Moleskine Pokémon Pikachu Limited Edition Notebook Review

Pikachu! I choose you!

This is the final large format Moleskine Pokémon limited edition notebook that I haven’t reviewed, and I think that it’s the one that Pokémon fans will most gravitate towards. Why? Because it’s Pikachu, and because it is so well designed.

Like the Charmander edition cover, the Pikachu notebook front cover shows Pikachu dreaming of when he’ll be all grown up and kicking ass as Raichu. It’s a lovely, cute design.

I would have liked the elastic closure to be yellow, but it works in black too, and I guess that black is more pragmatic in that it doesn’t show dirt that much.

Pikachu is super skipping happy on the front endpapers, and the background of banana coloured Pikachus works really well. You can’t have enough Pikachus after all, as any Pokémon GO player will tell you.

The back endpaper has the same background, and Pikachu resting from jumping around and fighting I guess. They probably posed him like this so you can see his stripes and tails, but I would have preferred him an an action pose with lightning maybe. Then again, it’s cute, and Pikachu is all about the cute. For those wondering, the background print is aligned on the back pocket of the notebook, and the webbing on the side of the back pocket is black.

The pages are lined (I love Moleskine’s lined notebook line width, as it’s perfect for my handwriting size) and the ribbon bookmark is black, which works, but I would have liked a yellow one instead.

As in the Pokéball edition and the Charmander edition you get cardboard bookmarks instead of stickers as the little add-on in the notebook’s back pocket. These are really well designed and I’m going to hazard a guess that Moleskine would have preferred to make stickers for these editions, but they were limited by their contract with Nintendo. Nintendo sells a lot of Pokémon branded merchandise, and there’s probably a contract somewhere that gives some sticker company rights for the Pokémon brand.

I accidentally tore the paper sleeve, and so the b-side on this one is pretty much ruined, but like the Charmander edition it’s Pikachu in all his evolutions: Pichu, Pikachu and Raichu.

Should you get this for the Pokémon fan in your life? Yes you should. All three notebooks in this series (and the pocket notebooks which I will not review) are excellent. This would be a great way to get someone to consider journalling, or keeping notes on a trip or during an interesting or difficult time in their life. These are now pretty heavily discounted all over the place, so they’re also kind of a nice little treat to buy for yourself.

Pika! Pika!

Field Notes: Out and In (Campfire and Fire Spotter)

Out: Campfire Night. I loved using this notebook despite my initial apprehensions about the orange grid and the photo covers (my favourite Field Notes Colours edition is “Balsam Fir”). The covers wear really well, and the orange grid isn’t as distracting as I thought it would be. I’ll still use this one for a while, until I finish reading the Tournament of Books books, as it has my logs in it.

In: Fire Spotter. I’ve started this notebook before, filled in two pages and abandoned it (I’m not a fan of dot grid). Decided to start using up the Field Notes notebooks that I started using and haven’t finished because it’s just a shame not to. Firespotter is a great edition if you like dot grid, and I love the debossing on the back cover.

Lamy Studio Terracotta Fountain Pen Review

I’ve been eyeing the Lamy Studio for years now, but until now I haven’t purchased one because I found the available colours kind of boring and drab. Then they came out with the Terracotta limited edition, and I decided to give it a go.

The Lamy Studio Terracotta is a full metal bodied pen, and so it has some heft to it, although it’s nothing close to the weight of a Karas Kustoms Ink. Even if you have a small hand, the weight of this pen shouldn’t be an issue.

The colour of the pen is vibrant, and the matt finish on the pen practically glows in the light.

This fountain pen is famous for its propeller-like clip design, and it’s nice and functional but not something you notice after a little while. The Lamy 2000 and the Lamy Safari have much more striking designs.

The Lamy Studio uses the same nib units that the Lamy Safari uses, and the same converters too. The pen arrives in a beautiful, super sized box that makes for great gift packaging, complete with an ink cartridge and a converter.

The main issue with this pen is its grip. As you can see from the photos, it’s a shiny, slippery metal grip. That’s a problem, especially if you tend to sweat, or if you use hand cream. It’s not that the pen slipped when I wrote with it, but as my fingers had no real purchase on the grip, the pen felt insecure in my hand. Like it was going to fly out of my grip at any moment. That doesn’t make for an enjoyable writing experience.

As I was taking photos to try and get the colour of this pen, it rolled away (uncapped) and fell to the floor. The nib got slightly dinged, but I straightened it pretty easily. Even if it would have been badly damaged it would have been no big deal as I have plenty of Lamy Safari nibs to choose from to replace this one. That’s a big plus for this pen, since if you’ve invested in a few Safari or AL-Star or Vista Lamy fountain pens, you can swap the nibs around very easily.

I filled the Lamy Studio Terracotta with the Diamine Terracotta 150th Anniversary ink, and they go fabulously together. The Diamine Terracotta (and the Diamine Safari) are my favourites of the Diamine 150th anniversary inks, as it’s such a unique colour, with some nice shading, but it isn’t super saturated. This means that it can be used safely with vintage fountain pens, and that it can add a little va-va-voom to your office work without drawing too much attention to itself. It almost looks like a boring brown, but it very much isn’t. I love that in an ink.

A close up on the shading, that goes from a lighter reddish brown to a darker reddish brown on the ends of downstrokes even in a fine nib pen.

So, what’s the verdict? If the Lamy Studio had a different grip then it would be a five star pen. As it is, I don’t recommend it. The Diamine Terracotta though is an ink worth having, especially if you’re just starting out with exploring brown ink, or if you want an interesting ink to use in vintage fountain pens.

Ti2 Techliner Review

Ever since I first saw a review of the Ti2 Techliner on The Pen Addict I have wanted this pen. At the time it was on Kickstarter, and I wasn’t comfortable with paying that much for a pen that I wasn’t sure that I would get.

Later on it was for sale on the Ti2design website, but that site looked dodgy enough for me to hesitate giving them my money. This is an expensive pen, especially considering that it’s not a fountain pen, and I was unsure if I wanted to spend the money on it. It didn’t help that Ti2design noted that it was no longer using the Uniball Signo 207 refills (which are my absolute favourites), but have switched to Uniball Jetstream refills (which I’m not a fan of). As the FAQ at the Ti2design site said, the two were not interchangeable, due to different nose cone designs on the refill, each requiring a different combination of magnets, spacers and o-rings.

That turned out to be wrong, but more about that later.

When JetPens got the Ti2 Techliners, I decided to take the risk and buy the fallout titanium edition, hoping that I could hack a Uniball Signo 207 refill into it. It arrived super fast in the ugliest, cheapest looking packaging I have ever seen. It was just a plastic tube with a bit of paper stuck on it, not even in a clean and professional way. I don’t care about packaging, but if I would have bought this as a gift for someone I would be hugely embarrassed if it arrived like that. It’s a $92 pen — they couldn’t even splurge for a nicely designed cardboard tube? The TWSBI GO costs a third and comes with much, much nicer packaging.

The pen itself is gorgeous in my opinion. It’s obviously got a design that not everyone will like, but you can see that every detail has been considered and designed. The fallout finish is stunning, with a blue hue over the tumbled titanium finish giving it a purplish glow, especially at the raised edges of the pen (the top of the cap, the grip knurls, etc.).

The cap closes magnetically, which is very satisfying, and it posts magnetically too. Those magnets close with a satisfying click (what a great fidget toy), and they are STRONG. That means that the pen will attract various metal knickknacks lying around, and you need to be careful where you place it.

I photographed it both in natural light and warm light, just to try and bring out the colour a bit more, but neither photo does it justice.

The knurling on the grip is pretty comfortable to use, but if you have a death grip and you use it for long periods of time, it will start digging into your fingers. This is also a long pen, both capped and uncapped, at 14.1 cm uncapped, 14.7 capped and 15.5 posted. It is well balanced though, so even with my tiny hands it didn’t feel unwieldy.

The knurling is tumbled so that it won’t cut into your hands, and it looks great with the fallout finish. It’s one of the most comfortable machined pen grips that I’ve used so far, and the only reason that it may encourage a bit of “death grip” is that the pen is long and it may feel like you need to. You don’t.

You can see the purply-copper finish a bit here, on the capped end, and see the clip too. JetPens only sells the Ti2 Techliner with the clip, but if you go to Ti2design’s site they’ll sell you one without one. The clip looks nice and does a decent job.

The uncapped end of the pen also has knurling on it, and looks cool.

I like the truncated nose cone design, and it shows off the magnet that holds the refill in place and allows the cap to snap on. There may be those that don’t like it, but I really think that it works on this pen, especially since it’s repeated on the end of the pen.

The end of the pen is also truncated, and you can see the magnet that allows posting here too.

This brings us to the insides of the pen and some things worth knowing before you buy this pen. The pen comes with two magnets, two spacers and an o-ring, and a Uniball Jetstream SXR 0.7 ballpoint refill. That’s a great refill if you like ballpoint pens, but otherwise and unlike what the Ti2design FAQ says, you can totally use other refills in this pen. Jetpens has a list of compatible refills here, and the Uniball UMR gel refills (the Signo 207 refills) totally fit. You could have 0.38 mm gel refill in this pen!

Before unscrewing the pen and changing the refill, do take a moment to:

Go to the Ti2 Techliner FAQ page, just to understand which parts go where. The magnets are directional, so if you put them back the wrong way in your pen won’t cap or post. Just take it apart again and flip the magnets. You can’t get the front and back end magnets or spacers confused, as the front ones have a hole in them for the refill, and the back ones are solid.
PUT THE CAP FAR, FAR AWAY BEFORE STARTING!!!! The cap has a magnet inside it, and if you’re not careful you front magnet (which is tiny and light) will get sucked into it, and you’ll need a pair of tweezers and some effort to get it out. Save yourself the hassle and put the cap away first before you disassemble the pen.

I love the Ti2 Techliner and I’m happy with my purchase. Do I recommend it? If you like the aesthetic and aren’t shocked by the price, then yes. I wouldn’t give it as a gift (not until the packaging is sorted out), and I’d recommend the Ti Arto over it because it’s much more versatile, but in my opinion this is still a very well designed, beautiful pen.

Just beware of the magnets…

Moleskine Wonder Woman Blue Notebook Review

It’s the Moleskine of Truth! No, it’s actually just the Moleskine Wonder Woman Blue limited edition notebook. This is a brand new edition for Spring 2019, and there’s a red one too (expect a review later on).

The notebook with the wrapper on makes you think that there will be a red element on the cover, but the print on it is only in black and yellow on the blue background.

There’s a quote on the back of the notebook (there’s a different one on the red notebook), and it’s lovely. Go, Diana!

Now we come to the biggest issue I had with this notebook: it has some printing quality control issues. If you look closely you can see that on the yellow lasso print there are tiny bits of paper stuck to the cover. It feels as if there was a sticker there and someone removed it with bits left behind. They aren’t sticky and they are very easily removed with a wet wipe, but that’s not something I enjoy dealing with when unwrapping a brand new notebook. It’s only on the yellow parts of the print, so it is probably a leftover of the printing process, but it shouldn’t have slipped through.

The front cover unwrapped:

I understand the design aesthetic here, but I don’t agree with it. It would have been nicer if it was black, yellow and red and it would have been even nicer if Diana (Wonder Woman) was in full colour. As it is, the lasso is more attention grabbing and vivid than she is, and it’s not the main point. This isn’t the “Lasso of Truth” limited edition notebook, is it?

Here’s the unwrapped back cover, which is a little plain compared to what Moleskine have done for Batman in past limited editions.

The front end paper plays with the lasso of truth design element, and again, I really wish that Diana was more represented in this edition. Maybe her doing her thing, or even a comic book page. She deserves the same excellent design that Moleskine made for Batman and Star Wars.

This is better! The back end page is where it is. You see Wonder woman using her lasso which… is mysteriously cut out mid back-pocket. What? Why? If only they hadn’t done that, or at least if it would have vanished into the pocket. It just looks weird here. I get that it disappears into the page so that it looks like she’s shutting the notebook’s cover, very clever and comic book-like, but take a step back and just look at the page layout. It’s… not good.

Inside are lined pages and a blue ribbon. The paper is the newer kind, so there’s no weird spidering, it’s good for gel ink pens, ballpoint, pencil, and certain fountain pens and inks (Noodler’s Black works with every fountain pen, all else needs testing, but generally speaking fine and extra fine nibs and inks that aren’t overly saturated or wet will work fine. The paper is thin, so there will be show through).

This edition comes with some nice stickers, and it would have been great if they would have been part of the cover or end paper design, but I’m not complaining, you’re complaining!

The best thing about this edition is the B-side of the wrapper, which explains what Wonder Woman’s stuff does. Of course the Lasso of Truth is there, it’s the Lasso of Truth edition, didn’t we already go over that?

The Wonder Woman fan in your life is probably going to love this edition, even though Moleksine can and does do better. It’s fun, it’s unusually colourful (most Moleskine limited editions feature black covers. They’re like Ford that way), and it will probably be on deeply discounted sale soon, so stock up then for gifting or as an everyday notebook.

Tournament of Books: Census

A few days ago I finished reading the tenth Tournament of Books 2019 book, Jesse Ball’s “Census“, which is running against Lydia Kiesling’s “The Golden State” in the fourth round of the competition.

Perhaps unfairly, but when I first saw “Census” I thought that it was going to be novel in the vein of Max Porter’s “Grief is a Thing With Feathers”. I blame the the cormorant on its cover and the published blurb about it for putting me in that frame of mind. It was very clear a few pages in that “Census” would not survive that comparison. Then again, so few books could.

“Census” is book with a very moving preface and some very moving photos at the end. In the middle is a featureless wasteland. It is populated by unnamed characters that function in an unnamed, ill defined world that is maybe desolate, where a peculiar census is conducted each year in which people are asked questions by a census taker who then marks them and posts their answers onwards. Nothing in this novel is given edges, well defined. Everything is wishy washy, vague, seen through thick, milky glass. But that preface… so you stick to it, and it helps that the book is short, though it has no plot to speak of and the setting is bleak and bland. The key to this novel is its characters then, and that’s not surprising because after all, you’ve read the preface and that’s what’s keeping you here.

And that’s the biggest frustration, because when Jesse Ball lets himself write good characters then by God the man knows how to write good characters. There’s a tiny vignette of a ex-fossil loving boy that’s so precise, so concise and so convincing that you want to howl that the rest of the novel isn’t like that. That the surgeon-father-protagonist isn’t like that. That the son, the whole reason for this novel, remains a shapeless mass with nothing making him hum – no distinct feature, tic, preference. That the wife is the best defined major character and even she is seen through thick fog. It’s never personal, emotional, realistic or if he’s really going for the absurdist (which is a poor stylistic choice for the subject matter IMHO) then it’s far from fully embracing that even.

What is feels like is that the writer took a subject that was too close to home, too painful, and tried to deal with it while not dealing with it at the same time. The result is a novel that does everything possible to make it difficult for you to feel anything for any of its characters, including empathy. It very easily lets you slip into the “oh this has nothing to do with me” mode, and from there to “none of these characters are likable, hate-able or even interesting, so why should I care” mode.

But then, the preface…

Montblanc The Beatles Psychedelic Purple Review

A few years ago I used to be really on the FOMO limited edition fountain pen ink band wagon, but over the last two years my ink purchases have petered out to nothing. At some point I realized that any limited edition ink that I buy is bound to be pretty damn close to an ink that I already own, and a person can only have too many inks (IMHO). How many inks can you use at one given time anyway?

The precious few new bottles of ink that I have have all been given to me as part of large (vintage) fountain pen purchases, and so I haven’t felt comfortable reviewing them. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, do you? Then again, the gift was from the store, not the ink maker, so here we are.

The Montblanc Beatles Psychedelic Purple limited edition ink comes in a very groovy box, that is very well designed. Normally I couldn’t care less about ink packaging (excepts as it pertains to price — looking at you Pilot Iroshizuku. You started the trend and you know it), but someone really put some thought in this.

The little ribbon tab helps open the box easily

Look at that design:

I’ve never seen an ink bottle’s cap protected before, but then again this is Montblanc:

The bottle itself is pretty conservatively designed, but classically pretty:

The ink itself is a rich, saturated purple with a good amount of shading (despite being pretty dark), and a very slow drying time. It’s one of the few cases where the actual ink matches the colour of the packaging. There’s some sheen to the ink, but I’ve seen it sheen only on Tomoe River Paper, and it’s super hard to photograph.

I love this ink’s shade of purple (it’s slightly more to the red side of purple than the blue), but this ink was a hot mess in terms of behaviour on various papers. This ink is usable only on Rhodia/Clairfontaine and Tomoe River Paper, it becomes a bleeding, spreading monster on everything else. It also takes a really long time to dry (not surprising, as it’s a very saturated ink), which means that it’s going to be a no-no for left handed users and you really have to take care where you put your hand when you write with the stuff.

And that’s the thing. This is an expensive, not readily available ink that is finicky and temperamental in a hue that’s not so rare as to be unobtainable. Why spend good money and time buying it if you can probably get a spot on match from Diamine? Montblanc Psychedelic Purple cost about $40 when it came out and $80 now for a 50ml bottle. Diamine Majestic Purple costs $15 for an 80ml bottle. You do the math.

If you enjoy hunting for limited edition inks as part of the hobby, that’s fine. Just don’t get swept away by the marketing and the hype. Remember: there’s a very good chance that that expensive limited edition ink is not very different from the ones that you already have and don’t use, or that you can get a similar hue for less than half the price from Diamine.

Moleskine Limited Edition Pokémon Box Review

I was going to write a review of the Moleskine Pikachu Pokémon limited edition notebook first, but I forgot that I gifted someone the copy that I had. After a bit of internal debate, I decided to write about the highlight of the Moleskine Pokémon limited edition set, the Pokéball Box, first, and order another copy of the Pikachu notebook for later review. As these make such great gifts, I suspect that this copy too won’t make it into my rotation but instead be snagged by a friend.

Last spring I was visiting London with my family, staying right next to a Moleskine store (my poor, poor wallet) and trying to take my luggage allowance into account (notebooks are heavy, and Moleskines are easily purchasable online after all), when I first saw these. At the time, I wasn’t into Pokémon, I hadn’t played the Nintendo games, and the Pokémon GO craze passed over me without leaving its mark. I thought I was safe. Then I saw this box at the store.

I left London without purchasing the box, but I kept thinking about it. As my family left on a flight two days after me and it turned out that they had weight to spare, they asked me if there’s anything I wanted from the Moleskine store. I considered for a while, and then asked for the Pokémon box. They ended up buying all three notebooks for me.

It’s been almost a year since then, and I’ve been swept into Pokémon GO as a way to handle my anxiety while dealing with my mom’s illness, and so when I photographed this box today, it was no longer an abstract thing that I had very little emotional ties to. The design, however, has not changed.

Unlike many other Moleskine limited edition boxes, this one comes with a Moleskine pen. The tradition started a few years ago with the Writing Box, and this year it’s part of the Basquiat box.

This isn’t a review of the Moleskine rollerball, but of the Pokémon box, so I’ll just point out two things: Strangely enough the logo on the clip is set so the Moleskine logo isn’t aligned with the Gotta Catch ‘Em All! logo. When one of them is right side up, the other isn’t. Also, the Gotta Catch ‘Em All is printed only on one side of the pen, which is disappointing. If you clip it to a notebook there’s a 50/50 chance that you won’t see the logo, unless you make sure the cap is positioned so the clip isn’t on the side of the logo.

The other thing that’s disappointing here is the choice of the body colour of the pen. Red would have been so much more functional, as the white is going to look grimy and tarnished just about the moment you start using it.

The pen uncapped. Now imagine in it bright red. So much better, right?

Inside the notebook you are greeted with a whole lot of Pokéballs, both on the front and back endpapers.

The design even continues into the inner lining of the back pocket:

This edition comes with four Pokéball bookmarks, like the other Moleskine Pokémon limited editions.

All in all it’s a nice box, but in terms of design, it’s all in the cover. The endpapers are bland in my opinion, and they could have done a much better job on the pen. The initial price on these was pretty high, but as it’s now dropped somewhat, I still think that they make a great gift for the Pokémon lover in your life, though you might want to consider the other Moleskine Pokémon notebooks.

Westinghouse No. 2 Pencil: Not a Review

I just started using a vintage Westinghouse number 2 pencil, instead of the Palomino Blackwing 530 which reached the Steinbeck stage. There’s no point in reviewing a pencil that isn’t widely available, but I got a pack of these on eBay for a pittance and they are excellent pencils, so if you’re looking for great, super cheap pencils and don’t mind petrified erasers, give branded vintage pencil listing on eBay a try. You never know what you’ll find.

Kaweco Liliput Brass Fountain Pen Review

A certain famous young actress, whose work I love, was recently photographed while pensively holding the copper version of this fountain pen, and this summarises this pen perfectly: it’s very, very photogenic.

I got this pen at a close out sale in a local art supply store, and the only reason I was tempted to buy it was because it was so shiny and pretty and at bargain price. Even so, I should have left it to languish unloved at that store’s counter. This is not a good pen. It’s not even a usable pen. It’s a lovely prop.

As its name suggests, this pen is tiny. You can’t use it unposted, and even posted it’s far from comfortable to use. I have tiny hands and even for me the Kaweco Liliput, posted, is just a hair breadth above the Steinbeck stage.

How does the pen write? Fine, as long as it writes. This is a fine nibbed pen and it writes like a Japanese fine nib (despite being made in Germany), if the Japanese fine nib that you have in mind has serious flow issues. The nib constantly dries up. I used a Diamine blue black cartridge in it (there’s no really viable converter option for this pen), a good, middle of the road ink, and the Liliput behaved as if I was using the driest ink ever and had left it uncapped for at least 10 minutes before I started writing. I wouldn’t even call it a writing experience, as so little writing went on. Start, stop, shake. Start, stop, shake. Nothing but shaking would get it writing again for another letter or two.

The pen is already starting to show some patina, which is excellent (you buy a brass pen for the patina potential after all). This means that it will only look better with time. If you’re a petite actress trying to look pensive and sophisticated for a photo op, this is wonderful news for you — the Kaweco Liliput Brad’s is the perfect pen for you. Everyone else: spend your money elsewhere.

Writing at Large

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