My Sakura Gelly Roll Gelato Pen

I still haven’t found another Sakura Gelly Roll Gelato pen.  I spent more time and money than I intended on my quest — but I learned a bit, too.

Why do I like the Gelato?  Because it’s at least a bit better than other good pens (e.g. Pilot, Uniball) with a very fine line (Sakura claims 0.26mm line width for the 04 model I have), wonderfully smooth ink flow, comfortable grip, and retractable design.

My Gelly Roll Bonanza (L->R: Pigma Micron, Regular, Metallic, Gold Shadow, Stardust, Moonlight)

Basically, what’s available at retail are the “artsy” Sakura pens, such as the metallic Gelly Roll models.  The Gelly Rolls are nice pens, but they  are best for fun; for writing, I prefer the feel, thinner line, and retractable design of the Gelato.  My results:

• Michael’s had a few packages of various Gelly Roll types and Pigma Micron pens.  They did not have any individual pens.
• Jo-ann Fabrics had a similar, but larger, selection of Sakura Gelly Roll and Pigma Micron packages.  They did not have any individual pens.
  • Jo-ann does have a much wider range available on-line, including individual pens.
  • Jo-ann’s web and retail selection is much better than Michael’s.
• Aaron Brothers is changing: they had individual Gelly Roll and Pigma pens, but were closing them out.  You can see in the picture that I went a little crazy buying Gelly Rolls.  (It’s for my kids, of course.)
  • Aaron Brothers did not have any multi-pen packages.  It appears they are closing out their more technical and artistic products (e.g. Sakura pens, Faber Castell pencils) in favor of a greatly expanded children’s selection.  The children’s area is pretty nice; I’ll check it out again when it’s close to my kids’ birthdays.

I haven’t had a chance to visit the stationery stores in San Jose or Palo Alto.  But I did find a very nice (but pricey) stationery store while having fun in San Francisco: Maido Stationery.  Actually, the Japantown store is called Kinokuniya Stationery, but it’s run by Maido.  Their other stores are in downtown San Francisco, Santana Row in San Jose, Los Angeles (with Kinokuniya) and New York (with Kinokuniya)

Pilot HI-TEC-C 0.3mm Pen

Basically, Maido is a JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) store — everything is direct from Japan.  They have good selection of Sakura products, including individual pens, along with Pilot, Mitsubishi (Uniball), and such.

If you like pens, you should definitely visit sometime.  They have a wide variety of pens I’ve never seen before, down to 0.25mm width, in all kinds of cool colors.  I ended up buying the finest-line pen that I felt wrote well, a 0.3mm blue Pilot HI-TEC-C (and was lucky I didn’t spend a lot more).  Maido has the hard to find 0.3mm and 0.4mm mechanical pencils — and leads.  I was intrigued by them (I had a Staedtler 0.3mm pencil many years ago), but they were quite pricey, the  real world results weren’t much finer than a 0.5mm pencil, and it’s very easy to break the leads.

But Maido doesn’t have the Sakura Gelato.  The saleslady said it looked like an export model meant for Western countries.  The Sakura America web site says the entire Gelly Roll line was originally intended for export to the US.  In Japan Sakura sells a lot of normal writing pens, but Sakura decided it would be very hard to compete with the US market leaders, so they created a new market with the Gelly Rolls.

Apparently, Sakura was right; in 2003, they introduced the Gelato, and in 2004 some additional models, but it looks like all Gelatos have been discontinued, which is a shame.  The Gelato 04 model has a claimed line width (0.26mm) almost as fine as anything in Maido (0.25mm, 0.28mm) but it writes much more smoothly than any of the super-fine models I tried; I’d say it even writes better than my 0.3mm Hi-Tec-C.  Also, I prefer the retractable pen design; however, if Maido’s selection is any indication, I’d say Japanese prefer pens with caps over retractable models.

So it looks like I won’t get any more Gelatos.  Oh, well, I had fun — and ended up with a lot of cool pens.

But new posts will be becoming this week, and I have a practical, automation focused series planned.

But the best hard-boiled writers are good.  To be exact, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett are good, and I’ve read most of their stories.  Recently, I bought Chandler’s The Simple Art of Murder — and of course I read it immediately, and enjoyed it.  Those short stories are a nice change from the Marlowe novels.

But I don’t agree with his introductory essay on detective novels.  Chandler says the goal of fiction is realism — but it’s not: fiction exists to tell a story, whether sung by a bard, recited by a poet, printed in a novel, or shown on a movie screen.  Ideally, fiction should tell a story about interesting characters with style, and illuminate part of the fascinating world we live in, a world filled with all kinds of people (I strongly agree with Chandler that there is no such thing as a boring topic).

No fiction is realistic: Chandler and Hammett are not exceptions.  Hammett’s The Gutting of Couffignal is no more realistic than The Red House.  Chandler’s stories, set in Los Angeles, make Los Angeles sound like what I imagine Las Vegas was like in its gangster days.   If Chandler was realistic, his stories would’ve ended quickly, because his detective would’ve been shot and killed, or retired with multiple concussions, instead of persisting through many narrow escapes and thorough beatings.

And I don’t doubt that LA has had, and still has, many problems with gangsters, gangs, and murder, but I don’t think his stories ever matched the typical life of most inhabitants of Los Angeles.   Frankly, I suspect Las Vegas was never really like its gangster image for most people, either.

I could argue that for a murder novel, you need to talk about those who are likely to deal with murder, such as detectives, gangsters, and the police.  But I don’t believe most murder and violence were (or are) caused by gangsters.

And it’s definitely not realistic today.  Where I live, most murders aren’t gang related; none of them sound at at all like something from Chandler or Hammett.  There aren’t any gambling joints.  Frankly, Jane Austen is a lot more realistic — I know several people who sure act a lot of characters in her novels.

But realistic ficture isn’t what we want.  Heck, even look at “reality” TV — of course, it’s time compressed to only show the more interesting interactions, and the producers try to set the show up to generate conflict.   I know most of my life wouldn’t make for a interesting novel.

Of course, it’s much better if you can can read Chinese, although many of her creations have titles in English (as does her book, The Taste of My Life).  But even if you can’t (like me), it’s still worth checking out for the always great pictures and sometimes very creative recipes.  Just don’t expect to be able to recreate the dishes without knowing Chinese — for example, the green layer at the bottom of her luscious looking desert on the cover of The Taste Of My Life is made from peas.

Another good food site is Clove Garden — the pictures aren’t as artistic, but it’s in English.

I’ve been enjoying drinking some wine I bought some years ago, back when I visited the Sonoma wine country often.  Then I didn’t drink much wine for 3-4 years.  It’s interesting to taste the difference the years make.

Some say that wines have a peak age — they don’t taste as good before or after that time.  I agree — and I love the taste of properly aged red wines.

So what have I been drinking?

• 1999 J Fritz Old Vine Zinfandel — an excellent wine even when new (~2001), it’s even better now; smoother, more mellow but still with a strong tannic afterbite.
• 2001 Beringer Nouveau red table wine — pretty nice now.  Again, it’s mellow and smooth; I suspect it’s at its peak.
• 1999 Pinot white wine — didn’t age well, I only ended up drinking a bit.  In general, whites don’t age well.

I’m looking forward to tasting how my other wines have aged (such as a Rabbit Ridge Barbera).

I don’t care for most of Bodum’s designs, and they can be very pricey (the Bora Bora is nice, but $150 for a tea pot?).  But I do really like the Assam Line I (shown above; photos re-arranged from the Bodum web site).  It’s a nice size for me (16 oz), the quality is definitely better than my Chinese pot, and the price (about $25), while pricey compared to my tea pot, is much less than the others I like (the $50 Classic or the Bora Bora).  From the boxes I’ve been able to examine, it appears the Assam Line I is made in Germany, and the Assam Line III (about $35) is made in China.  If I’m going to buy an expensive, fancy European brand tea pot, I want it to be made in Europe, not China.  I haven’t seen any reasonable prices for the Assam on eBay, so while I might get one (new or used) eventually, it’s not going to be anytime soon.

I do like Bodum’s Chocolatiere.  It’s a simple, reliable, non-electrical design that’s classic. It’s occasionally seen on eBay, at both reasonable (<$15 with shipping) and unreasonable prices.

Tony

I recently installed a set of Tot-loks on a cabinet to keep out my toddler who wants to be a monkey (she’s good at climbing). Here are my notes:

• They’re more expensive than the normal spring latches; the deluxe starter kit cost about $20 (that kit comes with one magnetic key and four locks).
• Sometimes they are the only solution; for example, if the door does not have enough of a gap for a spring latch and doesn’t have knobs. Plus, they are better looking, since nothing is visible outside the door, even if you could use something like this.
• They are more work to install and require more modification, since you have to drill a 9/32″ hole almost through the door for the magnetic pickup in addition to driving at least four screws (six is better, but four seems OK).  If you remove the lock later you will have a noticeable (9/32″) hole in the door.
  • I didn’t happen to have a 9/32″ drill bit for my handy Skil drill/driver, but I was successfully able to use a 1/4″ drill bit.
  • The latch plate uses two screws.  The lock part has six screw holes, but it seems to work well with just the front two.
• Like spring latches, you do need to test that you have installed it correctly.  If possible, test first making sure you can get the door open without using the magnetic key.
  • Of course, it’s often not easily to properly test and still know you can get the door open.  However, I had one lock that refused to open while I was trying to get it all lined up.
  • One way is to check the latch operation (making sure it opens strong using the key) with the door open.  The latch also needs enough space to work, but that can be tricky to check without closing the door.  Maybe using some strong (but not too strong) double stick tape on the latch plate before screwing would help – the tape should be strong enough that you can test operation, but weak enough you can force the door open without excessive force.
  • As always, you have to make sure the latch lines up with the latch plate.
  • The magnetic pickup part (you’ll probably need to use at least one extension piece) has to be close enough to the outer edge of the door to work.
  • The latch needs some space to work.  If it’s jammed against the latch plate, it will not be able to retract.  Sometimes my opening procedure is: push the door back a bit (to give the latch some room), wiggle the key around until I hear the latch retract, open the door while holding the key in place, and then replacing the key in its normal location (don’t forget it inside the cabinet!).
• I highly recommend buying extra key and keeping it somewhere else – just in case you’re forgetful and lock your magnetic key in the cabinet.  (I just might have some experience with this…)
• The lock can be broken with a screwdriver and a lot of force (handy in case you just locked your one key inside the cabinet, or you didn’t adjust the lock properly during installation).  So far my experience indicates you have a 50% chance of breaking the lock (thankfully, my sample size is very small).

Tony

The reality is that it’s physically impossible to build the perfect stroller, so they all have compromises. Almost all double strollers are over 20 lbs, typically over 25 lbs, which is pretty heavy for many women. I’ve found one light stroller, the Peg Perego Aria, which is very wide and not well regarded.

The MacLaren Twin strollers have a better reputation, but are heavier, and are still very wide – definitely not a good stroller to take on a shopping trip. You can get a narrow, roomy stroller with a Graco Duoglider or similar tandem stroller – and feel like you’re driving a train, especially when putting it away (the heaviest is almost 40 lbs).

Jogging strollers are wide and heavy, and I’m skeptical of how small they fold. If you’re not concerned about cost, Phil & Ted’s sport buggy is narrow and short, because it stacks one kid on top of the other (which I don’t like – the bottom child gets a bad view).

If the older kid likes to stand, the Sit and Stand strollers are a good option – they’re narrow and relatively short, but not so good if both children like to sit.

The best compromise for me? The Austrian-designed Marco Sky L. It looks good, fits perfectly in my car’s trunk, is narrow, is as short as a large single stroller (many people don’t realize it’s a double), attracts attention, and has nice big wheels. At about 26 lbs it’s not light, it’s storage is useless (I hang bags over the handles), is hard to push with one hand, and isn’t officially sold in the U.S. It wouldn’t be good for twins, but it’s still my favorite.

Oh, and if I were a rich man, I could solve the double stroller problem – by hiring a nanny.

Tony

Tony