Love/Hate relationship with my Moleskine, but only love with my Hero 329 :o)

Recently, I became a bit of a Moleskine addict, and as I've been looking through various sites ('Skine Art), and somehow, I fell on some interesting pen/notebook sites, some that you should check out: The Pen Addict, Future Nostalgic, Potentially Percipicacious, Good Pens, An Inkophile's Blog, and Notebook Stories to name a few. Anyways, since lately I've been having issues with bleed through and feathering with my fountain pen, in my moleskine, I posted a tweet on my account (@ecram), asking if anyone knew of a great, affordable, moleskine friendly fountain pen. Of course, @futurenostalgic, always ready to help, responded with a link to his glowing review of the Hero 329. The Hero 329 is a Chinese-made fountain pen, with an extra Fine hooded nib, and an aerometric filling method. But wait, it gets even better, the pen is available at HisNibs, for only $15!!! I almost immediately purchased it. Though I should have listened to @futurenostalgic, and purchased his recommended Aurora Black ink, instead I went with convenience, over quality, and bought the only ink my local stationery store carries, Private Reserve Velvet Black.

This pen/ink combination is OK, but there's still a lot of bleed/show through. Aside from that, when I'm not writing in my Moleskine (or when I come across pages that are actually good quality paper. More on that later.), I use my Hero 329, it's a great pen. Puts down a nice, smooth, wet line, and fares better than some of the pens I have that cost three times that!

Anyways, onto my grippes with Moleskine, more specifically Moleskine paper, even more specifically; Moleskine's shitty paper.

Since I got my Moleskine, one of the many things I enjoyed about it, was its smooth, creamy, ivory-colored FOUNTAIN PEN FRIENDLY paper. But... I guess the wonderful... smooth... creamy... ivory-colored... FOUNTAIN PEN FRIENDLY paper, was there by mistake, since as I continued writing in my trusty notebook, the paper quickly quickly degraded, and my words started to feather, and bleed through. I mean, it's SO bad, that even my Pilot G2 (THE G2!!) bleeds through, A LOT, when it used to not (bleed through).

So, if any of you pen/notebook fanatics/enthusiasts/addicts, could please give me some advice on an inexpensive, pocket sized notebook, with FP friendly paper, that's available in US (locally in San Diego, California, would be even better!), it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Eric (@ecram)

What's in my backpack

[caption id="attachment_57" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="What I always have with me."][/caption]

I decided to do a "What's in your bag" photo... and well it's pretty self-explanatory. Click HERE to see it on flickr with all of its notes glory. These things are usually with me in my discreet bright orange Jansport bag.

Pearl Jam

So, I was talking to my friend recently and he had me listen to a song by a band he assumed I knew. Sadly I didn't (I was promptly ridiculed at my ignorance in good music), the band was Pearl Jam. So I went home... all dejected and saddened at the fact that it would be a while before I would be able to download anything new.
After a few days of waiting, I ventured into the land of iTunes... and downloaded it.
To tell you the truth, I wasn't really impressed when I first listened to the album, but after a couple of 'listens', I realized how awesome this music really is.
Many of the songs are classics, but it's hard to talk to you about it without you reading it...
Here's my (I think) favorite song!

Moleskine notebooks

As you know (I hope), I went to France recently, and while I was there, I got a Moleskine for me, my girlfriend and my other friend (though I found out that you can get them in the U.S now...). I got the large 'cahier' (which is a stupid name since it means 'notebook' in french!) and I love it!

I got the squared one, and I use it all the time: as a journal to write down my thoughts, notes and reminders, and I'm even using it now to draft this article. Thought they are quite expensive ($12 each for the small notebook), its quality justifies the price, the tight binding, and especially the smooth, rich creamy paper (no perverted jokes intended!), that's a pleasure (again... no perv jokes needed) to write on with my pen (plastic Reynolds fountain pen for everyday use, or a nice marbled green Waterman at home). Then there's that special something about sitting down at home, taking out my fountain pen and just writing whatever comes to mind.

My Moleskine (and Reynolds fountain pen of course) have now become essential things that I carry around with me, along with my iPod Touch, awesome sony earbuds (thanks Julia!), my book and my cell phone (Samsung Eternity on AT&T). I have to have them around with me and I write in it daily.

Well I hope this article has prompted you to go out and get a Moleskine, and make the (partial) digital to analog switch (I admit I can't live without my iPod Touch). There are many hacks out there to improve productivity which I'm sure you can find.

--Mr. Sir

Parkour (free running)

Three years ago, I was watching the movie Casino Royale, amazed by the opening chase seen. I looked up the stuntman who played that part (he's French, of course) and found that he's not the only one. In fact if you look up 'free running' or 'parkour' on YouTube, you get a plethora of results. Anyways, the reason I'm writing this is because I'm going to teach myself to free run, and NOT get seriously injured.
So yeah. I just felt I should tell you all that incase you find me in a hospital!

Cheers,

Mr. Sir

Vacation pictures

Hey readers,

I came back from France a while ago and I uploaded a small portion of my pictures to my Picasa Web Album using Picasa 3 for Mac.
You can see these photos at www.picasaweb.google.com/eric.b.cramer

Awesome!!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Break the monotony!!!"][/caption]

Hey guys, I found this picture while aimlessly surfing the web. Hope you like it!