2025-04-15 21:32:11
I resisted as long as I could, gang. I bought the tomb raider pen I couldn't stop thinking about.
I got it for £25 which quite frankly seems like a bargain given the rarity of it — if it wasn't so ugly, I suspect this would sell for a lot more. It didn't come with the original ink cartridge it was sold with (it's 25 years old so that's reasonable) so I grabbed a converter on Amazon and filled it with Diamine Havsu Turquoise.
The box I got is a bit knocked about but no more than to be expected give it's age, there's some ink on the barcode label, plus a couple of damp spots inside the box. It is absolutely as ugly as it looks in photos and it's quite light compared to my Lamy AL Star or even the Safari. This one came with a medium nib which writes thicker than a Lamy medium so it's not ideal for what I like but it is nice to write with in general.
I don't think anyone should buy this pen — there are loads of better options out there. That said, I still want that signature edition one.
2025-03-31 19:21:32
On Saturday I attended Hack Pompey which was in collaboration with Sea Change this year:
The Sea Change project will design, build and operate a ‘shore power’ system across the three busiest berths at Portsmouth International Port.
Sea Change provided some data about port movements, carbon levels, and related things for attendees to use for their projects. They released it a few days beforehand and I was able to have a poke around and work out an idea. Portal Kombat, which is legally distinct from Top Trumps.
Each card has data about the ship like size, length, weight, as well as number of visits and time spent in the port. It works just like Top Trumps: pick the stat you think will beat the other card and if you win, you get a point. In the case of Portal Kombat, you can see the name of the ship and the country of origin before guessing.
I was able to get images for all the ships from Vessel Finder thanks to their excellent URL design: /vessels/details/ID where ID is the reference number of the vessel.
While coming up with the name for the project I also came up with the phrase "Yacht or Not"[1] and I wanted to make use of it. So after every three points earned, you can play a round of Yacht or Not: based only on the name, guess if it's a yacht or not. The list came from Vessel Finder's port lookup where I looked at Gosport marina and grabbed the vessel names.
One update I have made since saturday is that "time in port" requires you to get a lower score to win, not a higher one because the boats are usually on diesel to keep everything running even when docked - something Sea Change are trying to fix.
As with most hackathon projects, there's more I could do but I probably won't but if I change my mind:
The day ran smoothly as usual and I'm looking forward to the next one.
For the youths, "hot or not" was a website once ⤾
2025-03-28 20:36:46
There's no way I can write reviews of all the pens I’ve bought over the past two months so instead here's some one line reviews of them because I told Brad I'd do it. Some general things I've realised:
Anyway, here we go.
Uni-Ball Jetstream, various colors: Very nice
Uni-Ball Jetstream Lite: Also nice
Uni-Ball One: Lovely ink
Zebra Z-Grip 1mm: Too thick for me
Iconic gel ink: Amazing colors, really nice to write with
Zebra Mark On: These are bloody great. The 0.4 is a bit too scratchy for me though.
Spoke Click Model C: Hefty, feels great in the hand. Swapped in a Parker .55 gel refill.
Muji .38 Gel: Very nice, doesn't feel scratchy to write with like the 0.4 mark on.
Uni-Ball EMOTT: Smooth but I've not used these much yet.
Uni-Ball Pin fineline and Sakura Pigma Micron: Not used either of these yet but I got the microns in the black and gold edition because they're pretty.
Energel: It had Pikachu on so I had to buy it. Smooth writing.
Muji retractable highligher: A retractable hightlight? Now I've seen everything. Nice color on this one.
Zebra Mildliners: Fuck yes.
Platinum Preppy 03: I like these, just don't bother with the yellow ink, it sucks.
Lamy AL-Star: I'm definitely leaning towards preferring the metal AL-Star over the Safari but I need to use them both a bit more to fully pick a side. I currently have the Fiery and Pacific Blue in rotation.
Lamy Safari: As above, still nice. Currently I have pink, green, and yellow.
Uni Kuru Toga 0.3mm: Another one I bought because of Pikachu. 0.3 is too small for a pencil for me.
Tombow mono graph: Nice enough, it's a pencil.
Sun-Star Metacil retractable: I'd not heard of "forever pencils" before, this one is cool.
Pentel P203/P205/P207/P209: These are bloody lovely, 7mm is perfect for general use for me.
Ottergami Dotgrid A5: A5 is the perfect size for a bullet journal for me but the paper in this isn't as nice as I'd like. Will be switching to something else when it's finished.
Paperian Memo Pad: It's cute.
Life Noble notepads: I have an A5 and a B7, the paper is glorious to write on.
Traveler's "Let’s Go on a Road Trip" notebook: This is the one I can't bring myself to use yet. It's just so nice.
Lihit Lab compact pen case: I love it, I reviewed it here
I also have some tape I like:
So...yeah. That's a lot of pens in a short period of time.
2025-03-26 04:58:56
Last week I happened across a listing for a Lara Croft/Tomb Raider Waterman fountain pen, specifically this model:
We discussed it in the omg.lol discord and I said:
Why was it made? Who is it for? What market analysis led them to produce such an item
Who bought this? It wasn’t given away, someone paid money for it
Lewis pointed out it was me. I was the target market. He was right. I spent a long time thinking about if I wanted to spend £35 on this pen and ultimately decided it is ugly as fuck so I didn't. Then I thought maybe I did and I kind of still do. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm obsessed.
I looked around to find out some more info about this pen and it turns out there were three designs available applied to fountain pens and a ballpoint as you can see in this natty...website? DVD menu? Not a clue to be honest. These photos came from this core design page about the pens.
There's a bunch of different options including this set with some kind of "build your own desktop" software on it. INSTALL ME IF YOU DARE. Scary.
I kind of want one of these purely for the weirdness of it but what I really want is this: the signature limited edition. Now this is a classy pen[1]. Having said that, I don't know what these sell for (there's no sold listings on eBay to reference) and I suspect it'll be more than I'll want to pay. If anyone has one of these knocking about, let me know.
Links:
As classy as a video game pen collaboration from the 90s can be ⤾
2025-03-19 20:30:24
While Myke is on paternity leave, Brad asked me to be a guest on The Pen Addict podcast to discuss my newly-found analogue tool addiction.
We discussed the upcoming special edition Lamy Al Stars and related inks, and the Caran d’Ache Black Edition before getting into my journey into bullet journaling, pens, pencils, and notebooks.
Listen to The Pen Addict 657: Are You Coming For Me?
Since recording the show on Sunday, I got six more Lamy fountain pens.
2025-03-18 21:12:05
A few days ago while browsing Vinted I happened upon a listing with the title "Ink Pens" and a description: "6 ink pens with some spare cartridges". The photo with the listing clearly showed Lamy cartridges but there wasn't an easy way to determine if the pens were legit Lamy Safaris/AL Stars or just very good replicas (of which I've seen quite a few on Vinted).
The blue one on the far right was the only one I was reasonably sure was a Lamy because of the logo engraving on it but I wasn't 100% convinced. Having said all that, the listing was £7 including postage so I figured it was worth the risk and it turns out I was right.
The parcel arrived this morning and aside from getting some extra cartridges on top of what was in the photo, there were three Safaris and three AL Stars. The AL Star colours are Ocean Blue, Black Purple, and I think Pacific Blue but it could also be Turmaline. If anyone knows for sure let me know.
All the Safaris were dried up but I was able to get pink and yellow up and running again. Green is going to need a more thorough cleaning. For £7 this was an absolute bargain and I still can't quite believe my luck.
