Pentatonics

Here's a wonderful video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the Power of the Pentatonic Scale.

Jim on 07.31.09 @ 01:26 PM ET [link]

Bromfield

While in Boston proper for a site-seeing excursion, I found myself in the Downtown Crossing area, so I had to pay a visit to the BromField Pen Shop. It's really the only good pen shop in the area. I'd never been there before.

Bromfield had hundreds of pens, both fountain and otherwise. The lady behind the counter allowed my to try several, dipping them in an ink bottle to test. The Pilot Vanishing Point was my favorite. It's actually a retractable fountain pen, but a bit pricey.

I ended up just buying two more bottles of Noodler's Ink: Blue-Black and Midnight Blue. The Blue-Black is nearly waterproof - the blue portion will wash away leaving a permanent black. The Midnight blue is a very nice dark blue that is not waterproof. This is actually a desirable attribute for me when I'm lounging on the couch doing a crossword puzzle. I at least have a fighting chance of cleaning up an inadvertent pen mark on my shirt.

Jim on 07.11.09 @ 02:53 PM ET [link]

iPhone Readers

After reading this excellent iPhone eBook reader comparison I decided to spend the $10 on the Eucalyptus reader.

I'm very pleased with this app. It has instant access to the 30,000 public domain books on Project Gutenberg. You can keep hundreds or thousands of these on your iPhone to be called up instantly.

The page rendering is excellent, and the page turns are quick and have pleasing animations that exactly mimic a real page turn. I'm currently reading My Man Jeeves on my iPhone in 5-minute snatches of time here and there. Who needs a Kindle when you have this?

Jim on 07.02.09 @ 09:21 AM ET [link]