I got this pen today

[Scribs]

On 10/31/2025 at 10:09 PM, Misfit said:

@Scribs wow, the way you described the experience! Excellent self-control on not putting ink in the pen. The countdown begins!

 

Thank you Misfit. The countdown really does begin. It's been a while since I've managed to get this eager about Christmas coming. 🙂

 

On 10/31/2025 at 10:53 PM, Ceramicist said:

I found this so humorous. I just bought a pen and said it's a birthday gift to myself. However, my birthday isn't until Nov. 18, and the pen arrived yesterday. So, I said I was going to put it away and wait until my birthday to open it. This lasted until I got home from the studio (where I'd opened the box to show everyone the pen) and showed my husband and son the pen and then inked it up; I just couldn't wait. 

Terrific!

I ordered a 1.5 stub on my new Leonardo, and it's taking me some time to get used to it as I am partial to mediums.

 

Once a new pen's been baptized, and the tank's full, it really must be taken for a spin. Enjoy! It's still your birthday pen when you use it on your birthday 😉

 

21 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@Scribs Wow, you would have no trouble passing the Marshmallow Test!

 

Some days I might pass, others I might not 😁 (I too had to look this one up). I still think I kind of failed by breaking the embargo in the first place... this is proving to be a bit of a recurring theme at times. With this pen I've been able to kid myself the stocking-stuffer thing excuses myself.

 

10 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@inkstainedruth and @Misfit  I teach a course for first-year engineering students called Keys to Learning. (Actually it is a general audience course and it turns out I have students from all disciplines taking it.)

 

In the course I discuss the human brain; neuroplasticity; what is learning; best practices for learning; purposeful practice; the important psychological aspects to learning of mindset, self-control, and grit; and the importance of sleep, exercise, relationships, nutrition, and meditation for learning.

 

When I discuss self-control, I lead it off with a discussion of the Marshmallow Test.

 

This does sound like an interesting course. Nice work.

[Ceramicist]

1 minute ago, Scribs said:

Once a new pen's been baptized, and the tank's full, it really must be taken for a spin. Enjoy! It's still your birthday pen when you use it on your birthday 😉

Thank you! I am really loving the new experience of writing with a stub nib, and the pen just continues to wow me.

[Misfit]

2 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@Misfit I think there are things in the course that would be useful for anyone at any age.  I do it because I think it is of benefit to the students. It is certainly something my department head continues to give ma a hard time about because he says is not helping the department (it is not helping him).

Well, he needs a reality check. It sounds very preparatory. If student success makes a university look good, I’d think he should care and appreciate. But if it’s all about him, then poor baby. One little line from my first college anthropology course has stayed with me. And this is meant in the proper way: Science is the history of errors corrected.  And that went along with explaining the scientific method. You must be able to test the theory. So you must be able to touch, weigh etc. 

[boilermaker1975]

Thanks @InkyProf and @Misfit 41 years and this is the first department head who I am not thrilled with. So I had a good 39 year run! I'm sure in a couple of years he will have talked his way into a Dean position somewhere and he will be someone else's headache. @Misfit that quote, "Science is all about correcting errors" is so true.

[lamarax]

4 hours ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@Misfit I think there are things in the course that would be useful for anyone at any age.  I do it because I think it is of benefit to the students. It is certainly something my department head continues to give ma a hard time about because he says is not helping the department (it is not helping him).

 

The story of my life 😑

[Misfit]

This pen was in my mailbox today. It’s a Platinum Plaisir in Black Mist with a F nib. I filled it with a new ink, Noodler’s Blue Nose Bear. The ink looks like a turquoise ink. The reviews I saw made it look like it had more green in it. I’m fine with the color I see on Leuchtturm paper. 
 

[Ceramicist]

3 hours ago, Misfit said:

This pen was in my mailbox today. It’s a Platinum Plaisir in Black Mist with a F nib. I filled it with a new ink, Noodler’s Blue Nose Bear. The ink looks like a turquoise ink. The reviews I saw made it look like it had more green in it. I’m fine with the color I see on Leuchtturm paper. 
 

It's a pretty pen, sleek. I like the black satiny finish. I also like the name Blue Nose Bear and am going to have a look at that ink. It's sometimes like judging a book by its cover-- searching for inks based on the names alone!

[boilermaker1975]

12 minutes ago, Ceramicist said:

It's a pretty pen, sleek. I like the black satiny finish. I also like the name Blue Nose Bear and am going to have a look at that ink. It's sometimes like judging a book by its cover-- searching for inks based on the names alone!

 

I have about a dozen Noodler's inks and I have to admit the names have been part of the attraction!

[RedPie]

15 minutes ago, Ceramicist said:

inks based on the names alone!

I do that all the time. The last ink I got: Noodler's Southwest Sunset. I love it! 

[Ceramicist]

17 minutes ago, boilermaker1975 said:

 

I have about a dozen Noodler's inks and I have to admit the names have been part of the attraction!

Yes. I do love the name Heart of Darkness since I am a Conrad fan, but I don't really need a black ink. On the other hand....

12 minutes ago, RedPie said:

I do that all the time. The last ink I got: Noodler's Southwest Sunset. I love it! 

I got Southwest Sunset when it was Apache Sunset, and I, too, love that ink. 

[boilermaker1975]

@Ceramicist One I don't have, but will one day because of the name, is Dark Matter. I do have Heart of Darkness, an ink I really like.

[Ceramicist]

33 minutes ago, boilermaker1975 said:

@Ceramicist One I don't have, but will one day because of the name, is Dark Matter. I do have Heart of Darkness, an ink I really like.

Now you have me thinking about black inks; maybe I need to add some to my collection. 

[inkstainedruth]

@Ceramicist -- Early on I got a Platinum Plasir, but it was one with the coated nibs to match the barrel color.  Because people on here said that Platinum had the best nibs of any of the Japanese brands.  And it wasn't very expensive, either.  But when it came, the cap band made it look very cheesy and cheap; and after a while the coating on the nib started to flake off and I stopped using it for fear of contaming any ink bottles or sample vials.  

I think I've read that they no longer have the coated nibs, which is a good thing.  But it made me a little leary of getting my first Safari (with a black nib) at first -- but have had NO issues with the black nibs on any of my Safaris or al-Stars.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[carola]

3 hours ago, Ceramicist said:

Yes. I do love the name Heart of Darkness since I am a Conrad fan, but I don't really need a black ink. On the other hand....

 

 

This brings me right back to school, must have been something along the 10th to 12th school year, English as a foreign language course. Our teacher really wanted us to read a Joseph Conrad book, I don't quite remember which, but it might well have been Heart of Darkness. And I outright hated it. I am an avid reader, which he knew, as I never went anywhere without a book, but that one... nope. So I told him I really felt incapable of reading it, not because I just didn't want to read, but because I found it awful.

He was surprised, but agreed to give me a different book (which normally just didn't happen). He was one of the best teachers I ever had and you just made me remember him.

 

Sorry for the deviation.

[Ceramicist]

15 minutes ago, carola said:

 

This brings me right back to school, must have been something along the 10th to 12th school year, English as a foreign language course. Our teacher really wanted us to read a Joseph Conrad book, I don't quite remember which, but it might well have been Heart of Darkness. And I outright hated it. I am an avid reader, which he knew, as I never went anywhere without a book, but that one... nope. So I told him I really felt incapable of reading it, not because I just didn't want to read, but because I found it awful.

He was surprised, but agreed to give me a different book (which normally just didn't happen). He was one of the best teachers I ever had and you just made me remember him.

 

Sorry for the deviation.

No apologies. I love that my post made you think of a teacher who made a difference in your life! On a side note-- Did you know the film Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness? 

 

It took me a long time to realize that some books, even if classics or best sellers or prize winners, don't resonate with everyone, and it's okay not to enjoy a book. Gabriel Garcia Márquez won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982, and his One Hundred Years of Solitude is known to be the impetus for this win. I, however, could not really get into the book even though I do enjoy some novels with magical realism. I tried and tried, especially since it was for a book club, but I had to give up, and it was a liberating experience-- to be able to acknowledge that no matter how many accolades the book had, I could not get into it, and that was okay.

[Ceramicist]

33 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

@Ceramicist -- Early on I got a Platinum Plasir, but it was one with the coated nibs to match the barrel color.  Because people on here said that Platinum had the best nibs of any of the Japanese brands.  And it wasn't very expensive, either.  But when it came, the cap band made it look very cheesy and cheap; and after a while the coating on the nib started to flake off and I stopped using it for fear of contaming any ink bottles or sample vials.  

I think I've read that they no longer have the coated nibs, which is a good thing.  But it made me a little leary of getting my first Safari (with a black nib) at first -- but have had NO issues with the black nibs on any of my Safaris or al-Stars.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Thanks for the tip. I don't have any colored nibs and think I will stick to colored inks!

[inkstainedruth]

@carola -- Oh I quite understand.  Never read anything by Conrad, but if I NEVER have to read anything by Ernest Hemingway again?  It will be too soon.  Had to read A Farewell to Arms for some English class in high school (it might have been the Advanced Placement class) and the ONLY good thing was that it was one of the books I used for the 20 page paper I had to write for that class, which I did on "the anti-war novels of World War One" (the other two being All Quiet on the Western Front and The Good Soldier: Schweik (which is a parody -- the lead character is a complete screw-up who, at the end of the book, sees some dead soldier on the battlefield and goes, "Hey, his uniform is in better shape than mine!" and swipes it.  Only it's the uniform for a guy who was on the other side, and Schweik promptly gets captured -- by his own side(!) -- but, IIRC, the prison he's taken to feeds him better than he was getting on the front line....

Ironically?  Never had to write a paper for ANY class in college that was that long.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[carola]

1 hour ago, Ceramicist said:

No apologies. I love that my post made you think of a teacher who made a difference in your life! On a side note-- Did you know the film Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness? 

 

It took me a long time to realize that some books, even if classics or best sellers or prize winners, don't resonate with everyone, and it's okay not to enjoy a book. Gabriel Garcia Márquez won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982, and his One Hundred Years of Solitude is known to be the impetus for this win. I, however, could not really get into the book even though I do enjoy some novels with magical realism. I tried and tried, especially since it was for a book club, but I had to give up, and it was a liberating experience-- to be able to acknowledge that no matter how many accolades the book had, I could not get into it, and that was okay.

 

Gabriel Garcia Márquez is quite the contrary for me. I have a few of his books and liked them. But I have also been there - either completely taken in by a special book, recommended it to someone else and got back a "Meh... I really don't understand why you like that so much." or reading a book by a highly recommended author only to go "What the heck? Whatever did that guy receive his prizes for?"

 

I also just checked the books by Joseph Conrad and now remember distinctly it wasn't in fact Heart of Darkness (yes, I know it was the base for Apocalypse Now) my teacher gave us to read, but rather "Victory". That was the book that completely spoiled Joseph Conrad for me, so much I never touched another of his books.

 

And yes, this teacher made a difference. He must be around 80 now and as far as I know he is still alive and kicking.

 

[inkstainedruth]

My mom was a writer (various forms of genre fiction).  And she once told me that my brother sort of b*tched at her about her not writing "the Great American Novel" and she said that her response to him was, "You've had a lot of really nice trips abroad by me NOT writing the 'Great American Novel'!"

Heck, when she was writing the bodice rippers in the late 1970s/early 1980s, she made more money one year on the advances than my dad did (he worked for IBM in the development division -- which designed & tested "new" stuff), and he was mostly doing stuff like building circuit boards and such.  Because she was selling the bodice rippers to Playboy Enterprises and was making $8000 advances per book on those....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

[carola]

Back to topic... I picked up my Pelikan M600 Rudi Rother (part two of the Art Collection) at my favourite pen and paper shop today.

 

No matter what I am doing, I can´t get it to display its true colours right now. Every picture looks a lot too blue and of course I can´t really show how the metal under the clear coating catches the light. It´s green, but if you put it under the light, the transparent parts (like the cap) show a hue that borders on teal. I wonder if I will be able to get better pictures when I get the light box out.