has done a nice job of parlaying its existence onto Apple’s new toy. With the iPad’s generous screen estate, not to mention the plethora of drawing programs already available, the two really seem ideal for one another.
I’ve spent the past couple of days playing around with the Sketch and I can say it does precisely what its tasked with. The nub on the end does a pretty satisfactory job of “gripping” the screen to simulate the required touch. You’ve still got to be concerned about accidentally touching the screen with your wrist while you draw, which makes using the Sketch for long periods of time a bit inconvenient. I don’t think anyone is going to be replacing their Wacom anytime soon with an iPad/Sketch combo. But for periodic use, this thing’s gorgeous.
My only real concern is that after a nice full day of use, the nub already seems to be a little bit smooshed, so I wonder how long this thing will ultimately last.
I’m not much of an artist, but I did use the Sketch to, well, sketch a bit in both ArtStudio and SketchBook. While I won’t share the pathetic attempts on this post, the handwriting sample below might help convey things a bit. Or not. My handwriting probably shouldn’t be used as an example of anything. What’s not coming through in this picture is that I took a fair bit more time writing my name with my finger than I did with the Sketch. I think the results for the Sketch are (unfortunately) closer to how my handwriting really looks. (I used ArtStudio, which also has some really wonderful brushes that provide a bit of a flourish, too.)
My favorite application of the Sketch? Flight Control HD. I never quite got hooked on Flight Control when it was just on the iPhone, but as an iPad game it really shines. The Sketch allows a greater degree of precision in drawing your flight paths now, which even in limited use has already translated into improved scores.
The best Sketch feature of all, however, is that since you’re not touching the iPad’s screen with your grubby fingers, you’re not leaving behind nasty fingerprints. The iPad does an unfortunately remarkable job of picking up every single fingerprint. In a day of heavy use, I easily have to wipe the screen down at least two or three times, which gets real old. The Sketch doesn’t leave finger prints, which makes it really ideal for loading up a video to watch, since you won’t need to wipe the screen down afterward.
Maradona's Messi Conflict
One of the theories in Argentina is that Maradona is conflicted, happy to have a talent like Messi on his team but eager to not surrender his status as perhaps the greatest player of all time.
From the New York Times (who, as it turns out, does soccer coverage — go figure!), this gem of a piece about Lionel Messi turned up the quote above, which caught my eye.
There’s no doubt that Maradona is a bit of a loon, but it’s hard to imagine a situation where sabotaging Messi’s success in any way makes any sense.
Frankly, the way that Messi is playing these days, I’ll be astonished if anyone comes close to challenging Argentina in South Africa. They’re going to be scary.
Overexplaining
I adore Paula Deen and her devotion to butter, pork fat and grease, but I don’t understand the need for this particular explanation.
Paula’s poor guest responds with as much grace as a person could possibly muster when confronted with such inanity.
Tourism by von Trier
Spoof or not, this is probably just about how it would work out. Pretty disturbing stuff!
