"Free Ride" Pen by Jean Pierre Lepine
There are times when I post a concept design to provoke yowls of indignation from some of you, if only so I might sidle in and put a cool hand to your brow. I remind you that strange designs are a good thing, the better to let imagination scamper across the infinite white lightbox of possibility. "It's strange, dear, but you'll someday understand," I coo. "Let them run free. They're in a better place."
Which is to say, were I to fully murder the metaphor, this "Free Ride" pen by Jean Pierre Lepine, available for actual retail purchase, is the dead puppy just buried under the shed, shambling wetly down the upstairs hall.
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The sheer beauty of your second para takes the sting out of the mental effort necessary to decode the ergonomics of this monstrosity.
My brain is just screaming at me, like Dr. Tran, asking "WHAT DOES THE WHEEL DO?" I kind of, sort of, can figure out the function of the spring-loaded pad at the back, but the function of the outrigger wheel on the top completely escapes me.
I think that's the clitoral stimulator.
My guess is the wheel is there to roll/glide the pen in and out of your chest/breast pocket
Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having a clip on it to begin with?
Personally, I think this pen is pretty neat but I don't know if I could use it; a lot of "ergonomic" writing instruments are specifically for right handed people - as a hooking left hander I find them very uncomfortable to use. I'm not going to drop $150-$200 on a pen but I might have to visit the local writing instrument store to see if they have one I can look at/try out/lust after.
We've seen, for lack of a better term "little roll-y bits" on pen clips before, so that's not all that surprising, and I have to agree that it *does* look kind of cool, inspire of its weirdness.
My one thought is that, why on Earth would you want to pay that much for such a pen that was *still* a ballpoint, and therefore, despite all prettyness, writes like crap? Sigh.
Tycho, what kind of pen do you suggest?
Maybe if it was gel DCulb?
I kindof like it. I like the fact that it is far more complicated than it need be, for example, and I like that those prosthetic-flesh-looking bits would be fun to fiddle with during meetings.