Fingers Were Meant to be Inky
A while back, I published a post describing my experiences with iron gall ink and how one specific ink ate a pen and a spare nib. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend doing so before reading this post. This is going to be a long, photo-heavy article, so I’m not going to rehash the initial story, which has proven to be really popular. It’s sparked quite a debate across reddit, including one in which a lovely redditor repeatedly called me… Read More
My friends, you may be whatever you resolve to be. Resolution is omnipotent.
Determine that you will be something in the world, and you shall be something.
Aim at excellence and excellence will be attained. This is the great secret of effort and eminence.
“I cannot do it” never accomplished anything; “I will try” has wrought wonders.
– Joel Hawes
I stopped making New Year’s Resolutions a couple decades ago. They never worked and I really don’t believe in them. But I’m making some anyway. Why? I don’t know. It’s probably a fool’s game, but sometimes you just need to act the fool, you know?
2017 was a rough year. Come to think of it, most of the BS my family dealt with started in 2016, so goodbye, good luck, and good riddance to both years.
I try to be a positive force in my corner of the world, so as I’m waving goodbye to 2017 (with one finger), I’m heartily welcoming 2018 and all the potential awesome it might bring. It’s a fresh start. A clean slate. A blank page. And any other cliche you can think of for a new beginning.
One thing’s for certain, though: my blogging schedule took a beating in 2017. I spent a lot of time being exhausted and stressed out, and I didn’t publish much. That’s something I need to change. I’ve got a bunch of reviews and some other silliness in the works while my pile of unused pens continues to grow. Gotta start digging my way out.
Simply declaring resolutions won’t improve my chances of success (and I’m fairly certain that making resolutions will only catch the attention of the Fates and serve to decrease my chances). But these are the things I want to accomplish in 2018, so I’m tempting the Fates and writing them down anyway:
Weight is up. Stress is high. Numbers are out of whack. I’m kind of a hot mess. This aging business is a bunch of crap. I know, I made it sound like I was going to focus on writing reviews, but I really need to improve my health if I expect to improve anything else. I figure if I can trim down, eat better, and get more sleep, I’ll have more energy to pour into this site. The good news is that I’ve already started this one. Around the middle of November, I cut out sweets and fried foods, drastically reduced my intake of saturated fats and meat, and forced myself to get to bed earlier.
Although I fell off the wagon over the holidays, I’m still down about 6 pounds (2.7 kg) from where I started. Getting back on track should be relatively easy, and if I can pepper in some meditation and a little exercise, I’ll be in good shape (insert rim shot here). Can I keep it up forever, though? Good question.
I started 2017 fairly strong, posting a number of reviews through April. But I about fell off the planet after that, only covering a few pens and notebooks over the last eight months of the year. I have so many pens sitting around, many of which I haven’t even inked up yet, not to mention a huge number of notebooks and several hundred inks. I really need to step up my game. I do have several pen reviews in the works, though, and my photography is already done for them. So it’s just a matter of cleaning up the images and writing the text.
I think I’m going to try batching things as much as possible so I can maintain some semblance of a regular schedule.
I tried bullet journaling a couple times late last year and early this year. I loved it but found it hard to keep up with. If I got behind a few days, getting caught up was a chore. And if I was a few days behind as a new month rolled around, I had to get my calendar and trackers all set up on top of remembering several days’ worth of events. It was just easier to toss it on a shelf and say “the hell with it.”
But I’m trying something new this year. I’ve set up all my monthly calendars and trackers in advance, so I only have to worry about recording each day’s events and managing my to-do list. I’m hoping this staves off the feelings of being overwhelmed and helps me keep it going.
Okay, I admit it: this one is a long shot. I’m a terrible artist. Even my stick figures are lame. Earlier this year, I visited the Kinokuniya in New York, and walked out with a B6 Stalogy 365Days notebook and no idea what I’d use it for. For the sake of mindfulness, I thought trying to draw/sketch more often would be a good exercise, and using a 365Days notebook would be a great way to track a drawing every day for a year. I seriously doubt I’ll create a drawing every day, but it will be fun to try.
The vast majority of my posts are reviews. I need to branch out more. My Pen Pain posts have been pretty popular (please pardon the alliteration), so I want to do more things like that. Plus, I have a few other ideas that (I think) would make good reading. And in case you didn’t know, I’m part of the team organizing the new St. Louis Pen Show, so I’ll undoubtedly have some posts on that over the next few months.
So that’s my plan for 2018. What would you like to see from me in 2018? Are you interested my bullet journal setup? Or my daily doodles? Are there missing pieces in my reviews that I should add? Or are they too long already? What should I add? What should I do differently? What should I stop? Is there something you’d like to see that no one is doing? Hit me up in the comments and let me know!
Is iron gall ink Public Enemy #1, or just a poor, misunderstood schmuck caught up in an unfair war of opinions?
Some people avoid it like the plague, flat-out stating that it will eat your pens, paper, pets, and children. Others use it exclusively, saying it’s perfectly safe and they bathe in it and pour it over their cereal with no ill effects… Read More
Google+ has a really nice fountain pen community going. It’s not super busy there, but a group of dedicated regulars keep the conversation going. There’s a lot of information sharing, show-and-tell, and (of course) questions & calls for recommendations. Regular contributor Nathan stopped in to ask for recommendation: He was looking for a blue similar to Noodler’s Navy, but that was even more water-resistant.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!!
I knew that Noodler’s published a
… Read More
Well, it finally happened. I can take some small amount of solace in knowing it’s Amazon’s fault and not mine. But there’s still a giant blue stain on my carpet, and I’m not happy about it.
I’ve wanted to check out Levenger products, but unfortunately, none of my usual, go-to fountain pen retailers carry them. I decided to buy a couple Levenger inks (their bottles are so cool!) and had to decide whether to get them directly from Levenger ($14 per bottle + shipping) or from Amazon ($12 per bottle with free shipping). No brainer, right? (I’m referring to the decision being a no-brainer at this point…I’ll get to the box-packing Amazon employees being no-brainers in a bit.)
I’m not a big Facebook user, primarily because they refuse to notify me ONLY when someone tags/mentions me or posts to my wall. I got tired of wading through pictures of people’s lunch and reading vague and cryptic “some people” complaints. If they’re going to notify me of everything, then I don’t have the time for it.
That said, I know that’s where the majority of people hang out and where they look to share content and engage with each other. So I finally got around to making a Facebook page specifically for posting my reviews and posts related to fountain pens, ink, and paper. I’ll be posting all my old reviews, new reviews, and other fun stuff.
So if you use Facebook, be sure to stop by to say hello or to follow me there. Thanks!
Moby Dick: The great, white whale who for so long eluded and tormented Captain Ahab, invading his dreams, becoming the subject of his infamous obsession, and eventually leading to his demise. We all have one, don’t we? That one thing that’s always on our mind…that just eats at us night and day until we capture it, defeat it, or figure it out.
For some in the fountain pen world, the white whale is a rare pen model, color, or date of manufacture (or a combination of all three). For me, it’s about 1/100 of a penny’s worth of plastic: a simple … Read More
After I got into the hobby of collecting fountain pens, I (of course) started sampling all kinds of ink to go with them. After ordering like two batches of samples, I started reading these horror stories about a condition called SITB, or Slime (or stuff or s#$t) in the Bottle happening with a brand of ink called Private Reserve (PR). There were a few reports of it happening with other brands, but PR seemed to be responsible for the bulk of these reports.
After hearing about this issue, I decided to just avoid the brand, although I still had a few samples that I bought before hearing about it.
Fast-forward to tonight. I wanted my eight-year-old son to practice his penmanship, so I brought out his Kakuno and asked him what color ink he wanted. He chose dark red, so I grabbed my sample of Private Reserve Black Cherry and a syringe and went to fill it up.
I had trouble sucking up the ink in the syringe, and I was thinking “what the heck is going on?” I pulled the syringe out of the sample bottle and found a semi-solid wad of ick crammed into the needle.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that tonight was my first and last experience with Private Reserve. Gross.
Have any of you experienced SITB with PR or any other brand? Leave a comment and let me know!
I’m a member of Google’s Opinion Rewards program, where they throw a few pennies at me in return for filling out surveys. They’ll add between 10 cents and a dollar’s worth of credit to my Google Play account in return for filling out surveys. These credits can be used to buy music, books, apps, or movies. It’s pretty cool.
Yes, I am fully aware of Google’s motives here. They want my data so they know what types of advertisements to put in front of me. It’s called “targeted advertising” and it makes a lot of sense. Advertisers will pay Google a lot of money to serve their ads to specific groups, and this leads to more “clicks per impression.” Amazon and Facebook do the same thing. Lately I’ve noticed fountain pen ads on all sorts of random web pages I go to. Targeted advertising at work.
Most of Google’s surveys are related to shopping habits. Today, however, I received a survey about my ability to move about my home unencumbered. My initial thought was, “Oh, they must have an advertiser who manufactures devices for people with disabilities.” I answered the question, got my $0.20 in credit, and thought to myself, “Gee, pretty soon Google will know more about me that I know about myself.”
Then it hit me: The realization that this could all be setup for a darker, more chilling reality.
What if targeted advertising is just a disguise for something far more sinister? Is Google trying to engineer replacements for all of us? Could they potentially gather enough data to reconstruct our DNA? Do they want to replace us with Googlized clones of our current selves? Are we destined to be search-friendly pod-people?
Seriously, is this how the Body Snatchers scenario is going to go down?
Next up in my “Inexpensive Chinese Fountain Pens” series, I present to you…
Price: $5.00
Nib: Medium/Fine
Filling System: Screw-Type Piston Converter
I was very excited to get this pen. It’a knockoff of a much more expensive (and famous) German pen, and I’ve only heard good things about its performance. For $5, it seemed like a no-brainer. When it arrived, I was impressed with its seemingly fantastic build quality. It looks and feels like a high-quality writing instrument. I inked it up with some Noodler’s X-Feather and went on a little writing excursion. Turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected…. Read More
