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Transcript
Hey, folks, welcome to episode three of the Erasable podcast, the one and only podcast devoted to wooden pencils. We're calling this episode into Pencil Dance Day because today is National Pencil Day. We've got some special giveaway action happening as well as our general pencil chat. So we're happy to be here. Happy that you are back for episode three. This is Tim Wasem from the Writing Arsenal and I'd like to introduce my co hosts, the man who puts the woe in Woepex, Commandant Johnny Gamber from Pencil Revolution. Hey, John. And the man with the Rambo style ammo belt full of bullet pencils.
Yes. Thank you.
How are you guys doing?
We're great. I woke up to pencils today. I woke up to a text message from Johnny saying, hey, turn on CBS Sunday Morning.
Yeah,
they ran that segment from 2011, 2012 that Mo Rocca did about pencils.
They had a little news segment on the beginning where they stole out Tim's research.
Yeah, exactly.
The $100,000 bomb patent.
Yep, yep. Well, he stole it right out from under me.
That's terrible.
They're obviously listening to the podcast.
Charles Osgood is a thief.
It is. I could see Mo Rocco listening to our podcast.
That's true. I'll tell Mo Rocca I'll tweet at him after we're done to listen in.
That's awesome.
Have us in New York. We could be on the show.
Hey, yeah, I won't wear a bow tie and try to compete with Charles, though.
You compete with him.
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
Well, so today, before we get into our giveaway action, I want to just do some general, what we were calling random points, but we are now redubbing as fresh points. These are our pencil related points from the week things we want to bring up. Maybe about last week's episode, maybe about something totally new that we haven't even touched on. So we're going to start with that. And Andy, would you get us started?
Absolutely. I just wanted to mention we went an hour and a half last week, which was awesome, but it's mostly because we had three different main topics. We could have easily made that three different episodes. So we got a couple comments that we were running kind of long and I just wanted to let everybody know that we probably won't be running that long all of the time. Although if a topic calls for it, we might be. So we don't want to necessarily constrain ourselves, but definitely tune in and expect just some long winded people. So I've had My Baron fig notebook. Now for probably at least a couple weeks. I can't remember exactly when I got it. The I ordered it the day it went on sale to the public. And I know you guys are familiar with the Baron fig notebook and I don't know if the readers are, I guess, listeners, not readers. I'm used to blogging language. It's a really nice little notebook that is about kind of Moleskine size. It's a little bit fatter and a little bit shorter than a Moleskine. A few more pages. It's something that just kind of came out of a really successful Kickstarter project. And it's one of those things where these guys put a whole, whole, whole lot of thought into a notebook. And it definitely shows. I really like it so far. One of the nicest things about it is it does indeed lay flat. That was kind of one of their big points. I'm left handed, so I'm often just resting my hand on, just on the page. And one thing about the moleskins I'm not a big fan of is it's really hard to kind of get that to lay flat without just breaking the spine. This thing does that more. And I think it may be because, and guys, help me out here. Are they called signatures? Is that what the, like the little sheath of paper inside is called? Yeah, yeah. I think that maybe it has more signatures than a standard notebook. I think that there's just more of them with less pages. And I think that really kind of helps it lay flat. So I have used it with a fountain pen just to, you know, just to try it because, you know, everybody does and you just want to make sure it doesn't bleed. But it holds up really well. With two fountain pens I've used, I don't have any broad nib fountain pens. I usually use a narrow or medium so it doesn't really bleed through, but it's, you know, it works like a champ with pencils. Even my, you know, darkest softest pencil that I use regularly, Blackwing Classic works really well on it and you just can't see it through on the other side. So I'll post some more reviews to the blog. But kind of the biggest thing that I noticed is the dot grid I added actually apparently have never used a dot grid before. I thought for sure that I had. I thought that I had the field notes that had the dot grid, but apparently I don't.
I haven't used one until recently either, actually. Yeah, until about two months ago.
Yeah.
To me It's a little disconcerting. It's really weird. I love, like, a regular grid notebook. And I went to this dot grid, and I was writing, and I was like, this is really weird. I feel like these dots are too close together. Like, I was being really kind of, like, held in by the writing, and I was like, I can't write this small. I'm being really kind of fenced in. And then I measured it, and each dot is 5 millimeters away from its vertical and horizontal counterparts. So you get two dots per centimeter, and. Am I doing that? Yeah, that's. I don't know how to use the metric system, so. And so I took that and I measured that against a, like, a Rhodia grid and then also a field notes grid, and they're both also 5 millimeters. So I don't know if it's just not. I don't have that, you know, those lines there to just kind of help. Help keep me on track. But it's going to take some getting used to with this dot grid. I think that's kind of what I. What I figured. And I'm. I'm definitely not somebody who, you know, writes super free form. Like, I usually, if I can help it, I don't get a. A blank journal just because I sort of write it aslant, and I like somebody to tell me where I need to keep my. My writing in the lines. And this is. This is just kind of a little weird for me, so I'll get over it. It's a really nice notebook. I like to carry it around. It's beautiful. I just love the styling on it, and I love the bright yellow bookmark. Yeah, that's pretty. Yeah. And I've actually refrained from reading too many other. Other reviews out there. I read one, but the first one that came out, I read. But then I kind of avoided the other ones just because I didn't want them to influence my review. But I'm hoping before the next episode to have that review up on Woodclinched,
just to make sure. I know. I mean, I know which note you're talking about. I've seen it. But it originally was a Kickstarter, right?
It was. Yep, it was a Kickstarter among some design students. And they were mostly like, the thesis of what they were doing was they wanted. They wanted to just kind of design something to perf. And they just kind of designed what they thought was perfection as far as the notebook goes. So, I mean, I can get on board with that. It has A few more pages than a Moleskine. A few of the back pages are perforated, so you can kind of write down notes or directions and pull them out. It's super hipster name. The Baron Fig. But it's really cool. I feel just really hipster when I talk about my. My Warby Parker glasses and my Baron Fig notebook.
Be even more hipster. Baron and Fig.
Yes, Baron and Fig. So. But it's a, you know, it's a really nice notebook, and I have a lot of respect for the guys who put it together because I know that it was definitely a labor of love.
Yeah, I've seen that box. The box is really pretty.
Yeah. Yeah. The packaging just, you know, fits super tight. It's really nice. I can say one. The one review that I did read said that the spine was really creaky. Just because I think that it's a little bit extra reinforced in order to make sure those pages don't fall out.
And that'll probably work itself out after a while.
Yeah. But at first I was like, I hope that I'm not just gonna break this notebook apart. So far it's held together. I've been really impressed by it. I wish that it had a place to put, like, a little pencil loop and, like, a little strap to put over the COVID Just because it's. Because it lays flat. Sometimes when it's been laying flat for a while, it's hard to kind of close back up fully. But usually I just put it in a bag or something and it's fine.
Cool.
Yeah, it's a nice notebook. I hope that we can, you know, we can do an episode eventually. Just about all of our favorite paper. Like, I think that probably most of our listeners know what that is, but I definitely think a paper episode should be in our future.
Oh, most definitely.
Three episodes.
Yeah. I'm a. I'm actually a blank paper guy. I just love blank paper. Probably part of it's because my handwriting. And that could be an episode, too. Handwriting. I just. I love writing. Writing cursive. I retaught myself how to write cursive in college. And so I just don't like to have too much going on. I like to be able to just write without anything in my way or whatever. Anything, like guiding me personally. Even if it does kind of sway or rock up and down. I kind of like that sometimes. But I guess I'm jumping into a new episode. We don't have to talk about it right now, but I definitely, definitely want to talk about that.
Yeah. Yeah, My handwriting is atrocious and I actually can't. I can't write block letters unless I'm really, really thinking about it. Like, I'm definitely very much entrenched in cursive, but in sort of like an incomprehensible way, illegible way. I guess I should say so. Yeah. So the other thing I kind of wanted to mention, my last point was I think I mentioned this in the first episode and I'm. I was talking about how there's a guy in the Philippines who hasn't tweeted for probably about three or four years who had the name Wood clinched on Twitter. Oh, yeah. And so I found him on Facebook. I googled his name and I found that he lives in the Philippines. I sent him a Facebook message. And you know, if you're not friends or have any kind of network connections with somebody, you know, it files your Facebook private messages into a, like an other folder that you don't really get a notification on. So I sort of just, you know, crossed my fingers that someday he would check that. And as I was driving home from work on Thursday, I got a little notice that he did indeed check that. And he responded. And I asked him very, very nicely. I was like, hey, I have this blog called woodclinched and I see that you don't really use this Twitter account. Would you let me use it? I, you know, this isn't a money making venture. I can't pay you. I can send you some cool pencils. So he finally responded. He's like, oh, yeah, absolutely, sure. I'm not using it. Wood Clinch was the name of my band from 2001 to 2004.
I was gonna say I was wondering how he came up with that.
Yeah, so I actually tried Googling and I cannot find it. I was totally gonna do this big thing about Wood Clinch the band, but I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna send him a message and ask him for a video or something because I would like to.
We need to get him to write our theme music.
Oh, yeah. So yeah, he was super nice about it. And Kiel, if you are for some reason listening to this, thank you very much. I now have woodclinched on Twitter and I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet because I'm very much just used to tweeting as myself when it comes to woodclinch stuff. But it could at least just be just a Twitter repository of episodes and stuff. Yeah, both of your guys Twitter accounts are kind of a combination of your own personal stuff and stuff happening on your blog.
Yeah, mine was. I actually had one. I still have one that's just like a personal one. Imwossom that I realized over time that the people that I followed and the people I interacted with weren't real people. Mostly news sources and baseball information, stuff like that. And then the people who I knew who were following me and things are not people I really talked to very much. And so I started the blog, started this new Twitter account, and realized that these great people in the pen and pencil community were very interactive. And so I was getting to talk to people, and so I just kind of turned that into my main one.
Yeah.
Because that was where most of my interacting was happening.
It's funny how all these just kind of analog fans are definitely very digitally savvy and well oriented.
Yeah.
When I worked for pencils.com briefly and we were really trying to just figure out our core audience and understand our demographics, that was always the thing that just surprised us the most was, you know, these people love pencils and pencils are very, very analog and kind of old fashioned and. And we have a lot of, like, Twitter interaction. That's awesome. Yeah. So, yeah, that's shameless. Plug here. Follow me on woodclinched if you want. If you don't want, follow me on awealthly. And I'll probably just talk about the same things because I really don't. By profession, I write social media strategies, but I don't have a particular strategy for myself for this.
You need to get somebody else to write you a strategy.
Exactly. We'll crowdsource it. So, yeah, that's. That's all of my fresh points.
Johnny, you want to pick up from there?
Sure. I assume most people that listen to this podcast listen to the Pan Addict. And Brad was talking a lot about the new field notes, the shelter woods. Did you guys get yours yet?
Mine is on. Mine has just been loaded into a truck for delivery. That will happen tomorrow.
Oh, cool.
I have not. I actually am. It's been 12, 13 days since I ordered them and I haven't gotten the shipping notification, but I assumed it was kind of fluke sort of thing. And I actually tweeted about it today and fieldnotes responded.
Yeah, they were great about that.
Yeah. And I felt bad because I was kind of joking about. I made a comment on Twitter saying I haven't gotten mine yet. Still no shipping notification. Are they just trying to get more color subscribers? Because that's how I was feeling. I was like Ah, I should just subscribe to the color. Get the color subscription so I'll get it sooner. And then they responded and they were really nice about it. Said, you know, email us at this address and we'll work it out for you. So I'm, I'm still. I haven't got them yet, but I'm sure I'll, I'll get them soon because every time, other time I've ordered from them, it's been really quick. So I'm sure it was just a fluky thing.
Yeah, yeah, they sort of changed their shipping lately. They moved away from USPS a lot.
Yeah, mine's coming via FedEx.
Yeah, mine was FedEx. Like, I got the cheap $4 shipping. It took a little while, but it was only four bucks, so it's not too bad. Yeah, but Brad was kind of critical of them.
He was.
But I kind of liked that he
was critical of them because I love field notes. I have most of the colors, but there aren't really a lot of negative reviews of them around the Internet, aside from folks being like, well, I can't use my wettest fountain pen on them. They're pocket notebooks. But I don't know, I don't want to spoil it because you guys haven't gotten yours yet. But I feel like the last two were like, really beautiful. And on the last episode I talked about being really excited. But, like, once you hold them, you're like, it's wood. This is weird.
I definitely think they're trying to, you know, just to keep it, you know, keep it fresh and keep it different. They're just getting a little bit more kind of outside the box with their
notebooks, pushing the boundaries.
And to do that, it's definitely going to be kind of a far cry from your traditional pocket notebooks. So I definitely haven't used it yet to see, you know, if Brad's on point. But I completely could understand that because they're definitely real weird compared to, you know, some of their other ones.
Yeah, they're cool. But I sort of get the impression that they know a large percentage of this. The 75,000 aren't going to be opened or used, like, ever.
Yeah.
Looked at, drilled over, worshiped, whatever people do. But it's weird. Like, I feel like sometimes their quality control is a little, you know, every time I open a three pack, there's one with like chewed up corners and one of mine has a crack in it. Like, okay, I mean, it still works. I don't care. I'll tear it up. Anyway, but I don't know, I was really happy that somebody was less than worshipful.
Yeah, this time around he was worshipful. I guess about the looks. He's saying that, like the idea of. Yeah, it was really, really great. And he thought there maybe the art, like I forget how he said it, but essentially, artistically they were very impressive. Just as far as usability, they weren't.
The paper is really nice. I'm going to use all mine. But you know, it's like you take it out of your pocket and it's like. And it opens back. So if you're like sitting at a coffee shop outside, you put something on top of it so it doesn't take
off and take flight.
My daughter has hers. I woke her up from her naps so we could go open them. She's very excited. She's already filled up half of one. She's probably more than most people who've bought them so far, but she likes them. She's almost four. She's got good taste in paper and good taste in pencils.
Well, she learns to the best.
Yeah, she had something, some pencil I gave her and she goes, well, daddy, you know I'm all about the state ler Norris. That's sort of hard to get in this country. Pencil, of course. Of course. My girl. So she picked that out. So my giveaway pack, when we talk about that later, of course will have state Lenora in it
chosen by the younger Gamber, the cutest kid, the cutest gamer.
The other thing I wanted to talk about was that yesterday, Cody Williams, who some folks might know, he makes really nice field notes, covers and lesser known, he makes messenger bags and stuff like that. He's on the field notes group. He's done a lot of artwork recently. Shelterwood.
Oh, I saw some of that. Like with the landscape.
We got to go to write notepads yesterday. Mm, sorry.
Oh, with that field notes artwork he made like those landscapes on his covers.
Yeah, trains. Yeah, he did the trains.
The trains. Okay. He did the trains.
That was somebody else who did the ones you were talking about.
Those are really cool too. But we showed up there on like a rainy day. They were binding the programs for Orioles opening day tomorrow, which was really cool.
It smelled really good.
But later in the day we got to work the or we got to watch the Heidelberg, but we got to take some cool like 19th century wooden letters and mount them and put them on the rolling press and make a couple Wright pads notebooks with our initials. And of course I made a couple
that Say pencil revolution on them.
Absolutely.
But it's really, really, really cool to
see all this stuff. All the stuff you see in the Field notes videos. You get to look at it and touch it and drool over it and smell it. Smelling a part, not so great. But they're doing a video too. I don't know when it's coming out. They're doing a sort of promo, but for all Baltimoreans. They're starting to do our neighbors, our
different neighborhoods in Baltimore, which is really cool.
They call us the City of Neighborhoods, so that'll be neat. We'll have a Hampden issue with row houses or flamingos or something.
John Waters.
What else? I don't think I'm supposed to say anything because the Etsy store is not at, but I got a really cool cover from Cody. You notice I don't use leather because I'm one of those annoying vegetarians. So I have, like, the brightest yellow cord cover now, which is, like, really cool. I thought I'd mention that. It was on my Instagram account. So if you see that.
Coda made it.
Yeah, that's about it.
About right.
Pads. I could go on and on forever. We had some good beer and good food. A lot of coffee, of course.
That's awesome. I wish there was just a kind of a setup like that around here. We could just kind of go and hang out on. I need to make a trip to Baltimore and just, you know, hang out at all the cool places.
Field trip? Yep. Absolutely.
Well, there's a really good tattoo place around my house. Go get those pencil tattoos.
That has just infected my brain. Over the last couple weeks, I've been thinking about it so much. I've got two I'm ready to get. I'm just ready for it. But I just. I'll pull the trigger eventually. But I've been saying that for a while. I guess a John Steinbeck reference and then a pencil reference.
I'm such a wimp.
What's the Steinbeck reference?
Have you ever read east of Eden? Mm, yeah. Where they talk about the translation of the Old Testament story of Cain and Abel, and there's the word timshel, which is. I forget the name of the character, but his main character's kind of servant, the Asian guy who goes to San Francisco and learns this. Learns how to translate, or sees these people who are learning how to translate Hebrew and Greek, and they come to this conclusion that timshel means thou mayest, which is saying, like, you can be great, and you can be a good person. If you choose. So that's the one. Timshel, which I've been wanting to get ever since I read the book, just popped out.
Also, your name is Tim.
Yeah. Which I was sort of sensitive to. And I don't think I'm gonna get. I think I'm gonna get it in the Hebrew, actually. So I don't have my name tattooed on my arm, so it'll be in the. In the Hebrew. And then the other one. I gotta say, I. This just kind of came up as a joke, but it's really stuck. The logo that Andy, you put together for erasable the three pencils. The sort of like our skull and crossbones version. Yeah, I'm actually considering that because.
Really?
Yeah, just because that's. I mean, pencils first bonus. But also the pencils you chose are like my three favorite pencils, so.
Wow.
Well, that. That would. That would be awesome. I would be super excited to tell my friend Tony, who designed those pencils. Were you thinking the, like, the asterisk that I. That I have for, like, the Twitter avatar?
Yes.
That's cool.
Yeah, it's the one with the. The black wing, the palomino, and the field notes pencil.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, that would. That. That would be. That would be amazing.
So I'll let you know.
Yeah. Oh, man, that's. I feel the pressure now. I'm. I'm really not a tattoo guy. Like, just myself, personally, I don't care if other people get it, but I really hate needles.
I guess I should mention that those two tattoos are going to go on my right cheek and my left cheek is what I was thinking, but not really.
I think a good neck tattoo is in order.
I'm gonna get, like, a Mike Tyson style tattoo going down the side of my face tattoo.
A pencil on your ear, like behind your ear. Shave your head.
Well, I guess my first fresh point for the day is I'll start by asking you all a question. Have you ever gotten a pencil day gift? Yeah.
Oh, no, not for. Not for March 30th. No.
Pencil Day gift. Well, so my. My parents found out that I was doing this podcast and they came over today, or we had lunch together, and they immediately said, hey, happy pencil. Happy pencil day. And I thought, well, that's kind of weird how they know that. They listen to the podcast, actually had listened to part of it. And then my mom slides across the table a vintage box of Dixon Ticonderoga mediums. Happy pencil day. It's your pencil day gift. I got a pencil day gift today.
That's awesome.
That's pretty cool. My great aunt was an artist, and so my mom's an artist as well. So she had inherited all of my aunt's. My great aunt's art tools. And she found out about my blog and also about the. I told her about the blog and she found out about the podcast and then looked through her things and found those pencils and brought them today. So it was pretty cool. The box is in, like, perfect condition. There were five of these Ticonderoga mediums in there, which was just neat. That was just a fun thing today. So I've been riding with it all day today. A little light for my taste, being a medium, but yeah, it's cool nonetheless. So that was. That was kind of a cool thing that happened today. One other thing I wanted to mention, which kind of piggybacks what Johnny was saying about Shelterwood. And then we talked about the Shelterwood artwork. I found out about some awesome Shelterwood artwork this past week from a Twitter account. That's amlarson. S A M L A R S O N. Actually, I take that back. It's his Instagram account. It's amlarson. And he put together. He's done three now. He came out with a new one. Three pieces of artwork that were done on the COVID of Shelterwood. One is a mountain range, and it looks like he did it with some kind of marker. I'm not sure really exactly what it was. He has a picture of all of his shelter woods with one of their bit clicks, the field notes bitclick sitting below it. I don't think that's what he used to make this. I think he used some really nice fine point markers, but one of them is a mountain range. He did another that has a bear and a tree on it, and then another one that is a buffalo, and I think it was a feather.
These are gorgeous.
They're amazing. They're just unbelievable. And they'll definitely be in the show notes for you to check out. This guy does some amazing work.
Is he gonna sell these, do you think?
I don't know. That's a good question. I really am not sure. And I should dig back to when I posted them and find the. Thank the person who sent these to me because he tagged me in it on Instagram. I can't get to it right now, but I'll put his account in the show notes as well because he posts some really cool pen and pencil stuff. And he's been really supportive and given us some good questions. And I Apologize for not remembering off the top of my head what his name is.
But I love these little, tiny, smaller than a penny drawings that he's done.
I didn't see those.
Looking back through his Instagram, he has a few of them that he has. Just like a little piece of buffalo artwork that's like, literally smaller than Lincoln's head on a penny.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. That's super neat, huh?
That's really cool.
Yeah.
So I think everybody should check those out. Just on the subject of shelter wood, maybe they're not very utilitarian and usable sometimes, but there's some really cool stuff being done with the covers as far as putting some artwork on there. So you should definitely check those out. The account. Actually, I should mention the guy who told me about him. His account on Instagram is Chris bfu. So C H R I S B F U. He posts some cool stuff, cool videos and pictures, and he's the one who tipped me off on that.
So all of you people who are hoarding the shelter notes, you know who you are, you should do something cool with them, like this
shelter wood, you mean? You said shelter notes.
Oh, shelter wood. Yes, yes.
My last point, I was on a trip this week. I was in Atlanta. Went to. Got to go to Utrecht, went to Staples, which is very exotic for me because we don't have a Staples here. So I was able to get some Wopex pencils, and when I was there, I used pencils pretty much the whole time. And I use fountain pens now and then, but I use pencils the whole time I was there. I came back, pulled out my fountain pens and had this comedy of errors 30 minutes where I was spilling ink all over my hand, and I had, like, four colors of ink spilled all over my hands. I had been using pencils for so long that it made me just think. I found myself putting them down, saying, screw it, and picked up a pencil and was like, I'm gonna just do this pencil rather than fight with these fountain pens. And it made me appreciate my pencils for National Pencil Day. So I just wanted to point that out. I love fountain pens, but I love pencils more.
I think Johnny man will pull you fully to the dark side very soon.
Yeah, take it to the curb, man. You could buy some pencils. I could buy two boxes of mono one hundreds, but some of these pens. But I had this realization that I don't have to deal with that kind of thing with a pencil. You don't get all the cool colors. But if I pick up a Pencil. It's gonna write no matter what. And that's a. I remember watching a video with. I'm not gonna get his name right because it's 20 minutes long, but the Count Faber, Castel, whatever.
That guy.
Yeah, yeah.
He makes a comment. It was the first time I had heard somebody make this comment. But he says, you can put up. Put away a pencil and you can pick it up 20 years later and it's going to write. First time. Obviously, it's not going to dry out. It's going to write. Which I have these new. These old black wings, original Eberhard Faber black wings that are perfect example of that. And it's just. Just wanted to voice my appreciation for the fact that pencils do not need. Good pencils do not need to be wrestled with. Yeah, you pick them up, you sharpen them, and you write with them. You don't have to rinse them out. You don't have to soak them in sudsy water. You don't have to use lava soap on your hands afterwards, so you don't look like you've been finger painting.
Sometimes when I get graphite on the side of my palm, I'll actually use an eraser and erase it right off my palms.
While I was in Atlanta, I was thinking about this fountain pen thing because my uncle is actually a fountain pen person. I didn't learn this until, like six months ago, but he was showing me some awesome fountain pens, and I was looking at inks because it got me thinking about ink again. And Diamine, my favorite ink company, has an ink called Graphite. It looks, you know, it's like a dark gray. It's a dark gray that looks just like. Like a deep, dark pencil marking. I was like, maybe I'll get that if I ever use. Use pens like in school or when I'm signing things. But it's diamine.
Graphite.
That's neat. So. Well, that. That's it for me. I fear that I rambled a little bit. No problem there. But why don't. What do you guys say we get to the giveaway? Let's do it. Sure.
So we should probably kind of go and each. Each one of us will explain our. Our pack and then, you know, choose our winners. That sound good to you? Yeah.
Great. Okay.
Who must go first?
I can start.
I'll just.
I'll just go ahead and get it out. I've been talking. I'll go ahead and get mine out of the way. And I kind of talked about mine last week, so, yeah, I switched It a little bit from what I said last week. If you get the Tim's Picks pencil pack, you are going to get the General Sunny Hicks and the yellow number two pencil from Generals. Beautiful pencil. Really reliable pencil. The Musgrave Testing 100, which is one of my very favorites. Very soft, and it apparently has some sort of some brand of magic inside that'll help you do better on standardized tests. I believe they're very fragrant, too. They are, yeah.
They're really strong. I sniff them a lot.
I said that out loud. The third, the Statler or Staedtler Wopecs, which Johnny tipped me off onto, and I bought some this weekend and just really love them. And I love sharpening them. They're very fun to sharpen with a hand sharpener or like a pocket sharpener. I got a KUM single point or a single hole sharpener at Utrecht this weekend, and I found myself just using the Wopex over and over again so that I could sharpen it because I love sharpening. Also at General Cedar Point, which is a natural hexagonal pencil that I enjoy using with my sweaty hands that also Johnny recommended. And I ended up getting at a Michaels. So there's one of those. A Palomino Blackwing, the original classic. It's very dark, buttery, smooth pencil is the first blackwing that Palomino came out with before they came out with the 602 and then the Pearl. Yeah, those are the five. And then I might throw a couple bonus pencils in there. I've got some Murado Black warriors that I really love and a Home Depot carpenter pencil that I really want to ship out to our lucky winners. So that's it for me.
All right, do you want to select your two winners, or should we do that all together at the end?
Let's do it all together at the end. That sounds exciting.
In my pack, I. I have a. The Statler full hb, which I guess isn't really a wooden pencil. It's that one with. That's just entirely graphite that we talked about in the first episode. So I have one of those in there. It's. It's gonna be an interesting experience. I'm looking forward. I'm hoping whoever gets these packs will share it online and share some of their thoughts and experiences with it. I also have a. I think it's pronounced Chung fa. It's Chung H. W A. And I could be very wrong about this, but I believe that that makes an F sound. That is a Chinese pencil by the First Pencil Company. And this is a 6151HB, which I bought these on ebay quite a long time ago. And I've only recently sort of like, you know, brought out and started using again. And it's a really nice, solid performer. And I would say it's very much like a. Like a Dixon Ticonderoga. But of course, it's. It's in a darker. It's in a red and a black striped color. Each one of the sides of the hex are in a different color, and there's just some really cool Chinese writing on it and a neat little logo. So this is definitely be a. And the feral is really cool too. It has, like little circles. I don't even know, swirly treadmarks. It looks like it's super neat and it should be a good conversation starter. I really do like recycled newspaper pencils. I don't think they're maybe the best performers, but I just. I like the idea of them. And they're really fun to sharpen. And I used to work in a newspaper. I wanted to be a newspaper journalist when I was going through school. So I do like pencils made from that. In fact, I think up on wood clinched. I compare this pencil to another recycled newspaper pencil, but I'll find the link and post it. But it's the Oban Protect wildlife pencil, and it comes in a pack with a bunch of different animal prints on the outside. And then the inside is all recycled newspaper. So this will be a lot of fun to sharpen and just kind of see how the sharpening goes. And it's a 2B, so it should be nice and dark. It's capped instead of eraser on the end of it. So. So I have a turtle. Excuse me, a tiger one, and the other one's green. I think that maybe it's an alligator one or crocodile one. So I'll be sending those out. And Johnny, you said that those obons were hard to find.
Yeah, I'm having trouble with them lately. I really like them.
My dad likes them.
And they're soft, so they kind of disappear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got this is still from a pack from back in the day when I wrote for pencil things.
They're really nice. They have nice, like, heft to them.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I just love how they make them too. They just like, you know, soak the newspaper and roll them way up and just squeeze all the. All the moisture out of them.
I've never even seen these.
Yeah. I'll send you the link to my. My review of them. It's. It's. I kind of. The other one is a little bit cooler. It doesn't have a. It doesn't have a. Like a wrap around the barrel and you just see the newspaper just right in the barrel. That's kind of neat, but that's cool. I also included. Not necessarily if you want to use it, but if you collect pencils, I have a whole bunch of pencils that I just collect and don't use. I sent you a City of Fort Wayne pencil, which is the city where I was born and currently lived. So this has the seal of Fort Wayne on it, and it also has a signature by Mayor Tom Henry, which is super cool. I was at an event that the city was sponsoring and there were a bunch of these pencils there, and I just took a bunch of them. So sorry, other Fort Wayne people for your tax dollars going up, but I just wiped the city out of pencils.
Yeah, two, 300 pencils. Yep.
I didn't get that many, but a good dozen of them. I also have. I've been talking a lot lately about the Oxford Helix pencils. So I have a. One of the Oxford premium grade HB pencils by Helix. It has that kind of pink wood on it. It has the really nice white eraser. This is my wife's pencil of choice. She really likes this one a lot. And like Tim, I also have a Palomino Blackwing Classic. Just because if we're giving pencils to the uninitiated, I think it would be good for them to kind of see how dark and buttery this is. And hopefully it'll be going to somebody who does a little drawing too, because it'll definitely be really good for that. So, yeah, that is. Oh, this is something I should have covered in freshpoints, but pencils.com are now including one of each kind of the black wings in their sampler pack.
Oh, yeah, I saw that. So it looks great.
Yeah. So if anybody is interested in getting into pencils and just wants to try something, invest. I think it's eight, nine dollars in one of those. And that will be great.
You'll.
You'll love that.
They have lots of cool stuff in there. So that was beside the point. But yeah, that is. That is. That is my pencil pack. How about you, Johnny?
I am copying off Tim also in a different way. And of course including a little pex, because these pencils are so awesome, man.
I got to try one of these.
I think I'm copying off of you probably. I Think I knew that you were going to put that in.
The green is like really good this time of year. It's very springy, you know. And like Tim mentioned, they're really fun to sharpen. And I think they smell. They have a smell. It's not a cedar smell, obviously, but they smell like burnt wood. And I want to see if whoever you send this to also experiences that or if I'm just completely crazy. But I have them right here. They smell. I'm not nuts. Next, I'm gonna do Dixon Ticonderoga beginner's pencil, which is different than the ones you find in stores, but I don't know how. It's just like the My first Ticonderoga, but it says beginners.
It just looks cooler.
And they're not sharpened, which is cool. I do know they offer these without an eraser and with an eraser. And the My first only comes with an eraser. These have an eraser which is gigantic and awesome. Very pink. I am including a Write NotePads and company pencil. They're made in the U.S. those are neat looking. Yeah, they're really cool. I really like the pink eraser treatment and the gold colored feral. They're wrapped in some sort of plastic. That's what the logo is on, but it's their Pantone Red 200 logo and it's clear. I guess you could rip the plastic off if you really wanted to. I don't know why you'd want to do that. They're nice pencils. They're made in America and they're round, which is cool. I just realized three of mine are round. Next round is generous layout pencil, which I've talked about a lot. It's like great pencil. You can draw with it, you can write with it, you can pencil fight with it. I don't know why you do that, but this is the new one that has a barcode on it. I don't know if anyone's ever gone to the art shop to buy General's pencils, but they don't put any barcodes or stickers or anything. So a lot of clerks cuss under their breath. So it's ugly. But I guess I'm glad it's there for the rest of humanity. I'm going to include Staedtler Norse. I mentioned. Norris School pencil, which I just think is cool.
Is that the one where there's a place that you can write your name on the side of it?
No, they put that on like the big fat pencils.
Oh, that's The Norika, I think I
totally put my name on them. I think it's cool. Yeah, the Grip 2001 Jumbo has that. That's a really big space. You can actually like get a sharpie on there. And of course, I'm including Forrest Choice carpenter pencil because these are. I think they're the only cedar carpenter pencil around right now. Yeah. The field notes ones are nice. Like very nice. But they're not cedar. They smell like crap. But these are very pretty green. And I like to brag about my carpenter pencil sharpening skills. So I think I might sharpen them and then put something around them because
I want to brag how good I
am at sharpening carpenter pencils.
And I'm really bad at it. So I would like to see your technique.
I'll send you one. If you can't copy my technique, it's a secret. Okay. And seven is my lucky number. So I'm gonna pick something else. Probably something from my. A box of vintage, semi vintage. I don't know, some like Faber Castell Americans. Like the ones I grew up on in the 80s. They're pretty.
I think I'm a little older than
a lot of the folks that read this. So those are my picks and hopefully I'll get them out this week if the children cooperate and they can go
to the post office.
Woohoo.
Cool. Well, should we launch right into it?
Sure.
How should we do this? Should we just kind of go one by one or do we want to. Do we want to do both of ours first? Like, you know, both of Johnny's, both
of Tim's, both of mine. Let's do it like that.
Okay. Tim, do you want to go first? Sure. Okay, nice.
Did you just hear something?
I did.
Okay, we can edit that out.
Sorry.
No. Hey, I thought, you know, that was really good timing because I thought that was like a big. Some suspense music.
Yeah.
So I'm fine. I think you should leave that in there. That was.
That was the start of a fantasy baseball draft. Full disclosure there. This week comprises two of my favorite things in the world. Pencils and pencil day. And then opening day is tomorrow. So I have a fantasy baseball draft that just started.
Did you do it with Brad or is this a different.
Yeah, I started a league with Brad's. We have a pen and pencil people fantasy baseball league that we've got. Me, Brad from Pen Addict. We've got Brian from office supply. Geek is in on it. Several readers, listeners, and Alexander from pencils.com.
yeah, I know he's. He's big into baseball.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty. Pretty cool. So I'm excited for that.
That's super cool. So what's your team's name?
This team is called the Trial. Oh. For that league, the Blackwing Socks. So, like the Black Sox. Yeah. Sucks, huh?
But Alex Alexander wishes he. He picked that.
Yeah. When they. When they said they were interested, I had to point out and say, you know, happy to have you, but sorry, I already got the Black Wing. And I should point out that Brad made his team name Lead Poisoning. He said it barely beat out Ink Rules. Graphite drools.
Lead poisoning is a little bit. A little bit more.
I don't know.
It sounds a little better.
Yeah. Okay, so my winners. So the first two winners, which will get the Tim's pack, which again includes a general Semi Hex, Musgrave, testing 100. A Tennessee pencil, Stetler, Wopex, General Cedar Point, Palomino, Blackwing, and maybe some extras, goes to number 23, which is, I believe, Young or Jong. Congratulations. You are our first winner of the Erasable podcast giveaway. So congratulations. And the second one goes to number two, which is Chase.
So, Chase, do you want to just read a couple of their pencil pens?
Yes, I would love to. So we'll start with. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing this wrong. Jung or Yong. We got Musgraves of Wrath, which.
Oh, gosh, that's a good one.
Yeah. I mean, he couldn't have picked a better one. As far as pandering to me goes, I'm such a big Steinbeck fan, so well done, sir. That was one of my favorites. Laputa Febrer Castell in the sky, which is apparently a reference to Laputa. Castle in the sky, which is a nice one. He went with Forest Forest choice and just added an R, which is a reference to Forrest Gump. This is a nice. Nice done. And then he said, I'm also gonna. He said. And bending the ferrules a little bit, but all for one and one ferrule.
Oh, that's great.
Is just wonderful.
That's. That's a pretty well done. That's a great one.
And then Chase. Chase was a. It was a kind of a funny case because he. He came on second and then immediately said A Ferule to Arms, which was our episode title. And he didn't realize that. But then he came back and gave us another one, and he said, it's an homage to the children's classic the Little Cow.
Cedar Wood, the Little Engine that Could. That's awesome.
Yeah. Little cow Cedar wood. So that was very, very well done. So congratulations, John Yong and Chase.
Tim, do you want to go or. Johnny, do you want to go next or should I?
Doesn't matter to me. I'd go next.
Go ahead.
I'm going to. We have. Well, we put these through the random number generator. That's where we got them all. I don't know if we mentioned that, but I have number three. Because I mentioned that. Because this is in order. Number three. Allie, who put Edward pencil hands, which is awesome. I love Tim burton. And number 17. I'm gonna pronounce this wrong. Roel. Roel. R O E L. The Rough Riders by Teddy Roosevelt, which is also a good one. Once again, you're getting Staedtler Wopex, a Staedtler Norris, a Ripeds pencil, a Big Fat Dixon General's layout Forest Choice Carpenter pencil, expertly sharpened by this guy right here. And something else.
If we ever do an After Dark episode, I think that it should be called a Big Fat Dixon. Okay, Sorry. Bringing the class down a little bit over here.
Yeah, baby.
Who was that?
Was that. Was that Johnny?
That was me.
That was great. We got it together, baby. Okay. All right. So my two winners, and you get the Statler Full hb, the Chung fa, The Oban Protect Wildlife pencil, the City of Fort Wayne pencil, the. The Oxford Helix pencil, and the Palomino Blackwing Classic. My first winner is number 33, Richard H. It's a. He posted a Seinfeld pun about Seinfeld pun entitled. For a podcast about erasers. It's just a show about rubbing instead of a show about nothing. He also wanted to thank us for posting a link to the Huckleberry Woodchuck site. He ordered one of his refurbished bullet pencils, which is.
Oh, good.
Very cool.
I need to get some of those.
Yeah. Then I also have Sebastian Morissette, who's number 35. He had gone with the Black Wing, which is pretty great. So Richard and Sebastian. And Sebastian's the name of my cat, so that's. That's great. So we will send those out. I will. I think I have the email address for everybody, because when you sign in to do that. And I'll. I'll send out to our bloggers who, you know, our host who chose you. I'll send your email address to them and they can get in contact with you with shipping information. So, yeah, that's the winners of the giveaway. Thank you, everybody, for participating. We had a really, really great turnout. And I think we had a lot of really, really great puns. I think one of my favorites is Woodfellas.
That was one of mine too.
That was. That was pretty great. 12 angry pins is another good one.
Johnny Woodbury.
Yeah. Yep, that was. That was a really great one. Yeah, there were a bunch of really good ones in here.
And the Wood. The Bad and the Ugly.
Yeah. Yep, that was a good one. All the. All the Pretty Palominos is a really good one. Yeah, there was.
That was awesome.
Another good one was Fried Green Morados.
Yeah, yeah. Hell, Berkeley de Faber Castell. That would be a very different movie.
That was an all star right there.
That was 12 Years a Slave to those crappy, foiled wrapped pencils. I appreciate that, Chad. That was. I feel like that was for me.
We did have a Shakespeare reference with a to be or not to be, as in the number two and the
letter B, which now seems obvious, but I don't know why I've never thought of that.
I thought that was pretty fantastic.
And then Cedar House Rules was another really clever one, I thought.
Yeah.
So, yeah, thank you everybody, for participating. That just kind of proves that our listeners are the smartest listeners of any podcast ever. Pride.
Pride and pencil dust.
Yes. Yes, yes, indeed.
That's fantastic.
That needs to go below the skull and crossbones tattoo that we get.
Yes. I love it.
All right.
Earl's gone wild. These are fantastic. Okay, good job.
So we are. We are just at an hour. Should we. Should we wrap this up, guys? Yeah, we should foil wrap this up. No, we shouldn't. No, we should not. Cool. Well, Tim, do you want to tell everybody where we can all be found?
Yeah, I would love to. So I am Tim Wasem. I can be found on Twitter riding Arsenal. You can read my pencil pen writing related reviews and writings@www.thewritingarcenal.com and you can also follow me on Instagram herewriting Arsenal Andy, the proud owner of oodclinch on Twitter. So you can follow andyudclinch on Twitter and read his writings at www.woodclinched.com. and Johnny Gamber, the venerable Johnny Gamber can be read at www.pencilrevolution and you can follow him on Twitter ensolution. P E N C I L U T I O N. Kind of a mashup of pencil and revolution. And I guess I didn't mention Instagram, but Andy, yours is. Is it awealfully on Instagram?
Yeah, I don't. I mean, feel free to check it out. It's awealthly. W E L F, as in frank L, E. I don't do a lot of pencil things on there, but I should. I will now I'll do more pencil stuff.
Okay. Sorry to corner you into.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Take down all those naked pics now. So.
And, Johnny, yours is. Is it just Johnny Gamber?
Yeah. Very creative.
Yes. Well done. Very easy to find. All right, well, we'd like to thank everybody for listening to this special national Pencil Day edition of the Erasable Podcast. We are glad that you stopped by and listened, but please do not erase us from your podcast feed. Even though we are the Erasable Podcast. We thank you so much for listening, and we will talk to you next week. Keep those pencils sharp.