Hatrack River Forum: The snootiest thing I have ever thought

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Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

The Mont Blanc is a king among pens. After you've used a Mont Blanc, no other pen can ever be worthy again.

Isn't that a horrible thing to say?

And yet... it's true. I would never spend a gajillion dollars on a Mont Blanc myself when a CDN$0.50 Bic will get the job done (or, preferably, when I could be typing), but I received a Mont Blanc (complete with shiny fabric-lined padded box and service guide) from my uncle as a graduation gift. I hate to think how much he paid for it, especially when I noticed the warranty at the back of the service manual, which declared that this pen had been personally inspected and thoroughly tested by the man whose signature was on the dotted line.

This is not so abnormal, often products have stickers that say "I was inspected by number 22" or whatever, but in this case the thing was handwritten. Hand. Written. As in, "I, X, declare that I have inspected this pen..." et cetera.

Anyway. I mostly keep the Mont Blanc in its special box, but whenever I want to write something important (lately, this has been mostly taking notes during phone interviews, but also filling out important forms like my NZ citizenship registration) I go into my bedroom, open the Mont Blanc's box, remove it, and then bring it over to my desk and sit down to write. It's like a little mini-ritual each time I want to use the King of Pens.

It glides over paper in precisely the same way that hot knives glide through half-melted butter. I kid you not. There is no resistance, the ink just flows and the pen moves. The thing is magnificent to write with -- and I say this as someone who generally despises writing by hand and types whenever possible. Now, using the Mont Blanc is a treat, and when I'm using another pen I think "man, this is SO not a Mont Blanc." That makes me a bad person, I know, but I just can't help myself...

Posted by xnera (Member # 187) on :

I have two nice pens. I forget if either of them are Mont Blancs. They both write nice, and have a nice weight and feel. Yup, they are nice. That's really the word to describe them.

My pen of choice? A Pilot VBall. Those are my writing pens. I love them to death.

My ex gave me one of my "nice" pens, along with a gilded journal, for my birthday because he knew I was a writer. I appreciated the gesture, but give me a Pilot VBall and a composition book, and I will be happy. I can't work with the nice pens and journals. They just aren't comfy enough.

Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :

You know, it's not as snooty as it sounds. My mom used to sell a number of high-end pens at her store, so I've tried a lot of them. The funny thing is that it's not really the pen that makes the writing experience great. Oh, sure, the size and shape of the pen affects how it feels in your hand, but what you were talking about--the feeling of the pen as it moves across the paper--is much more due to the type of ink insert used. A high-end gel ink insert can be used with most non-disposable, refillable pens, and it makes a world of difference.

Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :

quote:
That makes me a bad person, I know, but I just can't help myself...

You are too cute.

Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :

You're dead to me.

Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :

I served in Settimo Torinese, where a great many of those pens are manufactured, supposedly.

We visited folks in the slums whose entire living was made on boxes and boxes of pens.

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

[Eek!]

You can spend anywhere from $60 to $600 on those Montblanc pens, at least according to one brief glance through a retail site.

I, too, like rollerball pens with a spongy grip. $5.00 at a grocery store for a good one. But I appreciate a really nice pen for writing important stuff. It just feels right.

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

I have a Mont Blanc, myself, which I use any time I'm going to be writing longhand for a while -- simply, as previously mentioned, due to the quality of the ink insert. I have not been good to it, however, so the pen itself looks like it's been pounded, scuffed, and otherwise violated by angry squirrels.

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :

My favourite pens are hotel pens. for some reason they just work so much better than other pens. And they're free!!!

Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :

I, personally, have a fondness for Pilot Varsity pens. Disposable fountain pens are just cool. They used to be excessively hard to find, but I think Pilot did some sort of makeover and is going to market them en mass now.

Other than that, I wholly agree that it's the ink (gel specifically) that makes a pen worth writing or drawing with.

Feyd Baron, DoC

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

That's a good point, saxon. The service guide goes into some detail about ink and refills and so forth. They even have a special North American website for the ordering of said refills, so that I don't have to go to a store and interact with the proletariat.

This particular Mont Blanc sits in my hand perfectly. It's a great shape and has a very nice heft to it.

Also, it amuses me that "You are too cute" and "You're dead to me" were posted at exactly the same time. [Big Grin]

Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :

You're obviously dead to him cause you're too cute.

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

He's just jealous, twinky. Hatrack women love your delight over the pen.

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :

The problem with nice pens is that until you go all the way for them (like Twinky's) you pretty much are left with crap. Most of the intial money you plunk down for a high quality pen will go to stuff like gold platting, and I could not care less if my pen had gold platting. So unless you're willing to shell out the big bucks ... well to be honest, I've gotten the best preformance from cheap as dirt BIC pens, more so than any other pens I use. Or, let me qualify that, I've gotten consistantly better results from BICs than from other pens, which often work much better for a short time but always give out or leak or some such thing.

Hobbes [Smile]

Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :

Ha ha! I posted first, kat! He's mine!

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

And this thread reminds me that I have at least two Cross pens, given to me as gifts when I graduated from college, that are still in their boxes in my dresser drawer..

I have no idea what I'm saving them for -- I ought to get them out and use them.

Farmgirl

Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :

Isn't he married? [Eek!]

Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :

I find Cross pens difficult to write with because they are extremely skinny. They don't fit well in my hand. My stepdad gave me a set of Nautica pens with some nice ink inserts that are much better, but even so I just find it too inconvenient to write by hand. My pen can never keep up with my brain unless I write too sloppily for even me to read. For me, pens are really only for notes, homework, and grocery lists.

Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :

I used to have a Fisher Bullet Space Pen that I liked, but it was mostly for the novelty of being able to write on vertical or inverted surfaces, or underwater (not that I ever found paper that stood up well to immersion).

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :

"Wen confronted with the problem of astronauts writting in zero-gravity, NASA spent millions of dollars inventing a pen that would write upside down. Know what the Russians did?"

"Did they use a pencil?"

"They used a pencil."

Hobbes [Smile]

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

Saxon, I completely agree -- even my notes to myself are generally typed and then stickied to my desktop in yellow post-it-note style (a program called Stickies has been bundled with the Mac OS since the System 7 days, and I have been using it for that long).

(Edit: Hobbes, I've heard that before, but it always makes me laugh. [Big Grin]

)

Scott:

quote:
We visited folks in the slums whose entire living was made on boxes and boxes of pens.

This is why I feel like a horrible person. Consider:

I am a Mac user. Indeed, I have one of the most powerful, expensive, and, yes, sexy Macs available.
I have mated this Mac to a ViewSonic LCD.
I own an iPod.
I own a Game Boy Advance, which I use exclusively to play strategy games (with the exception of a Doom clone that I almost never play).
I live in Canada, where the per capita environmental footprint is higher than anywhere else in the world (yes, even higher than the US, as long as you take a per capita basis).
I have a degree from the best engineering school in Canada, but I have no student debt. In fact, I have a small surplus that I have been dipping into to do fun things from time to time.
I am looking for a job in the oil industry, because despite that industry's atrocious track record in places like Nigeria, Ecuador, and Venezuela, they give engineers fun and interesting jobs.
I'm so much of a music snob that I look down my nose at music snobs.
I started to save for my retirement when I was nineteen.

In other words, I've taken my First World birth bonus and run with it. And aside from the occasional charitable donation, I have done lots of nothing about it. The Mont Blanc pen -- and my love for it -- is a perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with me. The fact that I don't feel terrible about my love for the Mont Blanc simply means that I'm okay with being a horrible person. (I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, obviously, I'd like to think that I have some redeeming qualities, but the idea of the Mont Blanc pen jives so very well with the idea of owning Macs and gadgets and generally being a First World yuppie that sometimes I wonder why it is that I don't like coffee -- specifically, Starbucks lattés.) [Razz]

[ October 26, 2004, 03:37 PM: Message edited by: twinky ]

Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :

Sure you have some redeeming qualities. You own a Monte Blanc pen. That's a redeeming quality.

Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :

Hobbes: [ROFL]

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

[ROFL]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

"sometimes I wonder why it is that I don't like coffee"

Because coffee is too obviously a cliche trope. You would like something edgier, as befits the stereotypically iconoclastic Canadian Mac user -- like, say, free-market Chai spiked with Irish Cream. Or something.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

I own one of those nasa zero gravity pens. A student of mine gave it to me. It works very well for writing appointments on my calendar, which hangs on the wall so I have to write uphill.

However, the ink has the consistency of gritty soap, and builds up around the tip, so occasionally a big goober falls off and smudges up the writing. It's not a pleasant writing instrument.

I like fountain pens. I try to keep a Sheafer around, but they're hard to maintain, and you can't really carry them in your pocket. So the times I really have to use one, it isn't convenient to have one. Oh well.

I'd be curious to try a Mont Blanc, but I suspect it's high maintentance also. I'll stick to bics I guess.

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

Bwahahahahahahaha! Tom, sometimes you just kill me. [Big Grin]

(It's funny because it's true, and secretly I'm crying inside. *sniffle* )

Actually, what I really like to drink is beer. Specifically, creamy beers like Kilkenny, Boddington's, and Guinness. Maybe it's time I continued learning how to drink whisky like a grown-up...

Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :

Psst, Glenn. Check my post earlier about Varsity pens.

Feyd Baron, DoC

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

I like gel pens.

You know, the pretty, colorful ones with glitter and stuff. [Smile]

(On a side note, Does it make someone unrefined, or unsophisticated if they prefer cheap pens?)

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :

Could just make them pratical... [Cool]

Hobbes

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

My high school graduation present from my parents was the fountain pen in this collection. With no ink. I've not yet gotten around to getting ink, though something tells me it's high time I do so... [Smile]

Edit to add: My current preferred pens are the blue PaperMate ballpoint ones. Not particularly snooty, but I am extremely picky about them.

[ October 26, 2004, 04:48 PM: Message edited by: Carrie ]

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

The ballpoint looks a whole lot like my own Mont Blanc. I think that might be the one. [Smile]

Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :

I think receiving a Mont Blanc as a gift would be the bee’s knees!

Buying a Mont Blanc as a "look at how prestigious I am...I write with nothing but the best" is pushing the snooty buttons a little more.

My brother bought himself one. We used to tease him big time about his "name brand" obsession. We were tempted to go to Goodwill and buy the tackiest pair of plaid golf pants we could find and sew a designer label on them. He’d wear anything…no matter how ugly, as long as it had that prestigious name on the label.

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

[ROFL]

Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :

I tend to not like sponge-tip pens...they have that scratchy, dry-erase-marker sound to them when you write with them. I'm the sort of person who can't sit next to a fork-biter I'm so sensitive to high pitched noise.

Maybe I'm judging the Montblancs too harshly--maybe it's like writing with a cloud on spring morning grass...

I like my pilot G-2 clickie pen. It's smooth, thick, and has a nice comfort grip.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

While we're talking about pens; Does anyone know the technical term for the fibrous material that hold the ink in a magic marker?

Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :

Filament, apparently.

Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :

quote:
Maybe it's time I continued learning how to drink whisky like a grown-up...

If you're going to go that route, may I suggest bourbon as opposed to Scotch? It's just as expensive and much more "today."

Unless, of course, you prefer the way Scotch tastes. In that case you should drink Japanese whiskey exclusively.

Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :

Boon:

Um, no.

The pictures from your link come from the Crayola factory museum in Easton Pennsylvania, which is where I learned that it's called the tampon.

But I guess you don't put that in a website for kids.

Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :

Saxon, no, I don't... [Razz]

I am not, as yet, a whisky drinker.

*whispers* It's one of my many ongoing projects that share the goal of trying to impress my father. [Wink]