Moleskine Goodness (and a bit of fakery too)
I treated myself to a 3-pack of Moleskine Cahiers today. These are 64-page pocket-size notbeooks that use the same paper as the classic Moleskines but have a cardboard binding instead. They're perfect for slipping inside my Moleskine Memo Pockets (a pocket-size accordeon folder that serves as my Analog PDA) and have helped me to perfect my paper-based organizing system. The cahiers have perfect acid-free pages which are just the right thickness for writing on with a fountain pen and over which ink glides fairly smoothly.
I also purchased a Moleskine knock-off manufactured for the Loomis Art Store. This product features the same form factor and paper quality as a true Moleskine but does not lie flat (which is not so much as liability because its intended use of for writing poetry while commuting. Again, the ink glides fairly smoothly over the page. Unfortunately, I can't say as much for the Semikolon notebook that I bought at Christmas because of its thicker paper: The pen catches on its pages and ink smears on it, and it's bulky too. It looks great, but it is an inferior product, so it has been consigned to my desktop as a scratchpad for jotting down ideas.
I've had great experiences with other Loomis products and the pocket notebooks are currently on sale for 5 dollars (down from seven) which puts them at 1/3 the price of actual Moleskines.
The Cahiers are also a great value at 9 dollars for a three-pack, which yields the same pagecount as one standard Moleskine, resulting in a forty percent saving over the regular notebook.
Am I obsessing? You bet! But my notebooks provide some offline, low-tech luxury in my wired existence.
I also purchased a Moleskine knock-off manufactured for the Loomis Art Store. This product features the same form factor and paper quality as a true Moleskine but does not lie flat (which is not so much as liability because its intended use of for writing poetry while commuting. Again, the ink glides fairly smoothly over the page. Unfortunately, I can't say as much for the Semikolon notebook that I bought at Christmas because of its thicker paper: The pen catches on its pages and ink smears on it, and it's bulky too. It looks great, but it is an inferior product, so it has been consigned to my desktop as a scratchpad for jotting down ideas.
I've had great experiences with other Loomis products and the pocket notebooks are currently on sale for 5 dollars (down from seven) which puts them at 1/3 the price of actual Moleskines.
The Cahiers are also a great value at 9 dollars for a three-pack, which yields the same pagecount as one standard Moleskine, resulting in a forty percent saving over the regular notebook.
Am I obsessing? You bet! But my notebooks provide some offline, low-tech luxury in my wired existence.