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I’m monochromatic today My color has faded away I’m black and I’m white I’m dark and I’m light I’m one hundred shades of all gray

I have finally completed the long migration of all of my content from tumblr to blogger. In the process, I’ve taken the opportunity to clean a few things up and to cut some posts that were links to expired contests and other things that have gone stale. I’ve also tried to be more consistent when labeling posts, so finding my ink reviews, poetry, short stories, and other content should be a bit easier now.

Rating: 4.0 December 07, 2010 Diamine Sepia is a wonderful fall color, reminding me of golden fields of wheat that sway in the wind of a cool November day. It is a golden-brown ink with a low level of saturation and an amazing ability to produce beautiful shading. While the color of some inks varies with the shade of paper, Sepia is consistent, appearing just slightly darker on the off-white paper of a Moleskine journal than on the bright-white paper of a Rhodia pad.

I’ve decided to make the switch to blogger for “seize the dave” due to the severity and frequency of tumblr’s technical issues. Over the next few days, I’ll be moving the archive of posts over, so that all of the content is still accessible. Please bear with me while I make the move. It will be worth it, since your ability to access the site will now be much more stable.

The candy canes all love to dance Beneath the Christmas tree With snowmen, elves, and reindeer, too They sing a song for me And as for you, they’ll sing one, too You only have to say, “Oh, candy canes, please sing a song For me this Christmas day.”

Rating: 5.0 November 30, 2010 The award for most poetically named ink goes to Noodler’s Black Swan in Australian Roses – one of the most poetic inks I’ve reviewed this year. Black Swan is a brand new ink from Noodler’s that was just released in late November. It is a moderately saturated ink with lots of very moody shading, and was designed to show off the shading potential of flex nibs.

Greg asked: I just read your review at: /2010/10/ink-review-diamine-imperial-purple.html Very nice. How permanent is this ink? Well, as you can see above - not very. The smear test, which is a wet finger dragged across the ink, left a big, purple streak. The lines range from obliterated to semi-readable. The drop test, in which I drip water, let it soak for a second, and then blot it up, fared a little better.

As part of my Thanksgiving travels, I drove six hours along the PA turnpike, which gave me plenty of time to catch up on podcasts that I’d been neglecting. I want to single out Pseudopod for mention, as it’s a great podcast filled with menacing, grotesque, and creepy horror fiction. Each episode features either three flash-length stories (1500 words or less) or one standard short story (2000-6000 words). Some are macabre, some are psychological, some are supernatural, and others are just bizarre, but they were all uniformly good.

The always delightful Leigh Reyes writes a very powerful post about taking the time to be creative for yourself. I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

Last week, I won a trophy for the spiciest chili for the third time in four years. It’s not a bad track record, and each year I feel as though my chili gets better. For those chili fans out there, I’ve decided to share a recipe that is similar to my competition chili. This is my personal favorite - a three bean chicken chili. If you decide to try it, I’d love to hear your feedback.