[mdlman]

I’m with you. Although I recently started writing a lot more than usual. I ended up buying a used wire binding machine. I’ve been making notebooks with nice printer paper and cardboard from cereal boxes recently. It’s worked surprisingly well, although I may get a better source of cover cardboard soon. The nice part is that I can make notebooks of any size and any paper (like watercolor paper for sketchbooks) with lots of pages. Much simpler than sewing the binding.

[ubermonkey]

This is a great example of the thing that happens a lot: There's the hobby or primary activity (in this case: writing on nice paper) -- and then the all-consuming DIY-hacker-ethos activity of needing to build or modify everything associated with the activity.

I'm glad YOU are happy, and I absolutely understand that you aren't doing this, but a super common thing is that someone mentions a hobby -- pens and notebooks; home espresso; motorcycles -- and is then deluged with instructions about how they should do a bunch of stuff that's really part of the second order hobby (the DIY stuff) and not about the main activity.

I just want to make coffee, or ride my motorcycle, or have good pen and paper options. I don't need to

- Hack a chinese grinder instead of buying a turnkey device; or - Modify a bunch of stuff on my motorcycle when it works just fine as it is; or - Make my own notebooks

But if you're happy doing these things, bully for you!