I didn’t even know there was a Polaroid Museum until I stumbled onto it during a recent trip to Las Vegas. Seeing those old cameras made me a little misty. I’m going to have my SX-70 fixed and order more film from Impossible.

There are so many glowing reviews of the Skilcraft pens that I had to try them. They’ve been around forever and have a great story. A box of 12 costs $15, so the risk was pretty low. My experience is that they’re pretty lousy pens. For a buck apiece I shouldn’t expect much, but they feel terrible in hand and the few that I’ve actually tried using have skipped regularly. They’re not supposed to do that.

Crystal (2014). Photo: Jack Baty It’s as if my sister is saying, “Dude, you’ve got a hair on this negative”

I preordered the very first Kindle back in 2007 and have done the same with every update (except the Kindle 2) since. In keeping with that tradition, I’ve also preordered the new Kindle Voyage. This one looks like a winner. Kindle Voyage (photo: Amazon) I read a lot on my Kindle, so I upgrade each time the device gets better. The screen on the Voyage looks to be pretty special, and that’s worth the price of the upgrade to me.

Naturally, given my disdain for anything remotely Miley Cyrus, I was ready to dismiss her cover of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (originally by Joan Baez and made famous by Led Zeppelin). I mean, how dare she!? Cyrus is no Plant, but she plays it true to the original and it’s better than I expected. So, huh.

Khoi Vinh on the Leica M60 But it costs an absurd US$20,000 to own. The whole premise of it strikes me as ridiculous, especially this video that shows it being unpacked literally with white gloves. It’s not as if Leica has never done this before. I’d love an M Edition 60. Get rid of that damn LCD, I say! $20,000 is ridiculously expensive for me, but not everyone feels that way.

The Song of the Introvert – Rands in Repose: My love of calm predictability has come at a cost. I write everything down in a black notebook – no lines. There are boxes next to items that must be tracked, there are stars for ideas that must be remembered. A yellow highlighter and a .5mm Zebra Sarasa gel pen accompany me everywhere because the presence of this notebook is part of my well-defined system of never missing anything.

I thought I wanted to be the quiet guy in the corner. I’d like to just create things, post them without fanfare, and hey, if you find them you find them. Or maybe I should never post anything at all. I could just make stuff that ends up in a cardboard box in my basement until I’m dead. That would be neat, but it’s not likely. You see, I’ve fallen into the same trap as everyone else; I love validation.

If you think deciding which new iPhone to buy is tough, imagine how I feel! The 500? Slimline? Touch Tone or Rotary? It’s impossible to choose!

I’ve been keeping notes and todos in one notebook or another for years. I prefer it that way, but it can be difficult to find things later and sometimes I can’t decide what goes in the notebook and what goes elsewhere and why. Ryder Carroll recently solved those issues for me by created a wonderful and slightly more structured system called The Bullet Journal. It’s simple and flexible but contains enough process to make it the first paper-based “system” I’ve ever stuck with for any length of time.

At some point over the past couple of years I began to dread going to the Apple Store. That's a shame, since for a long time I couldn't wait to go there. I'd go just to browse around (and usually end up buying something). It was smooth, clean, relatively quiet, and a completely pleasent experience. Now, it's sort of a clusterfuck. They pass me from one associate to another. I stand in one line waiting to stand in another.

I dread going to family reunions, yet every time I attend one I’m glad I did. I have a pretty cool extended family. Everyone is funny and nice and we all get along famously. I’m not sure why I don’t look forward to going, but I sure enjoy looking back on having gone.