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Transcript
I'm waiting to get hate mail about those drinks. Hello, and welcome to episode 32 of the erasable podcast. Yippee ki yay. This evening we are going to talk about the contents of our pocket notebooks and how we use our pocket notebooks. I am Johnny Gamber. I am joined by two guys that probably wouldn't fit in my pocket. Andy Welfle and Tim Lawson. How are you guys doing?
Very good.
Good. But we'll never know that until we actually meet in person. I'm actually way smaller than you think.
Very manly beard. Probably keep you out of the pocket. Plus my pants are very tight.
I don't even know what's going on. So I was wondering if we were going to be using the third word in that yippee ki yay sentence.
I don't know what the third word is.
It starts with a mother and ends with a cur.
Oh, this must be from a song I don't recognize.
It's Die Hard.
Yeah, it's from a movie.
Here's where I admit I've never seen Die Hard.
What?
Damn it.
Out of. I'll leave it out of the title. This is a family friendly show.
Yippee ki yay. Expletive deleted.
I want to watch that movie. Is it about notebooks?
It is. It's actually hippie ki yay. Exploited deleted. And it's about people stationaries during, like, the late 60s and early 70s.
Do they smell? They do smell like patchouli and the ganja.
The ganj.
Oh, man. So tonight we're going to get into gross details. Right? It's going to get very personal.
So, yeah, we're gonna take a go inside.
Very voyeuristic tonight.
Yeah.
Yeah. So I was going through my notebooks because we were gonna read excerpts, and I have 166 of them that are full, so I just kind of grabbed a handful. I don't know what method you guys used. Plus, mine are full of mean cartoons about my neighbor these days. Aren't fit for sharing.
You're moving away?
Yeah. If you don't live in Baltimore, you wouldn't really understand what the hell it even means. Like, all kind of is a word here, but I think outside here, not so much.
Never heard that before.
Yeah, I mean, you know, you'd say like, oh, he's all kind of trouble. Yeah, he pissed off somebody and he's
a lot of trouble. Just three words in one. That's impressive use.
How you guys? How you doing?
I. I definitely don't have as many because I go through them kind of slowly. But I do have. I do do have some good examples to pull out. And when I was posting the group asking people for some, I asked for some screenshots and examples from other people. And I'll try posting a few of those in the show.
Notes.
Yeah.
Looking at some folks handwriting. I'm a little bashful now about taking pictures of mine.
I'm so jealous.
Well, you can't read it anyway.
Yeah, I was looking at some handwriting samples of Thoreau couple days ago. I don't forget why I ended up there, but I guess I. It happens pretty often, so it doesn't really need much of an explanation. But I ended up at the handwriting sample and he had horrible handwriting.
Yeah, I sent an email to the lady that used to run the Thoreau project and because I just wanted to know if he ever wrote in pencil. And she said no, he would erase it and write in pen. But she said like her job was just hell because you can't read anything you wrote.
So we need to edit that part out. Right. So we should probably do a timestamp just so we don't reveal the fact that he didn't write in pencil.
Yeah, it's a great conspiracy theory that we're all perpetuating.
You just got to insert one long throw. Didn't write.
We'll just. We'll just take out the soul and we'll just have throw. Didn't write in pen.
Beep.
But I should qualify that. He didn't write his journal in pencil, but he took pencils with him everywhere because he didn't pay for them.
Free pencils.
So shall we?
What a baller.
It's probably like Philip Berlsheimer. He's the son of Charles. He's probably like Thoreau because he just gets them from his dad.
So shall we jump into our tools of the trade?
We should. We should.
You go first, Mr. Andy.
Yes, I'm drinking a delightful dry summer drink. It's called the sawdust pencil shavings from step one of the masterpiece. No graphite included. So it kind of peels off like an orange peel. So like with an orange peel, you would just muddle it gently into a pool of dry mead. It's delicious. So if you want to garnish your glass first, kind of like a margarita, just take graphite from step two from the masterpiece and just rub your glass in it and that'll give it a really nice, like metallic sheen and also give it just an extra little, little zing. Yeah, I am drinking in real life, a. It's an Anchor. It's a beer by Anchor. It's called the Summer Wheat.
It's.
It's just with their. Their summer beer. It's really, really light and good. And there was a sale at Trader Joe's.
Nice.
Yeah. And I am writing with half a chopstick dipped in barbecue sauce. No, I am writing.
That's technically a pen.
Yeah, it's like a quill pen. And it's not a chopstick. It's one of those napkin prima pencils, so Forever pencils. So, no, I am writing actually today. Just going back to an old standard. I had a golden bear with me, so I. That was in my pocket, and that's. That's what I'm using to timestamp things. How about you, Tim?
I'm drinking something called the Stars and Stripes Mirka, which is like the leavings of a red, blue, and white Crayola pencil. Like the colored pencils, like everything. Like the collected shavings. So it's similar to yours, ironically. It's kind of weird that we have such similar drinks.
We didn't even coordinate.
Yeah. But I just been collecting them all year at school, and I basically, I just mix it into, you know, they've been. They've been aging, so they have pretty complex flavor profile, and I. I blend them in with like, 10 ounces of Bud Light that I found in my garage. Yeah, it was open. I don't know how long it's been open, but.
What color was it?
It's exactly the same as it always is. It's still cool.
That's worse.
Yeah, nothing's gonna. Nothing's gonna happen to that.
Did you strain out like the dead?
I never buy. No, man. That's. That's the. That's the secret. I don't usually tell people that part because it just, you know, it's like the little secret recipe thing, and I tell you then it's not my secret anymore, but you guessed it, so I just left it in. But I don't buy Bud Light, so it must have been in there from before we moved.
Oh, my.
Yeah, And I'm writing with ironically again, a Bud Light. Buddy Bud Light lime promo pencil sharpened with a bottle opener stolen from a frat boy. Yeah, it's very themed here on my end. I'm just really. Yeah. Bud Light lime. Just really pumped up about, you know, America and flags and fireworks and stuff. My real answer is that I am drinking Larceny Bourbon. Larceny Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. It's. I think Fairly new, but it's very good. And it was. They had my liquor store nearby. Had it and had a $10 rebate, which made it taste even better. So drinking that and I am writing with standby, just like Andy. I am writing with Vor's Choice. Sweet Ye Olde. Forest Choice, a good name for a bourbon.
Oh, Forest Choice is a good name for bourbon.
Forest Choice to be a good name for a gin.
That's true.
What about you, John?
I am drinking Gentleman Jack and crack, which is what it sounds like. No, I'm having a little bit. I have Gentleman Jack that I bought on a whim, and it's not really that good.
Yeah, just.
It tastes like Jack Daniels with water in it.
Yeah, I'm with you. I do have a fond memory of that, though, because that was when Henry was born. One of my buddies snuck in a pint of Gentleman Jack into the hospital because we were stuck.
Did you give some to Henry?
No. I mean, it might have made him feel better. He was in icu. He was in NICU for the first, like, several days because of something. And so we were in the hospital for a long time, and he snuck in one day and was like, hey, here you go.
Nice.
So that was very memorable. Helping out. Helping a brother out. But it was a stressful week. But Gentleman Jack and crack. So you're just drinking the Gentleman Jack? I'm just going to clarify that.
The crack on the side.
Okay.
I thought I heard a butane lighter.
No, actually a funny story about a certain funk artist and some guys I know and crack. We shouldn't record.
Say that for the after hours.
Yeah, yeah, but I'm writing with a pencil. I sent you guys. It's the Staedtler Triplus. It's sort of an ugly, yellow triangular pencil that I got in Cambridge at bobsleigh. But it writes like a dream. And Les from our group sent me that and the fat version a couple months ago got me hooked. So I sort of cleaned Bobslate out while I was there. I kept going back every day to see if they replenished them, and they did not. So if you went there this week and found none, that was my fault. I'm sorry. I'll send you one. Yeah, my drink is not that interesting at all. Also, if you're at a liquor store, don't buy it. It's not that good. You could buy something else for the same price. It's probably better. So for our pencil of the week this week, we're going with America's Pencil, the USA Gold, the natural version, which is a very, very fine pencil. What do you guys think of this pencil?
I like it. I think that actually the USA Gold are my wife's kind of like preferred pencil. We have only kind of a few of them just scattered around. And that seems like it's always the one that she goes to. So I know that she likes it a lot. I really like it. It's really smooth. But do you think it's like significantly, significantly lighter weight than other pencils?
It's skinnier.
Yeah.
That throws me off.
Yeah.
I feel like a giant.
I should really compare it to. Yeah, this is. This is thinner than the other pencils and it seems like so significantly lighter weight than. It feels almost cheap, but it writes really well.
Yeah. The ferals sort of look like a little kid wearing a big brother's clothes because it's a normally sized ferrule with a thinner pencil.
Yeah.
It's like this big shirt.
I'm doing it side by side, like switching it hand to hand with my force choice right now. And the force choice is noticeably bigger. Like when I. At least with my hands, when I hold the USA Gold, I can feel all three fingers I'm using to hold it, you know?
Yeah.
So.
And it's the force choices. Little. Got a little more girth to it. Yeah.
What do you think about it, John?
So I like this pencil a lot, especially because they updated the graphics. You guys probably remember they used to just have like the mega brands URL on there.
Yeah.
Yeah, they were. They were ugly. Plus, are you guys. Do you guys have lacquer on yours? Clear lacquer, or are they super naked?
Mine's super naked.
Super naked.
Yeah. They used to lacquer and then. So I have some that are lacquered and some that are super naked, which is my preferred mode, I think, kind of. I actually have a pack that came. Half of each was really weird.
I. I had a pack that was. There was lacquer too, I think. I feel like when they were switching from the URL period, they. There was a stage with the lacquer, and then they've ended up with the ones without the lacquer. Because every time I go to Target or anywhere that has them now, they always are the unlacquered version. So I like. There must have been some little transition period where they had the lacquer and then they decided to stop doing can only.
They're used to many right.
To not be the lacquer.
I guess they're greener. That way less pollutants. So they used to make one of the USA gold. I'm sorry, the USA green that had a green stripe on the ferrule. And the pencil was actually stamped just with fire like thorough pencils were. But they didn't make them anymore after like 08 or 09 because they said they didn't have a market. But now like you know, everybody would buy a recycled pencil. Yeah, those were like really gorgeous. They're essentially this just with green and no foil. The foil.
Pretty sweet.
I am, I like the price too. I'm actually on the Amazon page right now, but it's $8 for 12 which, which actually is a little expensive compared to even like a golden bear or a forest choice. But still really good for.
Especially for the quality and target. They're under three bucks, right?
Oh really?
Yeah, yeah.
229 or something. Really cheap.
Yeah, they're really cheap.
Why is Amazon so
the devil.
The drone delivery fee to feed the drones. Yeah, I, I, you know, you know I love me a nudie pencil.
Oh my.
And so this is a, this is a good. I like this pencil. I'll start by saying that, that I do like it and I like using it. And my one main beef besides the being skinny, which we already talked about, is that I don't know if you noticed this, but for me maybe it's just the paper I've been using with it in the last couple. Like the last day when I. It's all I've been using. Last day is it doesn't hold a point very well for me. I mean I was using it to mark up books and I was sharpening it, which I say that's a beef. But I also love sharpening. And so I didn't mind. It's not. But like it's not something that bugs me. I really like it. I think it's, it's just my problem is when I get into this world of the, the natural pencils, it's always. I can't help but compare to the forest choice. And that's kind of my, my, my personal standard which I, or it could easily be the renew certain days. But, but I think it's, it's below both of those. So. Yeah, but it's a saw. It's a, it's a great pencil. I think it's, I've enjoyed using it today. I've been using it to mark up my copy of Walden and that seemed very appropriate so to be using an American made natural wood pencil. So if I gave it A grade. I would. This feels like it might be a little low, but I'm gonna stick with it as I would just give it a B. Yeah, I would give it a B. And I would feel. Feel good about that. I. It's. This is one of the few pencils that I would give a B. But we'll still use.
Yeah.
If that makes any sense.
So B plus, maybe.
Yeah. You know, I'm a teacher. I'm gonna say I do it. Okay. All right. B plus.
Yay.
Just because it's the 4th of July week and you know, America, and I'm drinking this delicious stars and stripes. Yeah, I'd say B plus. Fine. You guys twisted my patriotic arm.
And because America is winning the women's soccer world Cup.
Yeah. They won today, right? Isn't it over?
Oh, I thought it was still in progress. It might be over by now.
I think it just ended recently.
Okay.
Because it started at seven, so.
Yeah. America.
Eastern America.
Yeah. I. I would. I would give it a B plus as well. It's. It's just a really solid pencil and it is. It is lightweight, but I guess I've never really noticed that it's thinner and just kind of with that originality and also just, you know, it's. It gets passed for that. So. I like the. I like the ferrule. I like the. The fact that it doesn't say mega brands on the side of it now. So I. I would.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna stick with Tim and give it a B plus.
I'm gonna give it a little higher and go A minus because I don't know why I really like this pencil. It's, you know, for the price point and the availability. It's a really, really nice pencil. I think it's at least as good as a cedar point, but way cheaper.
So we should probably talk about.
They're not easy.
Yeah, good. I was gonna say we should probably talk about where people can get it. Like, this is. This is a good pencil of the week because it's. You can get it at Target. You can get at Walmart, can't you?
I've never seen the natural one there.
I think I have. I feel like I have.
Good at back to school time at Target or Target. Sorry, Walmart. They have USA Gold pencils that are different colors. They're essentially the yellow one with a silver ferrule and a white eraser in different colors. And they're like really cheap. Like 4 bucks or a dozen and a half. I've only seen Them twice and only once did I buy them. I wish I bought them the other time.
Yeah. Cool.
It was like a secret thing. I found them on the bottom of a shelf behind stuff. Not that, you know, I look in places like that. Back to school time. You never know what you're going to find. And look what I did find. Yeah, but Target's sort of like the Mecca for naked pencils. You can pick up this and the Renu for like six bucks. Yeah.
It's like one of the best pencil buying outings that you can get when you live in a like cultural wasteland like I do where we don't have like art shops and stuff is to go out. And you can get those two pencils for under six bucks. It's a crazy deal.
Yeah.
I think I like this kind of backtracking. But I like the point you made, Johnny, about how you think it's better than the Cedar Point. Because I think I'm totally with you there.
I don't know.
Better.
But I think it's, I don't know, it's, it's as good as the Cedar Point. But I guess it's not easier to get because I only know how to get them at Target and the Cedar Point is a little easier to get.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I think they're really close for me. I, I, I guess it would just depend on the day. Yeah. So I guess we all ended up with B plus, B plus and A minus. So we're all in the same ballpark. I feel like that's how it works. You know, like every time we end up in the same kind of.
Yeah.
Realm we need. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I think it's, I think it's one of the most worthwhile things to snatch up at a Target. Oh yeah.
I think the blue stamp goes a long way too. That blue.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I agree. It looks really good. I like the kind of like navy blue stripe on the feral is really, really sharp. I think a lot of people in our group are really faithful to these. Yeah. Which I think is a cool thing. So. And it's there. It has to be something said for it being a, an American made pencil and being natural and just. Yeah. Did you guys just hear that?
I did. Was that your dog?
That was my dog yawning everybody.
I liked it.
If you're wondering, let's leave it in. That was Rosie. You tired, Rosie?
Okay.
But yeah. It's just that you can find it in a place like Target. Yeah. It's very Commendable.
Cool.
Sweet. So shall we do some freshpoint action?
We should get good tattoo freshpoint action. I think the first thing, it actually kind of bleeds into the main topic, but it's different enough. I think I'll bring it up here. I'm almost finished with my current notebook, which is the Facebook Analog Lab field notes, and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. And I noticed that my last three have been field notes. So I kind of want to look for something that is not field notes branded. I'm trying to figure out what it is. I have, you know, I have a bear and a fig. I have write notepads. I even have something that Gary Varner gave me called paper O, P, A P, E, R hyphen. Oh. I don't know if it's like paper O or if it's paper O, but it's. They have a little tiny. A little size. It's basically like scout book or Baron fig size. What did you say that was, Johnny? A six? No, it's a B7. It says in the back.
Oh, man. Yeah, way off.
It's 88 by 125 millimeters. It's, it's. It's really cool looking. Has like this black. This black cover with like holes in it that you can see the substrate through it, which is also like a. Also black, but like a lighter black. So it kind of looks like a. Like a mesh or like. Oh, you know, like basketball shorts have like this mesh over like a. Like a lining. It kind of looks like that. But I'll have a link in, show notes to it. But I haven't quite figured it out because it's also 80 pages, which is quite a commitment for me. I go through field notes or pocket notebooks slow enough, so filling up 80 pages would just take forever. So I'm not sure about it. I just was interested if you guys had any suggestions of what to use next.
Well, the analog book is very bright.
Yeah, yeah. Something. Something maybe like more sedate ambition or. Yeah, yeah.
Do you have any. Do you have any, Don Pocket notebooks?
I think I do. I think. I think I have, like a burnt orange colored one.
Yeah, I thought I sent you one. I think, like, you should. If you've never tried that, you should give those a shot because those are really fun to use and. Yeah, really good.
Don. Some of the loose leaf. Don Paper I'm not a huge fan of just because, like, the graph is too small and the lines are too big, so it's hard to like follow for me. But I'll.
I'll.
I'll think about. Yeah.
What it.
What it seems like in like a pocket notebook.
Yeah, that's. That's. Yeah, that's fair. I. For me. Yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying.
Yeah.
But now that I. Yeah. I'm looking through a dome that I've used, and usually with notebooks, like, I don't follow the lines very well or the grids. I just kind of like ride all over the place unless I have a specific task. But now it's funny, I'm looking through one of the domes that I use that I was going to talk about today, and I kept the lines throughout the entire thing. So there's something about it, like it kind of demands you to sort of.
Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. I have some options. I need to go through just like my selection of pocket notebooks. Even like a right in the rain or something like that might be interesting to use. But yeah, it's. It's so I feel like it's so rare that I actually like fill up a notebook. I've had so many that have fallen apart like before I filled it up completely because I guess I'm sort of like subconsciously like very paper saving. I like to try to like fill up a page before I move on to the next page when really I should just like.
I'm the same way.
Yeah.
So you have small handwriting, remember? I feel like you do.
I feel. Yeah, it's. It's small. It's not super small, but it's like. It's definitely. It definitely fits in like the standard like 5 millimeter graph.
Okay.
And I know a lot. I know a lot of people who don't fit in there, but yeah, it's not super, super small and it's super messy too. Yeah. So I don't know. Have you guys used any non field notes brands that are. That are pretty good lately?
Lately?
Yeah.
Yes.
I filled up the. Is it path river grass or river path grass?
Oh yeah, The Baron Fig 1.
Yeah. Those are very subtle if you want to come down from that. Really pretty red orange.
That's true. Yeah.
Yeah. I've. I've not used anything recently other than field notes and even the Don has been a long time. I have a couple Baron figs that I've been using for like certain things that I haven't used a whole lot. But this for some reason, those feel too small to me.
Oh, have you tried the Cavalini notebooks? They have, they're sort of hokey. They have, like, a theme, like oddities or maps. But the paper in there is really nice.
I feel like I have a pack somewhere. I need to go digging for it.
Yeah. The binding doesn't feel substantial, but it's, like, beefy. I've never gotten a page out of one of those. Yeah, they have a lot of pages, though. They might not be so pocket friendly.
Yeah. I was also thinking. Topher sent me back a while ago, one of those Calipino notebooks.
Oh, yeah, those things are pretty.
Oh, yeah.
I started using that at school. I actually left it at school over the summer, so I don't have it. Those are nice.
How many, like, milliseconds of use does it take for it to get dirty? Because it's that, like, really pristine white.
Yeah, I've got it. Well, I have it in my. My divide at school, so I haven't been carrying it around. I just had it. I would just pull it out of the divide and write certain things for school stuff in it.
Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, if anybody has any suggestions for me, I still have a few more days on this, so I'll. Yeah, let me know. The other thing I was going to talk about, I've actually been contacted by a couple different listeners coming in through the site. And so I have actually going out tomorrow in the mail some. Some packages for you guys. We had one guy, Blake, wrote in, and he was at an Office Depot not that long ago, and he found several box. Dozen boxes of seven. Excuse me. Several boxed. Dozens of made in the USA Ticonderogas.
So I remember that. I remember when that happened, that when he posted.
Yeah, yeah, it's. I. I can't. Do you guys remember when they stopped making them in the U.S. was it. Was it in the late 90s?
It was like, oh, six.
Oh, really?
Like late 06, early 07.
It's that recent. Okay. Yeah. So they must have. It must have just been sitting on some shelves for a long time, or somebody found it in a stock room and stuck it out. But he sent me three dozen, one for each of us, so I'm gonna send those out.
Awesome.
I was thinking. Yeah, I was thinking it'd be fun to compare that to. I have some ticonderogas from the 60s that was made in the USA that were made here. Just kind of comparing the two of them might be fun. And then comparing them to, like, what you can buy now from Ticonderoga.
The lack of consistency.
Yeah, so we have that. We also had John, who's a listener, I feel like I'm like, we've been watching some Frasier because Frasier just came to Netflix. So I feel like I'm just like listener. John says,
I'm listening.
Yeah, I'm listening. Yeah. John just sent us a bunch of different pencils that he's been. That he's just kind of come across in his travels lately. And forgive the rattling around, but I'm going to just pull some out because I'm sending you guys a few of each of these. There's some new ones in here which are really cool. Like the. It's a brand called Milan. It's a triangular pencil. It's really nice. And then there's some stuff like there's a really nice, like Musgrave. It's a lacquered pencil, but it's natural wood, so it's. There's definitely lacquer over, but it looks beautiful. It has like this brown stripe in the ferrule. I like that one a lot. He's also sending some like old timey Mongols. He has.
Oh, man.
Yeah, he has a Mongol with. That's untipped on either end. Eberhard Faber mongol. It's a 293, which I think is different from their other ones. He also is sending some of the like the just cool old school Mongols so that we're all used to and
knowing like the Eberhard Faber ones. Yeah.
Yep.
Yes.
Yeah. He has two different kinds of Eberhard Faber Mongols. He has one that's green and untipped and then he has like your usual yellow one with the kind of the gold stripe on the black feral. So yeah, there's. There's the green 293 Mongol, which is that untipped one. And then there's also the 484 Mongol School pencil, which is the one that I think that we're probably used to.
That's awesome.
We're getting some of those. There's an Eberhard Faber microtomic in there. A B. That's really great. It has that. It has the same, you know, the same feral as the Blackwing, except silver. Super cool.
It's like Christmas in the summer.
I know. I don't know what prompted this. Just like generosity, but it's awesome. So, yeah, I'm gonna try to package it up really well and send it out to you guys. And there's some. There's a couple other goodies in there too that we'll have to post in the group after because they're really, really neat. Yeah. So there's that. And then I guess my last fresh point is one that I should put in here. I actually passed on this find which I shouldn't have, but I don't need take up any more space. A friend of mine from back home in Indiana found a shop display case in an antique store, an old Venus pencil display case. And it was like 80 bucks and it was super cool. It's super cool looking and there's still some like pencils in it. It's from, I don't know when I'm, I'm guessing the 60s or the 70s, kind of based on the seafoam green, like kind of deco style. But yeah, I was like it's going to be really hard to get this out to California without breaking and even if I can, I really don't have any place to put it. So I passed on that. But it's really neat. If any of our listeners are around Indiana, go to Roanoke. Roanoke, Indiana and get yourself, get yourself this display case. It's really neat.
Road trip.
Yeah. I can't remember if I post it in the group, but I think I will just so everybody can see it. So yeah, that is my, those are my fresh points. How about you, Tim?
I only have a couple, but I was going to bring up that I've been using my first field notes. Workshop companion, is it? Workshop companion.
I think that's what it is.
I always second guess myself and I love it. Are you guys using those yet?
I haven't cracked them yet.
Oh man.
I opened mine and checked him out but I haven't, I haven't used them. But yeah, that paper feels really nice and thick.
It's very good. I've just been loving. It's in my Cody Williams wallet. I've just been carrying around with me everywhere. And the papers, yeah, the paper is nice and thick but has a good texture to it. And it's, and I love that it's, it's dot grid and then it has this like what I love is it has, is the type of paper where you can see those little fibers in it. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Like the little like dark little squiggles of fiber like kind of all over it so it looks like homemade or something.
That's what craft is, right?
Is it? I don't know. That's good. Yeah, I don't know. But anyways, I've just been using that and I'm using the automotive one. And I just think this is very simple. Fresh point But I was just saying that I think they're great. I think it's one of my favorite ones so far and I might try to figure out a way to order some.
So what kind of pencils are you using in it?
Whatever I have. I've used anything. I mean, I honestly don't have one that pops out in my mind that I really liked. Well, actually, the only one that pops out that I know I used and was really enjoying was the Blackwing 725. So like, the pearl would work really well in it.
I was afraid it would only like hard pencils.
No, I mean I was using a soft pencil and I was digging it because it's also like. Yeah, just the color of the paper works really nice when you have those deep dark lines. And I love it. So that's all I want to say.
So I have to ask, even though maybe this, this may not be the place, the time of the place, is it fountain pen? Fountain pen friendly?
I don't know. I don't know. I haven't tried. So I've only been using pencil.
Yeah.
So there you go. I have been using. I have two fountain pens. I've been using my. My Lamy 2000 in my Safari recently, like for certain, certain things. But I've never. I just always have a pencil on me. And so I've been using that in my notebook, my companion.
That's cool.
So. But people say it is. People have said that it's the best fountain pen one yet, which is surprising. Like, even better than. Or some people said they like it better than America the Beautiful for fountain pens. But we'll let them discuss that.
Yeah. On that other podcast.
Yeah, those guys. The other point was I was looking for. I've enjoyed my masterpiece quite a bit. Like, those things are pretty great. But I was running out the door. I needed something that I was going to throw in my pocket. And so I picked up my kum one hole long point sharpener tossed in my pocket. I had one pencil in my pocket and headed out do some things and I had to sharpen it at some point. And I was just reminded that, I mean, sometimes it feels like I'm going to pull a damn muscle when I'm using that thing because I have to push so hard. Like, but I posted in the Facebook group about it because it was just ridiculous. Like I have to push so hard and it's shaving off this just tiny thin layer of wood. I'm like, this is gonna take me a month to sharpen like a New pencil, you know. And so I posted in the Facebook group and Les, who is the I think official MacGyver of our group, she always has these like weird workarounds for stuff. But she said, here's what you need to do. Take a flathead screwdriver, take the like. Or use a Phillips head, take the blade off, use a flathead screwdriver and just scrape it against the spot where the blade goes a few times to like scrape like basically a thin layer of whatever the, you know, like outer coating is on those and then put it back on and it'll work great. And I was like, wow, let's give it a shot. So I pulled out, I did exactly what you said. Screw it, scraped it, scraped it, scraped it until like this, like dust was coming off of it over the whole thing. Put the blade back on. And now it is amazing. It's like totally awesome sharpener. Yeah. So if any. And I, I know Brian, a couple other people in the, in the group said that they had had a similar problem. So if you have the Kum single hole long point sharpener, you can get from pencils.com and lots of other places obviously. But. And you, you have that problem where you feel like you're just having a lot of trouble sharpening or it's a lot of work. Like I actually, I was using the USA Gold natural and I actually felt like I was going to break it in half.
Wow.
When I was sharpening, like, because I was pushing so hard, like I felt it kind of give. I bet when I get down low it's going to start. The lead is going to be cracked because I was pushing so hard. But now, I mean I could just. It comes off so easily and puts a nice awesome long point on it. So if you're having that problem, use a flathead screwdriver and then take the blade off and where that, that little groove is where the blade goes, just scrape the flathead across it. And I just did it for maybe like a minute just from different angles and just scraped and scraped and scraped and try to be as even as possible so that like certain parts aren't higher than other parts, you know, and then reattach it and you're good to go. It was amazing. It was so quick. And now that's like become one of my favorite pocket sharpeners because the. I still have this paranoia about the masterpiece since they're so rare that I don't want to like carry it around,
lose it and also mug you for it.
Yeah, exactly. But it's also nice to not have to do the like in a quick moment to not have to do like the two stage thing. Yeah. But that is still just the world's most kick ass sharpener of all time, so. But yeah, so like there's a way to make the kum long point. It's still. Make it still sub. What's the word? Not as good. I'm the guy who claims to be a writer and I'm gonna say not as good.
Suboptimal.
What'd you say?
Suboptimal.
Oh, I like that. I'm gonna write that down.
That comes from the tech buzzword world.
So, okay, so you make this little fix and it's still suboptimal compared to the masterpiece, but it makes it into a much better, much better sharpener. So less. Thank you for your MacGyver techniques. And she said in the group that because her dad's a shop teacher, she like learns all these crazy methods for things.
But less is more is what I say.
Yeah. And she also there's something she did recently where she removed the ferrule of a 725 and then basically like buffed off the gold so that it was silver.
Yes, I did.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
First of all, how do you take the ferrule off and then put it back on? Second of all, who thinks to do that? So that was awesome.
Reminds me of back in the day, I think, before there was a new palomino. Johnny, I think you may have gotten one of these too. Sean Malone sent out a blue palomino with a black wing feral on the end of it.
I have not seen one of those.
Oh man, it's. He just. Yeah, he just made like a hybrid one. It was really cool.
I saw it on his page and I remember trying to do it. And that was actually early on. Remember when I had that MMX that I had snapped the feral off of and like was using backwards or whatever? Yeah, that was me trying to do that unsuccessfully. I had no idea how he did it.
But yeah, yeah, some people are much handier and are better at hacking their pencil than I am. I'm just like, oh, I don't want to break it.
I'd probably lose a finger or something.
Yeah, circular saw.
No good.
Cool.
Yeah, so that's all I got. So Johnny, what about you?
I am also short on the fresh points tonight. So I was in Boston last week, although I spent most of my time in Cambridge. So if you've been to Boston or gone to school there or have Heard folks in the Facebook group bag. There's a store called Bob Slate that's near Harvard. That's stationary heaven. So when you go there, you see all these cool things that you've only seen on the Internet, like different notebooks from the Palomino brand and Blackwing, and you get to see them in person. It's like, yay. They have singles of neon wopexes, all the different grades of Ticonderogas by the dozen or by the singles. It's really, really, really, really cool store. And they have their own brand of notebooks. So if you're ever thinking, like, I kind of want to go to Boston, you should go to Boston just for that, because it's pretty cool. For 50 bucks, you can get a lot of fun stuff there.
Do they have a web store?
They have a website, but not a web store.
That website is the worst. Yeah.
If you call them on the phone and they're not busy, they'll pull things from the shelf and send them to you just for cost, which is pretty awesome. Sometimes if I run out of a notebook, they'll, you know, order a dozen from there, and they'll, you know, send me for the price, plus whatever it costs to ship it.
They're pretty awesome.
Did you put Bobslade in the Cardo graphite?
Yes, I did. That was. That's my contribution.
Cool.
And there's. There's a shop in Baltimore I put on there. But, yeah, as I mentioned, I kind of bought all of their yellow Staedtler pencils. And I think I forgot to send you guys the fat one. So I don't know where I put them. If I did, let me know and I'll send you guys some because they're really nice. Thanks again, Les, for getting me hooked on these yellow pencils. Also last week, we were talking earlier. I carried my bullet pencil around Boston and stuff last week. So being in my pocket, the eraser is rounded off on the end. It looks really awesome. It looks like I actually used the thing, but I took all these cameos, like at Walden Pond and places like that. But I kept them off social media because I really thought dorky. It is fanboyish. Like, hey, look, it's a pile of pine needles in my bullet pencil. Check it out.
Do you have, like, a hundred pictures on your phone of, like, just, like, photo shoots of your pencil?
Well, like, I would have done the same thing. Yeah. The couple that I put on there, I probably had five or 10 versions of each one. Like, I gotta get this right Plus, I was, you know, busy chasing my children away from the water.
Don't. Yeah, horrible. Like, yeah, my kids drowned in Walden Pond. So that was.
Yeah, I took the Charlotte there when she was one and the first thing she did was literally go run up into the pond. I'm like, oh, my God. So Henry is a very crazy child. I was afraid he would die or get eaten by a turtle.
Henry always has this look on his face like he's up to something.
He is, always. It's amazing.
That's what Katie said to me. She was like, henry always looks like he's, like, plotting something. I was like, I think that maybe he is. He's plotting something.
He's sick today. So he came up to me in the kitchen. He's like, daddy said what? He said, I want some M&M's. All right, you don't feel good. So he ate two bags of M M's and a baby milk, cheese, and a Perrier. And that was his dinner.
He's going to be sick a lot more often now.
Daddy, I think I have a plague.
I learned about it at school. Daddy, I'm missing a tooth.
Sorry, bud.
Yeah, so also, I think we mentioned this. I'm moving, so I'm lucky enough to get a lot of postcards and stuff like that from folks. But my address is going to change soon, so I don't know what to do about that. I should get a P.O. box. Semi nomadic.
I move a lot.
But, you know, it's not cool to complain that you get a lot of fun mail. So. Yeah. And that's all I have. So we can get on to our awesome topic, which is our pocket notebooks and what we do with them, what we put in them. Because, you know, there's a lot of talk online about collecting all of the versions, which is cool, I guess. And I like to get them if they're neat and then to use them myself. But, yeah.
So
do you guys want to do, I don't know, topic by topic, person by person, just throw it out there? Bedlam.
Maybe we can start just by, like, each of us go down the line and say, like, you know how we use our pocket notebooks? Are we sticking. Are we sticking to pocket notebooks?
I think probably.
I think so.
Yeah. Kind of like what our systems are and how we use it, and then we can kind of go back and explore that.
Yeah. Once we go through, we can just kind of all start flipping through and just like, throw out stuff like, oh, this is something that I'm using This one just, like. Because I'll. I've got a full. A few kind of, like, plucked that I'm, like, funny. Funny stuff in them that I was, like, not expecting to see that it was just kind of entertaining. I have, like. I have one in front of me from, like, notes from old podcast episodes and stuff. So, yeah, I'll get it started. I mean, I. Pocket notebooks for me are like. I see pictures of some people's pocket notebooks, and. And they're always, like, very organized. Or some are, like, very organized, and they write in between the lines, and they keep it organized. Mine are just, like, just total chaos. Yeah. Mine are apocalyptic. It's just, like, stuff is written all over the place, and sometimes I turn them sideways and write the other direction. And sometimes I just don't pay attention to the lines at all. And then sometimes, like, I've written things, but then when I'm waiting in line somewhere with Henry and he's getting antsy, I'll, like, hand in my notebook and give him my pen, and he'll just, like, scribble over top of stuff that I've written in there. And so there's, like, Henry scribbles in pencil on top of it. But general use. I mean, like, most people, I use it for lists. That's like, the one practical thing I do with it. And then I use it as just overall kind of brain dump. Like, anytime I'm just. Something pops into my head. Whether it's a story idea, whether it's just kind of, like, funny observation, whether I'm bored and I want to doodle something. It's everything. I have no limits to what's going to go in there, a recipe, whatever. Because I kind of fully subscribe to the idea that I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now. I actually rarely look back at my notebooks, which I want to get better at, but I use them very much in the present. Like, I'm putting stuff in them to, like, get me through the day. I end up relying on them to just kind of keep. Keep myself engaged, I guess. Yeah. You know, and so sometimes I don't look back often enough, and tonight's going to be an example because I found some things in there that I'm like, oh, my gosh, why? I forgot that that's a great story idea. I need to do that. But I just wrote it in a notebook and then probably finished it and had to run out the door and grabbed a new One and then just have forgotten about it. So I use it for a little bit of everything, but mostly it ends up being writing ideas and then kind of listy stuff about home for the most part. What about you, Andy?
I really do very much the same thing. I mostly write lists with it. I. It's weird because I also put a lot. I do a lot of lists on the computer online. I have a. I use a program called Things, which is a to do list app for Mac and for iPhone. So generally if it has to do with work, I'm probably. Probably do it like on the computer. But if it's something for home, if it's a grocery list, if it's like just a brainstorm or just a list like that, I will sometimes like what I. What I need to IKEA or dimensions. Apparently a lot of it has to do with ikea, a lot of it Dimensions of, you know, something I need to do. So there's a lot of stuff in the list format. The only time I would really break that out to, you know, to a separate notebook is when I started doing some journaling longhand. I still do a lot of stuff, a lot of journaling on day one on my computer. But if I just am trying to do like essentially like a morning page, something smaller, I'll do that in a. Actually in like a Shelterwood or an America the Beautiful. Something lined rather than graphed or dot gridded. Yeah. So I have lots of notebooks that just have just random stuff in there. If there's something important that I know I want to reference later, I started leaving the first page blank. And then I generally will write down in the pertinent coordinates area of specifically the field notes. But in other ones I'll write down important things in there. But also sometimes I have a table of contents in there too.
That's a good idea. That was one thing I was going to ask about was the inside cover because I never know what to do with that section. The pertinent coordinates. That's a really good idea. Make it like a keyword.
Yeah. If it's something like, you know, generally if it's something where there's just a bunch of lists and like episode planning or something like that, I wouldn't put that there. But at one point I had, when I was interviewing at Facebook, I had a whole bunch of just like notes of and prep work that I had in there. So I, you know, kind of put that in the pertinent coordinates or if I took notes at a particular conference or if I was thinking about something that I know I want to go back to later. I'll put it in there. I don't go so far as to number my pages and say, hey, this was on page 32 through 46 or something. But I generally like when I finish a notebook, I kind of page back through and take a note of where of something things that I want to save. But yeah, I think that mostly nowadays the most consistent thing that is in there is episode planning notes for erasable and dot grid. We should talk about probably like when we kind of custom lay something out later on our pages. But generally it's going to be a pencil test for the blog or notes for our episodes and then everything else is just kind of just willy nilly. There are days at a time when I don't use my notebook at all. It just sits in my back pocket and there are. Then I'll just have days where I just use it every day. But generally it takes me like this is. Let's see, when I started this, I started this at the end of March, this notebook. And I'm almost done. So that's lasted me three months. Yeah.
Oh, wow.
How about you, Johnny?
Mine's probably pretty similar to you guys. Usually a brain dump type thing, but I think I've read some research lately that because of the ease of looking things up on your smartphone that people don't have a memory anymore. And I've sort of done that with my notebooks that I sometimes can't think without pencil and paper in my hand and certainly can't remember anything. I do chalk a lot of that up to speed sleep deprivation. But yeah, and a lot of mine lately has become like you said, IKEA lists because, you know, the most fun thing about moving is ikea and put this sort of like therapeutic stuff. Like I have limericks in there, but people I don't like, which most of them were my neighbor.
I have limericks. I have one with limericks in it that I was just writing one night.
Yeah, we actually have.
I don't know about your neighbor, but
I have one that's just full of epic poems. Is that kind of like about trips to the grocery store?
We have a cartoon character that Charlotte and I have created called I don't bother nobody about my neighbor. Who says I don't bother, I don't know. But just gonna sit in my house on drums, like right there.
That's what's wrong with you, dude.
Drums. So this is a song. There's actually like music to it.
And Verses and stuff like that.
So lately each week when I have a new notebook, there'll be a new verse in there that we thought of. Although I can't tell her who it is. And she's five, so she hasn't figured it out because she'll tell him. Hey, Mr. Blaine, we got songs about you. We hate your guts. But mine is full lately of a lot of generalist 9xxb drawings because it doesn't smear for how dark it is. So I've drawn my neighbors a rat, a worm, a slug. Sort of the shepherd fairy obey thing. It's called I Don't Bother Nobody with Big Glasses.
Funny.
Now we know what a mean person, Johnny Gampers. But yeah, I think mine's similar to you guys, except that I've sort of, I don't know, crippling my brain in that I've grown to need these things in a way that I'm not really comfortable with, but I have a lot of them, so it's fun to use them.
I mean, even if I'm going somewhere where I know I won't need a notebook, it doesn't feel right if it's not in my back right pocket.
Yeah. If I misplace it if I'm cooking or something because you know, you get ideas when you're cooking something you can't put down and it's not in the kitchen. I kind of flip out. Plus I'm really especially because there are cartoons about people that are recognizable. But I actually coordinates with my address and email address and promise of a reward. And your own pack of field notes, which I hope I never make note
on, but I totally would.
Yeah, that's a. That's a really good idea because if. Even if it's not worth like 20 bucks, like just say I'll give you a three pack brand new three pack of field notes. That's a. That's a really good idea.
And I'll give you some of my rare ones, you return my notebook. Now someone's going to steal my notebook and ransom it for a raven's wing.
Well, hopefully if somebody steals it, they won't know what they got. And you can just be like, oh yeah, I was using this butcher blue. I'll give you these really nice brown ones.
I do not have a butcher blue. That would be sweet. I do have one or two unused raven wings, but somewhere. But
you guys have more than one going at a time.
No, I just have a kind of journaling one more long form and I keep that in my Cody Williams cover. So I have one of those that's now separate. And then I have my just kind of everyday one. I used to just do them in the same one. I had a word notebook last summer, June through July, where I did journaling and notes kind of within the same notebook. But I don't know about that. Yeah, I should go back to that because it is just nice to just have that one all the time. But it's kind of a pain in the butt to go back and find stuff.
Yeah, that's definitely true.
Yeah.
But it's fun to run through them.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, that was the month where I definitely used it up the fastest. I used it all within just a little over a month. And it's definitely in the best shape because I've often just worn a notebook out before I've actually finished it.
Yeah.
And this is sort of an aside. Have you guys noticed your center pages falling out of the two rivers?
Yes.
Okay, so it's not just me.
I had that happen in two of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's weird.
Something about the. Is it the brass staples or.
Yeah, maybe. Maybe the brass staples corroded the paper.
And I think that maybe those staples aren't, like, long enough or maybe they were just, like, clinched badly. Somebody was talking about that. Field nuts.
I don't remember who. They almost look. Oh, they definitely. They look long enough to me. I'm looking at this right now. They touch each other. But I. Yeah, maybe it is just the. Or maybe they're a little sharp or something. I don't know. But yeah, I'm actually holding the. The middle. Middle section in my right hand and my notebook in the left hand of one of my. My two rivers.
So do you. Do you guys do any sort of like, custom laying out of pages for different scenarios?
Not even a little bit.
Just totally on.
Why?
I mean, like, if I have to do a. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's totally improvised, not nothing like premeditated. But if I need a T chart for something, I'll do that. Or if I need to split the page in half and do one thing on the top and one on the bottom or side by side. Like, I'll do that, but. Yeah, but not like in any sort of organized way, like to organize my day or something like that.
The only one I do is for episode planning. For podcasts, I will have like a header where I'll put like, the episode number and then which podcast and then maybe the topic and then for us, you know who's the host. And then underneath that I'll sort of divide the page in half. And then on the right side I'll put like, for erasable, I'll put like fresh points on one side and then the other side I'll just take notes for the main topic. And I usually have like, who the host is and if I'm hosting. And then any room on the bottom, which usually there's room. I'll put timestamps for, you know, if we screw up and need to. Which. Which never happens. We never do this. If we screw up, I put a timestamp so we can, you know, I
can edit it out.
But yeah, so that's the only thing I do. The only reason I mentioned it is because we had somebody in the group post something really, really fascinating. And it's somebody I don't think I've necessarily heard from before. Martin Delmar is his name and he owns a bar. Did you guys see this? He posted this in the thread where I just basically asked this question. And we can talk about more of them later. But this was a really good point for kind of custom laying out. Martin says, I own and operate a tavern. My beer orders are done twice a week. Every order I lay out a page to take to the walk in to do inventory. So he showed what this, what this blank layout looks like. He put, he has like a date at the top. He has something that says Sesh and root and Duvel, which I'm not quite sure what that means, but I think it's beer talk. And then he just has two columns. He has one that says MT and one that says lt. And then he describes it. He goes, the LT means light, I'm running light. And the MT means I'm completely empty. So. And then the next comment, he goes, then I take stock of what I have, what I need, add any notes, and then start filling out the stuff on the left order. So I'm looking at this page and it says has a four under where it says Sesh, which I'm assuming are session beers. It says one under Root, which I would guess would be root beer, and then one under Duvel. D, U, V, E, L, which is maybe like a double, I'm not quite sure. But then he, under mt, he has Nomad and Ziggy, which I'm assuming are beers that he's running that are completely out. And then under LT it says pine drops, golden drock, tsunami lightner, etc. Which I'm guessing are things that he's Running low on. So he just showed a bunch of his notes from ordering, which I. I love this. This is a amazing way to use your field notes.
That's crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, I love it.
I think that field notes should send him a pack of drink local just to celebrate this.
Yeah, that's really cool. That's a great use for those. And just a great system obviously has something that really works for him and
that's the perfect use case for these things. Like, you know, you're going into your, you know, into your. Just walk in refrigerator with where all the kegs are, and you just need to, you know, whip something out so you can just quickly take stock. Take note of what you're running out of and what you have run out of. You don't need like an iPad for that. You don't necessarily need a phone. Yeah, this is just really lightweight and nice.
Andy, I think you're our undercover organized guy here.
I. I really want to be. And I think this is kind of the thing I'm always sort of like lamenting on dot grade because we try to talk about productivity a lot. I try really hard to be organized and to be consistent about things. And I guess part of my job is I try to organize data and information and content. So in my last job, I used to like build custom layouts for. For websites and with. With certain specialties. And I try really hard to like structure data and content that happens somewhere. And this is kind of like the analog expression of that. So I just like, I just love seeing how people adapt that. That's why I like, remember those beer notes, those rubber stamps that people made?
Oh, yeah.
That's why I love that thing so much. Just because you can take something cool like a pocket notebook and you. You can like, you can just essentially just turn it into a beer journal. I've never actually have. But yeah, it's funny. My. My wife actually, I gave her. She's really into. She loves the color purple and I gave her the. The purple unexposed field notes and she uses that as her cocktail journal. Because we go to. We go to a place and have a cocktail, and she doesn't remember if she's had something before. And I was like, you should have a cocktail journal. So now she'll like write down where we are and the name of the journal and the name of the cocktail and maybe some of the stuff in it and what she thought of it. So next time we go there, she can like flip open to that page.
That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, good idea. Yeah, I'm just kind of flipping through some of my old notebooks right now. Yeah, I have a few out front. This one's a doan notebook and this is just kind of like a funny kind of, of reminiscing kind of moment. But I guess I was hosting episode four. Oh, yeah, in this, in this one it says I wrote episode four. And then underneath it says, hello, my name is Tim. Awesome. Hi, Tim. I am a pencil. I am a pencil snob. Like, so it was like when I was coming up with the idea to do that like AA thing, like that
episode, just talking to himself.
And then it says, I have an insatiable taste for high end pencils. Most expensive pencil I use though is less than the price of one gallon of gas or something. I think that's what it says. Yeah. So it's kind of like a funny, like early, like minor epiphany moment.
Yeah.
And then the next page says, ingles, grocery store exchange. Sausage, beer, exclamation point. Beer. Boo. Sausage. Yay.
Beer.
Oh, I love those red striped commercials.
Yeah.
Boo.
Creepy foot doctor. For years after that I would just quote those commercials. So I actually have. So I posted in our planning page just a really funny look back of something I use field notes for. And first I'll mention that this was done and written in 2011 in a balsam fir. So this, this notebook is a balsam fir, which I should have kept pristine and just sold them for eight, like $80 each. That's, that's my bad. But I went to our local public radio station, had a, had a wine dinner. So we had like courses paired with a wine. And the people who were in charge of pouring the wine were not typically like wine people. They gave us all a six ounce pour of each wine rather than the usual two ounce when you're doing a tasting. So we essentially had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 full glasses of wine with our dinner. Everybody got like way drunker than we should have. And I decided that I was like, oh, I'm going to use this field notes. I'm going to take notes of what we ate and what wine was paired with it and how good it was. So if you look at this notebook and I'll post a picture of this in the show notes, my handwriting gets progressively worse and worse and my descriptions of everything gets progressively worse. At the beginning, I'm saying about how something is citrusy and tastes like apricots and it's dry and light and it's from Argentina. And by the last one I'm just like. I put hella sweet, thick and strong.
You just imagine like you lack like laughing just like that. Like while you're writing it, you're like thick and strong.
It's hella sweet. And then there's also. It actually looks like blood stains, but I believe they are wine stains. Stains of like dripping wine onto my books. So yeah, everybody was just unexpectedly like just. And there were people at other tables who were like, like somebody what I think was just actually literally dancing on the table. And yeah, people. It got a little out of hand. They were all public radio people. So everything was still pretty sedate, but still. And this, this was my incarnation of that. Just like back badly, badly documented wine notes.
Yeah.
How about you, Johnny?
Do you have.
I'm sorry, go into.
I. Well I have a very old one in front of me that's like pre erasable.
Wow.
Yeah.
So this is like a pretty like for me because I wasn't using them or I guess, I mean I was using like a year before that. But this one where I have an idea for a blog like before I writing Arsenal or Erasable or anything like that. And I was like trying to come up with ideas for blogs and I had this like ridiculous idea that is basically like I would like outside of work, live by some like super strict set of like old timey rules, like social cues and things like that. And then I would write about it or social media, social standards and write about it. Let's see. And then. Oh, that's actually. This is interesting right here under ideas it says pencil and paper, blog question mark. There we go. That's awesome. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Yeah. Part of that blog is I would only use cell phone for work. Everything else had to be by paper and like listen to records, which I don't have any. It's like such a ridiculous concept. But I also had just an observation on the next page about rental houses on vacations. And it just says everything looks great until you pass the threshold. Then everything is uncomfortable. That's all it says. And then there's just a line, it goes on something. And I can see from the previous page that I was in Gatlinburg when I wrote that.
Yeah, I mean they're, you know, they really are to remember something now. But it is fun to go back later and look through something and see, you know, see how, how you used it or what you used it for.
Like out of context too is like super funny.
Yeah.
Yeah. If you read mine, you think I'm a really mean person. There are all these observations about, like, wow, why does she have two teeth? Stuff like that. I live in a neighborhood that's famous for health. And the old joke, how do you know this toothpaste was invented in Baltimore? Anyone else would call it teeth paste. I have three pages of notes in here that I took while I was waiting for a cup of coffee. And I'll name it Artifact Coffee in Baltimore, which sucks if you want to stop, Johnny. Yeah, I never go there. You'll never find me there. They're hipster coffee houses. Where. Where it's worth it because it's good. And there's one where you're like, why is my pour over taking 15 minutes? And you just, you know, you look at everybody and realize they all look the same. Tight pants. There's a note in here that the music makes me want to shoot somebody. And. Oh, it's a destination because it takes you all day to get a goddamn cup of coffee. So I should probably point that out.
So if your job is getting a cup of coffee, then this is the place for you.
Yeah.
You take your Mac there and look like everybody else.
That's all you have to do.
Oh, and there's a note that I had the smallest glasses there by two pounds, which is true of most places I go.
Yeah, here's. Here's an observation of a student in my school. And I actually wrote Blank. I didn't even put his name, but it says, every morning, Blank walked into school looking like a wet dog, as if he'd walked straight out of the shower and got dressed without drying off his hair plastered to his forehead, wet clumps. I obviously wrote that, like, in the morning, like, at school, when this person was walking into my classroom. So they just, like, walked straight out of the shower, like, not dried off, put clothes on, then, like, walk to school.
I went to college with a guy like that.
He didn't shower.
He just had a robe. He'd walk around dripping and then throw clothes on and go to work. And he smelled moldy all day.
Missed the point of the robe. He's like. It's like a towel you can wear.
Yeah, but you gotta watch it sometimes.
Do you guys watch New Girl? You ever watch that show?
Yeah, a little bit.
Okay, well, there's an episode where Nick. They kind of like. I don't know what you call him. He's like the Chicago guy. He's kind of like a really outgoing, sort of comes off as dumb, but he, like, wants to be a Novelist and like, wants to write about zombies and stuff. But he like, there's this part where his roommate realizes that they like swapped towels and he used his friends Nick's towel. And he goes, he tries it and it like smells bad or something. Goes, nick, how you washed this towel? And he goes, yeah, good one. Wash a towel. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna wash something I'm only using on myself when I'm clean. That doesn't make any sense. Or you wash my bar of soap too. I love that sort of like ignorant humor. But I'm 12.
Is that why you stick around with us?
Yeah, because I'm 12.
We have Johnny. I have all the ignorant humor. Sorry, go on.
I found a diagram of how to get a TV antenna to pick up pbs. When I used to live in this really old apartment building. It was like, it's really thick brick and was really complicated. But when I finally wrote it down, I got to watch Dinosaur Train every day.
I love Dinosaur.
Dinosaur Train.
Dinosaur Train.
That is the greatest show ever. We should try to get Dr. Scott on the podcast.
Here's the embarrassing thing. Both of you have kids and I do not.
Oh, Dinosaur Train is for everybody.
I love Dinosaur Train and I love Dog with a Blog.
There's. There's one. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
Dog with a Blog and Girl Meets World.
Those are my.
You gotta check out a peg plus cat. That's a really good show.
There's a episode of Dinosaur Train where they're like having like a Dad's Day out with the kids and they're on the beach and they're playing these like, stupid games or whatever. But then all of a sudden they break for lunch and it like sort of the black screen and it comes back and the herbivores are eating like these like trees and the T. Rexes are just like hovering over this like, heap of meat.
Yeah. They call it carrion.
And like, as an. Yeah. As an adult, you just imagine that black screen passing over is like when the like carnivores are slaughtering some animals. But don't worry, we won't eat you guys. We won't eat you guys. We're gonna go find some food.
That's the part of Dinosaur Train they don't show on pbs.
Yeah, right. Slaughter.
Hanging out together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why aren't they eating each other?
The raptors are very sweet.
Hey, guys, how's it going? They need to make that into an R rated movie with the same animation.
It's like snakes on a plane, dinosaurs on a Train
I always back to field notes. I mean, I always, like. One thing that I tend to use field notes for is when I come across something that's, like, really profound to me or, like, really meaningful that I. I don't want to lose. And I don't always end up looking back at it, but I think there's something. There's something there in just writing it down that makes it kind of part of your fabric a little bit. But like, this just like I. I just opened a random page in an old shelter wood to a page that says David Foster Wallace on what books can do. And I wrote the Big Thing. And I think this is a quote. The Big thing seems to be leaping over that wall of self and portraying the inner experience and setting up, I think, a kind of intimate conversation between two consciousnesses. So I'm like something I just, like, hit at some point that I heard in an interview or something. And I'll do that a lot. Like, things people say that, you know, like when you hear something and you're like, having heard that makes me feel like a better person.
Yeah.
Like, for having. Like for knowing that I'm better as a person and those sorts of things I tend to jot down. Yeah, I do a lot of that too.
And even if you don't. If you were somebody who didn't, like, save your notebooks after you use them, it's still like, the very idea, like the very process of marking them down helps you remember it better. So. Yeah, I'm with you there.
Yeah, there's something about that pen to paper, pencil to paper. You know, it just. You kind of absorb it in a semi. Semi conscious way or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I found in America the beautiful amber waves, on which on. On the back I wrote a line from La Vie graphite or I don't know how you pronounce that in French. From 2013, an essay called Summertime Dreams, which says, which wish for goodness and do so with irrational generosity. Like the perfect mantra. For me, that spring was good. So I do another plug for that blog, which is one of my favorite blogs ever.
That's really cool.
Put that in the show notes.
Yeah, it's not very stationary centric. It's just very good.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I'll quickly read through some of the things that people talked about in the group. I mentioned Martin's kind of tavern ordering. That was just really stuck out at me. That was really cool. I'm looking for.
Here it is.
We had. Man. We had a bunch of people respond, which is Pretty cool. So Logan ley from the group, he uses his definitely for a little bit of everything. Sketches, design ideas, set lists for bands that still need members, ideas for photo shoots, notes for future blog posts, criteria for evaluating nachos, which is very important. Vacation packing list, crossed out and ripped out pages of past blog posts, video project idea notes, etc. So yeah, there are a lot of to do lists, grocery lists, directions, hours of operation, call numbers, phone numbers, barebone outlines, technical info, stuff like that. Niha had that. Let's see, Dr. Hans weighed in. He uses it as a catch all. He's a big list maker. He goes making lists makes me happy. So lists make up the bulk of the entries. If I write down an idea to something to make or take notes of an interesting word or quote, that gets moved into a separate larger notebook. Which makes sense. Let's see.
That's something I do a lousy job at is things that are like for me it's story ideas. When I need to get in the habit of if I write down a good story idea like with this field notes in my wallet or something when I get home, I need to have a place to transfer them to because I'm just so bad at keeping track of field notes and I just really don't want them to be. I don't want to be one of those people that scans every page of their field notes and I don't want to be one of those people do that.
Oh yeah, yeah.
And I don't want to.
It's time consuming.
It is. I mean it is. But some people just like doing it. I just don't like. I would not like doing that and I don't want to be a person who likes catalogs them and has to go through all that. Like I want it to be. It's the most gratifying to me when it's something that can just catch everything from to do list to story ideas to quotes that I like to coffee stains to whatever, you know, just let it catch everything.
And I don't know about you Tim, but I feel a lot of like personal pressure to do that. I'm like, oh, I really need to like track this and tag this and get this. So the fact that yeah, it's freeing when you just like stop deciding you're going to do that and you kind of allow yourself to make a page more messy. So earlier that's kind of in reaction to that sort of like yearning to be organized side is just like, yeah, I'm just going to do. Just going to freeform this. I'm going to scribble on this page. Can't get any meta tags out of this. Yeah, yeah, somebody. Samuel Popa Callan in the group. He uses his in a really interesting way. He likes to keep tabs on what the characters are doing in the books he reads. So he showed a spread from one of his field notes. It looks like the Ambition Memo book from William Gibson's the Peripheral. And he just has this sort of like, org chart ish thing of characters and how they're connected and where they're from and you know, what they do in big plot points. And it's super cool. It's messy and it's hard to follow if you haven't read it. But it's just a really good way to just kind of keep something straight as you're doing it. So I think to remember it now is what he did with it. So that's super cool. It's almost like a sketch note, almost.
I suck so bad at that.
Oh, God, I'm so bad. We had Will on dot grid interviewed Mike Rode, the sketchnotes guy. And yeah, he was super fascinating to talk to. Wendy in the group likes to people watch in her notebook. So she'll sketch people. She also has notes from road trips. She had one, a drink. It's actually kind of like. Kind of like Katie, my wife, she put a. She drew a cocktail in here and she put the Esquire. She goes, bourbon sours are delicious as pho. And then put a picture of a bourbon sour with a price tag that says $10 on it. That's pretty good. So that's. Yeah. So yeah, there's so many different ways that people use. Use these things. And it's. Some people are just like innately more organized than I am. And that's okay. In the words of Stuart Smalley, that's okay.
I don't know. I think you're pretty organized.
I'm more organized than I am.
Maybe just compared to us, Johnny.
Just compared to you.
We're so bad. Reading all that Hemingway rots your brain.
My desk is like a total disaster.
Well, my thing is, it's sort of like when, you know the old George Burns joke about how he's like, oh, yes, quitting smoking is easy. I've, you know, I do it like five times a year. It's kind of like that. Like, I'm always, like, trying out some organizational system. And the thing is, I never stick to one, which is like the point. So that's my particular problem.
When I was flipping through my field notes. I actually noticed several, probably four or five of the 30 that I flipped through.
Yeah.
That I had tried to start doing bullet journaling again. I would try that over and over and over and over and over. So it just didn't stick. But yeah, it's just to each his own. There's. You can do anything you want with it. So.
You know, the only time one of the beauties of it I actually stuck to a to do list format was when I was using my Word notebook. And you know, they, their grids, they have that in the left margin, they have the circles with the smaller circle in the middle. And for some reason I stuck to their use guide with that. Their use guide with that. I don't know why, but when it was already there, I was all about it.
Yeah, that's one I don't. Not a big fan of the ones that have such specific formats because it makes it harder for me to get out of it.
Yeah, yeah. And usually I'm not huge into that, but for some reason there, that month
or whatever was really handy.
I would be interested to know and gosh, maybe this is a topic for a different show. But what if you were to have a little bit of like a custom layout or a structure to your notebooks? Would you do anything different than what you have access to now?
Like paper layout even?
Yeah, paper layout. Like if you're really into that reticle grid or whatever that field notes does or if you're really into dot grid or if you're really into like something like a hybrid of line and graph.
Like skull and crossbone grid.
Yeah, skull and crossbone grid. Isometric grids. Yeah. Well, no, you know, you have some like. I'll go back to the Word notebook. You know, it has those things in the corner, but it also has lines with some like, with a little bit of like vertical lines too. So you could use it as a grid. It's just like mainly lined. Is there anything that you like, any ideal setup that you guys haven't seen that you would like to see.
This is like total novelty. But I think it would look awesome to have a triangle grid. Like, I just think it would look crazy. I would like. Because it'd be really easy to ignore. But you know like where like the upside down triangles and right side up triangles that are just all connected so you just have this triangular grid pattern. It'd be really easy to ignore. I just think it would be interesting to look at.
But they have, I feel like they have Stuff out there, maybe just as a novelty. And I've seen isometric grids, too, where it's almost like. It's almost like a hexagon or something like that, too. Yeah, those are pretty cool. I haven't quite figured out, like, how to use them because I don't really like sketch. I mostly just write. So I haven't quite figured out how to use something like that. But it's super cool to see and think about.
I'm always waiting for the landscape lining, if that makes any sense. The lining going perpendicular the way it goes. So you're writing sort of sideways.
That would be pretty cool.
A lot of times, if I write down a long quotation, I'll do it that way because I like the way it looks.
Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. I think I would be really into that.
We should do a grail episode. Tighten that. Oh, no, we do a grail notebook episode. Maybe, you know, the right person will hear it.
The write W, R, I, T E
person will hear it.
Yes, yes.
I miss that note. Oh, that's a good idea.
We're gonna talk about that later. Yeah, I.
Hint, hint.
The one thing which is, like, super boring, but as far as format, I don't want any sort of, like, organization format, but something like just to be able to control the width of the line. Like, if I had a lined notebook. To have lined notebooks that are just a little bit bigger than what you.
Oh, yeah. We need to be like that judge who invented legal pads who used to line his own.
Yeah, we'll pick a better color for the paper than yellow, like a warm blue, however you do that. A warm gray.
Warm gray would be cool.
Yeah, it's cool.
All right. It's been fun. I enjoyed this, and I feel like I could have done this all night just flipping through.
Yeah, we just kind of scratched the surface.
This could maybe be a yippee ki Yay Volume 1. We'll do, like, another one down the road where we just, like, flip through notebooks and talk about what we use them for. Because I, you know, like, with writing and with blogging and with anything, I like anything creative. Like, my number one rule is make something that you wish already created, which we talked about at the beginning of the podcast that, like, the three of us were making this because we wish it already existed.
Yeah.
You know, and this is an episode that I would have wished would exist. Just to get to see, like, pictures and hear people talk about, like, specific things that they actually put in these little pocket Notebooks. It's kind of like the, you know, sort of snooping around sort of appeal where you like getting to see inside someone's.
Yeah.
Very intimate. Like me and my pocket notebook. Because that's pretty intimate interaction. You know.
I think Elaine in the group mentioned that she just like really loves to. Yeah, she goes, I love looking at people's notebooks like in a boring, creepy way.
Yeah, I'm totally.
We're, we're all there.
Yeah, I'm with you, Elaine. Yeah, that's me. I would all about that. So don't leave me alone in your, in your house, anybody, if you've got notebooks laying around.
No, I would totally do that. I fantasized about finding people's moleskins before. I would read it and then return it. I would lie. I didn't read that. Oh man, I'm so good.
You're a crazy person, dude.
I'm not going to get near you. I'll mail it to you. Alrighty. So should we do our little wrap up? We should talk about where we can all be found. So we are the Erasable Podcast. The world's best and only pencil podcast. Just also means we're the worst.
But we're the number two pencil podcast.
We're the pencil is half sharp kind of people. So you can find us at erasable us also on iTunes if you use Mac products for some reason, this episode will be at US 32. For this episode you can check out our Facebook group which is probably the most fun place on the Internet@facebook.com groups erasable. We have a page on which we sort of make official announcements and posts which is facebook.com erasablepodcast you can find us on Twitter raceablepodcast. And we don't have a collective Instagram but we do like to promote the use of the hashtag, hashtag erasable podcast. So where can folks find you gents on the interwebs?
I am at a Wealthley A W E L F as in Frank L e on Twitter. Or if you just want to read pencil stuff. I'm oodclinched as well. And that's also the name of my blog@woodclinched.com how about you, Tim?
You can follow me on Twitter timwassom. You can follow me on Instagram Timothy Wasom. And yeah, that's it. There's some kind of changes coming up that I'll talk about later on, but I've changed my handles.
Yeah, I was wondering if I should ask about that or. I figured you would clue us in.
I'm just gonna totally, like, pretend like it didn't happen. Just act super awkward.
Yeah.
Yeah. The short of it is, is that I very. If anybody's paying attention to this podcast and has checked my blog, I keep it up so rarely that kind of like what I used to use my blog for, now I use this podcast for. And I enjoy it a whole lot more. Like, a whole lot more. And so I have decided to just kind of enjoy the Internet as myself instead of as writing arsenal. And the blog will sort of go away. Maybe it might. I might use the. The account and switch it over to being a personal website for writing and things like that. And any new. I might do some writing about pencils and things like that in the future, but I plan to do it as a guest other places. So that's just kind of a decision I made and I feel very, very, very good about it because I like this being my contribution to this cool little community that we live in, rather than the blog that I just always feel guilty about not updating.
You're welcome anytime on Woodclinched.
Thank you.
Likewise.
Yeah, that'll. That's probably how it's gonna work out. You'll see me kind of pop up on Pencil Revolution and on Woodclinched. I'll just kind of just exist and support my buddies here. So that's me. So I'm TimWassom on Twitter and TimothyWassom on Instagram. So what about you, Andy?
Oh, I already.
Oh, sorry.
I am@pencilrevolution.com I'm on Instagram Ensolution and on Twitter Pensolution also. So thank you for listening to what we hope is a fun episode. Don't forget to rate us and review us on itunes and on Overcast, whatever that is. And yeah, so we'll check out next time on episode 33 where we'll probably do something awesome and Andy and Tim will drink really gross things and tell you about it.
You can bet on it.
See you guys.
See you. The intro music for the Erasable podcast is graciously provided by this Mountain, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music@www.thismountainband.com.
gaze captures me with wonder. I can taste the days of a
long past summer if I could just
count the time this has happened before.