I am ShadowLord» 2010 April

$10 Mont Blanc Rollerball Hack

My dad gave me a Mont Blanc pen as a gift awhile back. I love the pen – it writes amazingly smooth, it’s rather expensive, and I also don’t want to lose it.

On the site Instructables.com, I found a pen hack tutorial. Someone figured out that the refill for the Mont Blanc rollerball pen is the same as the refill for the Pilot G2 pen. The Mont Blanc is so nice because of the tip and the refill has the nib right on it. I picked up some office supplies and recreated the project. I bought a Pilot G2 for $3 and a Mont Blanc rollerball refill for $7 at Staples. My Pilot G2 / Mont Blanc rollerball pen turned out great. I feel much more comfortable carrying the hacked version around.

Here are some tips:

You can get blue or black Mont Blanc refills.
The Pilot G2 is the “0.7 Fine Point” version of the pen.
The Mont Blanc rollerball refill is slightly larger than the ink cartridge of the Pilot G2.

All you have to do is trim down the Mont Blanc refill and match the size. I took some sand paper and smoothed down the plastic endcap to match the size of the Pilot G2 rollerball cartridge.

Here are the tutorial and video I watched to create my own $10 Mont Blanc Rollerball:

A Magic Trick Four Years in the Making

Apr 11th 2010

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When I get get ready to go out, I check to make sure I have the essentials:

Wallet – check
Watch - check
Pants - check
Extra Pants - check
Binaca - check
Three of Diamonds – check

For almost 4 years, I have been carrying around a “Three of Diamonds” in my front pocket. I wanted to pull off a surprising magic trick using this precise card. The trick involves asking somebody to pick a card from an invisible deck of cards. I would say, “Pick any card,” as I fanned out a pretend deck of cards. My hope was that the trickee would pick the “Three of Diamonds”. If I could produce the card they were thinking of, they would be amazed – they would have to be.

Three of Diamonds

I chose the “Three of Diamonds” for one main reason – if someone picked it out of the blue, it would be unlikely that I was prepared for that exact card. “Ace of Spades” of “Queen of Diamonds” would be obvious, but a three – none one would pick that one.

My thoughts were right, no one picked the three of diamonds for a long time, 4 years or so. I had to play it off as a joke when they said some card other than the 3 of D. Almost half the time someone picked an Ace of something.

But patience paid off. I was at a party recently and I got to try my trick again. I saw a group of ladies that were friends of friends that I had met a long time ago. I started up a conversation. I wanted to say the words “Three” and “Diamonds” in the chit-chat. After so many wrong picks, I thought that I would start stacking the deck so to speak. I had to be subtle though.

“Alright, I want you to think of any card…” I waved my hands to mock a magician and got a smile. “Pick any card…Do you have the card?…Can you see it?” She said, “Yes!?”

I dug out the hidden “Three of Diamonds” and said, “Is this your card?” She opened her eyes and reacted with total amazement. She immediately wanted to know how I just did that. “It’s magic. I am magical.”

I have since retired the trick. I didn’t want to be that guy that does magic tricks at parties. How annoying is that guy?

I am ShadowLord

$10 Mont Blanc Rollerball Hack

A Magic Trick Four Years in the Making

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