Things I Like
“All the good ideas have been taken.”
- Some guy who I made up but speaks the truth
A few years ago Karin, a good friend and one of the coolest people I know, did a thing on her Instagram account – “Favorite Thing Friday” - that was appointment viewing. She would pick one thing that she loved and feature it on Fridays. Karin is a corporate flight attendant, and many of the things she chose were geared toward making the flight safer/easier/more efficient/happier for her and/or her passengers and crew. But they always had terrestrial use for us mere mortals. So I would immediately buy whatever she recommended and was never disappointed.
I, on the other hand, have no readily apparent professional skills, but I am always happy to steal a good idea. So, I am starting my “Five Things” post today with this entry. I will feature five things that I like/use/appreciate for whatever reason.
At the outset, I will say that this may very well be the first AND last post in this series. I commit to NOTHING in this newsletter, least of all a regular feature that requires me to, you know, think.
So, with those credits and caveats, here are “Five Things”:
1.) Muji pens: I have this weird obsession with pens. But not the expensive fountain pens that cost thousands of dollars and then leak all over the place. Rather, I just like a nice writing, good flowing pen because I still write many things long-hand, including note taking and hand-written cards and letters.
The Muji pen is great: Good ink, clean lines, nice feel in the hand and they are cheap (so you don’t care if one goes missing.) I have been using them for years.
2.) Dunkin Donuts Cold Brew Coffee with Sweet Cold Foam: Can you say addicted? It’s just Dunkin Cold Brew topped with Reddi-Wip Barista Cold Foam. In total, there’s probably about 10 cents worth of coffee and five cents worth of foam. A small cup costs $4.50 and I can’t stop ordering it. You have been warned. (I only wish Dunkin’ was a publicly traded stock. On my addiction alone, the company could have built a new wing on corporate HQ.) FYI – in theory, the Reddi-Wip foam is available at retail, but good luck finding it. I have been looking for a year and it’s nowhere to be found. Dunkin’ must be buying up all the stock to keep people like me from freebasinglancing our own cold brews at home.
3.) Field Notes notebooks: Per entry #1, I still like to write things out. These little soft cover notebooks fit in your pocket and are always available should an idea to steal someone else’s idea hit you out of nowhere and you want to write it down. I even have one next to my bed so I can jot down my deranged dreams and then burn them before anyone in the mental healthcare or law enforcement community can read them.
4.) If you don’t like classical music, skip this one. If you do enjoy classical music, check out the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall. I have really missed going to live concerts over the past two years and the Digital Concert Hall helped fill in the gap. You can view/listen on your computer or better, they have a dedicated TV app for many platforms (TVs, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox) that allows you to watch on your big-screen, high-def TV with your full sound system. The library is comprehensive, and the app makes it easy to search by musical composition, composer, conductor, soloist, whatever. There is a seven-day free trial and subscriptions are available monthly and annually.
5.) Pocket app. This is a great little app that allows you to save anything you find on the Internet, wherever you are, and read it later, wherever. See a recipe while surfing on your phone on the train? Save it to Pocket and print in later your home or office printer. See something on your PC and want to read it on the train ride home? Same deal.
So, there are five things I like. Maybe you’ll like one of them too. But if it’s the coffee, just plan to delay your retirement by a few years or send your kids to state college.
(BTW – if you want to check out Karin’s Instagram feed, she’s @flighttastings)
(BTW #2 – I put links in the posts, but no one paid me to do so. If any of the companies/products mentioned above wish to sponsor this newsletter, my rates are obscenely high and quite clearly detached from economic reality.)