I saw the new Lamy Plus Colored Pencils this week and thought our colored pencil expert, Tina, might want to review them. When I asked her, she confessed that she already reviewed them and said “Lamy should stick to pens”. So, if you are wondering why we are not publishing a review of the Lamy Plus Colored Pencils, this is why.
In other news, Pelikan launched their email campaign this past week for folks to register for the Pelikan Hubs for this year. Rather than the method they’ve employed for the past couple of years, they instated a convoluted system of email “save the dates” and then a registration. I would have posted about this sooner but I didn’t hear about this until after Link Love was published last year and they closed the email “save that date” in the interim. Yeah, less than 7 days to sign up and then confirm! And they also included a “salutation” field that was required and the only options were “Mr”, “Mrs” or “diver” — and I have no idea what diver means. Do you? Anyway, it seemed like an odd field to require folks to fill out, especially nowadays where pronouns are fluid. Anyway, all this is to say, if you wanted to attend the Pelikan Hub for 2023 I hope you were able to sign up and, if not, I’m sorry. I am definitely not a fan of the new system that Pelikan has put into place to sign up.
It was not my intention to sound so salty this week but some weeks I guess I just need to vent my disappointment. Do better, pen companies!
Pens:
- Desert Island Pens: Four Favorite Fountain Pens for the Road (via The Gentleman Stationer)
- ScriBo Write Here Africa (via dapprman)
- Laura’s First TWSBI! — Exploring the World of TWSBI Fountain Pens (via Pen Boutique Ltd)
- Collection Fever (via United Inkdom)
- Pentel Energel RTX 0.7 mm Lilac Gel Ink Pen Review (via The Pen Addict)
- Yea, but how do you use that? The fabulous, insightful mundanity of ‘how I’m using my collection’ posts (via mnmlscholar)
- Jinhao 82 and Delike New Moon 2 Nibs (via An Inkophile’s Blog)
Ink:
- Ink of the Week – J. Herbin 1670 Emerald of Chivor (via Fountain Pen Love)
- Penultimate Daves Favourite Brown Inks #1 (via Penultimate Dave)
- Vanness Inks, Part 1 (via Mountain of Ink)
- PenBBS Season 27 Part 2 (via Mountain of Ink)
- Sailor Yurameku Series 1 Part 1 (via Mountain of Ink)
- Ink of the Week – J. Herbin Lie de Thé (via Fountain Pen Love)
- Colorverse Long Trail Ink Review (via The Pen Addict)
- Ink Review: Ferris Wheel Press Land of Shangri-la (via Dime Novel Raven)
Pencils:
- Review: Faber-Castell Black Edition Colored Pencils (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)
- Patent #606145 (via Lexicalist)
- Inheritance (via Fueled by Clouds & Coffee)
Notebooks & Paper:
- Task management system: Pocket notebooks (via Stationery Pizza)
- Previously Unknown Filofax Organisers (via Philofaxy)
- Logical Air Swing Notebook Review (via Fountain Pen Love)
Art & Creativity:
- Neville Brody on authenticity, outrage, and his thoughts on AI (via Creative Boom)
- PENTRISTA 18 Well Plastic Palette Review (via Doodlewash®)
Other Interesting Things:
- How to Improve Your Print Handwriting (+ Free Worksheet) (via The Postman’s Knock)
- You Can’t Take It With You (via From the Pen Cup)
- 2023 Chicago Pen Show – Recap (via The Pen Addict)
- Sarah’s Chicago Pen Show Wrap-up (via The Pen Addict)
- How Animes are Made in Japan (via Parka Blogs)
- Find Free Coloring Book Pages From 100+ Libraries & Museums (via My Modern Met)
- New York Thrifter Finds $8 Picassos at Salvation Army (via Hyperallergic)
- Aesthetic Stationery Brands You Might Not Know (via JetPens)
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+1 to you on the Pelikan registration this year. I did see it in the FB group so I was able to register, but what a convoluted process. I wonder what sort of problems they had last year that prompted these changes.
Oh no! I forgot to look at my other email account, and didn’t get registered in time. Bummer. It’s not like I can go, but maybe someone would have picked up the swag for me. Darn darn darn.
100% agree on the Pelican Hub registration process! I was curious about ‘divers’ as a salutation and it’s actually an option to be more gender fluid although it does seem unnecessary to have any kind of salutation as a required field on any form!
“divers” is a German term (actually legally defined) which is supposed to make something available to people who identify neither as male nor female. My guess would be that the form was poorly translated from the German (Pelikan being a German company). It’s possible that making it a required field is also a “mistranslation”; Germans often are more particular about how they’re addressed, though I have seen that more commonly with people who want to be called Professor such and such or Doctor so and so. In other words the whole thing seems to be a poorly executed attempt to say something like “we feel it is important to address you correctly and need your help to do so”. Intercultural translation and language translation is notoriously difficult.
Thanks for the info. I talked with someone else who noted the absence of an option for Miss or Ms for fem-identifying that did not have or want to be identified by spouse. Though I guess for men or masc-identifying, you are Mr. regardless of marital status. Such a peculiar thing, language.
I see others have already explained “divers,” but just to add that the Title field seems almost always to be compulsory in the UK, too. European legacy systems?