Alright, kiddos. Play time is over. And by “over,” I specifically mean the opposite of that, and it’s time to play with pens and photography equipment.

So today I got out four things, if we’re counting. Thing one is my illuminated photo box. That’s right, this time y’all get to float in the Infinite Expanse. And two stacked macro focus shots. Luxury!

Thing two is the Platinum Curidas, with a medium point and in “Urban Green” which is really more of a translucent turquoise. The Curidas I think at the moment is my favorite retractable fountain pen – admittedly, out of an available selection of not very many. Other contenders I can think of off the top of my head are the Pilot/Namiki Vanishing Point and Decimo, which I have; the Mahjohn A2 Press, which I also have; The Lamy Dialog, which I don’t. Oh, and also these things, which are ubiquitous, but crap. Jury’s out on the Oaso K016, which I haven’t seen in person yet. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I have one of those coming in the mail already.

Where was I? Oh yeah.

Here’s the Curidas’ party trick:

It goes blep. It goes un-blep. Click the rather long plunger on the tail and the point retracts into the body. A trap door closes over it, obviating the need for a cap.

Platinum make a lot of noise about the Curidas being the successor to their “Knock” pen from the 1950’s, which is now an utter hen’s tooth. You’re unlikely to get your hands on one of those.

If you’re a habitual disassembler, the Curidas has you covered. It breaks down into this selection of components (and you can pull the spring out as well). The clip is removable and my pen came with a little tool in the box to assist with this, which wasn’t immediately evident because all the instructions were in Japanese.

The engineers who designed this are surely showing off, because it has not one but two bolt action mechanisms inside, both of which are arguably unnecessary. The first is the bolt-and-twist to remove the metal sheath over the cartridge:

And the second is another bolt-and-twist to insert or remove the nib/cartridge/feed assembly into the nose of the pen:

Never mind the coin. I was just using it to keep the round parts from rolling away.

The nib is steel and it’s pretty stiff. Very little of its length is not supported by the feed beneath. If you like a flexy bendy line-width-changy feel the Curidas is probably not for you. The “medium” nib is in fact the widest, and it’s a little fine even for me. I like a nice bold in-your-face line, which is why I usually write with an italic nib anyhow. Available sizes are medium, fine, and extra fine. I would probably find the latter two nigh unusable.

The Curidas is not an expensive pen, at least compared to its other name brand retractable brethren. You can score one for a little over $40 from all the usual suspects. Compare to $160-ish for a Vanishing Point or over $300 for a Dialog and you can see how having a humdrum nib on it can be excused.

Thing the third.

Look, fancy inks are problematic for me. I almost exclusively use my writing tools in a professional environment, so I can’t deviate too far from somber and stolid blacks, blues, and just barely maybe some greens. I got this Diamine Blue Lightning shimmer ink in the mail the other day and this is really about as far as I can go in the vibrancy department.

I like this stuff in theory, even though I’ve only been using it for a single day so far. Out of the Curidas and its little nib the effect is really more sparkly than “shimmer,” but maybe it’ll do better once I put some of it into one of my calligraphy pens.

Thing the fourth is today’s Bonus Ballpoint, which is an OLight O’Pen Mini. This is a compact bolt action ballpoint writer with an aluminum body, here in anodized forest green. This is aimed squarely at the EDC crowd. It’s pleasing to fiddle with, a diminutive 3-1/4" long, and if you hand it to a member of the unwashed masses they’re unlikely to manage to fuck it up.

At work I always have two pens. I keep a ballpoint or rollerball or something handy because you should never, ever hand one of your fountain pens to a client, stranger, or layman because they’re likely to do something to it you’d rather they didn’t.