Review Roundup

A roundup of the stuff I've seen and used in the past few months:

• Riding Giants was fantastic, doing for surfing what Dogtown and Z Boys did for skateboarding: making a sport interesting to regular folks. The big wave stuff at the very end is really incredible, though if I had to find any fault with this movie, it kind of glossed over the 80s revival of big wave surfing, especially all the drama at the Eddie Aikau contests.

• The folks at Bigha sent me a Jasper Laser to play with, and it actually works as described. On dark, clear nights, you can point at stars surprisingly well, and folks next to you can see what you're pointing at. For complete amateur astronomers, this is often the biggest problem as you point and try to describe stuff to others. The laser worked so well one night that I heard my next door neighbor ask "what in the hell is that?!"

• The "crippy duck" bag from Crumpler is the best laptop/camera bag I've ever owned, and might just be the last one I need. The laptop sleeve fits my 12" powerbook well and I can toss the charger, my digital rebel, an extra lens, and an external flash into the rest of the interior space. Basically I can carry everything I might need in something smaller than most of the messenger bags I've used in the past.

• My bag is also filled with ziplinq cables, which work great at connecting and charging my cell phone, my ipod, and my CF card reader, in addition to connecting to ethernet when need be and modem connections as well.

• Joel on Software's book is a surprisingly good read. It's basically a book of essays and blog entries but it's really well written, though skews towards hardcore (C++) software development.

• I mentioned Medium Footwear on this site about a year ago, but finally found a shop with a good selection in San Francisco. I own a pair of these and they're some of my all-time favorite shoes. Interesting on the outside, and a comfortable skate shoe on the inside. Perfect.

• Jason took me to an all-risotto restaurant called Risotterria that was really good and worth checking out if you're in Manhattan.