Dear pen chewers of the world...

I don't like you.  You make my life really hard.  It's not easy telling someone that this is probably not polishing out.  

Find a straw or something and get rid of your oral fixation.  Not on Sheaffer's.  And yes, I realize this was probably done 20 years ago.  

Enjoy your (pen chewing free) weekend!

Seth

My Daily 5 examined.

I looked down at my desk and found out I was pretty happy with the 5 pens that I have been keeping inked up and alive.  Five is a really good "everyday at the office" number for me.    Starting left to right:

1. Pentel Sign Pen.  (.42 cents or so)

I buy these by the 12 pack from Amazon.  If I need to scribble details on a call or meeting, I grab this.  Writes big, fat, sloppy and is guaranteed to write. AK-47... not built for precision, but built to work, regardless. 

2. 0.5 Pentel mechanical non pen. ($4.00)

I generally prefer a .04,  but I also prefer that I can heavy hand it and the lead will not snap. I use the Lamy lead refills.  They are a little more expensive, but for some reason they work out better for me. 

3. Pilot G-6 07.  (5.00)

kidding,  seriously,  did you just meet me?  OK,  it's a G-7 body with a Zebra .04 refill in it.  I have a small trick that I use to make it better and will go over in another post.  But comfort wise... I am happiest here. 

4. Hero 616.  ($1.00) 

Yes, there are two fountain pens here.  This one stays filled with Thornton's Luxury Goods Black ink.  Never gets cleaned... just refilled. I tweaked the nib to where it's somewhere between a fine and a medium and it's juicy. Not good for cheap paper, but good for my better notebooks.   If someone asks me about this pen,  I usually give it away to them and buy these by the 12 pack. 

5. Pilot Penmanship. ($.8.00)

 Extra fine goodness,  I swear this would write on toilet paper without bleeding. I think it's a refilled cartridge with Parker's Super Quink but I am not sure.  I just simply love it and have used this one for 3 or 4 years now consistently. 

I do realize that these 5 pens are fairly inexpensive,  but I don't mind that at all.  These 5 will get me through 99% of my writing needs and I can easily replace them (by going to my stash) where I have backups.  

Any one's daily 5 close to mine?

Cheers

Seth

Daily Carry

Quick update on the pens that I carry on a daily basis and what has been in heavy rotation.  The other side of the book has my fountain pens.  Will get a shot of those later. The G-6 has a Sarasa .4 (blue-black) in it (as does the Waterman.)   Click for a better view.  I need to review the Techno Line,  I really like that little thing.   After going from 20-30 pens in my bag, I have settled down a little.  This changes when I travel, but for now I am happy with the rotation.

It's good to be back. 

Good Pens

Head clearing time.

I needed a to-do list.  Fast.  Like heading out of the country for a week this afternoon fast. Like heading out of the country for a week and I haven't packed yet fast.  Part of me (the evil, short sighted slacker who refused to even unpack my bag from my flight last week ) wanted to just grab a dull pencil and a coffee stained post-it note to cleanse the brain.   But the pen lover in me won out and I decided to take an upgrade.  I didn't grab the nicest pen in the world,  but I grabbed one that I knew would be there for me. A work horse. A very inexpensive Sheaffer School pen.  One day I will photograph all of my Sheaffers together for a family shot because they probably are used for about 75% of my writing time.  This one needs a good cleaning and a shine and I always loved this shade of blue. Dirty or not.

Sure I needed to throw in a cartridge and get it flowing but taking the 60 seconds to do that was well worth it. Add in a simple notebook and start the download from the brain to the paper.

My to-do lists range from the desperately needed for organizing- to me just wanting to write something with a new pen.   In this case it was everything that I wanted to take care of on the long leg of my flights. 

1. Avoid crazy dude from my last trip that just wanted a first class drinking buddy.

2. Reach for and physically  touch my passport 37 times.

3. Learn how to ask for a bathroom in German and check the local laws on public intoxication.

Today it was more about still wanting to enjoy the process of writing regardless of timing or schedules.  It was about knowing what I needed to accomplish but not allowing laziness to get in the way of appreciating a nice pen or nice paper.  I highly recommend it 

Gut stifte. (is that correct?)

JetPens Rocks: The Ohto Graphic Liner

Here are three cheers for JetPens!  They knew I was inconsistent with my posts. (This is all in the past, settle in,  this is going to be a bumpy ride.)   Yet, they still offer to send out a few pens for me blog about. So blog about them I will and when I got this a while ago, I was very happy.

Drafting pen, drawing pen, Liner... whatever you call it,  I have about 40 drafting pens in a cup that I use a lot.  Even some that I need to refill every single time that I want to use them.  Not this baby, it is ready to go out of the envelope and nicely done. Here's a not too light plastic barrel full of water and fade proof black ink.  Perfect for doodles or line work or Zentangles (did that word come and go or are people still using that word?)  Zentangles..it sounds so mysterious. 

The 02 is roughly about a .5 in my book and that is almost the perfect width my needs. They make a pile of other sizes- but I bet if I tried them all, this is the size I would go back to for writing and for drawing.

Here's what I like and what surprised me when I pulled off the cap...a needle point!  Excellent when you really need to see what you are doing.  I read a few reviews where people have had this pen leaks on planes...I am not sure what that is about... I have had this on 4 flights without any issues in the past 2 months. Click on the picture, take a look. It's nice.

Ohto: Has been making ballpoints since 1949.  That's 65 years of Japanese pen manufacturing.   I will appreciate that every single day. These guys invented the ceramic ball back in 1981.  Amazeballs. (Get it?)

So...I doodle, if you have read my blog in the past you know this. They generally got tossed in the trash afterward and it's just a thing I do on calls and during breaks around the house.   I have been doing more serious artwork that I might share on here later..I do love the way this ink flows and even on normal copy paper is just clean and precise.  That's what this pen is good for.

JetPens sells these cheap here:  Clicky clicky... They run about $2.50 a piece depending.  Worth it completely if this sort of pen is your thing.  They are in stock and ready for delivery.

I like this pen.  It's different in that fact that I don't see too many of them (and yes, I stalk peoples pens in meetings)  In fact, I should be on some stalker list that you can go on and see who are the crazy pen stalkers in your neighborhood.  And don't think I am not judging you.  I am completely am. Show up in my meeting with a chewed up pen from a trade show and there is no way that I can take you seriously.  For my co-workers ..I kid. (not really.)

Good Pen.

Where did I get this?

I really do hate the fact that I own a few pens that I have no idea where I got them from. I am not sure if that stems from the fact that I own a shit ton of pens or, if as I get older the brain stops remembering things in a crispy manner. The good news is- I am fairly certain I didn't steal this pen (especially if you are missing one of these.)  Here's the truth, as I write this,  I know little or nothing about this pen, other than it smells like the worst possible smelling pen that you can imagine.

 Here's what I know without Googling...
1. It's a demonstrator (ish)
2. Brown and gold, already not my favorite...
3. The smells... stanky, stanky, stanky.  I have finished up a 2.5 hour squash session with a fresher smelling...well you get the picture.

Let the Googling begin...well it says "Romus Majestic" on the side of the pen. Let's start there....there's a couple FPN reviews....so it looks like it might be from India...and chances are I got it off of eBay.  Awesome.  I haven't honestly used this pen much,  inked up a few times,  but not my ideal daily carrier. (or is it?)

Here it is in all of its glory.  I am checking back on my eBay history as I speak....after spending 45 minutes on Reddit, I am back...Cool,  it seems like I bought this for a whopping $4.00.  That's crazy. 4 bucks! Sweet.  That's a cup of coffee.  I have said it before,  I will take ANY $4.00 fountain pen.

 If you own more than a couple hundred fountain pens... you understand what happens...you carefully ink and clean and organize and then you have 6 inked pens that you haven't used in 2 years.  OUCH. Welcome to the club. Case in point.  Agree to disagree. (I am aware this makes no sense to you.)

I don't hate the way this writes. I have been spoiled by a ton of EF point fountains lately so this is a little thick for my taste, but it's not horrible.  Nice filling mechanism,  writes very smoothly on the nib, lightweight pen.   But back to the smell.  I even rinsed this out a few times... the smell remains... somewhere between a small mammal in heat and a probably what Andy Dufresne smelled like near the end of the Shawshank Redemption tunnel escape scene.

Here's something that I wasn't expecting.  Flex. Click on this picture, make it bigger,  see the line widths. For this,  I will put up with the smell.
 Let me summarize for those of you that just skip to the bottom.
+ Demonstrator
+ Flex
+ $4.00
- The smells.

Worth it. Every penny.
Have a great day.

Good Pens.

Why is this pen making me so giddy?

Stay tuned,  post to follow.  But it is incredible.  Bonus points to anyone who can guess what it is before I get the post written.

Good Pen!