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THRILLARAMA IN THE NEWS

I was surprised and dee-lited when Your Humble Blogger showed up in a news release from Livescribe Inc. about the social-media implications of its Pulse smartpen.

The news release linked to my pencast about traveling on Amtrak.

As I've mentioned, the Pulse pen records a visual record of what you write and an audio record of what's going on around you. The pen accomplishes this with a tiny infrared camera near the ballpoint to track what you write and a microphone built into the barrel to capture sound.

The results are uploaded into your computer and made available on the Livescribe site, where you can password-protect access to your content.

You can also extract the audio and transfer it to a podcast or another medium. However, on its own, the unedited, linked audio and visual files make for an interesting communications tool that Livescribe has dubbed a "pencast."

Technology like the Pulse smartpen has a lot to offer journalists, podcasters, educators and students -- as a quick scan of what's been posted to the Livescribe community shows.

I'm looking forward to exploring more ways to use this fun and unique tool in my podcasts.

CALCUTTA PIZZA RIDES AGAIN!

For most of my youth, no trip to downtown Denver was complete without a visit to the 16th Street Woolworth's.

This store occupied half a block and featured just about anything you'd want ranging from clothes to electronics to small appliances to TV sets to live goldfish to 45 and 33-1/3 vinyl records ... and on and on and on.

The store was such an overwhelming shopping experience that my mom lovingly referred to it as "marketplace in Calcutta."

The Woolworth's had a lunch counter where you'd be served your Coca-Cola in a little paper-cone nestled in a little metal frame. The cheeseburgers always seemed so much better than anything we'd ever cook at home; maybe it was the toasted buns, or maybe there was just something about eating food alongside merchandise that made it all special.

If you wanted a more formal experience, you could eat at an actual sit-down facility on the store's 15th Street side. Or for a funner time, you could snarf down pizza, hotdogs or fried chicken near the 16th Street entrance.

I don't know what it was about Woolworth's pizza that made me love it so, but I did. Lots of other folks did, too. In fact, when our French club at Community College of Denver (Buff Brigham was our instructor and adviser) needed to do a fundraiser, we bought a boatload of pizza from Woolworth's and sold it in the breakroom.

That Woolworth's and the downtown Denver of my youth exist only in memory now, and I never imagined I'd experience that Woolworth's pizza taste again. But recently, I bought a couple of Roma frozen pizzas on sale at the Jewels. And honest to God, after the first taste I was swept back to 16th Street.

Who says you can't go home again?