Fountain Pen

I bought a new fountain pen yesterday. I spend a lot of my time listening, thinking, reading, typing, and writing. Writing instrument is one of the very important human-machine interfaces I use. For the last few years I found a very good pen, a cheap gel pen, the Sarasa made by Zebra. I used to bring these back from Tokyo. Recently Staples started selling them.

However, I keep hearing that a good fountain pen writes better then even a gel pen. The trick is to find the right one. After a chance discussion with a pen shop owner, and subsequently doing some research on the web, I found the perfect (for the time being) pen for myself. The trick is that I needed a pen with a fine and firm nib. This pen is the Namiki (Pilot) vanishing Point. On top of a very smooth feel, the retractable point also score big on the technie/geekiness scale.