Six months ago Brent Simmons, Dave Wiskus, and I formed a new company, Q Branch, and went to work on an iPhone app. Today we shipped.

Vesper is a simple and elegant tool for collecting your thoughts. I’ve been using it all day, every day for months now. I think you’ll like it.

Retro 51 Monroe, one of the Vintage Metalsmith series

I spent a few hours in Washington, DC last Wednesday as part of a whirlwind bus trip. The weather was summer-like…very warm and sunny…which my snake belly white skin appreciated. In those few hours, a small group of us raced from monument to monument, snapping pictures and drinking in the history.

I was HOPING to find some sort of reference (monument, plaque, street name) to President James Monroe as I thoughtfully brought along my Retro 51 Vintage Metalsmith Monroe Tornado. I had a plan, you see. Monroe Retro 51 + Monroe landmark = Monroe blog post. But alas, there were no Monroe sightings.

We saw The White House…

and the World War II Memorial.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom…

and visitors paid their respects at the Vietnam War Memorial.

We climbed steps to gaze up at Abe…

and made the acquaintance of Alexander Hamilton in the Capitol Rotunda.

But as for Monroe? Well, he remained particularly elusive. And while this lack of a “front and center” memorial could make a dead president feel slighted, the Monroe Tornado rollerball, by Retro 51, is better than some old hunk of marble.

The body of the pen sports a finely cut diamond pattern in red lacquered metal, and the look is stunning. The finish is smooth, but slightly textured, and looks and feels a bit like glass. Light plays against deep red facets so that the pen shimmers and shines. I think it’s gorgeous.

Gorgeous AND well made. As with the entire Retro 51 Tornado line, the Monroe is obviously solidly constructed and has a well-balanced, hefty feel in hand. The clip is springy and the knurling on the twist-action end mirrors the diamond cut of the body for a very cool look.

Perfect accent

The level of detail in such a reasonably priced pen is impressive. The packaging is stellar, as is the writing performance, unless you require a super fine line. The Retro 51 rollerball refills lay down a 0.7 mm line so it’s a little broader than I usually like, but this pen is so good-looking that it’s become a non-issue for me.

So, President Monroe, even though tourists in DC won’t find themselves tripping over monuments in your honor, the folks at Retro 51 have done you proud. And that is high honor, indeed.

Anyone who has recently played Milton Bradley’s The Game of Life understands that the rules are a bit dated. Even the newer editions of the game fail to reflect the lives of young people in the 21^st century. So here is a handy list of changes to make the classic board game a little more applicable to contemporary culture. Welcome to The Game of Life: Millenial Edition!

1. You can no longer begin on the career path. You must go to college. Borrow $100,000, which you will never pay back.
2. Count the number of cards in the career deck. Add that many ‘Unemployed’ cards. Unemployed players do not receive a salary card.
3. If you are one of the unlucky ones to pull an Unemployed card, feel free to start over. Take another $100,000 loan and go back to college. Don’t worry, it’s not real money.
4. Divide the numbers on all the salary cards by two, unless you are a doctor or a lawyer.
5. Move the “Get Married” space toward the middle of the board. Add a “Get Divorced” space immediately after it.
6. Multiply the cost of every house by five. You are not allowed to own any of them, unless you are a doctor or a lawyer.
7. Replace the text of all spaces that say “Baby girl!” or “Baby boy!” with “Small pet!”
8. Make every other space a “Life Crisis” space. If you land on one of these spaces, return your salary and career cards. Have another player shuffle and fan out the career deck. Choose a card at random. You may not keep any card that says anything other than “Unemployed.”
9. Get rid of the retirement homes at the end of the game. Instead, create two spaces that say “Mooch off next generation.” and “Criticize next generation for their laziness and depravity.” Cycle between these two spaces until all but one player concedes.
10. Remember to have fun!

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From the team that brought you Dark Sky, an app that has saved (or at least kept dry) my bacon more times than I can count, comes Forecast, a weather web site that incorporates several of the features that made Dark Sky great. From the announcement:

Rather than cram these things into Dark Sky, we decided to do something grander: create our own full-featured weather service from scratch, complete with 7-day forecasts that cover the whole world, beautiful weather visualizations, and a time machine for exploring the weather in the past and far future. You can access it from all of your devices, whether it be your laptop, iPhone, Android phone, or tablet.

On top of all that, we're providing this data to other developers, in the hopes that a truly independent weather community can thrive in the era of increasing corporate consolidation.