sweasel.com

I think I want some angry viking chickens. Fearsome looking little beasts.

https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/icelandic-chickens-everything-you-need-to-know/

Does it write fan mail to Cuthulhu?

How about angry customer complaints to his avatar Hulu?

I’ve been informed there will be an uncomfortable dawn ritual involving a great deal of uncomfortable groveling owing to my misgendering of Dread Cthulhu.

@Drew458 — If you get any of those Icelandic chickens, be careful not to leave pens and financial documents lying around. The article says they’re very capable forgers. You don’t need your poultry to be writing bad checks on your bank account.

As for fountain pens, I never liked pens with normal nibs. I used to have a Tintenkuli pen that was terrifically good. I don’t know what happened to it; I should get a replacement.

@Drew458 Woah…chickens have ears? I mean, you know…ears?

Those are some hardcore-looking chooks. It’s amazing the variety chickens come in.

I’m partial to extra fine nibs, Uncle Al, but not all pen varieties offer an EF and I got tired of clicking on pens I liked the look of only to find they didn’t offer one. So I wrote the webmaster and said how useful it would be if I could search by nib size.

He said, “yeah – there’s no easy way to know which pens offer what nib sizes.”

Yes, sir, that’s what I’m asking you to do: make an easy way.

Well, if you want a real gold nib you will pay considerably more than 20 pounds. And, yeah they are DEFINITELY better than steel nibs. That said, there are some very nice and fairly economical fountain pens out there. I have a bunch of TWSBI pens that I like, particularly the 580s. Again, though at $65 more than your 20 pound threshold.

When I was a child many, many years ago (the 1950s), all of my family used gold nibs in our fountain pens. In those days gold was only $35 an ounce and the price of a gold nib was trivial. The tip of the nib wore fairly quickly, adjusting to the hand of the user. I always noticed the difference when I used someone else’s gold-nibbed pen.

High price of being a goth? Ya mean high price of hoity toity pen use! Gold nibs indeed.

WE had to use pigeon feather quill pens that we got from the pigeons we trapped and ate when WE were walking to school barefoot uphill both ways carrying our own lumps of coal we’d scavenged from the railroad track ballast!

@Durned… Luxury.

True story: In the mid-90’s after some fraught negotiations, a friend sold his company to a European conglomerate. He bought this Montblanc Meisterstuck to sign the contract. He then couriered the closing documents and the pen back to the buyers with a handwritten note:

You overpaid.

@BJM – two solid laughs in one sitting! Thankyou!