I ♥ My Moleskine

I asked for a "squared" Moleskine for Xmas because I'd heard such good things about them. ("Square" means graph paper and "large" means "not pocket sized"--it's only about 8"x5".) I can confirm that it is awesome. I'm not even sure why it's so awesome. It's definitely well made--nice binding, good quality paper, pocket in the back, elastic strap and bookmark. And it's not just that I'm having fun using it, because I was using a regular spiral notebook before and it wasn't this awesome.

I found the perfect pencil case. It's actually a case for a removable car stereo, but I don't have that car, let alone the stereo, anymore (if I ever did).

Inside are the pencils I mentioned once. Notice that I've got them tagged with tape so I can tell what lead type is in each. Also, extra lead and a kneaded eraser.

And now a couple pics of the Genius At Work. The page sizes seem to be almost exactly how much room I need to explain an idea and draw an illustration of it.

The only thing that could make this better would be if it were exactly the same as it is now, only it also uploaded an electronic version automatically. In vector format. Also, it would be made of ponies.

Christmas Present Idea

Long have I pined for a mechanical watch where you could actually see the gears and springs and whatnot flying around. I've seen things like this with the "Fossil" brand attached, but they are always less than what I really wanted. I tried googling for "mechanical watch with visible gears" but that wasn't too helpful.

Today I discovered the magic word: Skeleton. A "skeleton" watch is one where it is purposely made to be see-through. "Full skeleton" means that even things that you'd kind of like to have on a watch, like numbers and hands, are as tiny and hard to use as possible so you can see the full glory of the gears.

Feast your image display software on THIS:

I gather it is possible to spend up to and including ONE MILLION DOLLARS on a watch like this, but, I further gather, Chinese imports can be had for under $100. Even well under $100. For instance.

I wouldn't have many requirements on such a gift. It should be as visible as possible and be actually mechanical, no hidden battery doing the work.