Monthly Archives: October 2019

Paper paper everywhere 2

 in Paper & Notebooks  tagged paper / paper computer / paper phone / paper watch by

[An earlier version of this blog post was written on my phone in a rush and contained many mistakes. The number of mistakes has hopefully gone done after revision. See revised blog post below.]

After the paper computer1 and the paper watch there’s now a paper phone.

The idea of using paper instead of technology isn’t really new to stationery enthusiasts: This time it is Google’s turn to feature the idea of replacing tech with paper and this has been reported by many newspapers and news websites.

The paper phone kind of reminds me of IBM’s ‘Think Pad’.

  1. I used to use this paper computer with my students for a few years, but stopped using it because I wasn’t able to get a clear answer regarding copyright issues from the people who created it. [↩]

Staedtler at the discounter

 in Staedtler  tagged Aldi / Made in Germany / Staedtler by

In Europe Staedtler stationery is a familiar and regular special buy at Lidl, a discount supermarket chain.

I’m happy to see that Staedtler stationery is now also available at their competitor Aldi, a similar and probably better known discount supermarket chain. I don’t remember seeing Staedtler products at Aldi UK before.

It’s of course no wonder that all the pencils where sold out when I saw the Staedtler stationery. There were only a few erasers left.

Line variation 5

 in Uni  tagged Jetstream / uni-ball by

Earlier today Lexikaliker published a blog post about uni-ball’s Jetstream. Have a look, his Slim Compact looks really good.

One detail is rather curious. He never experienced line variation issues with his Jetstream pens whereas I regularly experience these issues with all my five Jetstreams. This makes me think that this is not a one-off quality control issue. Instead, it might have to do with writing pressure or writing angle (The latter seems more likely, just because I assume my writing angle deviates more from the average Jetstream user than my writing pressure).

Have a look at the two ‘e’s and the ‘y’ in the example below.

Jetstream line variation

The joy of ink 1

 in PaperMate / Uncategorised  tagged Made in India / Made in Korea by

Papermate’s Inkjoy gel pens are really nice. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to get the 0.5mm version in the UK. It’s easier to find a really good deal on the 0.7mm version (finding a good deal is something that happened to me three times in the last two years) than to find the fine version at any price (something that has happened to me zero times in the last two years).

When I came across those three good deals I always bought them and every time I ended up with different versions. My oldest Inkjoys, retractable big barrel ones, were Made in Korea, but the later versions I bought, the retractable 300RT and the capped big barrel ones, were Made in India.

They all write great, but the cap of the capped version is a bit loose and less practical than the retractable version.