I was going to link to the cheap disposable fountain pens I use at work, but it looks like JetPens doesn't stock them anymore and so now instead I'm down the rabbit hole of wondering how much Lee would kill me if I bought Mara a fountain pen for her birthday, and of course then I'd have to get Nia one too but should hers wait for her Christmas stocking or what? etc.
I don't remember how old Mara is, exactly, but wouldn't a fountain pen be disastrous in her hands? I seem to get smeared with ink even when near someone using one.
Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball 4-eva. Except they're not really, as claimed, airplane-safe.
In junior high I used to have that exact Zebra pen, I think. It had a very satisfying click.
redfox had a line on neato erasable markers. Maybe those would be good for Mara?
(I love fountain pens and fancy mechanical pencils, too.)
But wouldn't she LIKE to be smeared with ink? She'll be 5 and obviously this is a stupid idea, but I may well do it anyway. It'll be something she can only use while supervised at first, especially since Nia just had all markers and then in another round of purges all crayons removed until she can stop using them on things they shouldn't be used on. But irresistible cuteness is hard to resist, you know.
When I was 9 or 10, someone gave me a beautiful glass pen with spiral threads, that you dipped in an inkwell to write with. (They also gave me an inkwell.) Phenomenally great gift for someone that age.
8: Ha! My favored fountain pen is a green Pelikan! (Not like that one, but.)
Oooh, I like the F-701. All-stainless, and it has a knurled grip. Fucking knurled, man. But now I've seen the one Tweety linked to, and I want it.
I was going to go all 5 yr old plus fountain pen WTF but the pen in 8 looks fine to me. I was imagining a [what was that brand of super-fancy pen? ads featured world leaders singing treaties, etc.] which would seem like a total disaster.
9: I have one of those glass pens I bought for myself back when I was trying to learn how to write neatly. Eventually, the point goes dull and I couldn't get it to write well.
I had to look, but 5 is exactly right. Pilot Precise V5 (RT?)...umm have both retractable and not.
13: I guess I didn't love it that much.
12: I don't know, at least some world leaders must be able to sing.
I use the Zebra mechanical pencil! The Original model, not The Designer.
8: Maybe buy yourself a fountain pen first, and produce classy quality calligraphy with it while signing official documents, writing letters et cetera. Observing it from afar, the child thus comes to view the fountain pen as an extraordinary and grown-up resposibility that one must train for, instead of as something that's just handed to you. Then, when they finally do get their own fountain pen years later, they'll treat it with reverence and caution. For a while.
I lose writing implements too often to be snobby about them. I buy cheap mechanical pencils and lose them before they run out of led.
18: I have a similar plan, but for bourbon.
But now I've seen the one Tweety linked to, and I want it.
It is exactly as awesome as you might expect. You just tap on the page and your pen plays you the audio from the room at the exact moment you were writing that!
Also once you've imported the pages they're full-text searchable, which works shockingly well even with shitty, shitty handwriting like mine.
And you can print your own paper if you don't feel like buying their notebooks.
Does it automatically transcribe the audio (even if poorly) as well?
22: you can send it through some other software to do that, I think. I don't bother because I have no particular need for it (noting approximately what was said in my notes and then later selectively listening to the audio at double speed has been perfectly efficient for my purposes).
In college, I really liked taking notes with those 4 color pens. Especially because math professors have a habit of explaining themselves by drawing a graph, and then adding to the graph, and then adding to the graph, which is really hard to take notes from. Either your notes just look like the finished product, or you have written four different graphs and had so much writing that it was hard to also follow their point.
But! Not with four colors! Then you just switch ink to indicate what they did next.
Using 4-color pens was very popular with pre-med undergrads where I was, and it had been observed that they'd switch color whenever the instructor did, even if it wasn't significant (I don't understand why the pre-meds were so hellbent on detailed notes). A few lecturers were known to, essentially, troll premed-heavy classes by switching up the chalk color more often than necessary, just to hear the clickclickclickclick from all around the room.
Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball 4-eva.
Ditto.
Fountain pens scare me. I blame it on the mandatory fountain pen use in the school I went to in Genf. If you have poor penmanship the damn things will make it worse. The only positive feature of fountain pens is the ability to spray people in fountain pen fights.
I loved getting to engineering school, looking around, then affecting the mechanical pencil (usually a cheap one) and separate eraser. That plus the green gridded paper made me feel like I belonged.
Which color is more recent?
More importantly, who has higher rank?
1: My favorite part is the description of the Replacable Ink Tip: "Simply remove the ink cartridge with your fingers and insert a new one."
Thanks for suggesting I use my fingers! I was thinking of using my teeth, and if that didn't work I was gonna try using my ass, but fingers are a much better option!
I used to have an absurdly expensive Montblanc fountain pen courtesy of my former employer, who wanted us all to look classy or something. I struggled with trying to use it for a few weeks or possibly months before abandoning it. The last straw was a leak-in-the-shirt-pocket incident shortly before an important client meeting. The meeting took place in a windowless conference room with no air conditioning in July, and I couldn't take off my jacket because there was a huge blue ink blob over my left nipple.
I asked for a half-decent fountain pen for Christmas this year and my dad got me a Parker Sonnet. (Black and silver.) I use it all the time now. Except when I want a colour other than black, and then I use Muji gel pens. And I use these pencils, which are fat and soft, and I sharpen them constantly.
31: what they mean is that you don't need a special ink-removing robot.
My second hand experience with Montblanc pens is that they break easily.
I go through phases of using rollerball pens and fine felt tips. The felt tips make me write much more clearly but it I'm stressed they tend to get mushed.
Zebra mechanical pencil is bad ass. As is any Zebra fine line pen. Also, completely unashamed of being a pen/cil snob. And did you know that THEY are not teaching kids cursive these days? WTF THE HORROR.
I was supposed to use one of Sifu's nerdpens when I was teaching a special "technology-integrated learning" course. The motherfucking thing did not work at all.
Also, shout out to my zebra M-401 homies!!
The tips should be felt. That's where the nerve endings are.
I use the cheap-ass PaperMate "ClicksterGrip" mechanical pencils that come out of the supply cabinet here. Good for writing, but the stupid plastic clips keeps breaking off. Also, the erasers don't age well, getting all hard and whatnot.
The tips should be felt. That's where the nerve endings are.
Unless they've been mutilated as infants.
It didn't import properly! It always said the file was successfully imported and the fucking file was always blank!
I've got one of Sifu's pens. Well, an earlier model anyway. It's really fucking handy for interviews.
44: huh, weird. Their mac software is definitely not the best written in the world (they seem to have used Adobe AIR to build it, which is just a terrible thing to do) but it works okay for me.
Although, come to think of it I had to install some kind of patch or other when I upgraded to Mountain Lion.
And did you know that THEY are not teaching kids cursive these days?
I take notes and write notes and postcards in cursive, the novelty of which gets commented on at least once every year or so. I don't see why people our age who were taught cursive wouldn't use it, because it's so much faster than printing.
I worry about legibility to people who are no longer used to reading cursive. This is partially because my handwriting, cursive or print, looks like something you'd see in a medical textbook on diagnosing brain injuries, but I do end up printing when I'd rather write.
I don't see why people our age who were taught cursive wouldn't use it, because it's so much faster than printing.
So that we have at least a chance of being able to read it the next day?
Okay, I don't worry about being able to read my own handwriting, just about using it to communicate with other people.
LB has no parietal lobe, pass it on.
I can read my handwriting as long as I remember exactly what I wrote. As that memory fades, so does the legibility. It made taking notes for exam studying purposes rather pointless.
By the time my dad retired he had gained such fame for the illegibility of his handwriting that his coworkers made a font out of it for a retirement present.
52: unless you also had an audio recording of what was going on when you wrote whatever it was.
Tellin' ya.
In ancient times we were issued cartridge pens in school, but not until 4th grade. We still got ink all over ourselves and everything around us. And they sucked if you were left-handed, and I don't believe the special model for left-handers could help unless it has a tiny superpowered fan to dry the ink before you can drag your hand across it. They were good for ink fights though.
I have loads of old fountain pens. I tend to buy them at markets when I see them and then fix them up, although I'm not as nerdy about them as I am about cameras. So I have a few of Parkers [75, Lady Duofold, and a 61], a Summit [lovely but broken], and a few other classic mid 20th c. ones. The nicest to write with is an Esterbrook with a really bend nib, but it leaves inky marks on my fingers. It magically makes my writing much more attractive and legible, and my hands mockit.
I have an off topic question for Blume. Is anyone going to yell at me if I do it in this thread?
(hey Blume if anyone says they're going to yell at me, would you send me an email pretty please?)
Also I think we should re-have the fight about whether cursive or print is faster. That was a fun fight.
The question is: if you are teaching a language, and you are doing it immersion-style, do you let students speak English when they come see you in your office hours?
61 IANB, but my guess would be no based on experiences learning languages and my limited experience in teaching ESL. But it would depend somewhat on what level you're teaching. If it's first year then I'm not so sure.
Depending on what they were coming in for, I probably would. That is, I'd let them speak English if they were coming with questions about grammar and mechanics, especially if the classroom time was exclusively or nearly exclusively done with communicative method. It can also change the dynamic in a nice way, in which the student suddenly sees you as less foreign and more on their side almost, more of a collaborator.
I've also ended up in situations where the student asked questions in English and I answered mostly in the target language, since they can always understand so much more than they can say. I'm not sure how pedagogically sound that is, but it feels surprisingly natural and then also encourages the student to use English only for those things they really can't express.
Would have replied to Messily faster, but we had an earthquake in the meantime! My landlord on the first floor was home alone and was quite confused and scared.
Thanks!
There are some additional complicating factors related to politics and disability, but I realized I have no idea what non-ASL language teachers do as a norm.
It is first year. First semester, even. So far they all know how to tell me whether they prefer coffee or tea, and what color the house they grew up in was.
cursive was created in order to be faster. Blume, good luck to you in the aftermath of that quake.
Answering this question was MUCH more important than an earthquake. I can't believe it took you almost fifteen minutes to get back to me.
(hope everything's okay)
Oh everything's totally fine. I'm actually not even sure I felt it so much as noticed some things rattling a bit.
I did a fair amount of pen-and-paper calculating for my thesis. I still have a few of the fountain pens that are soooo much better than anytheng else, barring gold-ink glitter pen on either rubber or pliable flesh. I don't use the fountain pens any more though. Esterbrooks rock-- cheap, well made, now-old stock nibs can be easily swapped.
Pens that are out of ink, pencils that are out of lead, and putting a tiger in your tank are all great blues tropes from the forties and fifties, maybe earlier too.
I've never been in an earthquake. Besides the thousands of tiny fracking quakes that are probably going on.
Pilot Precise? Pah! Uniball micro forever!
I like my fountain pen but don't use it very often, sadly. Maybe if I engaged in more hand-written correspondence! I used to correspond with people.
Huh. I don't think of Maine as an earthquake epicenter. How often does that happen? Where's JP?
71: So who do you correspond with, and what do they have instead of hands?
I don't think of Blume as living in Maine, no matter where JP is.
I like taking notes on the computer, especially if I'm reading on the computer.
I think the fault lies in Maine, not with Blume.
I also use the Uniball Micro. I love the clarity of the green one.
The rain in Maine flows vainly down the drain.
I have no idea what pens I used in school or even use now on the rare occasion I use a pen. All of my memories of pen buying involve buying packs of 5 or 10.
I've always enjoyed writing with a sharp pencil, whether mechanical or not, but outside of math, I've never enjoyed reading pencil. So once I went to the humanities, handwriting became unpleasant.
Pilot Precise peeps, you might also check out the Pilot P-500, which has the same sort of tip but actually is airplane-safe. That was enough to make me switch. The line is also a little finer, which I like.
I am a longtime Uniballer (Micro division). But I might have to try some of the Pilots.
Kids & Lawns: I have an employee who is in her mid/late thirties. She cannot read cursive. I found this out by marking up a draft and her telling me she couldn't read it. At 1st I thought she meant my crabbed handwriting. Nope. I was embarrassed.
I used to be a Uniball Vision fan. These days I'm using a lot of Uniball Signo Impact (gel) pens, because it's what they stock at work and I keep bringing them home. The overall trend in my pen use has been for thicker, faster, less scratchy writing. I'm probably hopeless on narrow-rule paper these days.
I didn't feel the earthquake at all. Weird.
Namiki Vanishing Point, but any old cheap mechanical pencil. I lose pens and pencils only one a decade or so, and then I am sad.
I liked the Rotrings, but dislike Levenger enough that I don't want to buy their copy.
And I redesigned my handwriting to work better for a lefty, and it's reasonably fast and I can read it years later, but the only other person who can read all of it is my younger brother.
*Who* buys the $5,000 pens that I occasionally get catalogs for? Men who long for jewelry, poor things? And where do they use them and does anyone else notice?
I've never liked the Uniball ones, for some reason, though I have a handful. GB, I'll check out the P-500, though I've only had the airplane pen explosion once. I like thinner lines!
*Who* buys the $5,000 pens that I occasionally get catalogs for? Men who long for jewelry, poor things? And where do they use them and does anyone else notice?
I'd guess the same people who buy really expensive watches, or really expensive cameras.*
* by which I mean the rare limited-edition velociraptor skin and unobtanium pointless-expense-over-the-standard-model ones, rather than just cameras that cost a lot of money.
89: asian dudes. narnia alone supports two free-standing monthly publications about (men's) watches, and crazy expensive pens are also a popular magazine theme. men who want jewelry, yes. what else can they wear/use but a watch and a pen, or perhaps some cufflinks (and there they have to keep their sleeves rolled down)? a ring, conceivably? straightforward announcement of high status is important, so men utilize the few avenues open to them. doctors often have insane montblanc pens with actual sapphires on them. "ah beng" guys (sort of like...the social equivalent of rednecks, but more like "guidos" in new jersey) kick it old school with lots of gold chains and jade pendants and rings. younger narnian guys feel that is tasteless, so they go for the breitling.
two free-standing monthly publications about (men's) watches
"The man with one watch magazine knows what time it is. The man with two watch magazines is never sure."
re: 94
Oh, that explains it. Some of the people writing reviews of, and blogs about, high-end camera kit are Asian dudes who photograph watches a lot. They must be shooting for those magazines.
94: also, Gulf Arab guys. Given that everyone in the country is wearing an identical dishdash and shamag, the only way to show off your wealth is in the accessories: watches and pens.
Here, you can tell my if the Steelers gear is officially licensed or not.
Since I have encountered fancy pen shops in Japanese movies, I was curious as to what Asians use for ideographic writing (hanzi, kanji, hanja) and the answer anymore is anything.
Not talking about calligraphy
However, ordinary pens and nibs are not so good at varying stroke thickness or width (ideal, but not really necessary), and there is a whole category of pens called "brush pens" by Zebra for instance running from $35 to $2.50 disposables.
Wonder what they are like.
Looked in the store yesterday at a Zebra but they didn't have the good ones.
The Uniball occasionally fails suddenly in a rather distressing way, where the ball itself will retract into the pen and you get an empty pen tip. I've had it happen in the middle of writing, when you're flowing along and then all of a sudden you're not.
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen Review
$16, soft flex tip, review by artist is interesting
Bob, JetPens has lots of brush pens if you're interested.
I did go ahead and order two of the pens I linked to, ignoring all haters. I think the girls will like them.
I'm sure they'll like them. I was thinking of the carpets and whatnot.
I know, I know, Moby. They'll probably get kept on top of the kitchen cabinet like the watercolors, but at least it's a start.
101: Every marriage has its dry spells, I'm sure you guys will overcome this.
When chinese people write they just use ballpoint or whatever, and it is indeed difficult to discern stroke direction. But there's only a handful of characters in common use where that's an issue, and that's hardly the biggest problem with chinese handwriting.
103 - I'm going to get one of those junior Pelikanos for my 10 year old. In blue. They look really nice, and I was pleased to see they are available here, albeit at higher prices.