Gear Intro

“…and I said, that’s good! One less thing.” -Forrest Gump

This is the start of a new category here, GEAR. Hopefully someone else finds it useful. I will surely be referencing it when necessary.

Recently I’ve been reading about the idea of “Buy it for Life”, where you find a product, or line, or brand that solves the problems you have. I’m not so sure that there is much I can buy that will satisfy my needs for life, but I do need to track the stuff I buy that’s super high quality or great for what I need. Recently I’ve found two home runs in that department. The first, a new laptop will get it’s own post later, because there is quite a story to match.

The second is something I’ve been looking for since high school, and that’s a notebook with thin, strong sheets that don’t bleed with most ink-ball or fountain pens. I received a notebook like this as a gift in high school, and I promptly filled it with notes, drawings, scribbles, and even some paintings. It was amazing. Since then I’ve been searching for its replacement, hopefully in bulk. While binge reading the wonderful Cool Tools site, I found a “what’s in your bag” article that listed Muji brand notebooks. There wasn’t any other description of the type or quality, and reading amazon.com reviews didn’t shed much more light. However, my work notebook was quickly running out of pages, so I took a shot with the MUJI Blank Notebook a Book(Japanese Tankoubon) Size Unruled 184sheets(fair warning, amazon affiliate link).

Just, WOW. Going in with no expectations, this fit all my needs. It’s small, about 5.25″ x 7.25″, has plain UNRULED sheets, plain covers, and amazing, wonderful, silky smooth paper that didn’t bleed with ANY of the pens I tried with it. Pilot V5? Nope. Uniball Signo? Nope. Fountain Pens? Nope. It might not work for many other people, but for me this is the best notebook I’ve had in a long, long time.