The Return of No Pen Intended

You may have noticed (I know it took me a while to notice) that I’ve been on an unofficial, unannounced hiatus. I’m not here to make excuses, but I would like to fill you all in on some of the things I’ve been up to instead of codifying my pen opinions for vast internet consumption. In no particular order:

 

+ I opened my etsy shop!!! I don’t know what I’m doing!!! Please forgive me!!! Also, someone had already taken “nopenintended” as a screen name (the nerve!) so I had to go with npiNotebooks. I’ve got one type of notebook up now, though I’ve also got some sketchbooks already made, waiting in the wings.

+ I learned to run. Turns out running is really hard when you don’t have good motivation, like being chased by a hungry bear or a swarm of enraged bees. It’s also hard to write while running (though not at all hard to write about running, though most of those writings consist of obscenities pegged to the words “absolutely exhausted”). So far, I’ve completed one 5k.

+ I worked a lot of overtime. Gotta make that money, buy them pens (or, more like, pay those taxes, that vet bill, this motorcycle repair shop, etc., etc.)

+ I have been in the process of moving. For two months. It’s complicated, but almost done.

+ I joined our current century and got a smartphone last fall and WOW, it’s amazing how much time I’m able to waste now. Get nothing done in twice the time!

+ I battled an image thief! Wasn’t that hard, once I submitted the proper forms to eBay.

+ I’ve also gone to some writer’s workshops, a pen club meetup, taken way too many cell phone pictures of my cat, and otherwise squandered or slept through all the good picture-taking hours of the day.

What’s that? You want some cat pictures?

Now, I’ve got piles of pens to render judgment on (not to mention a small assortment of other office supplies) and a scattered collection of half-completed reviews to gather up and piece together. My goal is AT LEAST one review per week (and, in an ideal world, two reviews per week with a weekend mini review (but let’s not get too crazy too fast)). Let’s get back to having and expressing strong feelings about writing utensils!

Preview: Esterbrook What Have I Done

I couldn’t sleep, so I made myself a sandwich. I still couldn’t sleep, so I decided to try to do something about an Esterbrook nib that was not satisfyingly smooth enough. Armed with a Richard Binder nib smoothing kit and just enough knowledge to be dangerous, I started out with a Gregg 1555 nib and ended up losing all the tipping material (I went to clean off some debris around the tip; suddenly, no tip). The pen is now nearly italic, but at least it writes smoothly!

Office Supplies and More Sharpie Giveaway WINNER!

Look, I remembered I did another giveaway, and I was even in the presence of photoshop this time to compile the list of entrants. And among them, only one winner:

HOOORAAAAAAY

All right Karen Y! Email me your mailing address, and I’ll mail you these Sharpie goodies! Thanks again to my local pen store, Office Supplies and More.

Pentel Libretto Pen & Pencil Set Giveaway WINNER!

All right all you cats and kittens, we have a winner! And for a personal first, I had to do all of this on a tablet (nexus 7). No mini laptop, no GIMP, no Photoshop; just the tablet, so bear with me. Thankfully there were only 21 entries to screencap and number. The winner:

Your proof from Random.org, which in mobile mode doesn’t display the website name on the random number box (so I screencapped the URL bar as well):

Congratulations Arleigh! You have 1 week to leave a comment here acknowledging that you know you won, and to send me an email with your mailing address! Thanks to everyone for playing, and extra thanks to Pentel for supplying the spare set!

DIY Phone+book Case

This is a project that anyone with a complete disregard for the mind-numbing tedium involved can complete.

Making this project will turn you into a hipster lunatic, as pictured here

You’ll need a sharp knife, some kind of proper glue (for unfathomable reasons I chose a glue stick—Pioneer extra strong permanent bonding), a pencil, and a phone thin enough to fit in a notebook. Or a notebook thick enough to conceal your lumbering phone.

Not pictured: the requisite phone for the case

Unless you really hate your writing, you’ll want to get an unused notebook, preferably one with useless paper. No sense wasting good paper.

Got this on sale when Borders went under. Cool cover, but blank/plain Moleskine paper is pretty much the worst. Finally found a use for it!

The easy part: hold the phone next to the paper of the notebook, so you can see how far down in the depth of the paper will be sufficient to fully conceal the phone. Open up the notebook where, if the phone were in the notebook, the page would be flush with the screen.

This is the worst tutorial explanation.

Put your phone where you want it to nest on the page and carefully trace around it. Scream like a pterodactyl when you still manage to get graphite on your precious technological baby. Once you have your outline, start cutting. A metal ruler helps on the straight edges. Check your work periodically–get all the paper dust out of the hole and see how your phone fits. Keep cutting until the phone in the hole is flush with the top cut page. Once that’s done, start gluing. This part will be tedious. Say goodbye to huge swaths of time. Question your decision to undertake this project. Once you’ve glued all the cut pages together AND THE GLUE IS DRY, check your work again. You’ll probably have to do some touch-up trimming for the phone to fit properly again.

Almost like you can’t even tell. I swear it looks a little better in person. With the band on. With the phone actually inside instead of taking the picture.

When it’s done, the glue and your inability to line up the pages properly will give the notebook a slightly used look while concealing what’s inside. The downside: no access to ports, buttons, or the main camera. The upside: UNPARALLELED STEALTH.

And unparalleled nostalgia.

And I’ve left access to the back pocket, as well as some pages in front and back in case I absolutely need to write something on paper. It’s surprisingly secure (I cut carefully to make sure it would fit just so, though it will undoubtedly get looser over time) yet easy to get out by pushing on the back of the pages and flexing the block of glued pages a bit.
Or if you’ve got money to drop, you might do better to either get something like theGOODbook case, or pay someone to go insane making one for you.

DIY Pocket Notebook Giveaway WINNER!

Thanks to everyone who entered! To be able to post the winner by Wednesday (I meant to say Wednesday in the original post), since I work today, I had to do this up on my little laptop that doesn’t have photoshop, so not only are the comments hand-numbered (with a crappy old trackpad) but they’re in five parts. And the winner is… Pilot G2.38!

Not the worst example of my hand-numbering attempts

Congratulations! Leave a comment on this post so I know you know you’ve won, and send me an email with your contact information so I can mail you this notebook!

To everyone else, don’t worry! I’ll try to do another notebook giveaway eventually to celebrate when I finally stop dragging my feet and start selling some of the notebooks I’ve made on Etsy. Keep your eyes peeled!

TUL Pen Giveaway WINNER!

Thanks everyone who entered this TUL Pen giveaway! As in giveaways past, I have not had the time to devote to figuring out how to have comments display numbers, so I’ve numbered them myself. Many thanks again to OfficeMax for supplying these pens, and without further ado, the winner is: Alli!

With proof from Random.org, and hi-tech RESOLUTION ZOOMING MAGIC FEATURES! Very dramatic techniques in this image, I assure you.

Congratulations, Alli! Leave a comment on this post so I’ll know you know you’ve won, and send me an email (link in the upper right links menu on the webpage) with your contact information so we can let OfficeMax know where your pens need to go.

Everyone else, stay tuned! I have more giveaways in the wings!

Ink Drop Soup: The Pilot Prera-Plumix Switcheroo

This recipe calls for one Pilot Prera and one Pilot Plumix

Here’s a few quick pictures for those of you curious about swapping out the nib of your Pilot Prera for the lovely italic nib on the Pilot Plumix. Possibly you want to make your handwriting fancier or maybe you dropped the nib on a hard tile floor; whatever the reason, here’s how I did it.

I recommend you do this with pens devoid of ink

I started with the Prera for this demonstration simply because it was closer to the camera when I started taking pictures. If you haven’t done this before, maybe start on the far cheaper Plumix (or Pilot Penmanship, if you’re looking to swap on an extra fine nib); the motion is the same. Hold the barrel in one hand. Hold the nib and feed with the other (I prefer putting my thumb under the feed and my index finger on top of the nib). Slowly pull the nib and feed out, and perhaps try gently twisting the barrel as you do so if it seems stiff. The nib and feed should come out, and you’re halfway done. If you started with the Plumix, keep the nib on hand and set the rest of the pen to the side.

Same as before

Take the second pen, and do the same thing to get the feed and nib out. Though I swap the nibs, I like to keep the feeds with their original pen, but that’s probably not necessary.

Now for the magic

Take the feed you want to put in the Prera and the nib you want to be on the Prera. Put the nib on top of the feed; the feed is notched on the top and sides in such a way that you’ll know when it’s on where it should be.

And back in it goes, voilà

Hold the nib and feed together in one hand, the barrel in the other, and slide them together until they stop. From what I can tell, there’s no particular way the feed and nib have to line up with the barrel, so there’s no big worry. If you’ve done this all correctly, you should have a Pilot Prera with an italic nib. If you’ve done this incorrectly, I absolve myself of all responsibility.

Ink Drop Soup: DC Pen Show!

After a harrowing Friday’s worth of travel, I’ve made it to the DC Pen Show!! WOOOOO! Feel free to say hi and experience my unprecendented levels of awkwardness and caffeine deprivation (this in spite of the fact that I will be drinking coffee)—I’ll be wearing a pocket watch around my neck all weekend, and magenta shoes, and if anyone else is wearing the same then I’ll buy a hat and promptly eat it.

Ink Drop Soup: Happy 4th of July!

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Have fun!