Koh-I-Noor Progresso Woodless Pencils

While wandering the National Stationery Show I noticed a lot of booths featuring pencils, and one booth in particular was showing off woodless pencils. I've been thinking of those for some time now, and so went looking on eBay. What I found was the Koh-I-Noor Progresso, a dark gray, lacquer-coated pencil made of Hardtmuth graphite.

While I don't know much about pencils, I do know I like a softer pencil, such as HB, but then I hate the smearing. So I chose the standard 2B instead, and am definitely impressed by the laydown and staying power of the graphite. Smearing was minimal, and writing was soft and smooth and a bit strange. I kept looking for line between graphite and wood, but the pencil is one gray color, no lighter wood to mess with. The pencil is also quite weighty, solid grahite being heavier. Most of all, I love the idea of writing with a pure graphite pencil, and as a bonus there are no wood shavings to clean up. While I purchased mine from eBay, there are other places to buy so check them out if you can.

Pilot Hi-Tec-05 with Strawberry Ink

Pilot never ceases to amaze with their many Hi-Tec variations: Hi-Tec, Hi-Tec-C, Hi-Tec-C-Cavalier, and this one that I've been doodling with: the Hi-Tec-05. It's a .05mm tip, which I like a lot (nice wide line) but the Strawberry ink is what makes it fun. Not as red as a real strawberry, more like cherry pink, but the ink in the barrel and the colored plastic ends means this pen will never get lost on my desk. And now that I think about it, the pen is much less likely to be "borrowed" and casually left on the colleague's desk. A conspicuous pen is hard to walk away with, much less use in front of a grieving, de-penned co-worker.


There's one thing I did notice right away, large the needle point tip and ball are on this .05mm tip. The pic up top isn't very clear, but you can see the 05 compared to my Hi-Tec-C in Usuzumi (light grey ink), which is .04mm. The 05 is noticeably bigger, and there's a sturdiness to the point that I find lacking in the Usuzumi. But YMMV, and it's really the colors that make these fun.

Pics from a Buddhist Temple

Over July 4th weekend I went out to Long Island to visit my friend Joe, and we went to see the finally-completed Buddhist Temple. The Temple was started about 5 years ago, but the group ran out of money and so the outside was completed but the inside bare. Now the Temple is finished, and a few weeks ago the group held an open house and consecration of the space and grounds.

Besides the gold statues and flowers and candles was this interesting round wheel, a meditation or prayer wheel perhaps. In the pic above, with the wheel on top of the large steel stand, you can just make out that the paper wrapping around the wheel and base are dollar bills, something I often meditate on and enjoy thinking about.

Rainbow Outside the Office Window

We're on the 29th Floor of an office building that faces the Hudson River, up near the George Washington Bridge. A few minutes ago my boss came running to tell us there was a rainbow right outside her office window. Fortunately one of my office mates, who is a professional photographer, got her camera out so my out-of-focus pics won't be the only mementos of this amazing sight.

Update 12:12 PM: Better picture from my co-worker.

Diamine Registrar's Ink

I love dark blue-black inks, and had seen previous reviews of the Diamine Registrar's Ink. This small, 1 ounce (30ml) bottle has an almost antique look to it, so I was keen on trying it. I'd read that it was based on iron gall ink, which can damage modern fountain pens, so I was a bit hesitant. But on further reading over at FPN it seems that as long as I give my pen a good soak all should be well.

The ink starts out a dark blue with black in it, then oxidizes to black. According to Diamine, this is permanent and waterproof ink to be used for maintaining official records. (I don't think my journal counts as that, even if it is a large orange Rhodia webbie.)

The color is velevety soft, like the night sky. Next to it Swisher Blue Black looks like it has a teal undertone. I wanted to see it against a truer blue, so I swabbed the J. Herbin Bleu Nuit for comparison. I like this old-looking color, and plan on using it for a lot of my notes and writing.

A Field Notes Lookalike for the iPad

I wanted to get a notepad app for my iPad, and looked over quite a few when I came upon Penultimate and thought it seemed vaguely familiar (*snicker*). The notebooks come in three styles: graph, lined, and blank. And you can have as many pages as you want, and start as many notebooks as you want.



The lines and graphs are in a pale brown ink, similar to the brown of the notebook. I keep looking for a name on the front cover in a black ink called "Dachsund's Nose." Like the paper version, this is becoming my favorite note taking device.

12th Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper at Goldspot Pens

Goldspot Pens is hosting the 12th Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper, go over and browse the posts (especially Julie's post on her awesome pen cabinet). And a big thanks to Nifty at Notebook Stories for founding the Carnival a year ago