New toys

Picked up a package from His Nibs yesterday.

Speeno pen, with my Moleskine diary. The picture doesn’t show it, but the Speeno is a ‘telescopic’ pen – it’s very small closed, but you pull the barrel out to make a larger pen.

Uranus 2018 Multifunction brush pen, with specimen of my poor Chinese handwriting*.
One end of this pen is a roller ball, the other end a brush, for writing characters.

* From right to left:
霞光 xia guang“dawn light”
精神 jing shen“consciousness”
思想 si xiang “thought”
机会 ji hui “opportunity”
赵美铃 Zhao Mei Ling My Chinese name.
Zhao [family name] Beautiful Bell. “Bell” as in ding-a-ling.



Inky hand. I filled the Uranus pen and managed to get ink almost everywhere.

Verdict: The Speeno is wonderful. Besides the cute/novelty factor, it is a very smooth writer! The Uranus is just going to be a lot of fun. I don’t know if my calligraphy skills will improve but I will enjoy playing with the brush.

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5 Comments

mooiness 16 February 2006

The brush pen is cool. Back in primary when we were learning caligraphy, it’s considered lazy if you had one of those, and not a traditional brush which you’d dipped into a jar of ink.

And better still, if you’d grind your own ink. 😛

CW 16 February 2006

D’you know, I have never learned how to write with a brush? I think I quit Chinese class in primary school too early… So I have never had the pleasure of grinding my own ink, either!

intint 18 February 2006

Whenever I’m on the phone and I’m put on hold, I’ll invariably start doodling and more often than not, I’ll write Chinese words. Funnily enough ‘si xiang’ is _always_ the first phrase that ends up on the paper.
I think I really like the form of the two characters, they look well balanced. Plus they’re fairly meaningful to me.

CW 19 February 2006

Thanks, Anna 🙂
When I doodle it tends to be geometric patterns, although I do sometimes write characters. But I invariably decide to write something that I can’t remember the strokes for, which gets me frustrated and distracted..

Alia 14 March 2006

I found my way here from the link on hisnibs. I just ordered the Uranus brush pen (my first order was for a Speeno. I agree that it’s a great little pen). I do not know Chinese, but I’m hopeful that the brush pen will lend itself to drawing.

When I ordered the Speeno, my big fear was that I’d end up with far more ink on me than on the page — I’ve had bad fountain pen experiences in the past. To my surprise, filling and using that pen went very smoothly. I guess I’ll see if I end up coated in ink trying to fill or use the Uranus when it arrives in a few days. 🙂

-Alia
(Arabic for “exalted” … obviously, I should have been named “ink-covered” in Arabic, instead)