A Geek Goes Flying

The rOtring Freeway is ... fine ... but it’s feeling kinda loose and needed replacement in my daily carry kit. Wanted something inexpensive and stumbled across this Porsche Crest Carbon-Look Ballpoint Pen ($25). (Echos of the Porsche Design Tec Flex Steel Ballpoint Pen someone got me after I got my first Porsche, the 968 Cabrio.) Only ... it’s not a ballpoint pen. It’s a roller ball. Which is what I wanted. The included refill writes fine and is about as generic as you can get (it’s got a green “quill” logo with an ®, 2025-04 marking, and reads “International Roller Pen Refill 0.7.” I tried the Pilot, G2 Gel Ink Refill and it  almost  fits, but the tip is recessed a bit into the pen and the diameter is like a hair’s breadth too thick (it got stuck in the tip). It appears this is probably equivalent to a Schmidt 5888M rollerball refill . Edit: It’s not. The tip of the refill gets stuck going into the tip of the pen. Amazon’s AI suggests a Schmidt 888 , or the Graf Von Faber ...

Like most (?) Americans, I’ve always pronounced Nikon as “Nye-con.” Until a couple of years ago when some Japanese neighbors corrected me: “Nee-con.”Smug in my superiority, I adopted that pronunciation, certain it was the “correct” one (though it turns out, even that wasn’t quite correct, as the Japanese pronunciation has the ‘n’ silent; NEE-koh). Turns out, Nikon’s official policy is (reportedly): Say it however you do, regionally . But Porsche still has the “uh” at the end: How to pronounce Porsche properly And Linux is still Lih-nucks: Linux Pronunciation (from Revolution OS). So, uh, there it is.