As a person who rarely uses a pen but when I do choose to hand-write, esp when I'm having a good day where I can sit down to write a few of the several letters I send out in a year where I actually do write letters out by hand, the pens I use most often are ones that originated from Italy & parts of Europe along with the nibs on pens where they are interchangeable; hwr, I have a few that are not capable of changing the tip b/c they're handmade from Italian glass by multi-generation glass makers who also make dip pens. And just an FYI, the chop (impression seal) I use to seal the back of the parchment paper especially designed for this type of writing tool (some of which actually folds into an envelope tho I do have some stationary in parchment that comes w/matching envelopes but no adhesive on the back) is made using a special type of wicked wax that drips onto the back & then once it cools to the point where it will allow the impression w/o sticking to the chop, I imprint the Lotus Blossom into the wax using an antique Tibetan seal with the Lotus Blossom on the end & the handle, which is all one piece & made from an old, hand-designed metal, has Lotus Blossom vines that run up the sides of the cylindrical area where it's held & the vines meet at the top on a rounded, yet nice hand-feel top that's comfortable to use despite it's age & manner of design. My inks, even the scented inks I use generally come from Italy as well although I've some from Germany, Denmark, & Whales. LOL!
I gave up the pen e-cigs b/c I had to recharge them every couple hours & at that rate, I had to buy new ones every few months, not to mention the constant refilling of the early-day cartridges. After I moved up to the Ego, I was not happy with those either b/c the batteries ran out & required constant charging as well but what was worse is the amount of waste as well as added cost to replace the base of an e-cig. It wasn't until the e-cig makers began manufacturing rechargeable batteries that I found them to be somewhat suitable; hwr, at 14,000-whatever, it was a better move when they hit the 18650 rechargeable batteries, esp since I have been using rechargeable batteries (AA, AAA, D, etc...) for many years & there's a man I know who disposes of them through a company that has the ability to turn rechargeable batteries into something else that's safe rather than ending up in a landfills.
With regards to e-juice/e-liquid flavor goes, I wasn't truly satisfied with the e-juice flavors until I switched to a sub-ohm unit but even then, as I mentioned in another thread, I didn't find the perfect nirvana flavor I'd been searching for until I happened upon a broadcast online w/Kiah then rec'd samples from HiggyCig owner/co-owner w/his wife Jenn I think, at VapeMania15! After meeting Kiah in her broadcast and having her along with others mention and share the links to this site where I found even more high-quality e-juice, I was getting by and not falling back to analogs primarily out of willpower; however, after I began vaping the e-juice from the quality vendors who make amazing vape juice & are active members here at VU, I no longer had to worry about falling back or slipping b/c the e-juice is so much more satisfying when it comes from a sub-ohm tank with a fresh coil and a mod with enough power to not only last most of a day, but also bring out all the nuances on both the inhale and the exhale of the vapor! The days of relying on willpower-online are gone! Why in the world would I want to go backwards to analogs or even to cheap-made e-juice when there are so many high-quality e-juice vendors who are in business to make the best juices on the market and doing so at a much lower price than sub-par juice sells for elsewhere? The answer is: I wouldn't.
I love the warmth of the e-juice and the ability of the mods along with the high quality coils to heat the high-quality juice that's almost indescribable other than to say it is better 1000s of times over than lesser quality juice. But, in order to get the full flavor along with the nuances that are blended into the juice, you need the right equipment to get you there.
You don't throw a cheap wine cooler on a table, even in a fine crystal goblet and expect to pass it off as vintage wine when it's served with an 8, 12, or 14 course meal. In fact, you don't even use the same wine with each course b/c the pairing of wines to bring out the nuances of meals is as much of an art as it is a science. The stuff I vaped in those early day & later pen e-cigs up until I found the rigs I have today, despite the leaking tanks, are the nice China, including the chilled salad fork and crystal goblet for each course's perfectly paired wine & the e-juice IS THE VINTAGE & PERFECTLY PAIRED WINE! Face it, a wine cooler or cheap beer just doesn't cut it if you want to truly enjoy flavor and/or enjoy that after-meal vape. And I'm not trying to be a snob here; I'm just saying that regardless of how often I have been so broke in my life I wasn't sure if I would be sleeping in my car or in an apartment or rented home, I'd go without wine or a quality beer rather than drink rot-gut that tastes horrible. Even as much as I love pizza & beer, I'd rather eat a pizza with soda or even water rather than ruin the taste of the pizza with a cheap, flavorless imported beer (again, not being a snob; I just don't care for domestic beer let alone cheap beer in general).
I will say that in some ways, the market has gone overboard but overall, I believe there are designers out there who are, very much like baristas, whether they work in a nice coffeehouse or are home baristas like me, are trying to find that perfect design to go with the high-quality juice in order to create that perfect god-shot vape. It's no different than a barista honing skills such as surfing temperatures, applying the best tamp as measured in pounds of pressure, while using quality, fresh burr ground coffee beans that are used within 2wks & kept in a container where the air can be removed so the oxygen doesn't ruin the flavor of the beans, which will sooner or later allow that said barista to pull their own god-shots but it is always a process that includes using the best water, best & freshest roasted beans (not burnt ones such as those roasted & used in places like $tarbuck$...), ground in a burr grinder, tamped, perfectly surfed temperature on a high-end espresso bar set of machines, incl'g learning to stretch milk w/a manual steam wand on the espresso machine until that god-shot is in sight then comes together and happens. And yes, when it comes to espresso & espresso-based coffees, I am a snob... With regards to wine, I simply don't care for cheap wine, particularly when it's not properly paired with the right meal choice since the wine itself is responsible for bringing out the flavors of the meal and/or the course within a meal.
Just my 2 cents worth.. Forgive the length. I didn't mean for it to become so long; hwr, I did mean to add the pen info b/c clearly, most if not all disposable pens do come from China or Taiwan. I've ordered enough of them for the companies I've worked for in addition to the law firms where I've worked as a researcher. Between the yellow legal-size notepads & the long hours I spent in the legal library stacks, I'm almost certain there's dust from all the time I spent working on the high-profile cases as well as the small but heart-felt cases as well, swimming around in my body. I've even dozed off in the stacks while researching statutes & old case files where specific lines taken & won by former attorneys added weight to arguments the attorneys I worked for were able to use as well, with some being successful and others not so much depending most often on the number of cases where the point was argued enough times & won that it became not a law but an accepted point of positive consideration for the side using them.
