Star Trek

Happy First Contact Day!

 

It’s First Contact Day again.

The annual event where we celebrate the First Contact between humans and Vulcans that will happen on 5 April 2063 in Montana.


I do have to disappoint you, though. The timeline where the First Contact happened is different to ours, as in the Original Start Trek series they mentioned the Eugenics Wars from the 1990s.

Since the Eugenics Wars haven’t happened in our timeline there’s no guarantee our timeline will get a First Contact in 2063…

Faber-Castell Columbus
To help you get into the Star Trek mood this blog post is reusing pictures from the follow blog posts: La La Land Popcult pencilsStar Trek stampsFederation vs Klingon EmpireNo clipboard as we know it and Faber-Castell Columbus.

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Federation vs Klingon Empire

Just in time before the new Star Trek TV series Discovery is out: a Star Trek blog post.

..

The eternal question:

Which one is better – the United Federation of Planets or the Klingon Empire.

Well, there’s only one way to find out: let’s see who has the better notebooks.

The Paper-Oh Puro Gold? Nice notebook. The lines on the cover look like the Starfleet insignia.

Let’s have a look what’s inside…

Captain's shopping list
Well, Captain: That blue stuff is illegal!

Oh, it’s a shopping list – but Captain, don’t get caught with Romulan Ale…

OK, let’s look at the Klingon Empire. We’ve got the notebook of Kronos One’s captain.

The Paper-Oh Puro Bronze? Nice notebook. The lines on the cover look like the trefoil.

Let’s have a look what’s inside…

Klingon shopping list

Oh, it’s a shopping list, too – well, I guess bloodwine is all you need.

 

One fascinating detail of these notebooks is the instruction sheet.

When you first open them you might be inclined to think that there was a folding accident in the factory and that the sheet was folded wrong..

..but once you open the sheet you can see that this is all planned quite cleverly.

The bookmark that can be used in different ways is a nice extra, too:

My main issue with this notebook is that it’s not great with fountain pen ink. The problem is not quite as bad as for example the original Field Notes (sometimes called Kraft) with Finch paper, but fountain pens and rollerball pens, e.g. the popular uni-ball eye, will bleed a bit through the page.

Top: a wet fountain pen, bottom: a dry fountain pen

In this example, you can see the bleed through from a wet fountain pen with a gold nib at the top, and under that, you can see how it looks with a dry fountain pen (steel nib).

Pencils (and ballpoint pens) seem the best choice for this notebook. If you don’t use it with ink (fountain pen or rollerball) it is a great notebook – very well made. I especially like the origami feel from this notebook and the binding, which you can notice on some pages if you open the notebook flat.

So.. who won? The Federation or the Klingons?

..I think it’s a draw.


If you would like to read more reviews of this notebook have a look at Gourmet Pens, My Pen Needs Ink and The Pen Addict.

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Star Trek stamps

startrek-stamps

Me as a Klingon in the 1990s. Digital Cameras have certainly improved since then.
Me as a Klingon in the 1990s. Digital Cameras have certainly improved since then.

Today: something different.

 

Time flies. In my room I used to have a poster from Star Trek’s 25th anniversary. Now it’s already the 50th anniversary.

 

I didn’t know, but the US Postal Service has released Star Trek stamps for this anniversary and Sean was not only kind enough to tell me about it, he also got me some.

Thank you very much!

 

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