The Chip Bag

I got the Sailor Compass 1911 as a Christmas gift. It's been on my radar because it's the least expensive Sailor pen, and it looks nice. It's the budget version of the significantly pricier Sailor 1911, which has a gold nib instead.

The Compass is made of clear colored plastic that has the fun kitsch of early 2000s technology without looking cheap. It comes in a wide array of fun colors, but I had my eye on the olive for obvious reasons. It even comes with a matching green converter.

Image gallery frameworks! They're everywhere! And yet I haven't found even one that doesn't suck. They're clunky at best and inaccessible at worst.

Here is a sampler of issues I've encountered on various image galleries:

• Requires Javascript to work (clunky, inaccessible)
• Doesn't have alt text (inaccessible)
• Lightboxes (clunky, usually inaccessible, probably requires Javascript)
• Just a bunch of thumbnails that link to image files (inaccessible)
• Images open in a tooltip (worse than lightboxes in every conceivable way)

There must be a better way. Right???

I made some needleminders with some unused enamel pins (from Fossil Forager) I had lying around. This is entirely as simple as it sounds: you pull the pointy part off and superglue a magnet on. If you're working with a magnetic pin, you'll have to stick magnets to both sides to stick a needle onto the front. (Not great for aesthetics, but I don't care about that!)

I don't have much use for pins, but the magnets don't compromise wearability, so you could still use pins that you've converted in this way. If anything, the magnets are probably beneficial since neodymium magnets are ludicrously sticky.

I found this recipe for pecan pie brownies on the Times last week. It was a journey filled with many trials and tribulations and I ended up having to make them twice, but at the end of it I had some damn good brownies. I modified the recipe for my own purposes, and now I share it with you because stealing from the NYT is always morally correct!