This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
This is why I need a mic early, guys.
I'll be your mic early.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 10 of the erasable podcast. I am your host for this episode. I am Andy Welfle, and I am joined, as always by my co hosts, the guys who have left an indelible mark on my heart and soul. That would be Johnny and Tim, Johnny Gamber and Tim Wasem.
Hey, guys, I'm crying now.
Oh, yeah, I'm feeling a little. While you're feeling weepy, I'm feeling a little bit sheepish because this is actually take 2 of the episode. I at first wasn't going to mention it, but I think I will just because I need to shame myself not doing this again. We got about 40 minutes through and then we realized I did not hit the record button on Audio Hijack Pro. So, Mike Hurley, if you are listening, I want to know if this has ever happened to you because I do not feel like a professional podcaster right now. I am actually joined. We are joined not in the studio because we are recording from our respective houses. States, states. We are joined by a very special guest. We have Ana Reinert from the well appointed desk with us today. Hey, Anna.
Hi, guys.
She is a. She's a blogger who. Oh, man. She. She posts really cool stuff. I mean, she posts about pencils. She has office supplies. She has old staplers, old antique office supplies.
Yeah, I was. I was talking to my. My wife earlier today. I was talking to her about recording tonight and was like, giddy, talking about having on.
On.
I'm like, we're having like one of the biggest pen pencil stationery bloggers in the country on tonight. I was all pumped up.
Okay, you guys are totally making me blush.
So she's been a guest on the Pen Attic before. In fact, when Mike was out, you co hosted with Brad, didn't you?
I did. And that's actually the second time we've done that.
That's cool.
I think it's an annual tradition.
Yeah.
I have to say that when we found out that the pen act was taking a hiatus and there was some kind of switch coming on, I texted Andy and said, well, basically along the lines of maybe Mike's leaving. And if Mike leaves, I wonder if Anna will take over as the co host because that would been really exciting.
I would feel so bad. I feel so guilty. I'd feel like Mike would never speak to me again.
Yeah, well, I assumed it wouldn't be because Brad was kicking Mike out, but,
you know, you know, I've always Sensed just a huge, like, blood feud between the two of them. Like, I can always tell they really don't like each other. No, I'm just making that up, guys. Totally making that up. All right, so we'll get on with it. I guess the customary first question that we always ask is, what are you drinking, writing with? And Anna, what about you?
I am working on a gin and tonic with New Amsterdam. And I am writing in a palomino notebook with my general's cedar point.
That's awesome. And we're all probably working on our, I don't know, like, sixth drinks by now, since we actually are 40 minutes in.
No.
Johnny, how about you?
I have a Derwent graphic pencil here in hb, which is very lovely. A matching black bandana covered word notebook, and I'm also having a gin and tonic.
Yeah.
With a very huge hunk of lime
from a diaper bag.
He told us earlier that he found some limes in his diaper bag. That's awesome. I figured you would be drinking a podcaster since it's now a world famous, world famous drink.
I'm out of cherry juice. Oh, no, the jar of juices.
The other thing we were talking about is that every episode, Johnny should provide us with a new themed cocktail.
I'll have one for next week. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. We totally need to get on the ball with this, Johnny.
We need to come up with a no blot too.
Yeah.
Anna was on to something that would
have something like some cherry pepper or some cherry pepper or a banana pepper in there, muddled up, leave an indelible mark on your throat.
Well, Anna's idea was that. What was it, Anna? Since it's blue, maybe blue Curacao. Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll have to think about this. If we don't drink it during the episode, we can at least come up with it and put it in the show notes or something. Tim, how about you?
I am writing in a word notebook, the Indigo edition that I posted a review of today. And I am writing with. I have two pencils. I have a Palomino blackwing because I figured that was the closest thing I had to a no blot indelible pencil just because it's dark and soft and it's the softest thing I have. I thought about writing with a sharpie instead, but I'm also
speaking of indelible.
It's the most indelible. And then I also have a pink called the medium pink or the salmon edition of the Dixon Ticonderoga. And I am Drinking Pinot Noir for Bastille Day. Happy Bastille Day, guys.
Viva la France. I liked your thing earlier. You were telling me about how Keras Customs released their red, white and blue notebook or pen, and you said it was special for Bastille Day, which I'm sure they seem pretty Frenchy over there at Karras Customs.
Yeah, they just love countries other than the one we're in. And I. I also commented that it was a Chicago Cubs pen too. So I think it was either one of those two. It's either France or the Cubs. I'm not really sure what they were going for.
Well, I am actually, right now. I was the first time around, I was like, oh, I'm so manly. Because I finally decided to drink an adult beverage rather than tea or water. But I have finished my adult beverage and I'm drinking water now. So next week, I swear, guys, I will just like, you know, pound, like, straight Everclear or something like that.
And absinthe for this.
I'm absinthe. And I'll be on here. I'll just be hallucinating. I feel like the pencils are watching me. I was drinking a old Fashioned made with not Wild Turkey 101, but with Woodford reserved that I bought like a huge bottle of it from the duty free shop in on the way to Canada where I was last weekend. So I'm just trying to finish that off. And today I'm writing almost exclusively with the Huckleberry Woodchuck prototype bullet pencil that I get to try out kind of next on the list. After Tim was done with it, he just sent it to me over the weekend and I just kind of pulled it out today. And I think we'll talk a little bit about that when we get to some fresh points. But yeah, I'm. I'm super pumped about it. All right, so let's maybe talk about our fresh points. And Anna, would you lead us off?
Sure. I just have one little thing I listen to. I'm a regular listener to the Erasable podcast, and I was inspired to order the Perfetto pencils that were designed by Louise Feely after listening to one of your episodes. Actually, I bought them today, so they won't get here till Wednesday, but I'm still very excited about them.
They're super gorgeous.
Yeah, I will. And I have a thing about the two colored pencils anyway. I love that there's a color on each end.
It's interesting.
These. These look like they're black and red. Maybe graphite and red.
Yeah, I'm. I actually was asking Tim earlier through the erasable Facebook group, which we'll talk about. But, like, you were using them for grading?
Yeah, I actually just picked mine up. I got. Well, no, I just got my first one, so it's just what I wanted to use it for because I've been intrigued by the idea of them. I never tried it. I have a Musgrave Hermitage that I feel bad, but I can't remember the name. But someone sent me along with some other stuff. So I was trying it out. But yeah, I use it not as much for grading, but for editing essays and things that my students write. Because I can use the red sort of mark things blue to write notes on the side. Switch it up.
That's a good idea.
But that's what I'm gonna go for. And I might order another set. I think there's one on pencils.com and I can't remember if it's this one, the Musgrave Hermitage, or what it is, but I'm gonna. It is. Okay. So I'll probably order another box of those because they're just really practical for me. And I love grading in pencil. Red pencil, but I hate the Dixon red erasable pencil marking pencil. That thing sucks. I tried it this year and just didn't work out for me.
So. No, it's nice that you kind of mix it up, because I remember there is nothing kind of more disheartening than just a page full of, like, angry red markings. So it's. It's cool that you.
Yeah, I'm not afraid to use red, but I just. I tend to not use it all the time, but not because want to crush their spirits. That has nothing to do with it. It's just that I like mixing up the colors.
Yeah.
So I'll do green and orange because our school colors are black and orange. So I'll do orange sometimes.
That's cool. So, Tim, speaking of follow up, do you have any to put forth?
Yeah. First off, I mentioned this earlier, but I posted my review of the word notebooks today. I was happy to get that up. I really loved using these for a long period of time. I'm actually on my second one, but not because I finished one. It was because I left one in my back pocket and washed it. As my main critique of the notebook on my review was they really need to figure out how to prevent this whole washing machine thing because it ruined mine. So that was kind of a downside.
You know, get some right in the rain notebooks.
Yeah, there we go. But I really love word notebooks. It's up there at the top of my list for my favorite pocket notebooks. I kind of switch it up every once in a while just anyways, so I'm not the kind of person and I think all of us writing about this kind of stuff, you switch it up all the time because you're trying to test out things. But it'll definitely be in the regular rotation along with field notes and little Doan pocket journals, which I really love. I also got a new one this week that I don't have in front of you. It's a little French white French pocket notebook that Jay from Huckleberry Woodchuck sent me that I need to try out too. Maybe I'll have to check in a second. My chair is really noisy, so I don't want to move towards where they are, but it might be. And actually they're bright white, straight white, and J stamped a really awesome pink woodchuck on the back of the notebook, which looks really great. I'll have to send you all a picture of that so you can see it.
Is it pink or is it huckleberry?
Is that a color? Is huckleberry a color?
I think so. Like a berry red color? I don't know.
Really?
I don't know.
I just blew my mind a little bit.
Right there.
Yeah, opposite. It's pink. It looks like the pink of this pencil that I'm writing with. So it's like a sort of a deep pink, not a hot pink, but kind of a deep pink. So yeah, there's that. I really love it. I love the note taking system. It's kind of the bullet point. Important in progress, complete kind of user guide that they have inside the COVID has worked its way into my brain that that has become kind of how I think about things throughout the day as far as tasks and what I'm getting done. So I really like that the paper is really nice, like Johnny's mentioned before. It's really good with. It's really great with pencil. It holds the graphite really well and has just enough tooth. I love it with pencils and gel pens. It's really great. Almost any fountain pen that I've used with it has bled through. I was writing with it with a TWSBI mini that had actually an EF nib, which is kind of unusual for me. But I got from Vaughn, one of our readers, and he's actually in our pen pencil fantasy baseball league. And he sent that to me to try out which is also Heart of Darkness, which is really thin. So that might be it. But most fountain pens tend to leak through. So I wrote in the review that you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just sticking to pencil. But I love them. The only other fresh point I had was just to give some thoughts on the Huckleberry Woodchuck project. The bullet pencil that Andy, you mentioned earlier that I got to spend a week with carried it everywhere. And this thing is a tank. I mean, it's really solid product. You never. I never worried about it in my pocket. I had it in my pocket most of the week with. It was like my keys, that pencil and then my bullet, sorry, Fisher space pen in my pocket. And it just. I didn't worry about it at all. And has enough weight that you know it's there. You're not going to lose track of it. It's. It was really nice, really interesting thing. And it's an early prototype. I mean, actually it's the earliest, I think. I think it's the first prototype. And I didn't even realize when he sent it to me that that was the only one he had that Jay had. So he sent me the prototype.
I can't believe that. That's amazing.
Yeah, I assume they got. The fella in Connecticut who's making them has his own. So it's not like it's the only one. But it was his first prototype and he sent it and then I had intended to send it on and then he got in touch with me and asked if I was. And so I said by all means, wanted you all to try it out so that we could talk about it because it's a really interesting product. He's going to do some cool things with it. I think they're talking about some different add ons to the end, which I think we might have talked about on another episode. But one of which, which I'm most excited about is a stylus. They're going to add to the end where the eraser would go, which would be really neat.
Yeah.
Kind of a cool, modern modernization of the pencil and the bullet pencil to where you can be writing with pencil but you can also flip it around, deal with your iPad, which is just a really cool distinction or a really cool combination is what I meant to say.
Yeah.
But yeah, I love it and it was interesting to use. I know there's a lot of things they're going to change because it was the very first prototype. So I don't want to go into a lot of details. And especially about things that weren't quite right, because they knew that before they gave it to me because it was the first try. They're reducing the number of threads as you screw it into the body because there was just too many. But they knew that ahead of time. But.
Yeah. And Tim, when I. When I started using this today, I texted you and said this is like the, you know, like the RoboCop of bullet pencils. And it's. It's funny because it's. I mean, It's. It's not RoboCop, RoboCop and that. It's like super, like clunky or anything like that, but it's just very heavy duty. And you can definitely tell. I mean, with the kind of sharp tip on this, I feel like I could use this, use this as a defensive weapon. Like, hold this in my hand and, like, fend off a mug or something like that.
Yeah, if you. If you chuck that at somebody, it's gonna hurt.
Yeah. Compared to the Midori brass bullet pencil, it's just like a lot heavier. And it's. Yeah, it's definitely not kind of the thin stamp thing that that is. For better or for worse, it'll be interesting to kind of, you know, go head to head with the finished product. So. Can't wait until that happens. I hope they call it, like, you know, they don't have a name for it yet. Maybe they'll call it the RoboCop. Yeah.
He said, yeah. I asked. I asked Jay about that. I was like, what are you gonna do? You have an idea what you're gonna call it when you do the Kickstarter, however they decide to launch it? And he said that that's actually the hardest part of the project is coming. Still working on that.
Should we ask our listeners if they have any interesting suggestions to post them in the comments?
Hey, why not?
And then we'll send them on to Jay. By the way, if you want to do that or if you want to read any of the show notes, go to erasable us 1010. That's our show notes and the website, so you can leave a comment there if there's anything. I think both Tim and I have posted a few pictures of this. Tim, probably most.
I have several on my Instagram account, which is. The username is thewritingarsinal. You can check them out. You'll know exactly when you see it. It's a really slick, clean, silver version or bullet pencil. The last picture I posted, I think was the one when I was changing the alternator in my car and I had it sitting on top of the engine, which feels cool. Just felt I had my. I had written out. Used it to write out the directions from the YouTube video to tell me how to change my alternator.
That's amazing. I'm super impressed.
Yeah, I had done it. It's like the only car repair that I had done before. But it had been about a year since I'd done it. But I, through a series of unfortunate events, I had to do it twice in one day. The first time I did it. So I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on it.
Oh, man.
But yeah, check out those pictures. It's really good looking. I know. The next version, the prototype B or whatever, two, whatever you want to call it, they're already anodizing it and putting it in some colors and they've talked about definitely putting a clip on it.
So excited. That's awesome.
I think it's going to be a really awesome project. But I think that's all I have for today. I was going to next week or next episode. I'm going to mention something about a post I'm going to do soon about the Midori Bullet Pencil, because I got that. Got to play with that a lot. Something about the chemistry of my hands does not agree with it. I can still write with it, but that thing turned a dark bronze. I promise that I washed my hands and things like that. But there's something about my hands that just. The shininess of that thing just went away really quickly.
It's like that episode of Saved by the Bell when Zack Morris is in charge of buying class rings and it turns everybody's finger green.
Just like that.
Just exactly like that.
But so I'll talk about that next week because I've had some thoughts about comparing that pencil, which isn't cheap, the Midori Bullet pencil, but it's good quality, I think. But comparing that with something like J's refurbished vintage bullet pencils and just kind of the pros and cons of each one and which one's a better deal, which one is a better purchase? But we can talk about that next week because I'm planning to post on that in the next before the next episode, but that's all I've got.
That's cool. Johnny, how about you?
Well, we've had a lot of whimsical pencils on pencil Revolution lately. The sprout pencils that sprout and the power pencils, which give you magical powers. Yes, the power pencils are super, super cool. They're laser engraved with magical runes and spells, and they come from a magical tree. And I think they're soaked in magic rocks too.
That's super awesome.
It's probably really hard to do.
Which magical power did you ask the pencil to give you? Just curious.
Well, I haven't sharpened my wish pencil yet and you're prohibited from wishing for more pencils with it, so.
Oh, man. They get you every time. No, this is what you do. You wish for them not to have the rule to wish more pencils first.
So you have to take two wishes to get more pencils.
Yeah. But then you can also probably ask for more wishes then.
Oof.
Man.
Yeah, it gets confused.
Figured out.
Yeah.
I am finally going to sharpen this thing.
Sharpen it right now on the episode.
If you guys have not seen the video on Pencil Revolution, he has a link to the video and it is hilarious. It is well worth the five minutes or so that it is. I was watching and just like cracking up. This guy is hilarious. Yeah.
And the. The pencils all come with a book and the books are even funnier than the video.
That's awesome.
Especially after you watch the video first and you can imagine his face while he's writing this. Extra funny. I haven't sharpened them yet because they're beautiful and the etching sort of goes down really close to the point. And I can't bring myself to do it yet, but I might actually subscribe and get doubles, so. Or even just buy some doubles because they're really cool and then do that. They came in a cool box and it was wrapped in baker's twine. And there's a cool stamp on it. So it sat for a day before I opened it. It's too pretty. Also, we have the sprout pencils, which sprout as a verb. You sharpen them and when you're finished, the end has laser engraved what it is. For instance, basil. And you stick it into the ground and there's some sort of bioplastic pod that has seeds in it and that dissolves in the soil with the water. And you've got basil and all of the other herbs. And then there's a flower packet also. But they're really nice pencils. They're made in America. They're cedar, they're round, they're unfinished. The lead is smooth but not very soft. So that's a special place for a pencil like that.
I remember their Kickstarter. It was. It was really cool. I'm glad that they're actually in production now.
Yeah, they have them in Boston. I'm going to Boston next week, so I'm gonna try to find some more. You know, like, I need an excuse to go look for pencils. There's a Dick Blick in Boston, and I'm going to descend. Very excited.
Descend upon the Dick Blick.
Yes. We don't have one of those here.
Very sad. Yeah.
And my other point was that Staedtler, who I love very much, their very poor packaging job of the new neon Wopex pencils that they break. It's already a breakable pencil, and they know this, and they put them in a really bad packaging, and then Staples mails them to you in a soft envelope, and they all show up broken. Very upsetting. Like, ruined my week.
And. And what's. What's crazy about this is so I ordered some of these too, from Staples. And, like, they. They like that the cardboard insert in the back that kind of keeps it stiff, doesn't descend to the bottom of the point. Like, it just kind of goes down to, you know, about, like, midpoint. So, in fact, the rest of the pencil is protected, yet the point is not, which is kind of insane, I think. But, yeah, it's.
Somebody screwed up.
Yeah. And I guess it's maybe because they're so cheap and they have so darn many of them that I assume they're just like, oh, we gotta save money on this packaging or something.
But, yeah, the European version of them without an eraser, they're really expensive.
Yeah.
But these are identical, and they have an eraser and they're cheaper. I don't understand. I'm not complaining.
This is American. In America, we get our pencils cheap.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think $4 for a dozen of German pencils is insanely good deal.
Yeah. Well, it was $2. It was $2 a dozen on sale. Yeah.
I. I have 10 dozen.
Would you.
Okay.
You bought 10 dozen. Is that.
Well, I bought five, and then they sent me five replacements which were also broken. But I'm like, well, you know, if five dozen or ten dozen of pencils for essentially ten bucks, I can live with this if I have to sharpen them.
It's cool.
Yeah.
I should put a. Like, I've never done this because I've never used a wo. Pex down short enough. But you should use a wopex and a bullet pencil. That'd be a good. Good candidate for a bullet pencil because you're going for something that'll look. Something that'll hold a point nicely but,
yeah, you know, I like to Dremel those. Those pencils off. So I wonder if the Dremel would just like melt the plastic off. That'd be interesting to try.
Experiment time.
Yeah. All right. Anything else, Johnny?
Nope, that's about it.
Okay. So I guess the first thing I was just going to mention was I absolutely love our Facebook group. Anna just pointed out to me that we don't in fact have our Facebook group on our website, which is an oversight, like in the sidebar, which is an oversight that will be corrected as of the publishing of this podcast. But if you want to join the Facebook group, last episode we had about maybe 80 members, and now we're up to almost 130. I think we're at 129 right now, actually. No, we're at exactly 130. It's a lot of fun. It gives me a whole new reason to use Facebook. It's just a little piece of joy. And Tim, I think you had something really kind of some good insight about it, how it's a safe space for people.
Yeah, I feel like people are comfortable to just be themselves in their pencil obsession that, like, they. They don't fear asking us crazy questions or just saying like, because there's some people who will post things like, hey, I'm doing this today with pencils. Does. Is that normal? Do other people do this?
And.
Which is really enjoyable because then of course, everyone else says, yes, yes, of course. But it's. We're like, I kind of think about our Facebook group as not as much a Facebook group as like a Facebook tribe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just. Just today, Liz. Liz Vegan Rotundo posted on her, posted a post in there about messenger bags that was super interesting.
Yeah, Cody killed it on that.
Oh, God. Yeah. He just. He was like, here's all of the bags I use and exactly the reasons I use them. So, yeah, and I saw a couple in there that were just super neat. So if you want to join the Facebook group, go to facebook.comgroups erasable or go ahead and click the link in the show notes. And it is technically a private group, so it remains a safe space. But if you want to join, just hit request and one of us will approve that shortly. So the reason I bring that up is because Charles Berolsheimer is also in the group. Charles is the CEO of Pencils.com and is just a wealth of knowledge about pencils. He. Oh, man, he just knows so much. He's actually fifth generation pencil maker. He, you know, he's the president of Cal Cedar. He produces slats that he sells to all the other pencil companies in the world almost. So Charles is just a wealth of knowledge. And somebody in the Facebook group, after our last episode was starting talking about wondering what classifies a pencil as being USA made. We talked about, we approached that a little bit in the last episode and I of course didn't know myself. So I asked Charles to weigh in and I tagged him in the post and he responded. And basically he talked about how the Department of Commerce follows the rule of substantial transformation. That basically means a producer has to transform, in pencil's case the slats and the core components into raw pencils through the processes of grooving, lead laying, gluing the sandwiches and shaping, etc. There is no specific requirement that these components be manufactured in the US or that some minimum percentage of the value added has to be done in the U.S. however, you can't bring in raw or semi finished pencils or preformed sandwiches and call that US made. So essentially what he's saying is that the raw materials have to be from the US and then just kind of just substantially transformed in order to call it a USA made pencil. So if you are interested in kind of reading more about this and seeing Charles comments on that, just request to join the erasable Facebook group and we'll add you and you can check that out.
That's just like a good example of how awesome it is to have Charles in our group. It's like starting a Facebook group on cars and Henry Ford joining the group. Someone who just is in the middle of it. Like he knows everything and like we've asked him questions and he's just given us, you know, he's not afraid to give us really detailed answers and tell us things. So it's just.
Well, when I worked there I had to edit that his words. So I know that he will be very long winded and provide you lots of detail if you need to. So yeah, that's a good one. What else? I was going to kind of mention all the rainbow packs of pencils out there right now. We already talked about the Woolpex pencil packs. They came in different colors. Staples also had a set of neon type which are really cool. Johnny informed me that they, they were the ones that were featured last year at Target during Back to School, which is interesting. And then actually this year Target has another pack of custom Ticonderoga colors featuring three different shades of pink.
And then.
That's such a weird choice. Yeah, like that is a really weird choice.
Yeah.
To have five colors and three of them are just different pinks. Yeah, I don't really understand that.
And so. So there's also doing this. Right.
There'd be three shades of green.
Exactly.
For me, it's three. Three shades of like red.
I don't know if ever you guys have ever even like heard of Anna's blog. You probably know that she is a big fan of like a. What color green would you say specifically? Like a lime green?
Yeah, I like yellow greens.
So yeah, if you check it out, Anna, there are several shades of this lime green at Target and Staples.
Excellent. I need to have the moratorium on target shopping so that I can go.
And of course, if you like,
I
will send you some of the greens from my various packs so you can continue to stay away and stay on the wagon.
We can be your.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Your Target stationary Coyotes. And we'll bring them across the border to you.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
So the other. I think we talked about this last week. The other brand of kind of multicolored pencils is, it's called UB Y O O B I and the tagline is one for you, one for me. And they have a bunch of office supplies. They have staplers, they have thumbtacks, they have rubber bands. But the pack of pencils features just like a pink and a purple and a green and a yellow and they're pretty decent. And I just the other day I was reading the back of it and kind of like Tom's or Roy B. Parker or something like that. For every pack that you buy, they give a pack to a classroom in need in the US which is cool. So, Tim, you should figure out how you competition for some of these pencils and.
Yeah, for real.
Yeah.
Yeah. I wonder how they, how they control that. If I can try to funnel them all to my school so I don't have to deal with.
Then they'll just listen to the podcast and it'll be a big scandal.
Right? Yeah, it'll be. It'll be a mess, but you know, it's worth it.
Yeah.
Clark will be happy.
Yeah.
There's an old reference.
Yeah. Clark would be your classroom friendly pencil sharpener.
Yes.
I still have not developed a name for mine. Like now I sort of feel absurd that I don't have a name for it. But to figure that out, it's pretty shameful.
Andy. Yeah, it's like he doesn't have an identity or she doesn't have an identity.
Yeah.
If it makes you Feel any better? I broke mine.
Oh, no. What'd you do to it?
You run it over?
No.
I don't know.
It just will not sharpen anymore. The little handle won't turn or anything. I heard you guys actually mention something about taking one apart. So I might have to send it away for someone to fix it for me because I can't figure out what's wrong with it.
Send it to Tim. He can replace an alternator.
That's true.
It can't be worse than that.
This.
Have you tried to unscrew the back of it?
I haven't. It actually got ostracized because I was so mad at it. So now I have to find it.
You shunned it?
I did, I did. And I went back to my old. Have an old school. Of course it's vintage, but it's an old, you know, old school crank one.
Yeah.
Which I loved. And I actually at one point had it drilled to my desk.
That's awesome.
I know. And then when I got this, the school sharpener, I replaced it and I used it for a while until I broke it.
Oh, no. Wow. That's hardcore. I don't know what you do in your pencils. So I guess the last thing I wanted to mention in FreshPoints is a pretty big announcement that I'm super excited about. I hope it does not downplay the very special guest we have today, because it shouldn't and it doesn't. But because as we talked about earlier, the pen addict is going on hiatus for a few weeks. We're actually going to be doing a very special crossover episode with Brad Dowdy. So I talked to him a little bit and he mentioned one of the things I asked him about is are you going to have a backlog of pen things you need to talk about? And if so, would you like to come on our show and talk about them? So if you are a strictly pencil person who does not want to hear anything about ink, which I doubt we have very many of those, you may not want to tune in because we are going to be having a some pen follow ups as well as our usual pencil talk and maybe a main topic that may be a little bit different. So the famous pencil or pen blogger slash podcaster Brad Dowdy will be with us next week. Or not next week, but next time, which I believe comes out July 30th. So we'll definitely kind of promo it up until then. I think Brad's gonna be talking about a little bit too. So I'm very, very excited. So that is all the follow up that I had. I think we covered everybody, so we should probably just kind of go into the topic. So we officially welcomed you, Anna, but welcome again. Thank you for being with us.
Thank you very much.
And I think that probably a lot of the people who listen to this are familiar with the other kind of pen and office supply and stationary blogs out there. But can you tell me a little bit about what the scope of what well Appointed Desk covers?
Well, when I started well Appointed Desk, I wanted to cover all sorts of ways to make the sort of everyday drudgery of our work life more pleasant, more pleasurable. From not using the office supply cabinet, Bic ballpoints, or the crappy pencils that they buy. 100 for a dollar, you know. Yeah, we all know. We all know. So that was sort of the inspiration for sort of what I wanted to do with well Appointed Desk was wonderful, well made, good products that make all of those long meetings and all of those long writing sessions and things that people have to do a little bit more pleasant and to maintain an interest in using pen and paper and pencil and those types of materials. Although occasionally I will throw in something about the digital workspace because I'm. I'm not in. I'm not blind to the fact that none of what we, we do in our day is without the digital component. Yeah, we all work on computers. We all work. We all use our phones.
This is kind of a random question, but are you an Evernote user?
I do use Evernote.
Okay, we'll have to talk about it sometime, because I've been thinking about that lately. I've been using it with lesson plans, and that integrates really well with doing things by hand for me because I can snap pictures of things that I'm writing and it goes straight into a certain place. I was just curious if that was something that you used.
I'm starting to work with that a little bit more. It's one of those things that I sort of forget that there's that option to import images into Evernote. And then I know Evernote has their own Moleskine notebook that will help you, you know, to import things that way.
And that seems kind of scammy. It's kind of.
I think it's. I think because you can basically photograph anything and give it a tag, you don't really need to pay the $25 for the special.
The things come with three months of Evernote Premium, though, which I guess is a.
That's kind of a deal.
That's sort of A bonus, which, that's a pretty good deal, I'll give them that.
The thing that they do that I, I kind of think is a neat concept. I mean, you're right, it is kind of dumb because you can just take a picture. But I love the fact that you can tag stuff, like to go to different notebooks automatically. Like, it's, it's basically taking a meta tag and making it. Not meta, making it real life. So I think that's kind of cool. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. So anyhow, Ana, how did you come up with the title well Appointed Desk? Where did that come from?
Honestly, I just was trying to sort of figure out a way to encompass everything that I wanted to do. I was already a fan and a follower of the pen addict when I started my blog and I was already a fan and a friend of Johnny's and the pencil revolution. And I kind of, I didn't want to necessarily tread on anybody's existing territory and I know there's a lot of other bloggers out there, but sort of when I started, you guys were sort of the big, you know, people that I, that I followed. And so I kind of wanted something that would allow me to play sort of in any part of the sort of work office environment. So that's where the well Appointed Desk came in.
That's cool. I do remember when we were talking kind of in the, in the kind of midpoint break about how well Appointed Desk started off as a Tumblr and I do remember that. And did you, did you back then, I'm trying to remember, did you post a lot more like pictures of desktops, pictures of desks?
I did, I did. When I started, I was, I really just wanted to sort of at some level fill the. Well, you know, because when you start a blog, you've really got nothing. You've got your two posts that you've done and it's just sort of. I. It was how I found my legs, I guess. And I still occasionally, probably, it's now probably down to about once a month or so, I'll do sort of an office space, work space post. Don't hold me to it. Sometimes two or three will happen at once. Sometimes they won't happen for months. But I do tend to like to put those back in because I think one thing, I feel like I'm filling a gap in this sort of office supply blog space by sort of filling, going into these places because for as much as I love all the tools, sometimes it's nice to sort of step back and look at what you're working in.
Look at the whole. Yeah.
Look at the environment. And trust me, yesterday you guys would have died. My office was such a mess.
Oh, man. So that's interesting. So one of the things I really like about your blog is it's really probably aesthetically one of the most beautiful of kind of the blogs in our sphere. I love the pictures you have, and you always have such gorgeous. Not just the quality of the photos, but the stuff you take pictures of are just amazing.
Thank you.
Yeah. What is your setup for stuff like that?
Well, I have. I kind of have a thing for cameras as well, so I actually have. Honestly, I have cameras in all of the places I could potentially be besides, like an iPhone. But most of the photography that I do, I use a Canon dslr.
Yeah.
And it's, I don't know, two versions back. And it. I put specifications up on my blog at some point because someone did ask me and I can put that in the show notes if someone's curious. But I also have a couple other cameras that I use. One that stays in my bag, one that stays in my office at work in case I need to take photos there.
Do you use, like, a lighting kit or anything like that?
I have one and I have on occasion, used it. I have a light tent and some shoddy light that I set up, but for the most part, I try to take pictures in the best natural light I can find because that's really mostly how people experience these things anyway. Yeah. And I find using the light tent and stuff, it's super cumbersome. And it ends up taking me two hours to set up a shoot.
Yeah.
Then shoot it, then process the images, then post them. By that point I'm like, okay, you know what? I didn't love this thing that much.
It's not worth it. Someday I think we should do a whole episode about, like, pencil and pen bloggers and how they actually shoot their stuff because it's such a hard thing to take a picture of.
It really is. Pencils and pens are these long, straight objects and whatever camera you're using is a rectangle or square format or whatever, and it's just hard to get them to fit in there nicely.
Yeah.
All of my pictures are taken on top of a bookshelf that's near a window because it just has, like, this peeling paint and just kind of looks cool.
It does look cool.
Is I can only take those pictures from like 3 to 6pm Yeah. I always have to set them on top of this bookshelf and take. Take pictures. It's kind of this, like, there's like, nothing glamorous about it. I use my iPhone most of the time.
I mean, I have, I have contact because of what I do for a living with people who have very, very high end equipment. And Hallmark actually has its own photo studio. So I've been over there and I see how the pros do it. And to be honest, I. If you kind of step back and look at it from the side, it's all. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors.
Yeah. So that was the best segue a person could ever ask for. Ana. Because my next question was, can you tell us about what you do as a career and how that kind of relates to what you do on the blog.
I work at Hallmark Cards. I'm a greeting card designer.
That is awesome.
I have worked there for 13 years now. I know. And the funny thing is, at Hallmark that's like, that's kind of the middle ground. There are people, like, I work with people who've been there for 25 and 35 years. Like, literally they graduated from college and the first job they got was Hallmark and they've been there ever since. Wow. And then there's some other people who have like, you know, one to five years. And I mean, literally, at Hallmark, you are a newbie until you've crossed the 10 year marker.
Wow.
Yeah, it's just, I mean, people go to Hallmark and they stay there forever.
I work in the web industry and I've been at my place for three years and I'm the person who's been there the longest.
And I came from advertising and marketing background. I had worked in Chicago for several years and I worked in newspapers and. Yeah, so it's a lot of the jobs prior to coming to Hallmark where, you know, you were there for eight months and boy, you were, you were in the trenches. You'd been there for a while and you know, 12 or 14 months and you know, you were, wow. When are you gonna start looking for another job? So being at Hallmark for as long as I have, the advantage, of course, is Hallmark is a very big place in terms of the number of people that work there. There are literally hundreds of creative staff there. So there's a lot of opportunity to move around within the company without actually having to change your 401k.
Yeah. What is the. So when you design greeting cards, is it more of like, do you design like a greeting card from start to finish or do you just kind of control one aspect of it?
I get all the parts and pieces and put it together so I can work with an illustrator or a lettering artist or I can go through. We have a huge database that has all sorts of work that's been done previous that I can manipulate and modify.
Yeah.
And so I can, you know, I just take those pieces, I get the actual editorial provided to me by our astounding editorial staff and I smoosh it all together. I joke that I'm like, I'm a glorified decorator.
Yeah.
I take the pretty picture and the pretty words and I put it all together. But I'm very lucky in the position that I'm at right now where they give me a lot of freedom to do my own lettering. So a lot of what I'm doing when I do writing samples is just practicing and seeing Will this tool work for work? You may have noticed there's been a lot of brush pen work lately. It's like, can I use these for work? Is this going to be easier than actually dipping a paintbrush into a jar of ink?
Maybe. So I'm just imagining because I, I'm not, I'm not. I'm sure these aren't Hallmark cards, but I've, I've seen all those cards that they have at Target and other places with that, with that guy, that like hairy guy on it who's like wearing these cut off jeans that like tuck up into his butt cheeks. And I see that all over the place. So that's Johnny. He gets. So I just, I just like to imagine that you just have like a, like a big database where there's that master file in it and you just have to come up with something for every holiday that includes that guy.
We could. Except that Target is a different company.
Oh, okay.
Walmart then you're probably Hallmark cards.
Yeah, that's cool. So how often are you doing it within like InDesign or Illustrator or something like that as opposed to actual physical media?
I would say probably 75 to 80% of my job is done in Photoshop and Illustrator. And there's about a 2% in InDesign which is just really file compiling. Yeah. And about 15 to 20% where I'm actually getting to do things on, on paper. And a lot of stuff we do, I mean like there's lots of thumbnail sketching and drawing on a three by five. Like so I wanted to do this thing here, you know, can I, can that, can that happen?
Yeah.
So little, little stuff like that and I, you know, I do some lettering and that's usually done on paper first and then I scan it in and I'll either use the RAW file and just touch it up. Big secret. No lettering artist anywhere, ever. I mean, if it gets printed, it gets cleaned up in Photoshop.
Oh, wow.
Don't let anybody fool you. There's a lot of digital white out that goes on and a lot of times we'll will take those files once they're scanned in and we'll take them into Illustrator and basically completely redraw them.
Wow.
So and sometimes I'll actually use that
trace tool and boom.
Exactly. Well, and sometimes I'll actually scan in a very, very rough piece and I will actually use it as something I trace in Illustrator. So I'll redraw it in Illustrator from like a really rough sketch.
Did you see on Wood Clinched a while ago? I had that pencil vector pack.
Yes.
That was kind of similar. A friend of mine who's a graphic designer just took a picture of those pencils and put them in Illustrator and then traced around it and that's how he kind of arrived at that.
Yeah. No, I love those. I think they're great. I'm surprised that's not a T shirt yet. Oh, man.
I know. It's one of the many things I have to figure out to do.
The erasable T shirt needs to happen.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It does. So that's awesome. I actually, when I actually before I worked kind of in the industry that I'm in now, I worked at newspapers and did a little bit of page layout. So I'm a huge kind of indesign Illustrator fan. So I'm interested to hear you talk about that. So before we kind of move on to the main topic, I would really, really be interested to hear about your trip to Chicago and what you did there. Chicago? Yeah.
Well, do you really want to hear about the trip? Because I actually went to see my dad.
I would like to hear, how's your dad doing? Is he.
He's good. He's good. He tried to feed me brats. He said I got hot dogs. But that's what you get when you go to Chicago.
That's true.
There's pickles on it for some terrible reason.
Cucumbers.
Oh, cucumbers. That's right.
And tomatoes. Sport peppers. Relish.
What else did you do? Maybe on North May.
I want to go home.
I got to go and visit Field Notes, which is actually at Koodle Partners. And to really draw out the story. When I lived in Chicago, my husband actually worked at the same Company with Brian Bedell. So they're old friends. Yeah. It's a small world, isn't it?
Yeah.
And Bob left the company and went to work in Letterpress in Chicago, and I went to work for that company, and right as Brian was leaving. So we didn't ever really cross paths there, but we knew a lot of the same people. One of my close friends was really good friends with him, and we also had a shared interest in vintage scooters like Vespas.
Oh, yeah.
And so even after we left Chicago, we kept in contact between the design work, the letterpress, the scooters, and then the field notes. We kind of. We just kept in touch all these years, and so we just sort of offhandedly were talking about something else via email or whatever and said, hey, can we come visit? And he's like, yeah, sure, absolutely. And I'm like, seriously, I get to go to field notes? He's like, you realize it's a design office, right? And I'm like, yes, but I'm going to talk it up anyway.
Well, I mean, I live three hours away from Chicago, so I'm going to pulse them. Like, oh, yeah, I have a podcast. I'm gonna try to get myself a tour.
I'm sure if you email Brian.
Yeah.
He will make arrangements. Actually, they have sort of become pretty comfortable with people sort of either giving them a call or emailing and saying, hey, I want to drop by. They've actually set up their front desk with a little. With one of their display boxes so that you can literally, if you're in Chicago, you can either walk, come in, and pick up an order, or you can go in and actually just buy right off the shelf.
That's a great idea.
They can swipe a credit card or whatever.
So did they have, like. I saw you kind of saw the picture of the distribution center. Did you get to see any archives where they have, like, you know, mint early editions and things like that?
No, I did not. They're field notes can be. You can basically contact field notes and make an arrangement to do something like, you know, they do for the XOXO events and things like that. There were a few of those books. I was not allowed to take photographs or tell anyone I saw them.
I figured I'm excited. Brad's going to XOXO this year, and I'm really, really jealous.
So I'm not. I'm not familiar with the event outside of the fact that I know that they made a custom edition of field notes for it.
So, yeah, it's cool. It's a couple web people in Portland and they have a big event there, and it's just people who make things. Like the guy who did Pinboard was there. What's his name? Christopher Poole, who founded 4chan, did a talk there. Marco Arment, who's a really great developer. He talked there. It's a cool event. I watched some videos. They just give talks, just talks to people in the creative industry.
Didn't they have Adam from Mythbusters?
Yeah, Adam Savage was there. Adam Savage, Yeah. Yeah. This is the third time they did it. I think the first time Mike went. Mike Hurley went, and there are a bunch of other people there. And last time, I think he may have gone last time too, but this will be the third year. And the rumor is that the. The field notes. And they were just talking about this on the pentatic podcast that the XOXO field notes are going to be black and white. So that'll be. That's. That's what Brad is calling it. So we'll see if that happens. Cool. Well, thank you very much, Anna.
That's no problem.
That's awesome. So, anything to add before we get on to our main topic?
Nope.
Okay, we'll. We'll keep this guys too. We're about an hour recording time, so I bet we could do this for 10 or 15 minutes still. So we were talking to Anna and just kind of seeing what, what she wanted to talk about. Anything pencil related. This is a good opportunity to discuss it. And she brought up indelible pencils. And I think that's a really great idea just because I know very little about it. I've always, you know, in my collection.
I've.
I've. I'm still considering it like a starting collection. So I'm still collecting like just plain old graphite pencils. And I don't know much about indelible pencils at all. And I'm assuming probably you do as well. Johnny, you know some things about them.
I have a small hoard of them, too.
Exactly. You have a small horde.
I mean, I don't. I'll come looking for them at my house.
And then. Tim, you said you had a. You had a couple, right?
I have zero. I said that I was. When I was trying to pick out a pencil for today, I picked out the thing that was the darkest, softest thing because that was the closest I had. So, yeah, either a black wing or a Sharpie. So, yeah, as far as I understand them. So I'm excited to learn about them.
So I Guess. I guess Tim and I are gonna just get an education here. Ana, do you kind of want to tell us like, maybe some. What indelible pencils are and what you might use them for?
Sure. I discovered them. I entirely. It was. I stumbled on them. I got a hold of a sanford no blotch 705 and was trying to figure out, well, this is an interesting kind of pencil that's been made for a long time in the way that the pel. Their. The original black wings were, you know, sort of. They lived on through the 80s or something. And then all of a sudden they vanished. And so I found this. I actually, I found a box of them on Amazon that was like $7 for a dozen. And I said, well, sure, I'll take a box of these pencils for seven bucks and actually put it on my Amazon wish list. And the box just showed up in the mail. Like, I don't know who sent it to me. This was many years ago before I actually started the well appointed desk. And I started writing with them because I did not know that they are now selling on ebay for like 30 bucks a pencil. And I just really like the way they wrote. And then one day I. It says on the bottom on the pencil a bottle of ink and in a pencil. And I thought, that's weird. And then I think something happened. Like I got some, you know, condensation from a glass on my paper, and I went to wipe it away and saw that it turned blue. It turned this lovely turquoise blue color. And I'm like, well, that's strange. So I started to do my homework about what is this? And the no blot was a variation on a copying pencil or an indelible pencil. And I found an article on this conservation website that I guess, you know, like librarians and historians about how to treat documents that may have been written with a copying pencil or an indelible pencil. But I guess originally what they were used for was before there were Xerox copiers or the old mimeograph machines, if you remember, those people would actually sort of make their own carbon copies, so to speak. Like, this is going way back. Like, you have to kind of think all the way back to. I guess they're estimating about the 1870s. They would write something with a copying pencil and then they would lay a piece of damp tissue over it and press it down and it would transfer a copy of the document. So you imagine somebody who's, I don't know, writing out an order for somebody or writing A legal document. You know, instead of having to write it two or three times, you could do this little copying trick, and then you could file it away, or you could keep a copy so that you knew what you sent in that letter to somebody. All those types of things. So that's really how they got started.
And this was before carbon paper even, right?
Yeah, before carbon paper. Whole bit. This was how it was done.
Yeah.
And then a lot of people discovered, hey, this. Because it creates this sort of inky quality. These pencils could be used for signing documents because you can't really erase them or use water like you can with. And we've seen it with fountain pen ink. You know, if you get it wet, a lot of times, it'll just vanish completely.
Yeah.
And these are, you know, 21st century inks. Imagine inks in the 1800s and how easy it would probably be to have it just sort of, you know, come right off the paper. So people figured out, hey, these copying pencils are great. If I want to write something, and I don't want it to rub off the paper or I want to sign a check or IOU or something, and I don't want somebody to change it. So they were used for that for a while prior to, you know, permanent pens and that kind of thing.
What are they made out of?
From what I understand, it's a graphite that's mixed with another colorant, like some kind of dye. So more of a dye, you know, I would guess probably because especially with the no blots, it comes out so blue. It might be like an indigo dye or something.
Yeah,
but. Yeah, so there's some material in there to sort of create this. And the trick that I always use when I'm using them is I'll lick my finger and rub it just to see what color comes out. So it's like there are graphite, blue, and red indelible pencils. There probably have been other colors. I think I've seen a green one as well. The red ones don't leave much of a. They really stick. So I don't. Whatever they're in, whatever dye or ink or whatever is in that, they don't. They don't tend to bleed very much. Some of the graphite ones create more of a washy quality when they get wet.
I'm looking at your post from 2012 for the Jolly copying pencils. And yeah, that one. There's a green one in there, which is super cool. But, yeah, these don't seem nearly as, like, dark and as deep as like the no blots that you had.
No. And that was the thing is, I kind of went on a hunt looking for something because when I found out how rare and hard to come by the no blots were, I started to get very paranoid about using them. I won't tell you how many I have because it's less than a dozen, but. Yeah. So I kind of have held onto them. And actually today I was writing with one in preparation and I was like, I forgot how much I like because for me, the thing is the graphite on them is very smooth, it writes very easily. And because of the qualities of it for a lefty, you don't really smudge your writing unless you're a sweaty writer. So I don't smudge so much. And that I really appreciate.
I'm a lefty too, so that's out of luck there.
Yeah.
Even as a righty, I feel like I sweat enough that it would just like bleed over to the ring.
Well, one of the things I discovered a couple of about a month ago when I was at the Spectrum show was an artist named Hector Casanova started talking about like, I love, I love to walk around the Spectrum Live art show because it's all these well known comic book artists and you know, people who do animation for Disney and Pixar and all the. I'm like, just amazing. They do sci fi and fantasy book covers. It's just this amazing collection of people and they're all just sitting at like basically card tables and you can just walk up and talk to them. And so I walk around and I'm like, hey, what kind of pencils are you using? What kind of pens you got? And they get really excited. They're like, they whip open their, their pencil backs and they show me what they've got and we talk. So Hector was, you know, we were chit chatting and I saw him like flipping this gray pencil around and I'm like, is that a Sanford no Blood? And he's like, yes, I love these. And so we totally bonded over it and. And he actually uses it like a watercolor.
Huh.
So he did these, he did these wonderful figure drawings. They have like, they have a figure drawing, like evening event.
I see that. Yeah.
At Spectrum Live. And so he was drawing with his Sanford no Blot. And then the next day he was going in and adding water to it to create these sort of washy qualities to it. And he, I mean, we both just like. My husband had to walk away. He's like, oh my God, you Guys are ridiculous. I'm out of here. But yeah, so it was. It was using the tool in a way that I had. It hadn't occurred to me to use it before.
So maybe. Maybe next. Maybe next. We need to bring back. You know, we brought back the Blackwing. Maybe we need to bring back the Noblet.
Oh, yeah, I'm. I am there. If there's a Kickstarter, I'm in.
Let's do it. I know. I know lots about making pencils, so especially
we'll just ask Charles on our Facebook page.
Hey, Charles, help us out here. Yeah, no, this is cool. I'm looking at the picture. We'll have a link in show notes. But yeah, it is like a watercolor or it kind of reminds me. Do you remember those watercolor books from, like, the 80s that have, like, little dots with dye and you just paint them with water? They come off. It kind of looks like. Yeah, it looks like that, but with a pencil drawing over the top.
Well, what's so interesting is there are a lot of watercolor pencils. And I know you guys don't talk a lot about art supplies, grade pencils, but there's a lot of. But with a watercolor pencil, if you paint over it too long, the pencil line will actually vanish, and it will just become part of the sort of washy pigment. So the thing that, from an artist's perspective, about the no blot that's so cool is that you're never going to lose that line work.
Yeah.
It's just sort of releasing the dye component and leaving your line work.
That's cool. We do need to talk about. Because we're all pretty solidly writers, I think, and we do need to have some artists on.
We talked about that early on. That's one of our sort of downfalls, is that we none of us are gifted artists. We're writers, maybe doodlers, but that's as far as it goes.
Yeah, I'm sure you can find some people.
Yeah, I need to look around. I feel like I have this. This kind of, like, metal cap on the end of that noblot. Looks really familiar, but I think the
turquoise drawing pencils have those.
Okay. I think that's maybe where I've seen them.
They're so pretty.
Yeah. Did you say you have some. No blots, Johnny.
I have an unopened dozen of them, and I can't find them.
But somebody stole them.
But two friends of mine, they might have stolen them. We named our little. Our combo is called 100 Bucks a Dozen after that. Dozen of pencils?
Yeah.
Although I think they're a lot more than a hundred dollars a dozen now.
Yeah, they're. I. I would guess, I mean, today, before we did the podcast, I went online just to look, and the Prices range between 13.50 and $40 for one pencil.
Wow.
I know.
I mean, they're cool.
That cool, not 40 bucks cool.
There was one on there and I don't know if it's still there, so I'm gonna go ahead and fess up. But somebody had a lot of pencils, a bunch of vintage pencils. Some of them were just like old colored pencils and a few other things, some copying pencils. And I think there were three or four. No blots in there. A couple were sharpened, couple weren't for like 40 bucks. And it was all I could do not to click the Buy it now button. Like, I have to go home and see how many I have.
Well, I am not going to put that link in show notes.
Thank you. They'll have to find it on their own.
If you want it. If you want it, then you'll have to find it. That's awesome. So what are some of the, Some of the modern equivalents we talked about the Jolly Copy and pencil a little bit.
I think it. Pencil Things carries several varieties and so I think they actually offered a packet of various copying and indelible pencils. And so I actually bought the whole set and pretty much every single one that they carried. So they have.
I can tell you that that link that you had on your blog to Pencil Things is broken. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I don't think it's your fault. I think, I mean, from when you posted that Original post in 2012, Pencil Things has really, really changed, in my opinion, for the worse. I actually used to. That's how I got my start in pencil blogging was. I was. I did the Pencil Things blog. So they used to have an amazing selection. They used to carry those, those Mongols, the Philippine made Mongols. And they were awesome. But yeah, they've. They've taken kind of a turn for the worse. And they do. It does not look like they have that anymore.
I found the link.
Oh, you found a link. You did find it. Okay. Yep. Okay, here they are. Nice.
So the website kind of looks like it's run by like an elementary school after school program.
Oh, yeah. This website has not changed since 2007. Yeah.
Yeah, it's not pretty.
Okay, well, these are cool. There's a Musgrave indelible pencil that they sell. There is a pencil things select. So like a house brand indelible pencil.
And that's one of the ones that I tried. I think that was where I got the. The red, the blue and the green ones.
Yeah.
Came from that. Oh, they have the 10 piece trial kit for 12.50, which I did.
They had the signature pencil things, Comic sans on them.
Yeah, yeah.
Really nice.
I actually have a set of pencil things. He was trying to make these really cool, like little. They kind of look like that same pencil that you find in the Duraflame, like with the end cap. And they're these really nice round pencils with like a dyed black wood and they're just like really gorgeous. Except for pencil things as in comic sans, it's like bleh.
Well, one, one that does have nice. A nice stamp on it is the Brevelier urban copying pencil. It's an Austrian brand and it does a two sided red blue.
Nice.
So it's in one of the.
I see your note.
Yeah.
Australian red. Blue.
Look at this.
Oh yeah, that's lovely.
So that one is aesthetically appealing. The harvest thick red and Blue combination number 725 is also. It also has very vintage. I'm holding it up so you guys can see it. Can you see it?
Yeah, it looks good. Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah. You know, it was one of those things. I went down the path and I tried a bunch of them and I wasn't super satisfied with any of them. The jolly copying pencil was close, but when it gets wet it kind of goes a little more greenish, which normally you'd think I'd like. But I'm so attached to this sort of wonderful turquoise aqua that the Sanford no blots turn when they get wet. Yeah, that I have a few. I'll hold on to them. For most purposes I don't really need an indelible pencil, but I do like. I mean if. If there was a massive quantity available of Sanford no blots at $7 a dozen, that would probably be all I use.
Cool. Yeah, these are. These are nice.
So I might have. I apologize if I missed this, but with a no blot pencil, how. What, what is the point like? Like how fine of a point do you get it to like? Is it usually like a rounded end?
I got pretty sharp points on mine. I usually used hand sharpener just because I did not want to chomp them up. So I just use a little, you know, the classic silver cume and get a really nice point and they for as dark. They're not really that dark. They're about the. I mean aesthetically, when they're on paper, not much darker than A2B, but they're very smooth. And they do have a little bit of a bluish cast on the paper. But they keep their point for a pretty long time, I find.
Yeah, but they're toxic, apparently. Like if you get the point under your skin, it goes necrotic like a brand recluse spider bite.
Holy crap.
You've got to go to the hospital and get it removed.
Yeah.
Are you making this stuff up?
No.
I was sharpening an indelible carpenter pencil this weekend and the dust got everywhere and I like kind of freaked out because I had cuts in my hands. No, I'm gonna die. There was a thing about copy pencils where if you got the point like stuck in your arm, you'd have to go to the hospital and get it cut out or, you know, cut it out with your pencil knife or something.
Just go all like bear Grylls on you and just like start slashing away at your knoff your arm.
Try to rob me, boy.
Wow. So I wonder what that. Yeah, what that pigment is that does that?
It's some sort of analyze dye. It's really corrosive.
Huh.
I don't know what's no blot. Maybe this is a little nicer because they're pretty.
They are pretty. They make a nice color.
Yeah. And Faber Castell makes some, but I don't know if you can buy them outside of Germany. Matthias sent me a couple and they're like beautiful. They're really smooth. They have colors.
Isn't it the 9100 and a half, isn't that what they're called?
Like that?
Yeah.
They have a graphite one, blue, green and red. And the colors are.
They look just like the 9000 series pencils. Except at some point they say copying or indelible or something on them.
I see it. It says Mattel. Yeah, they're so pretty.
They really are pretty. I would really love to find one. I was looking for them and I can't find them either.
There's a seller on Amazon that has dozens of the red ones, but just red. But the red ones are very. It's very red. You could grade papers with them and scare children. They sweat on there.
Like, oh no, it's bleeding. I just put a picture of that in the notes here. That 9100 and a half, do you pronounce it?
They make the triangular pencil, the Koh I noor.
Koh I noor.
Koh I noor. Okay, is anybody. Have he used those indelible pencils? No, I haven't because that I. I just searched it on Amazon. That was the first one that popped up, was Blue Copying and dullable pencil by Cody Noir. It's on prime.
They're not very good. Okay. They're waxy.
Okay.
Some of them do go a little waxy.
Yeah. Nothing compared to the note blot. It's so pretty. I have a couple that are half used and I guard them very closely. Plus I'm paranoid that my daughter's gonna stab herself in the arm and have to go out.
Well, let's all talk about the time that Charlotte lost her arm.
She used to have a hand, then
she used a pencil. Suddenly Johnny becomes like, you know, just jaded to pencils. And he starts like an anti pencil movement.
Yeah, yeah. Pencil revolution. But it's just about like counter revolution. Getting rid of all the pencil.
Counter revolution. I love it.
Like sharpen them onto a box and set it on fire.
Speaking of Koh I Noor guys, our magic erasers are on the way from the uk. So when we have that, I'll definitely talk about it in the show and post some pictures because it is. Look up the Koh I Noor magic erasers. They are super cool. They're not like those magic erasers that you use to get like, you know, marker off walls.
They're Mr. Clean.
Yeah, exactly. They're made of like mysterious chemicals that are probably just as bad as indelible pencils. So any does make me wonder if
that changing the chemicals is what's made some of the modern copying pencils maybe not as fun.
Yeah.
Color wise, the. The older ones because they've had to correct a lot of the. The dyes to not be toxic.
They used to be made of leaded asbestos. That was all they were made of. Yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Especially if they were from like the 1870s when everything was just like unregulated and made of like the most poisonous stuff you can. Yeah, most poisonous stuff you can think of. We've bottled bubonic plague and we put
it in this pencil, but it makes such a pretty blue.
So it's all right. Yeah. So any other interesting uses for indelible pencils that anybody's run across or questions for Anna about them?
I read somewhere that the British military was buying, I don't know, some giant percentage of the American made indelible pencils during one of the World wars before ballpoint pens. That makes me happy.
Yeah, I can see that.
You don't need a ballpoint pen. You need a.
No blot. It's like the Russian space pen.
Yeah, but way cooler,
but the same idea.
Yeah. I love this.
Pedro.
That was your British accent.
There's our tagline for the episode right there.
I know this prince. I have to find the. The mark for that.
I was like,
you can't erase shit. That's your. Is that your Mike Hurley impression?
No, no, no, no. Don't come find me and beat me up, Mike. Yeah, a peaceful man.
It's your Michael Caine impression. Mike o'. Caine.
See, it works.
It does work.
It's perfect.
We were talking in the. Ana enlightened us that during the break that if you want to say Michael Caine's name, like Michael Caine would say it, you just say my cocaine in a British accent.
Mike. Cocaine or my cocaine.
My cocaine.
My cocaine. My cocaine.
Michael Caine.
Hello. I'm. My cocaine.
Okay, exactly.
I think this show has just degraded.
It's officially evolved.
Yeah, for like, two and a half hours.
Yeah, exactly.
It's been a really enjoyable evening.
It has. It's been. It's been fun. And I swear to you, Anna, that I don't usually not record my podcast.
We were.
We were like, four hours into the first episode, and then he told us. Yeah, I forgot to hit the.
I don't have a computer, guys. I'm on a payphone right now.
Where did you find a payphone?
I have no idea. All right, well, I cut.
I cut Anna off in that right there. I think that's a.
That's okay. My drink was down to acceptance anyway.
Okay, I think we have to put a picture of this glass in the show notes.
All right, I'll take care of that.
Yes. So anything else before we let Anna go and end this terrible episode, this awesome episode?
I think that's it for me.
Okay, well, Anna, thank you so, so very, very, very much for coming on the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
It was great to be here.
We will have you again on again soon. And if you have any pencil topics that you, you know, want to talk to people about, please let me know and you can be on the very next episode.
So awesome. Thanks, guys.
How can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me@wellappointeddesk.com and there are links to all the other social networks that can be found.
Very cool. All right, so wellappointeddesk.com everybody I am Andy Welfle. I'm the editor of Woodclinched. You can find me at woodclinched.com or oodclinched on Twitter. Johnny, how can people find you?
I am on the interwebs@pencil revolution.com and on your handy smartphone. I am @penolution on Twitter and johnnygamberall one word on Instagram.
Cool.
Tim, you can read my reviews and writings about pencils and pens and those sorts of things@thewritingarsinal.com I'm on Twitter writing Arsenal and I am on Instagram therewriting Arsenal.
Very cool. And the Erasable podcast, you can find it@ erasable us. If you want to find us on Twitter, it is rasablepodcast and then we are now on Facebook in a group that is amazing. And you should all join@facebook.com groupserasable and there will be a link on the website to that. So thank you everybody for joining us. You have been listening to the Erasable podcast. Even though we have been talking about indelible pencils, we're still erasable and you all have a good day.