02 Mar 2005 | Jamie said...

Jason, you play the drums? I had no idea.

02 Mar 2005 | JF said...

Been playing for about a year now.

02 Mar 2005 | Sarah said...

The Fisher Space Pen may be good, but the Fisher Space Website is appalling. "Please select a country to enter". Okay I'll just click on the New Zealand flag down there. Wait! No! Why is my mail application opening? Oh! It's a mailto link! The flags up the top are ordinary links, the flags down the bottom are mailto links. And how exactly am I supposed to know that? And why would it ever occur to me that a picture of a flag would be a mailto link?

02 Mar 2005 | Chris Vincent said...

The problem with electronic drum kits is that only the really insanely expensive ones give you a good dynamic range. That's my experience, anyway.

I prefer my monster kit set up in a detached garage. All I really need now is some acoustic paneling.

02 Mar 2005 | Benjy said...

How true about the $10's... damn yuppie food stamps!

02 Mar 2005 | patrick h. lauke said...

v-drums are indeed excellent...i've played on a few of them a while ago, and the handling, if you will, is extremely close to the real thing. the price tag is still a bit high, though...

02 Mar 2005 | Alex Ezell said...

In my previous incarnation as a technology consultant, we used SurveyMonkey surveys for all kinds of purposes.

In short, it is an excellent webapp with very good support and all the features you can think of.

02 Mar 2005 | Tim Storm said...

I disagree on $10.

$1, $5, and $20 is the best mix

nobody wants a bunch of singles, but $5 is significant for lunch.

What is better.... more bills and only get change in return or bigger bills with more bills coming back?

02 Mar 2005 | ffub said...

"Timer (Mac OS X) is a quick little dock-based countdown timer than slaps you with the chimes of Big Ben when the time is up."

Ten out of ten for referring to Big Ben as the bell itself and not the tower, clock or building.

02 Mar 2005 | peter royal said...

i love the $10 bill. if only you could get $10 at the atm! damn them for making the minimum $20

02 Mar 2005 | Tim Storm said...

scrap the $20 and make a $25.

Vegas does $1, $5, $25, $100 chips for a reason!

02 Mar 2005 | Gordon said...

FlySketch looks interesting - wonder if there is a PC equivalent (yes yes I know, but I use a PC at work). Anyone?

Just wish those Shure headphones fitted into my ears!

02 Mar 2005 | SH said...

Actually, in plenty of states in the south, you can get $5's and $10's at the ATM.

02 Mar 2005 | Sam Horn said...

$10 is the new $5, at least as far as lunch is concerned.

02 Mar 2005 | Joe Murphy said...

$5 bills are my personal favorite ... but I bet I make less than you.
Hey! Drums are an excellent stress reliever. I started relieving myself just two years ago.
Here's another decent survey option.

02 Mar 2005 | Nathan said...

I like Tom's of Maine Shaving Cream and Antiperspirant/Deodorant. Every Anthony Logistics for Men product I've tried has been top notch.

/metro

02 Mar 2005 | hartmurmur said...

Joe Murphy said: I started relieving myself just two years ago.

Phew. It must have been painful before then. Enduro-Bladder :)

02 Mar 2005 | John Zeratsky said...

Jason: As a drummer about to move from the safe confines of a house in Madison, WI to an apartment in Chicago, I'm interested to hear what you think about the V-Drums. The few times I've tried them, I felt like I was banging on cardboard boxes (and the sound wasn't much better).

02 Mar 2005 | John Kopanas said...

I have been looking at the space pens for a while. It is hard to pick a pen from a website. Any suggestion on which model people like?

02 Mar 2005 | John Kopanas said...

I have been looking at the space pens for a while. It is hard to pick a pen from a website. Any suggestion on which model people like?

03 Mar 2005 | seth said...

Screw vdrums, it's all about the mpc1000 :)

Pads baby, pads!

03 Mar 2005 | John Zeratsky said...

Now you're talking, Seth :-)

03 Mar 2005 | Megan said...

I second (third?) the recommendation of SurveyMonkey. We used it to run a survey for KCRW.com to elicit user feedback on the current site and suggestions for new features for an upcoming redesign (can you believe, it's been 8 years since Razorfish designed their present site?). The 10-page, 50 question survey (made more palatable by the chance to win an iPod) was easy to set up, with numerous choices on how to structure questions and answers. It easily handled the load of the 3000+ users who answered the survey. Best of all, it allows the admin to view and filter results, so for instance, we could see that new users to the site had a harder time navigating it, suggesting that although people got used to the navigational design over time, it wasn't optimal. Anywho...loved the whole SurveyMonkey experience, and hard to beat for $19.95/month.

03 Mar 2005 | Kenzie said...

Anyone know how Survey Monkey stacks up against Zoomerang? I have no experience with either, but my marketing group is currently using Zoomerang and may be looking for an alternative soon.

03 Mar 2005 | Fred, the real Fred said...

Be the champ and keep 10s in your pocket.

Don't talk down to your readers.

03 Mar 2005 | Don Schenck said...

People carry 20s because of ATMs.

03 Mar 2005 | Don Schenck said...

OH THE IRONY!!!

The one screenshot at Flysketch has "Lorem ipsum ...".

That, my friend, is Just Too Funny (tm).

03 Mar 2005 | Steve, from Co, FLA and now RDU said...

I carry C-notes cause it gets me the chicks....

03 Mar 2005 | Darrel said...

How much are the v-drums?

03 Mar 2005 | Julian Scarfe said...

nice list - thanks Jason!

03 Mar 2005 | LNJ said...

Dalwhinnie is good, but I like Macallan. Their 15 yr is better rated and just a few dollars more than the Dalwhinnie. Give it a try...

Thanks for the list... thems some mighty fine ideas you got there.

03 Mar 2005 | One of several Steves said...

Even if $10s are somehow superior, good luck getting any. I don't know exactly when it happened, but people stopped giving out 10s as change these days. Eighty, 90 percent of time I get two 5s back. I'm almost in awe when I actually see a 10 anymore.

On some of the others:

I could go on for days about Scotch. My tastes tend to the peaty (Lagavulin is my favorite), although one of my absolute favorites isn't extremely peaty (but it is amazingly complex). Dalwhinnie doesn't really grab me, perhaps because of its relative subtlety. I'll quickly gravitate toward the Lagavulin before that, or Cragganmore or any Springbank (especially the 15 y.o.).

And don't turn up your nose at blends. There are some very good ones out there.

And the Shure headphones are outstanding. Plus, they have the added benefit of blocking out my coworkers.

03 Mar 2005 | ant said...

Jason - which of Christopher Alexander's works do you recommend? I've long wanted to dive into "A Pattern Language", but I see he also has the huge "Nature of Order" series out now. All of his writing sounds interesting, but I'd like to hear your experiences if you wouldn't mind.

03 Mar 2005 | RS said...

Ant: Regarding Christopher Alexander, I started with Notes on the Synthesis of Form and then moved into the Nature of Order series, which is fantastic.

07 Mar 2005 | TL said...

For the electronic drum question asking people out there I suggest you take a look at Hart Dynamics...

http://hartdynamics.com/

From what I hear they have the range and feel "analog" drummers are accustomed to. The price may be another story.

TL