Ennui Vagaries

A retro-styled wristwatch, a Timex T-80 Digital watch, Pelikan, Waterman and Conklin Fountain Pens. I've posited elsewhere that I have become something of a “techno curmudgeon” — that is someone who has serious reservations about technology, and therefore has adopted older technology. And yes, that is one possible connection between Fountain Pens and Wristwatches, but there is something else that I feel connects them, and other things that I am interested in. So, I am not certain if this will…

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Introduction A few years back I became interested in the idea of getting a smartwatch. However, what I found when I started doing research into them was nothing short of horrifying. Take the journey with me as I talk about why I thought a smartwatch would be a good fit in my life, to the realization that there was no chance I would ever buy one of them. The level of enshittification that exists in this market segment is stunning. It is so rampant that in the…

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash I've started a quest for the “perfect” typewriter. I don't know what that means: I don't know what perfect is in the case of typewriters. When I find it, I will know it. There will be mistakes made along the way, but so be it. There is something that has fascinated me already, however, in my search for a typewriter. Originally I was thinking that an IBM Selectric I was the most likely candidate for my perfect typewriter. Why? Mainly because I've used one in…

Photo: IBM Selectric I Typewriter, By Steve Iodefink, License: CC BY 2.0 The concept of birth year collecting has fascinated me in the last year or two. The idea of seeking out objects that were produced in the year you were born has an appeal. And yet, I cannot, for the life of me quite wrap my head around the concept. So, think of it this way… You are looking at objects that you very likely had no knowledge or recognition of when (and even if) you were around them. When you were born, your…

Three Parker 51 Clones: Wingsung 601 Demonstrators. Photo by Unattributed, licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. For those who have seen my posts on c/Fountain Pens, PixelFed, or elsewhere on the FediVerse will know that I have been nearly obsessed with finding a good set of Parker 51 clones. I've had several (from Jinhao and Junlai) that have been disappointing. While they had the look and filling mechanism that I wanted, many of them would fail in terms of writing well, or in drying…

I've recently rediscovered something I had done a long time ago: modifying pictures from weather and traffic cameras. Note: I am cautious about the cameras that I choose to use. They have to be cameras that are putting their photographs online, and specifically be in the public domain. Obviously, not all weather camera images are in the public domain. Privately owned cameras, especially the ones use for television broadcasts, are like nonpublic-domain. (Although, I have a doubt that any of them…

Casio Lineage LCW-M100TSE, Photo by Unattributed, License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 Introduction: The Casio Lineage LCW-M100TSE The Casio Lineage watch line is in my top five daily wear watches. They represented one of the best values in watches imaginable at the price I paid: $180 USD. Today, unfortunately, due to changes in our import policies, they sell for around $250-$300 USD. That's still a reasonable price in my opinion given all the features this watch packs: titanium case and…

Photo by Millenary Watches on Unsplash In Rejecting the Luxury of Hobbies I talked about the “investor” types of people. The people that seem to feel that participating in a hobby based around collecting should not affect their bottom line. Well, here we are, just a couple of days later, and one of these “collectors” just showed up in my YouTube with his latest video: Affordable Watches Lose You Money. Here's Why. It didn't take long for me to understand the premise he was going with. He starts…

Photo by: Ailbhe Flynn via Unsplash I was into photography many years ago (like over 40 years ago), and in all this time there have been several significant changes. The single biggest is the change from analog film based photography to digital photography. This one change has completely changed aspects of photography that cannot be understated. For example, photographers today will never know the joys and horrors of working in a darkroom. Dealing with all the chemicals for developing film and…

Chimeri standard dress watch (Photo by Unattributed, License CC BY-NC-SA) “What are hobbies about?” is a question I started asking myself when I was watching YouTube videos about watches and fountain pens. The answer to that question showed that I have a fundamentally different view of hobbies than others. Worse, the things that I think of as hobbies aren't hobbies to a lot of people. There are, at least three kinds of people that are interested in the areas that I consider to be hobbies. At…

The amazing GAMENOTE keyboard, in all its gamery goriness. Introduction So, if you were to ask me why I got into mechanical keyboards, the picture above would be the explanation. This is the Havit “GAMENOTE” keyboard (aka the KB512L). This keyboard is responsible for me spending a little over a year in a mechanical keyboard rabbit hole. Now, let's be clear: this was not a good keyboard. It had a hollow sound to it. The stabilizers rattled. The keycaps were thin and felt horrible. The RGB was…

Recreation of a Conklin Crescent Filler fountain pen. (Photo by Unattributed, Licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Introduction I don't recall any point in time where I had any interest in fountain pens. I was born well after the time of the fountain pen, and there weren't any relatives in my family that had any special attachments to fountain pens. Then, there are some questions to answer: What drove my initial interest? How long have I been interested in them? Do I have some objective in collecting…

Originally Published: 2022-06-01 Introduction There are a lot of “influencers” in the keyboard community that complain any chance they get about keyboards that have the LEDs installed in the north side of the switch socket (see the little white squares in the cover photo). One literally titled his review of one keyboard “This board is almost perfect, EXCEPT” with the text in the thumbnail image reading “$60, but a fatal flaw.” That “fatal flaw”? North oriented LEDs. Another recently whinged in…