uni-ball Vision Elite Bold 0.8 Blue/Black (come fly with me.)

uni-ball got it right on this one. I hooked up with these guys on Twitter and they fired these off for me to take a look at. All I needed to see was "Blue/Black on the packaging and I was sold. I am a huge fan of my blue/black fountain pen ink, so to get that combo in a roller ball is awesome and very welcomed from the norm.

Their bold is listed as a .08 and that feels about right compared to my .7's. Not too bold, just right. I just cant got over how great the color of this ink is. I mentioned that already right? A larger view gives you a better look.

I never noticed this before on their packages, but they claim they "won't leak in flight." which is a huge bonus considering the traveling I have been doing. Now you know why in the first picture the pen is resting on two planes. I am trying to be a little clever here as well. This is a good pen, I am throwing on in the travel bag as well.

The waiter at the restaurant I went to tonight had 3 black G-2's perfectly lined up in his apron, but gave me a crappy ballpoint to sign my check. (Smart man.)

Cheap new pen case (by cheap, I mean free!!)

I smoke about 2 cigars a year, usually because a friend has a baby, or because I have had too much scotch and feel the need to ruin the current pleasant smell of whatever I am wearing.

Somewhere along the line I saw an online ad for a free cigar case, I filled out all the forms, probably got a ton of spam and sure enough 8-10 weeks later I received my new cigar case. Which I opened and realized that my pens fit in the case exactly as I pictured it. (The cardboard tubes were shipped in the case.)

So sweet! I just ran downstairs because I thought there might be a big honking logo on the other side, but there isn't one! That's a good thing. It's good to be back home, I will catch up with shipments and emails early this week. Thanks.

Sheaffer "Vac" fountain pen and homeward bound

For those of you paying attention, you know I shot this like on Sunday of last week or something, but do not skip over this post. This is one of my favorite pens. I shot ahead of time to be able to keep up with my travel schedule.

I have a feeling that this pen would make his Holiness swear a little bit. Like "Damn, that's a sweet pen." I restored one of these for someone a few years ago and later I was able to buy one, I jumped on it without any questions. How do you not love black and gold? I need to polish this out a little bit, but absolutely happy with how it looks now and a perfect nib.

Yes, this is the filling system, it's fun, by the way, and not always filled. It's not a special occasion pen but more of a "I want to use" sort of pen. Always black ink in this one and usually bulletproof ink to seal the deal. It is definitely a Good Pen.
Monday will be back to Boston and normal (not drunk) blogging.  Cheers.

Have a great weekend.

Dork, Dork, Dork! Good Pen alert.

So I planned ahead and shot one of my favorite pens to have cued up and ready to blog while away in sunny Puerto Rico. Until I looked in my bag and saw the pens I had packed for the trip and realized I needed to change my plans and document this.

Let's review:

6 Fountain pens:
1 Esterbrook Cartidge
1 Preppy,
1 Pilot (man, I love this pen)
1 Sheaffer Cartridge
1 Parker 45
1 WingSung 612... all inked and ready to go.

2 Pilot G-6's both with Sarasa .4 guts. 1 red, one black.

1 Pilot g-2 .38
1 Sarasa Stick .4
1 Pilot Hi-tech-C .3
1Pilot Gel g-3 .38

and 1 pencil. .5 Pentel ICY.

That's 13 pens for 4 days. Don't count the 3 Ritz pencils I grabbed already. Like I said before, it's a known issue.

Cheers.

Another Sheaffer Fountain Pen Cartridge filler (Meet Speedy)

If I shared the nicknames for all my fountain pens I would scare you. However, I would like you to meet "Speedy #3." There are 2 reasons for the name: #1. It was over-nighted from an eBay auction and #2 It's a cartridge filler. It as impossible to photograph, but there is an imprint on the pen that says: $2.35. Yeee-haw. that makes me so happy. In stark contrast, I paid more than that for my coffee this morning.

This pen would write for days and be happy about it. I am pretty sure you could copy the phone book, re-write a thesaurus and turn around and this pen would say" what else you got?" "yeah, I am talking to you."

It's more the blue color than anything else that makes this pen. It just makes this pen perfect. It's not special or overly expensive. It just is, to me, the classic fountain pen, sleek lines, good nib and easy to refill. Spot on...Good pen.

You will hate me, but I might not be overly creative because I am in sunny Puerto Rico this week hoping to not miss a post. Please excuse any delays on emails though. cheers!

Gold Cross Highlighter (Why do I own thee?)

I am not going to lie, I did not even know I had this Cross pen, marker, highlighter thingy... If did, I thought it was a ball point. But, no, I opened it up and threw out an Emeril "Bam!" I am assuming at some point I bought a Cross Highlighter refill. (Google tells me this is true.) I bet this pen was happy to get out and see sunlight, but sadly, it's going back into the drawer. I still love my Dry-lighter seen here.

Click for better images.

Wiki tells me that the modern fiber tip pen was invented in 1962 in Japan by Yukio Horie. Bless you Yukio, You rock. I imagine you woke up one day, grabbed a ball point to write down your "Cool things I want to invent today list" and your old broke roller ball was out of ink. What did you do? Did you go and get another ballpoint? Hell no, you invented the felt tip pen. That my friends... is how you get things done.

Pilot Hi-TEC-C 03

There are about 10,000 proper reviews of this pen out there, so I will not go into a ton of details, but in general, this pen just flat out rocks. Last night I watched The Inside Man again, I love how that movie all comes together with a little surprise, and timing. This pen sort of does that with a little less Clive Owen. A nice combo package of good ink, nice point and comfortable grip.

I am pretty sure with this pen and a good Parker 51 fountain pen I could use just two pens for a very long time. Ok, that was a flat out lie. Sorry. I need my pens. Jetpens does a great job of keeping these in stock and at a nice price.

At first I thought a 03 might be a little to fine for me for daily writing, but it's really not. It's a perfect point size and can get away with a fine line without digging into the paper. If I still used a day planner, I am sure this would be my go to. Now it's just one I grab anytime I need a good fine tip. Good Pen!