Ready Player One

This little surprise showed up in my Loot Crate this month. Although I haven’t gotten a chance to start this yet, I’m a huge fan of anything that deals with gaming and/or Science fiction and this book has both!  The premise is basic enough to start, Teenager Wade Watts escapes reality by adventuring in a virtual utopia called the Oasis. Looking forward to checking this one out!

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Alex

Midori Traveler’s Notebook (Refill 002)

Last week, I was raving about my new Bellroy wallet. The wallet has a spot for your passport, but I don’t do much international traveling, so I looked for other uses for its remarkably-sized pocket. My hope was that a Field Notes memo book would be able to squeeze in, but those hopes were quickly thwarted by about two-millimeters. Enter the Midori Traveler’s Notebook. More specifically, enter the Midori Traveler’s Notebook Refill 002. This simple memo book is exactly the same size as a passport, so it fits perfectly inside my wallet. Refill 002 features graph paper, but it is also available in other paper styles (including a date book!). I carry notebooks with me everywhere I go, but I know this is going to come in clutch when I don’t have my Slate handy.

The post Weekly Discoveries 02.27.2015 – Ready Player One and Midori Traveler’s Notebooks appeared first on Blackwing.

Bellroy Wallets

I have what is commonly referred to as “a Costanza,” a wallet so large, it causes back pain. I don’t know how it happened, or when my wallet reached its critical mass, but it did. Thankfully, my wonderful wife recognized my plight, and bought me a Bellroy wallet for my birthday. I’ve known about Bellroy wallets for a while now (they exhibit at the Capsule Show we do each year), but that’s the true horror of the Costanza: you don’t actually realize you have one until it’s been replaced. The model she bought me is the Travel Wallet, which comes loaded with a pen and a passport-sized notebook. Even with the pen and notebook, my new wallet is less than half the size of my old one.

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Mahlon

Bradley Mountain Adventure Logs

Earlier this week we were at the Capsule Show in Las Vegas. It’s always a great time with great people who make equally great products, which brings me to the Adventure Log notebooks by Bradley Mountain. Anybody can make a pocket notebook, but the good ones stand out through unique formatting, and that’s exactly what we have here. The Adventure Log is built to cleanly document your adventures wherever they may be.  Each page has a section for the location, date, companions, weather conditions and a space at the bottom where the user can go into detail about said adventures. Now, I’m no rugged outdoorsman chronicling mountains I’ve climbed or pitfalls I’ve escaped, but with the recent release of Monster Hunter 4 for the Nintendo 3DS I’ve come up with some clever and fun ways to utilize mine.

The post Weekly Discoveries 02.20.2015 – Bradley Mountain Adventure Logs & Bellroy Wallets appeared first on Blackwing.

Ebbets Field Flannels

I, like all sane people, have a favorite hat. It’s a grey wool, six panel ball cap with a leather adjustable strap. Last week, my favorite hat decided it wanted to take a plunge into a mud puddle and, despite my insistence, it has refused to let go of its new brown tinge. When I went looking the manufacturer so I could order a replacement, I discovered Ebbets Field Flannels, and my bank account hasn’t forgiven me since. Ebbets Field Flannel is an apparel company based in Seattle that makes throwback ball caps, jerseys and more (they have a San Francisco Seals hat that I can’t wait to get my hands on). If you like high-quality, American-made apparel or have an appreciation for baseball history, you need to check them out.

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John

Blue Bubblegum Horchata

I spent part of my weekend at Stockton’s Open-Air Market.  The gigantic flea market features tons of storefronts, shops and a giant conglomerate of food vendors/shops right in the middle.  One vendor sells a wide variety of different-flavored horchata and fruit drinks.  The table featured giant tubs of chocolate, strawberry, lime, and coconut drunks but I was enticed by the blue bubblegum.  I bought a medium sized drink and fell in love.  I’ve been Googling the stuff ever since, but haven’t found it on the Internet.  Might be back for more this coming Sunday.

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Mahlon

Voodoo Doughnuts

Cash only. 24 hours. Doughnut shop. This is Voodoo in a nutshell. I had a chance to try this place out while I was in Portland a couple weeks ago and it was quite the experience. I went here at midnight and there was a line out the door and down the street, and I waited for an hour to take a crack at these doughnuts. For those not familiar, Voodoo offers your normal doughnut fare but what they’re famous for is their more eclectic doughnuts and their silly names. I picked up the ODB or (old dirty bastard) It was a chocolate doughnut with chocolate frosting, covered in a mountain of crumbled oreos, with peanut butter drizzled across the top.  Some of the other doughnuts they served were covered with cereal like captain crunch and fruit loops, and per their name, they offer a “voodoo doughnut” shaped like a voodoo doll with raspberry filling and white icing to detail the facial features.  If you’re ever in Portland be sure to give this place a try!

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Grant

Doug Seegers

I discovered Doug Seegers this week thanks to the Buddy and Jim Show on Sirius/XM radio. His story is almost as incredible as his voice. He was basically homeless, playing outside the bus depot in Nashville, when he was discovered. He recently released his debut album Going Down the River which features, among others, Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller. If you like traditional country music, you’ll like Doug Seegers. If you don’t like traditional country music, you’ll still probably like Doug Seegers.

The post Weekly Discoveries 10.31.2014 – Ebbets Flannels, Horchata, Doug Seeger and Voodoo appeared first on Blackwing.

Frank’s Noodle House

I’m a sucker for handmade stuff, and that includes food. Last night, I finished up the 12 hour drive from our headquarters in Stockton, California to Portland, Oregon, where we’ll be exhibiting at Coffee Fest later this week. Needless to say, when I rolled into town, I was starving. That’s when I discovered Frank’s Noodle House.

As the name suggests, Frank’s Noodle House serves noodles. Tons of them. And they’re all made by hand every day. I ordered the handmade noodles with tofu, served extra spicy (that’s three “x’s” on Frank’s hot meter), and it was delicious. If you’re ever in Portland, check it out.

Grant

Trigger Hippy

One part rock ‘n roll, one part rhythm ‘n blues, two parts The Black Crowes. I heard Trigger Hippy for the first time on Sirius’ Outlaw Country this morning. Their music is like a pretty girl you can’t get off of your mind. It’s been a while since I’ve heard such poetic soul, and I can’t wait to buy the record.

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Mahlon

Kenner’s Recalled Alien Action Figure

This year the Alien franchise celebrates the 35^th anniversary of the original film’s release so, when I came across one of the film’s first merchandising ventures, the 18 inch tall Xenomorph figure produced by Kenner, I was floored.

Kenner struck gold after obtaining licensing rights to produce figures based on Star Wars.  Seeing Alien as “the next big Sci-Fi license,” Kenner acquired the rights to produce action figures based on the film. In 1979, they released their first figure to coincide with the film’s release.  Although the film was highly praised on its release, the figure wasn’t exactly a hit for parents. Parental outcry caused the figures to be recalled, but some of these figures can now be found selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay and in the homes of some lucky collectors.

John

Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings

I picked up Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings at Logos Books in Davis while visiting a friend.  It’s not quite a novel, not quite an anthology – it details 120 mythological beings and entities from various Eastern and Western cultures and religions. Borges did not mean for the reader to read the book from beginning to end – rather, he meant the reader to flip through its pages at random or by interest. My favorite entry is the one for Bahamut, an unfathomably large mythical fish that supports the earth. It can be quite rewarding to buy a book blindly.

The post Weekly Discoveries 10.16.2014 – Noodles, Trigger Hippy, Kenner, and Borges appeared first on Blackwing.

Whirr – Sway

I’ve neglected listening to Sway for the past few weeks, despite the near constant urging of my circle of friends. The album is currently sitting at 141 on Billboard’s Top 200 list and, for this genre, that’s an astounding achievement. Plus, their label Graveface records is “a small independent label with a focus on all things hand-made, hand-assembled & unique,” and they have a shop in Savannah, Georgia that sounds right up my alley. Good job Loren.

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John

Richard Hell – Time (Alternate Version)

My car’s CD player recently broke.  While in Portland this past August my friend gave me a couple of tapes for the road.  One of them was local record shop Mississippi Records’ Afraid of the Dark compilation, the 16^th volume of the label’s tape compilation series.  Each volume has a theme, and this one’s was old garage rock’n’roll from the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.  This song by Richard Hell and the Voidoids is on the B side.  Richard Hell arguably invented punk rock fashion, but his music was quite strange and eclectic for 1970’s rock music.

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Mahlon

Realistic Pokemon artist Arvalis (RJ Palmer)

On his DeviantArt profile, the first thing RJ Palmer (aka Arvalis) mentions is “I love dinosaurs.”  If you spend a couple moments browsing his works you’ll notice he also loves Pokemon.  RJ combines these two loves to create what he calls “realistic Pokemon”. RJ also has videos that take a look at how he creates his monstrosities and has even published a book featuring all of the “realistic Pokemon” he has created to date.

Blastoise

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Grant

Blake Mills – Heigh Ho

I was introduced to Blake Mills and his impressive resume (studio, touring and production credits with some of the biggest names in music by the tender age of 26), by Michael Witcher a few months ago. This week, I discovered Blake’s newest studio album, “Heigh Ho”. Not only did it live up to the hype, it deserves a lot more. You can’t pin a genre on it. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it fits many genres. His guitar work alone has catapulted him near the top of my  “top artists I haven’t seen live” list. Speaking of that, so when is Tom Waits hitting the road again?

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The post Weekly Discoveries 10.09.2014 – Sway, Richard Hell, Realistic Pokemon and Heigh Ho appeared first on Blackwing.