xiaolongbaozhu

The new fountain pen that I'd ordered came in today, and I'm pretty happy with it!

It's a Jinhao 82, medium nib, in light blue (very light blue; it's kind of a "snow blue", almost white). It came in this afternoon, and right away I cleaned it out and inked it up and started working on a fic. It writes very nicely! I was worried the medium nib would be a bit too fat; the lines are slightly thicker than my other pen but not bad. I also tried underwriting a bit, and that looks good too.

Weight is about 20g with cap; 12g without cap/unposted. The only other pens I've tried so far are my Kaweco Sport (12g) and a borrowed Pilot Metropolitan (26g). I found the Metropolitan much too heavy and uncomfortable for me to use it much at all, and the Kaweco is too small for extended writing, but so far the Jinhao is perfect for what I want it to do. The balance is quite nice.

The twist converter is much more to my taste than the squeeze converter on the Metropolitan that I borrowed, as well. As for the Kaweco sport - I've opted not to get a converter for that one, because the capacity is very small. I'm sticking with cartridges on that one for now and will probably refill them eventually.

I've inked it with Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-Shikibu, a lovely purple ink. I picked it up when I was in Edmonton as there isn't anywhere in town that sells ink. It's really nice, good dry time; I haven't had any issues with smudging so far (a concern for me as a left-hander). Might pick up other Iroshizuku ink in the future, though I'll stick with this one for now.

The reason I decided to go with the Jinhao 82 is because they're a very similar style to the Sailor Pro Gear Slim. I really like the look of the PGS, but since there isn't anywhere in town to buy one in person (thus check the feel of it and maybe even try it out), it made sense to get a Jinhao as they're very budget-friendly. I'm really happy with it so far. It's still possible that I might get myself a PGS in the future; there is an Occasion coming up that might be a suitable situation to get myself a Fancy Pen. But I will have to think about it for a bit as the PGS is the very opposite of budget-friendly.

Originally, I'd planned to take the Jinhao to work, but on second thought, I'm going to keep it at home. I've started working on a fic with it, so I might as well keep it where the Fic Things Happen. Maybe the Kaweco will go to work instead - it might be more suitable for that, anyway, as I do lots of writing but only in small amounts at a time.

Current inventory:
+ Jinhao 82 - light blue + silver trim, medium nib, converter
+ Kaweco Sport Classic - green, medium nib, cartridge only
+ 1 Pilot Iroshizuku Ink - murasaki-shikibu/medium purple, 50ml
+ 4 packages Kaweco cartridges: Palm Green, Royal Blue, Caramel Brown, Summer Purple.

Today was day 2 of Edmonton - or rather the only actual day in the city, since I'm going home in the morning.

The weather was even more miserable than yesterday; tons of snow, very cold. Eew.

I headed out early to a cafe so I could have a coffee and write fic, then headed to the bookstore after that to poke around a little and kill time. Then I hopped the bus to go to the Art Gallery of Alberta.

All of the exhibits have changed since I was last there, so that was neat. The work that made the biggest impression was a series of sculptures made of very delicate materials, like paper and heads of wheat, strung together with wires and fishing line and suspended from the ceiling. Do I understand it? Nah. Was it interesting to look at? Sure bet.

As for this evening, and the reason I'm here in the first place... the concert! That is, The Goo Goo Dolls with Dashboard Confessional.

I'm not very familiar with Dashboard Confessional at all; the only song that I recognized from their set was "Hands Down". But their style in general took me back to a very specific time, and not going to lie, I kind of dig it. Might need to look up more of their work later.

The Goo Goo Dolls were awesome! It's been a while since I've listened to them, so I wasn't familiar with their newer work, but it was all good, and they played a ton of the classics. Loved it when they played "Black Balloon", that's always a good one. The energy was really awesome, and I'm so glad I opted to come.

And of course, the crowd went nuts when they played "Iris". Naturally.

These guys are like... Even though I haven't put one of their albums in my CD player in a while, I still really really like their music. It's partially nostalgia, sure - takes me to a version of myself that I'm still trying to get back to - but also I think a lot of their work is genuinely good. If I had to make a list of bands whose work was important to me, The Goo Goo Dolls would probably be on it, right up there with Our Lady Peace.

I can't really think of anything else to say at the moment, except that I'm really happy that I took the time to come down here for this. So, I'll just copy over the setlist. Maybe when I have some time later, I'll look up the songs that are new to me.
( Setlist )

Whew. So, my main computer keeps throwing up a bluescreen error. As soon as I get past the load screen, it leads me to that. Plus stop code 0x00021a.

A cursory search tells me that this is, uh, Not Great.

I've done some poking around, but I think for now I'll just leave this problem for... later.

I sure wasn't looking for a Project, but I guess I have one now. :Va