Product review: Teflon bone folder or folding bone

I ordered this thing on Amazon because I needed to order a second item in order to qualify for free shipping. After about two days of tortured dithering and indecision about what second item I should buy, I remembered that perhaps I could use an actual folding bone. So that's how I ended up with this thing.

The product: "Mr HobNob Teflon Bone Folder" (this is *not* an affiliate link, so I don't care whether or not you decide to also purchase one of these for yourself) Apparently my Amazon account doesn't meet the qualifications to leave a review, so... here's my review. Also, I figured I could be more long-winded here.

3 stars.

What is a folding bone?
A folding bone is used for various papercrafts; in my case, I use one for origami. It saves my fingernails from getting torn up due to pressing down folds. Apparently, folding bones can also be used for cardmaking.

Before acquiring this actual folding bone, I'd just use my fingernails or a makeshift folding bone that was a repurposed milk jug handle punchout. You can find these sometimes scattered on the floor/shelves of a dairy case at the grocery store or Costco; that's where I've collected mine. They are small pieces of plastic about the size of a thumb.

So how do you like the actual folding bone?
I tried this out briefly and it's functional, although heavier than I expected or was used to (the milk jug punchouts are quite lightweight). The material and therefore folding edge seems to be kind of soft and after making only a few folds, it was shredding a little. I worry that it'll get a lot more shredded/worn if I use it frequently.

It is 6.75 inches long, .75 inches wide and about 3/8 in. thick. It's relatively hefty and definitely has a weighty feel to it, but it's not necessarily too heavy. When it came, it had a few small marks on it and I had expected that it'd be completely new and fresh-looking. The marks don't affect performance and are just an aesthetic concern.

Suppposedly the benefit of a teflon folding bone is that it won't leave marks on paper, but I never really cared about that. It might be interesting to try folding bones made from other materials.

I would probably give this thing 3 stars; it works as intended, although I wish the edge wouldn't shred even after just using it briefly. I decided that if I didn't like this that much for use as an actual folding bone, I could always just use it as a hair stick, which is what I'm doing now.

As a folding bone, due to the shredding/wearing issue, it might be closer to 2 stars, but for my hair, I like it a lot, so as a hair stick, 5 stars.

James Iha's hair

I briefly mentioned James Iha in a recent post in relation to something that someone else had written on their own blog about him. I felt that said thing was similar to something I could see myself writing, hence why I had mentioned it.

I also think that James Iha had some pretty interesting/cool hairstyles back in the day... "I really love
your hairdo, yeah/I'm glad you like mine too/See what looking pretty cool will get ya?"*
* this is not a Smashing Pumpkins song; it's a Dandy Warhols song. CTT had an interesting hairstyle back in the day as well. Those interesting little wispy sideburns. His more recent hippie hairstyle is... maybe less than flattering. But it's his hair. He can do what he wants with it.

Part of me wants to try a James Iha hairstyle, particularly the one he had where two pieces at the front/center of his head were bleached. It's different and unconventional, but interesting. He also had various other semi-bleached styles. I found an interesting interview where he talked a bit about his hairstyles...
"Interviewer: Can you tell me about your hair history?
James: My hair history. That’s kind of a dodgy subject. My hair history. I don’t know why my hair is such a big thing. I guess I’m like Bon Jovi or something. I just have this insane hair thing on my head. It just used to be green, used to be red, used to be blue, then I put all these skunk stripes in it. I just thought I looked too normal so I just sort of did something to it. But now I’m so sick or seeing myself this way that I think I’m just going to chop all the crazy stuff of and get a like normal Supercuts cut. I think that would be more rebellious, that would be more punk rock than dyed hair.

Interviewer: Do you mean a business cut?
James: Just like a regular guy hair cut. Whatever that is. Which is something normal. I’m sick of looking unnormal."

The rest of the interview is also relatively interesting. He comes across as a bit aloof, but in a way it's kind of amusing.

This lady bleached her hair into a James Iha style! I'm not sure if there's a specific name for it, or if this can just be known as a James Iha hairstyle. I wonder how different it would look on me since my hair is a lot longer.

The perfect water bottle

I sense this becoming another quest, like my quest for the perfect messenger bag (Patagonia Half Mass and Minimass, forever).

The last couple of years I've been more hydrated than I ever was before, since I started carrying around with me and drinking from a water bottle. I used to not particularly like the flavor of water, but it seems that now I find it amenable.

Anyways, being very much a form-follows-function kind of person, this means I demand *functionality* from my water bottle, as I do with other things I'm picky about (mechanical pencils, messenger bags...)

Ideal features (bottle designers, listen up!!):

Dishwasher safe
Drinking spout with flip top
Plastic
700ml to 1L capacity
Aesthetically appealing
Will fit in the side pocket of my Minimass (and Half Mass)
Can fit in a standard bicycle bottle cage
Wide enough opening so you can add ice

The last couple of things are slightly less important but would be nice.

The water bottle that I've been using, which has most of these features, has been a smartwater 1L with flip top drinking spout added from a different size smartwater bottle (the flip tops only come on the 700ml size, I think). These are meant as single-use bottles, but I think they hold up remarkably well to reuse (even if perhaps it's not exactly good to reuse single-use bottles for chemical reasons or whatnot). Although I'm pretty happy with my current bottle choice, it would be nice to have a bottle that's actually meant to be reused. If smartwater sold a reusable, slightly sturdier version of their 700ml size bottle, I'd be all over that. Although I realize their business is predicated on selling single-use bottles.

Why a drinking spout and flip-top is great
A drinking spout is a bit easier to drink out of, in my opinion, and the flip-top is more convenient to open than a typical screw top. The flip-top also serves to protect the drinking spout from getting dirty.  The smartwater flip-tops seem to be pretty durable and the top hasn't broken off on me yet, and I've even put them through the dishwasher on the top rack and they've turned out fine. Once, a top did come apart after an unspecified time of prolonged use, but overall the design is solid.

I don't get why reusable bottle designers can't come up with what's basically a slightly more rugged smartwater bottle? Looking at you, Contigo and Nalgene... etc. etc. etc.

seems like other people share my affinity for the wonderful functionality and form of the smartwater bottle

Things that other people have written that I could almost see myself writing

This is... the kind of thing I could almost see myself writing... "A list of topics that went through my head last night while watching the Dandy Warhols."

Also, this about James Iha (of the Smashing Pumpkins, which I don't particularly care for, but I digress) which I happened to come across awhile back in the past... it's somewhat quite something else when you read someone else's random writing and think that you could see yourself writing a similar thing, style and/or topic-wise...

Obscure and at least mildly obsessive thoughts about various topics is my jam. (I haven't watched any Peter Sarsgaard movies lately, alas, and "An Education" isn't on Netflix anymore... alas indeed. Maybe I should rewatch Shattered Glass. What a great movie. Are you mad at me?)

To a somewhat lesser extent, the Jake Gyllenhaal newsletter (look it up!) also kinda seemed like something I might do, although her writing style/voice was a bit more different than mine, compared to the first two examples.

What I have been doing lately (rather than watching more Peter Sarsgaard movies) is rewatching copious amounts of Arrested Development and wondering why no one's ever interviewed Jason Bateman about his cycling habits!! Inquiring minds want to know! Or at least my inquiring mind does.

Speaking of the Smashing Pumpkins... back in 2014 (apparently; I had to look it up) they released an album titled "Monuments to an Elegy," which I remembered that I had attempted to listen to, to see what it was like. For some reason I did that. I don't remember liking it. I decided to try and listen to one of the songs now, to revisit it and see what I thought... nope, still don't like it, and wow, I don't like Billy Corgan's voice!! 1979 is an okay song and sometimes I even feel like listening to it, but whoa, his voice is not a particularly appealing one... I supposed you could say that the Smashing Pumpkins are overrated.

DIY planner concept for organization and productivity

How to be more productive, potentially. This may or may not work for you, and you may not care to go to the effort of DIY-ing a planner.

In an effort to be more productive, awhile back I decided to start DIY-ing a planner, since the store-bought ones weren't really cutting it for me.

The typical store-bought planner layout has a full monthly calendar split over two pages at the beginning of each month, which I generally never used. If I were going to use a full monthly calendar, I'd use a wall version.

Then, it has each week split over two pages, divided by day with a section for each, where you have a couple inches of space to write. This is the layout distilled to its most basic elements. There might be other layouts out there, but I haven't used those.

The aforementioned layout doesn't organize me in a way that's most effective. I found that it's more useful to me to have a detailed day by day schedule written out, with more general notes/tasks/items written in a weekly section that is on a single page. A couple inches is not enough to write out and schedule a full day's tasks.

There are Cambridge brand planners/appointment books that have sections to schedule out each day, but I'm only aware of these coming in a full notebook size, and I'm used to my planners being more compact. Plus, for something you have to carry around, smaller and more portable is better. I still have enough space to write what I need.

Supplies:
A small notebook (approximately 6"x8" is good for me)
Straightedge (technically optional, but it helps to make things look neater)
Writing utensils

The specific notebook selection will depend on your personal preferences. I prefer only sturdy spiral-bound notebooks with sturdy hard or plastic covers and lined pages. The writing utensils you use to layout the planner also depend on your personal preferences. You can make it as colorful or boring as you want. I find it helpful to use at least one separate color/writing utensil for the general layout markings and another for the actual notes and plans.

Weekly section

Divide one page in half vertically and draw a line. Then draw lines to divide it into thirds horizontally, resulting in 6 boxes. This is the weekly section. The weekend days are combined into one box. Label each box with the date. I use the "Monday [day #] [month, abbreviated]" format. At the top of the page, I write which week it is as "Week of [date] to [date]"

Write general information for each day in the corresponding box. Like if you have a meeting or appointment or task that needs to be done or something that was assigned in class.

Daily scheduling section
Use a separate page for each day. At the top, write the date.
Down the side, draw a vertical line slightly indented from the left side. Along the left side, write times by the hour. I use every other line and write the hours. Depending on when you start/end your days, you can tailor the time range you use. I write only down to 5 p.m. and everything past that is consolidated.

Schedule out your days here. I write when I plan to wake up and when I need to leave to go somewhere, when applicable (usually if it's a change from my normal routine). Write in when your classes are if you're in college. Write in meetings, appointments, social plans, things you want to remember, other things you want/plan to get done at a given time that day, etc. Since there is a full page for each day, you can be specific and go into relative detail here.

Optional: Monthly section. 
Use one page, turn the notebook around so the spiral is at the top. Divide into 4 or 5 sections for the weeks, then 7 sections for the days. Label. 

The DIY planner is flexible, so you can also use it for general notes if necessary by simply using the next blank page. I usually only layout the daily pages a day or so in advance to allow for flexibility. 

Music review: classic rock, I guess

Yesterday I watched a marching band performance; the theme for that show was Woodstock, so they played songs that apparently were played at Woodstock. Two of them had eccentric/inscrutable/"abstract" titles, or so I thought. Titles don't really necessarily convey a ton of information about a song, especially if you have no idea what corresponding the lyrics are.

Hence, the titles "Proud Mary" and "Pinball Wizard" seemed very abstract and inscrutable to me. I thought maybe they were supposed to be metaphorical or something, but I was thinking too deeply about it. Neither are actually metaphorical. The phrases are eccentric/unusual enough that I thought they could be metaphorical. More straightforward phrases as song titles are less prone to such thoughts.

"Proud Mary" is actually an impressively boring and sedate song when not arranged for band, i.e., the original Creedence Clearwater Revival version (as a tangent, I had to look up the etymology of that band name. It's on Wikipedia). It was way more boring than I expected it'd be after hearing it played by a marching band. Kind of like how the Killers ripped off part of a Smiths song and massively improved on it! [ETA: the Dandy Warhols ripped off (or, 'paid homage to') part of a David Bowie song and also improved on it]

I thought, "Proud Mary, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Is it a person? Who is she?" I thought maybe it had some weird religious aspect to it also. Turns out in the song it's the name of a boat...

Bad Moon Rising, the only other CCR song I know of -- it's jauntier and therefore somewhat less bad/boring, but I still wouldn't go out of my way to listen to it; the only reason I care is because the Killers have covered this song in the past.

Pinball Wizard I also thought could be a metaphorical title, because it's an odd/unusual phrase, but it isn't metaphorical. The song apparently is about some guy who's very good at pinball... how insipid, I thought.

Admittedly, perhaps a title like "Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth" could also be considered insipid, but that song is pretty amusing, to me... and the music video!

"New Dawn Fades," while somewhat abstract, provides concrete imagery. As a phrase new (adj., self-explanatory), dawn, (noun, also self-explanatory), fades (verb, self-explanatory too!) conveys an idea. New dawn fades. A new dawn that's fading. While the title isn't mentioned in the song, I think that it fits with the whole Joy Division theme.

"With or Without You" (U2) is pretty... straightforward as well, I think.

Color me not so big on classic rock. Or at least some of it. "She's a Rainbow," which I heard in a car commercial (I don't really get what this song has to do with advertising cars) is a pretty decent song though.