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Transcript
Foreign.
Hello, and welcome to the historic 37th episode of the Erasable podcast, which we're calling the Fresh Points of bel Air, Volume 4 live. So this is the first night that we've had a live stream going via. Would you call it Mixler, Andy?
Yes, Mixler.
Mixler. We're using mixlr to record this. And I'm sorry I spoiled the surprise, but this is Tim and I am hosted by Andy. You just heard Johnny. How's it going, guys?
Pretty good.
I'm excited to try this grand experiment.
Yeah. Yeah. So far, once we. Once we got Skype to stop hating us, then it seems to be going well so far.
Hey, don't anger it.
I still have a like a 50 millisecond delay in my ear in my monitor. So if I sound really weird, it's because I'm trying to ignore this delay.
Okay?
Just drunk.
I'm just drunk. And because we're all just really drunk
right now, there's no delay. Just think there's a delay. All right, well, tonight we're going to have an all Fresh points episode. We've. We're still kind of trying to get into the swing of having more regular episodes again every other week. Just again, a lot of stuff going on, but we're here and we're kind of getting back on board. And I think this, these live episodes will make it even more fun than it already is and more of an incentive to do it on time and regularly. So looking forward to that. But tonight we've got a lot of fresh points to catch up on because a lot's been going on in the last few weeks. A lot of new products coming out and just new projects coming out. So we've got a lot to talk about, be a lot of fun. So let's just go ahead and jump right into Tools of the Trade. Andy, what are you drinking? What are you scribbling with?
I am drinking a Sapporo. Just slimming it tonight with a Sapporo. Apparently it is a Sapporo made in Wisconsin. I do not get Japanese Sapporo here, which is disappointing. I'm writing with my story supply company Pencil, which I reviewed on the Pod, my blog not too long ago, and I'm writing in the new Shenandoah Notebook. So a bunch of new stuff. How about you, Johnny?
I just finished some very good coffee. If you're from Baltimore, Zeke's Telltale Dark Coffee, which is Garland Poe themed coffee.
Yeah, it's the best type, best name of a coffee ever.
Yeah, it's really good. We only have one PO cough, and I'm. We have a lot of Po beers,
but it's Sunday, so.
Coffee. I'm writing with a vintage enviro stick from William Min, but it actually says Envirostix plural now with an X, K,
S, G, Y, X. Like the band
or like the river sticks?
No, those pencils are magical. In a bad way. But I am enjoying this beautiful Shenandoah notebook that we'll talk about later. Which one are you using, Andy?
I'm using the sweet birch, which is kind of like a light green on the outside and yellow on the inside.
Yeah, I have that one also. Actually, everybody in our home right now is using it. Same wavelength. How about you?
I am, I would say drinking, but it's already gone. A larceny bourbon on the rocks, so. So I just had a small one just as. Again, it's Sunday, same reason, but that's already gone, so. It was delicious, in case you're wondering. And I am writing with a UBI or ubi, whatever we're going to call it. The triangle, which I just picked up for the first time today. I got the kind of eastery purple one, and I'm using it and I'm writing in the exact same notebooks that you all are, which is really interesting.
The sweet birch.
Yeah, yeah. The light. The lattice birch. Brightest green one with the yellow on the inside.
It's my favorite green.
I think it's natural. I bet a lot of people are using that because of the pack itself, which I'm sure we'll get into later, which I naturally wanted to follow the changing of the leaves and just get darker as we got further into fall. I was like, I'm going to use the brightest one because it's still summery. And then just like. So go through them fast enough. All right, well, let's get into our pencil of the week. This week we are talking about the Tombow 8900, which we. We decided to kind of go all over the place with the grade because they. I think they're only available in HBB and 2B.
Yeah.
Am I right? So we were kind of all over with what we had and what we didn't have, so we just kind of said all of them. So 8009-00 we should put in plural, because I've got. I have the eight B and B. Johnny, you said you have all of them right now.
HB and 2B.
HB and 2B. Okay. And then, Andy, what do you. What are you using?
Oh, I have an HB hp.
Okay, cool. So we've got like a spread. I've been using mostly the B. So. Yeah, yeah. So these are available kind of just to start things out. These are sort of widely available as far as in our little corner of the Internet goes there. You can get them on Caroline store. They're on Amazon and they're. I believe they're on Jetpens. Is that right? It seems like a pencil that would be on Jetpens.
Well, I believe that Elaine is in this chat. So, Elaine, are these available on Jetpens? Instant feedback.
Cool. Well, so they're available sort of in several places. We'll see if Elaine gets back to us. But Andy, why don't you start us out? Tell us your first impressions and what your conclusions were.
I actually got these through some friends went to Japan and I told them if they saw any cool little. Any cool little pencils, they should just maybe pick some up for me. And they were at the Japanese equivalent of a 711 and.
You're kidding me.
They come in this like really pretty but cheap little packaging. They're a two pack and they came with little translucent tubes around the point. And they, they write really well. They're not quite as dark and smooth as like the Monos, in my opinion, but they, they write excellently. Just like any good tombow. I've never had a tombow that I didn't like. And yeah, they, they actually match my. The COVID of my notebook right now. So that's. That's kind of fun to do. Yeah, I'm really impressed by them. What do you guys think of them?
I'll go next. I think they're perfect. Yeah. The way, you know, a lot of pencils will have paint overlap or even when they cut the pencil, they'll cut the paint and it'll start to chip. But they're perfect. All of the ones I've had are perfect. The cores are perfect, the printing is perfect. And apparently they're really cheap. And you know, we have to buy them here for five or ten bucks a dozen, but I love them very much. Plus, like you said, this green is yum.
Do you think they're better or worse or about the same as the Monos?
I use them differently. I don't really like the Monos that much, to tell you the truth. I like the Unis, but. Yeah, different.
Yeah, I'm with you, Johnny. These are. They're pretty perfect to me. And I. I've tried the HB and the B. I've never tried the 2B, but the, the. Yeah, the. The B is really great. I'm. I love it. I've been using it all day today really, but. Because we had just recently agreed to talk about this one but I had been, I had had it around for a while because Cody Williams sent me a handful of them. So it's really, really, really enjoying them. And I also noticed, I think they're tombows. I should look this up before I talk about it. As I, as I talk, I am going to look it up. But I found a pencil related to this on. It was actually on Amazon. I was looking up. This tells you a little bit about what I look for on Amazon. I was looking up something totally unrelated but in the things you might like, you know, like suggested items or whatever,
you're like, yes, I would.
In fact, yes, thank you. I appreciate you Amazon for reading my mind. Sort of creepy. But I found a natural one that I think actually Caroline carries in one form. It's the 9800. Oh, sorry, it's Mitsubishi. I'm sorry, it's the Mitsubishi. It's. I got it mixed up because it's the 9800.
That's so confusing.
Yeah, but it's one of the ew. Kind of like the one that we were talking about a couple weeks ago with the purplish eraser. So it's, it's natural finish but it has no end on it or no, no feral on it. That's pretty cool.
Dr. Hans Zudelman just says in the chat that there's a sale on the Tubi for 525 a dozen with an automatic coupon.
Coupon.
What? Where?
On Amazon.
Oh, those will be gone before I make it there, but
I'll put a link in.
So do you guys have, you guys have a box this beautiful.
I do not.
Colored box.
I've seen Andrea.
Yeah, they're really pretty.
I, Yeah, I really love these and these. Getting back into this pencil has sort of reignited my definite opinion that these pencils, that Japanese pencils are the best. I mean, seems maybe a little obvious, but. Sorry Germany, sorry America. But Japanese pencils are just, they just rock. So I just had to, had to get that out there. Just kind of messed up. I definitely, I'd. I'd probably give it an A plus. I mean it's really high up there. A. I give it an a. Good strong a 95, maybe 96%. You're.
You're a teacher, so you're not going to get an A plus unless it really, really deserves it.
Yeah, it has to be better than. It has to be better than I could do for it to be an A plus. Well, wait, that's not a good example. That's better for writing, not for pencil making. Because then all pencils would be an A plus. But anyways,
I would give it. Maybe I would give it an A, I think too. It's. It's a solid pencil. I. I don't know. I wish that it had a. Just something on the end of it, like a cap. You guys, your end is bare, right?
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
But sometimes I just get confused as to which version of pencils we're using. But yeah, I wish that there was capped or had an eraser or something on the end of it. Um, I just don't like the bare end. The bare ends very much. Um, but yeah, other than that, like, it feels really nice. It smells really nice. It looks beautiful. I'd give it an A. Yeah.
Yeah.
It is a really nice cedar. This is a very fragrant pencil.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
I think that's what it has over the Mitsubishi 9800.
Yeah.
Lots of cool.
Is that one green too? What does that one look like?
Yeah, that's the one that's sort of like the Castell 9000 green.
Yeah.
I want to like that pencil, but I kind of don't.
How do you suppose they arrived at these model numbers? And why do they sound so similar?
Like just trying to Send each other 89 or. This is a 9800. This is 9852. This is 9898. This is the.
We said 9800 first. Jerks.
Okay.
It's like they all. They're all similar and they just happen to be like the 8,900th pencil they came up with and the 9,800th pencil they came up with. What a coincidence. Bingo. It's such a catchy name too, you know?
Yeah. No, not like Musgrave or General Pencil or something with like. Like awesome, easy, awesome names to go with it, right?
Exactly. The Bugle. Nobody's gonna forget which pencil the Bugle is. Yeah, but the. The 8900. Ew. HB oh, man. Just rolls off. Yeah.
Do you think the Blackwing would have gotten as legendary as it is kind of if it had a model number instead of a name being called the Blackwing?
Well, I mean, 602, but I doubt it. I mean. Yeah, well, actually, it had the eraser, it had the ferrule on its side.
That.
That probably would have made some of, you know, could have bumped it up into iconic status just from the weird looking feral, but probably not. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a pretty sweet name. The Blackwing.
Blackwing.
We should just come up with our own names for like, the Mitsubishi and the tombows that just had model numbers.
I'm gonna call this one the Darkwing because that's not confusing at all. Like Dark Wing Duck.
Maybe the Green Wing.
The parrot Green. The Green Wing. We'll just keep making them all, like, sound exactly the same.
They're all wings.
Green Wing.
Yeah.
This is the Green Wing.
This is the Hyunie. We call it the Maroon wing.
This is the pea Green wing.
The pea Green wing.
Gross. All right, well, I think we're all pretty much in agreement. A solid a. Like, I think it's been a while since we've all had a. Been in that much agreement about a pencil, but I think it's.
Have we ever.
Well, we talked about a Blackwing at one point, didn't we? And I feel like we were all
pretty maybe plus or minus A plus.
And. Yeah, I don't know if we were all exactly the same. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right.
I feel so close to you guys right now.
I know. All using the same notebook, pencil and mo.
Michael Metz goes in before Honda Goldwing. It's going to be really hard not to just, like, have a running commentary on the chat while we record. So people who are listening to the podcast who are not in the chat room are going to be hella confused.
Yeah. And I'm going to have to go back through after the episode and just read all of the funny and smart stuff all these people are saying that I can't pay attention to. Or enough attention to, I should say. All right, well, so this is. It's been a while and a lot has been going on, and so we decided that we'd have yet another freshpoints episode, which you probably should just stop calling it Fresh Points episodes. It feels pretty natural. This is what we'll do pretty often, you know, But. Yeah, but I guess there's also just the fun convention of someday we'll have Fresh Points of Bel air volume, like 14 or something.
Episode 38. Volume to 14.
Exactly.
Episode 98.
We have new stuff to talk about from Field Notes and Blackwing and story supply company. So we've got a lot to cover, really. I'm really looking forward to this. So why don't we start with Johnny? Johnny, why don't you start us out Johnny. Sure.
I get to talk about the Shenandoah first. You do. So unless you hate pencils and notebooks
or under a rock or both.
You've probably seen the Shenandoah edition from Field Notes, which is, um, based on three trees and the Shenandoah River Valley. What is it? The sweet birch, the chestnut oak, and the red maple. Is that right?
Yeah.
And they're. They're two trend covers where the outside is the green of the leaf and the inside is the color they turn in the fall. And they used a slightly heavier paper, and they're just.
They're so pretty.
So. Yeah. I don't know what to say about these. These might be my favorite one or.
I really like the blexing that they have that they're doing.
Yeah, they smell really good. It smells like a really nice glue.
Just get a little bit high,
Smell it. It smells like paper.
Smells like glue.
I have noticed the pages, like the paper that's been dupliced together coming apart a little bit. I've been putting in my stuff sheath when I put in my pocket, but when I put in my pocket without, kind of bends away a little bit at the top. So I wonder how. How well these are going to hold together.
Yeah, I've just been carrying it actually better in my pocket than in my Cody Williams wallet. It's the first edition that just didn't seem to hold up very well in there. It's still fine. I still love it and still an awesome addition. But when I put it in the wallet, it just seemed to kind of like bend as a whole a little easier for some reason. And I noticed the same thing. But it's still, I think, one of my favorites since I've. Or favorite ones that I've actually gotten to see and use. You know, I think I. These last two, they've really knocked it out of the park with these last two, I think.
Yeah, they sort of put me in mind of Harper Sherry, West Virginia, and John Brown and Thoreau and, you know, the fall. I don't know. It's a very comforting notebook.
There was a debate kind of going on over at Field Nuts where there were people saying that it was kind of boring, and there were other people saying that it was nice and more elegant.
Um, idiots.
Just because it's. It's not gimmicky. I think that's the word I used. And then there was a debate about what means what gimmicky means and what it doesn't mean. What do you guys. What do you guys think? About that. I think we've had a chat about it when it was first announced, and I think that we're all in agreement that it's just really elegant and a really nice implementation of a theme. But do you think it's. Do you think it's boring at all?
No, simple. It's classy. It's. Yeah. It's not like overly flashy and yeah, I think gimmicky for field notes, I think unexposed. Because that was just like. I would never want to like take those anywhere, you know, like, they just like look ridiculous to me.
Yeah, the ambition pushed it and I felt like the. Oh, the typography. One, two rivers. Is that what it's called?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I liked it a lot, but it was, it seemed very gimmicky to me. It was like letterpress, letterpress, letterpress. But I mean, it was still a really nice, A really nice notebook.
Yeah, that one was a nice middle finger at the completest, which I appreciate, no offense.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I'm giving you one too.
With. With ambition. I. I think if that was all the red one, you know, the, the graph paper.
Yeah.
Red one. Or all the green one. Or if it was like one of each and I would have been. That would be my all time favorite, like hands down, no questions asked, but just the having the mix of the three and having the calendar, which I only lasted like three days. I was like, no, I didn't get a calendar. You what?
I didn't get a calendar. Oh, I'm sorry.
I meant the planner. The planner. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm thinking of the new ones that came out. Cool.
Speaking of field notes, something I thought I'd mention, which I might as well just mention now, is in the field nets group on Tuesday, Jim and Brian and Matthew are going to do an ama. Ask me anything. That should be really cool. I'm going to try to make it. It makes me think we should do one like with the pencils.com guys or something.
Yeah, that could be cool. Yeah. Yeah.
But hoping to get this podcast out hopefully tonight, knock on wood. So we can actually be out before that thing on Tuesday happens. So we're not talking about it in the past.
What did you guys think of the video for this one with the Jefferson voiceover?
You know, I honestly didn't see it. I haven't seen it yet. Really?
I thought it was really nice. I wanted some John Denver or something, but I guess Jefferson's all right.
I don't know.
Some John Brown would Have been pretty cool.
Yeah.
I was hoping they would do like a John Brown paper doll for subscribers, but I don't think people in one part of the country would like that very much. Yeah. So anyway, in other notebook news, if folks have seen, I don't know if folks follow Scoutbooks, the sort of tinier, thicker pocket notebook brand, they've come up with some cool colors. They have nine new colors of blank books and they had a competition on Instagram. If you tagged somebody, you know you and your friend could win. So it's like, ah, tagged Cody because Cody likes Scott books and we both won. So those came in the mail yesterday. They're really, really pretty. They do a good job of using that really cool texture of the COVID they use and flood coating it but not making it, I don't know, glossy and sick. That makes any sense. Yeah, but they're really.
You can always see the fiber behind the Scout books. I think that's what gives it away a lot of times.
I think half of them have already disappeared from the pile that came in the mail yesterday. To other people here trying to get some photos, I want to hear like
the actual numbers for how many notebooks your house consumes. I think it's awesome.
Consumes. I don't know. I figured out today that Charlotte's farther
ahead in her field notes than I had or claims.
But yeah, I had those, the word notebook, mountain notebooks and I had two packs and now I have like a notebook.
I need to get those. They're so pretty.
Yeah, those are really pretty in person, especially the blue ones. Although the black ones are kind of spooky looking. They'd be pretty good for fall. Yeah, I should count all the damn notebooks that are around here. I don't do that. Like, you know, they'll move around while I'm walking around counting. Charlotte, what did you just do?
I'm drawing daddy just counting for infinity because they keep moving. Like, did I count that one? It's
new. You can get staples and colors now too, in scout books.
Yeah. Colored staples.
Yep.
We might have to have a conversation about this later. Yeah. So speaking of John Brown and Thoreau, I am reading an interesting book that folks who like pencils and Thoreau might like called Woods Burner by John Pipkin, who's actually from Baltimore. It's a book about wildfire that Thoreau famously, infamously started that almost burned down Concord.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, yeah, it was really interesting. But they talk a lot about his pencil trademark, which is cool because, you know, that gets glossed over all the time, like, yeah, he made good pencils.
Whatever.
I think they mentioned him having a dream about Bavarian clay and nice graphite. Oh, not just me.
And Johnny's gonna write a book about Thoreau's. That's. He made pencils and he used pencils and he wrote some book and he.
It's called Weldon.
Weldon. Yeah, Loud. And
I have no idea what you're talking about.
So I don't know if you guys have bought a pink pearly racer lately. The ones that were sort of pink
pumice before, I haven't in years, actually.
So I picked up some for back to school this year, and I opened a pack, and I might have stolen one from one I gave Charlotte. So just payback. And I'm designing tattoo ideas in my field notes, so I'm erasing a lot. And I was using it, and I noticed that instead of ripping holes in the paper and making me cuss a lot, it actually works. And it's really soft now, so I was wondering if they've sort of slipped a plastic eraser in there and written pink pearl on it. Bizarre.
I've not noticed that. I haven't used them in so long.
Yeah, yeah, they erase now. Holy damn.
I just like the Black Pearl so much.
Yeah, it actually works better than the Black Pearl now. It feels like the White pearl. It just feels pink.
It's not as gritty as the original pink.
No, it's really soft, actually. I'm gonna break it in half. Meaty grip.
I wonder.
Yeah.
Does Papermate own pearl or the Pearl brand?
They do, yeah. Last I saw, they did.
I mean, that makes surprising to me
that they can make something that works better.
Yeah. The world is going to end on New Year's Eve. Something with paper made on it was improved. It was a fluke for the ones for back to school. The next ones are just gonna be made of, like, clay and bricks and sandpaper held together with, like, lizard spit or something. Disgusting.
It's gonna be like the old days. It's gonna be made out of stale bread.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, then you get the rye edition. That's what the hipsters would get.
I only erase with pumpernickel.
Holla or nothing, dog. All right, I'm gonna keep rambling. So who wants to go next?
I'll go next. We talked about the Shenandoah edition a little bit already, which is really nice. And actually what made me became a subscriber, so it just kind of got me to pull the Trigger on that because it was so beautiful and I meant to. Anyway, I saw in the chat that Michael Metz would like me to chat a little bit about the stuff sheath which I recently acquired. If you guys aren't familiar, Tim or Johnny, do you have a stuffed sheath?
I don't, I don't use leather. I say in a non judgmental way.
That's right. I'm just not murdering animals like Andy is, so.
Well, you didn't do it.
Somebody else did. So. The stuff sheath I think is in my opinion, a little overpriced. I think it's like 80 or $90. On really, it's a lot.
All that for a piece of dead cow.
Yeah, I'll find a link. I don't want to talk about it too much, but I acquired mine for free from a direct source. So I got the orange one and it is super, super stiff. It's. It's like, I don't know, like some really thick cardboard and it's obviously leather, but it's really stiff. I've been using it daily for maybe like a month now and it has loosened up a little bit, but not really. I'm trying to think here. It doesn't really fit in my back pocket all the way. It kind of sticks up a little bit, which I guess is fine, but I'm always worried it's going to fall out or if I'm walking around like San Francisco or something, somebody's just going to pull it out, which if I lose it, you know, it's not my phone or whatever. But you don't want to lose your field notes. I asked some people in the group and apparently it's going to loose up in about another month or so ish with regular use. So I keep it mostly in my front pocket. Oh, Corey roth says it's $40. 40 claims. Oh, I guess I was off. But still, yeah, still $40 is a little bit much.
Put it in your back pocket and when you sit at your desk at work, just kind of like groove around, dance.
Yeah, just grind it into the chair.
Nobody will think you're weird.
I believe putting your back pocket is what Draplin calls the designer asshole position. There are a lot of designers where I work who keep their field notes in their back pocket. I wouldn't say that they're assholes, but. Yeah, but it works better in my front pocket. Even though I should keep it in my back pocket so I can loosen it up a little bit. I've seen some when they're, when they've Been well used in and they feel really nice. They're really kind of plush. Some of the orange fades a little bit. So I'm just afraid that every. Everything's going to get stained orange.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But it fits my field notes really well. It fits.
Hold more than one.
Yeah, it can hold like two or three, I think.
Yeah.
I. I personally think that it works best with field notes, which I guess makes sense. But you can also put a baron fig in there or like a scout book. Yeah. I should do a fuller, Fuller review.
Yeah, I'd like to see that.
Yeah. Sorry about my weird audio. This. I just cannot get used to this noise. Okay.
I'm just going to take off at all. So.
Yeah, just don't listen.
No, no, I said. I said I'm not noticing at all.
Oh, you're not noticing. Okay.
I haven't been listening to you for months.
When I start into my, like, talking, I just take off my headphones so I just don't hear myself at all. And that's probably what I should do. Before we talk about the big thing, I should mention the story supply company, Kickstarter. Is Vito here with us in the chat?
Yeah, he was in there.
Oh, yeah.
There he is.
Yay.
So, yeah, he blew past his goal in just a few days. He's reached his stretch goal, I think at the moment. Oh, if I can pull this up while I'm still talking.
Yeah, I need to get on there. And I've been meaning to for the last like four or five days to get on and pull edge and back the project. I love these kind of projects of the. This model, especially when it involves schools, just makes me very, very happy. Or tutoring centers. 826. I have a not so secret with
people around here
dream of opening up something like that. A place like 826 in the Tri Cities area here in Tennessee. I think they're really awesome and get to do sort of the best parts of teaching without the paperwork.
Did you come out to visit, Tim?
To really visit? Yeah. No, I'd love to see it. Yeah, I'd love to. That's the original one out there, isn't it? Yeah. Valencia. Yeah, that's the original one. So I just. That's. That's my favorite part of teaching is teaching writing. And I would really. I'd love to be able to do that, do something like that. So I really want to get on the next as soon as possible. I'll probably just go ahead and do it tonight.
Heck, yeah. It is currently at $9,406 out of a $5,000 goal. So they're well on their way to doubling their goal with 11 days to go. And, yeah, it just went really crazy. And Vito sent me a pencil and a pack of notebooks to just kind of try out and kind of get my opinion on. And I put a little review on the blog. It's really great. The pencil is really good. Which one of you? Johnny, do you have the pencil?
I have the books, but not the pencil.
Okay.
Tim, do you have intent?
I don't have either, actually. I'm eager. Meager.
The pencil is really cool because it physically resembles a field notes pencil, but in my opinion, it's way better. The wood is less splintery.
I could tell by looking at it that it's better. It looks better than the field notes pencil.
Yeah, I'm afraid that it's not cedar and that the field notes pencil is like a really splintery cedar, but it's really nice. The blue silkstreen and the blue eraser just looks really nice together. And the notebooks themselves are really nice. I think that probably the next production run are just going to get better and better, but, yeah, for kind of a first run on something like that, they're really, really good. Yeah. Vito just said my first shipment got lost in the mail because I was an idiot and put the wrong address. And he was nice enough to send me a new one and he included a pencil, which was super great. So, yeah, sweet. So good. We'll have a link in the show Notes to the Kickstarter, and this episode will go live well before the Kickstarter ends.
Cool. Should be awesome.
They're so fragrant.
Yes.
Before we talk about the Black Wings volume, maybe we should talk about the submission that we got from Dirk Van Der Zee.
Sure.
He says maybe I missed this slash these episodes, but you guys really need to review the incredible Carl Angel 5 sharpener. Not a travel model, but I take it with me anyway. In the luggage. Doesn't replace the pocket comb, but creates a superb point, much like the venerable Longpoint and definitely worthy of review, if not outright OCD like veneration on your podcast. And I didn't realize this, but you guys said that this was basically the classroom friendly sharpener, right?
As far as I've been able to tell. I mean, I've never actually had a Carl Angel 5, but I'm pretty sure that they're one and the same.
First of all, Carl Angel 5 is the best name for anything.
Yeah, it seems like. Like a Droid name or something?
I am Carl Angel 5.
Yeah, I'm almost positive. Okay. Sharpener transform.
See it sounded to me like like Charlie's Angels or some like 1970s like action show. Like Carl's Angels 5.
Spain. Yeah, yeah. Carl is not as good. What's the name of the guy in. Oh yeah, Charlie man.
Carl's Angels.
Carl's Angels. Carl's five Angels.
Yeah. They didn't even get a name anymore. Just a number.
That's horrible. So sexist.
So is the classroom friendly like a private label version of this or is this a private label version of it?
I have no idea.
But the classroom friendly comes in a new purple that the car Intra 5 has not come in.
Okay.
I think it's secret. Never mind.
My wife would like that.
This brings up a question I have actually. I mean like sort of related. But what is the name of the sharpener that I know a lot of people use that is very similar point length wise, but it doesn't put the teeth marks. Which one is that? Hmm, Isn't there another like one of those other crank sharpeners that doesn't put.
Do you mean the deli plastic one?
Something? Well, maybe, I don't know. Maybe I'm just something I like heard in a dream.
I haven't seen a long point deli.
I have one that Matthias sent me that's like a little less long than the classroom friendly, but it's pretty long. Masterpiece long and no bite marks. It's a very nice little sharpener.
Yeah, I'm trying to find the ones I was wondering about were the. Just the Karl pencil sharpener, CP80. It's like it looks a little different. And then the uni KH20 hand crank, wooden pencil sharpener. The one that kind of looks like the Android.
What is it? The uni.
What symbol? Uni KH20. I'll put the link in the show notes. I've got it here but I think I've seen someone use this before and I was wondering if this one puts. Puts pencil marks. There's the link to the uni. But yeah, it's made by Mitsubishi. So it looks like the same kind of mechanism. Like you pull out the face plate and it holds onto the pencil and you just crank. In the pictures on Amazon it looks either bigger or the person has like tiny little doll hands. I mean it looks like twice as big as a. So they might just have very dainty hands.
Do you ever see that Saturday Night Live skit where Kristen Wiig is on Lawrence Welk? She has little baby doll hands.
Yeah. She's, like, trying to cook things. Yeah. So I was just wondering. That was something I was thinking about today. I was wondering if this Mitsubishi sharpener puts the marks in. I feel like it was Topher maybe in the group who had used this before. But I'll have to follow up with that somewhere else.
Why is Toffer not in this group trolling everybody?
For real?
Seems like you've been going to bed early lately.
Somebody go get Topher.
Night. Night, Topher.
I don't know his number. Call him in real life.
Hey, dude, get out of here.
You're on speaker.
What?
He's going to France. He could be in France right now.
I thought he's back, but maybe he's still in France.
You have the Internet in France?
It's also like.
It's also like, four in the morning or three in the morning.
Where's your dedication?
Come on.
For real.
Should we talk about the Blackwing?
Yes.
So mine is in the mail, and I should be getting it tomorrow.
Mine's gonna do.
Tim. Yours should be in the mail then, like, three days later. I mean, you should be getting it three days later. You should be. It should be in the mail that day tomorrow.
That's awesome. As soon as I.
If it's.
If the. If the speculation is true, which I'm sure we're gonna get into, then I will have bought some before you even sent them. But let's. Let's go over the whole. The whole saga of what happened in our group. That was fun.
Yeah, that was so fun.
I kind of got there at the end, so I saw the end product that our little collective sherlocking work.
So it was announced that it was volume 211, and we were like, okay, what's 2 11? February 11th is Thomas Edison's birthday, and it's some kind of a prime number that I don't really understand. We had our initial speculation thread, and then a few days later, pencils, dot, go. Blackwing posted a picture of this, like, line. Like, this curved line. And somebody posted that in the group, and then somebody overlaid that on the John Muir Trail, which was really cool. And it aligned perfectly. And it turns out the John muir Trail is 211 miles long. So. Seems pretty clear. Yeah, it seems pretty clear. That's what it is. And people arrived at this really quick.
How long did it take? I didn't realize because I came in, like, hours after.
Yeah, I don't know, like, 20 minutes. It's funny because TJ Cosgrove, who lives in the UK, posted a picture or posted that. And he posted it like late at night his time. And then he went to bed and he woke up the next morning and looks at it and it's like, oh, it's solved. And so of course pencils.com hasn't confirmed nor denied if that's what it is. But it seems really obvious at this point. And the speculation, which is way speculative, is that it is natural wood, which would be amazing.
I find that very unlikely, but it would be amazing.
Yeah.
Because like we talked about last time, it seems that they have that white primer underneath them and they're just painting the top of them. So I really doubt that's going to happen. But if it does, I would squeal like a little child. It would be so great on Christmas morning.
I mean, before Blackwing volumes even existed. This is something you wanted, Tim?
Yes, it is. I would be selling things around my house to buy a gross of them or a box.
So they sent mine to my house where I no longer live.
Very upset, even though I asked them not to.
So Frankie emailed them and asked them if they could do anything. I don't know. They're famous. Maybe they can call the post office and be like, no, no, no, no new place.
Because everybody has success calling the post office.
Yeah, that's my favorite thing to do.
VIPs. That particular post office is very full of very, very polite people that don't yell at you or point.
Seems like the Baltimore post office would like especially be a rude post office.
Hey, what are you saying, man?
Here's a difficult post office.
What'd you say?
They don't have rights there?
Not post office is riot free.
Yeah.
Les says, didn't you set up a mail forward?
Yeah, but they don't forward packages. They say after a month or something. Plus they didn't really forward my mail. They charged me money and set it up and I'm like going down my house every week finding piles of mail. Oh my God.
Can you just like camp out by your old house and just intercept? I thought of that.
It's under contract now and they're doing the inspections and stuff. So I probably shouldn't be showing my face there. I don't want to ring my neighbor.
Hey, while you're here with this roof. So yeah, get it tomorrow.
You get it tomorrow.
Say again?
You get it tomorrow.
I do, but I live like just a couple hundred miles from Stockton.
Say they could walk it over to your house, right?
Yeah, I was tempted to just drive over there and pick it up. You should. I'm actually going. Katie and I, in like, two weeks, we're going to an open house reception at the new office.
Oh, that's awesome.
So that should be good. Hang out with Charles and Alexander and Grant.
Do a little segment while we're there.
I should do a what?
Do a little segment.
Oh, yeah, that'd be pretty cool. In the field, like how to do everything. That NPR show. You ever listen to that? How to do Everything. That's good. Yeah. I love when they always. They do the outings and they say, you'll know we're there. When we're talking in soft, hushed voices,
everybody looks at me like, what is that weirdo doing?
He putting a microphone in his face
somewhere. I have a little field recorder for my iPhone.
I don't know that.
Yeah.
Say, what do you say?
Lesson error. 2, 1, 1. What's the 2, 1, 1, Buster? I just made that up. I don't know.
Show title. What's the two, one, one, Buster?
Yeah, we're all excited.
I'm sure we'll have a little discussion in the group. Is anybody else in the chat right now going to get theirs on on Monday as well.
Yay.
Luke Sinclair's here. What time is it even in Australia?
Yeah, I know. For real.
Shouldn't you be in bed or still be in bed? Or maybe you're, like, in the middle of a workday. I don't know how the world works. I don't know how time works.
Time is complicated.
I don't even believe Australia is a real place.
Midday. That's fascinating. Okay. All right, well, that's two, one, one.
That's all I had to talk about.
That's the two, one, one, Buster.
And that is the two, one, one. Back to you, Johnny.
All right, well, I guess that just leaves me. Andy, are you finished yet?
Oh, yes, I'm finished.
First thing we're gonna talk about is there's this. With our. Last. Last week, we were talking about the Steinbeck stage, and I was talked about how Stephen had helped me get the final piece of my Steinbeck trio of pencils. And I think something, I guess from discussion on the Facebook group, something grew out of that, which has turned into this basically Steinbeck pencil world tour. That's happening. That is really awesome. And the basic concept is that one of each this time back trio pencils, which is provided by. By Stephen. Right. Steven's providing all three. Yeah, they're gonna. We're signing up 48 people, which is one person for every page in a field notes book. And so the idea is that these pencils are going to travel around as long as they still exist, you know, until they are.
Somebody swipes them.
Yeah, somebody just leaves the group and just disappears. You see the three of them show up on ebay the next day. That's one for every page of field notes. And so the idea is that you'll get them in the mail. You can try all three of them out on one page. You know, you don't want to go too nuts on it. Like give. Make sure to make it last as long as possible, but write a few lines so you can see what these famous pencils are. Which, just a kind of review is the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602, the Blydesdell Special Special Grade Calculator 600 and the Eberhard Paper Mongol. Now, is he doing. He's just doing the 480 hp, is that right? I don't. I guess I. I didn't check up on that. Or is it actually the 480? Whatever it is, like the 2 and 318 or something weird like that. Do you know? Yeah, we'll have to look that up. But it's something very close to the. To the sniper, because I know Stephen was saying that he found one of the actual original kind that was. That he used, and it was hard to find. So it's at least something very close. It's a really cool project, so you can sign up in the. In the Facebook group if there are any spots left. But it'll. It'll travel. Travel around, and I imagine it's going to take quite a while, but it'll be a really cool final product.
So I think I'm number 14.
Sweet. We. We need to. I don't know if there's been any discussion of where these are going to end up or where this notebook is going to end up. We should try to donate it to the Steinbeck Museum or something.
I wonder if we can put like a map in there and just have people like, trace mark down on the map where they are.
Yeah. Yeah, that'd be sweet. Awesome. I've only had two more things I was gonna bring up, so this will be pretty quick. So if you want to get in on that Steinbeck pencil world tour, check out the Facebook group. There's a thread going. We'll try to. If I remember, I'll go in and bump it up to the top. Or somebody in the chat room could do that. That would be awesome. So thank you, Stephen. You are amazing. So for getting that thing going, that's going to make a lot of people happy and just probably save some people money just to scratch the itch. So some people are going to get to try these without having to go out and spend $75 to try, even try. And just to see what it was like to use the Eberhard Vapor Blackwing especially and actually even the special grade calculator because it's even harder to find. So. So thank you, Stephen. Next thing I was gonna bring up is I don't know if anybody's been to CW pencils lately. And I don't. I don't know how new this is, but I went there today to put together just a kind of window shop some different Japanese pencils in the opening page, like when you first get to the site now is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. How long is it? How long has it been like this? Because this just like makes me like drool.
I was there maybe a week ago and I don't think it was there.
Oh, my gosh. But so basically I'll describe it to people. If you're in the chat room, you need to go and look at it right now because it's one of the most gorgeous things you'll ever see for pencil people. It is the wall that has what looks like maybe 40 tubes of pencils. Different kinds, different grades. And then on the top, they're very neatly stacked dozens of, you know, lots of these pencils. And on the bottom you have the erasers, you have the notebooks. But it's very symmetrical, very beautiful. The colors look amazing. So it's one of the favorite things I was like, I seriously contemplating I might still do it, make it the background of my computer because it's so awesome.
Oh, I would totally do that.
Yeah, I probably am going to. So, Caroline, you hear this? Well done. That is an awesome picture. And. And it's really kind of captures. I think this picture is a perfect way of showing someone who doesn't really get the pencil thing that just showing them how much more there is out there and how much more quality pencils there are than whatever you find at Office Depot. To see something like this and be like, there's a lot going on. They don't all look the same. They're varied. They're just good looking pencils. It's not like you're going to pull it up and it's just going to be 40 tubes of ticonderogas that are getting worse and worse every day. So it's a way to go. Way to go. CW Pencils. It's a really amazing opening site. Hey, Topper's in the chat.
Topher.
Hey. And the last thing I wish through
mixlr we could just like bring in people and to comment. We can't though.
Somebody said I got salty. Did I get salty? Okay. All right. Well, the last thing I was going to bring up, which I know you've all seen, and this is one of the best things on the Internet in a long time, is the, you know, Apple came out and announced the Apple pencil, which is their stylus, I guess, but it's a stylus that if you didn't see it, it's a stylus that has a lot more going on than just the rubber tipped things that are like squishy little ball on the end of them. You can hold it at different angles and get different kinds of shading and there's a lot of different options. But from what I understand, it has to be used with. Is it the iPad Air, the iPad
Air, or the iPad Pro?
IPad Pro. I didn't know that was a thing. Oh, there is iPad Air, iPad Pro. That's the new one they talked about. Yeah. So. But there's a video now. It's very Apple, Apple esque or whatever, the feel of the whole presentation of this thing. And our good friend and community member TJ Cosgrove made a parody that is just on the pencil, not the Apple pencil. And it is. Did you guys. How many times did you watch this? That's. That's the question I'll ask you. Several. Yeah, it's pretty wonderful. It's something that I wanted to like. That's another thing, like, along with the picture from CW Pencils that I want to like show people and be like, this is, this is why, like, this is why we love pencils.
By the way, Dr. Hans says that there are. He counted exactly 100 pencil tubes in that photo.
100. Wow. Yeah, I'm not good at eyeballing things. Oh, no. Okay. See, and I'm also not a math guy because I was like, oh, it looks like about half a shelf is 20. So 20 and 20 is 40. There's 40. That would be 80, Tim, if you can do math just on the top and then there's some on the bottom. That's why I teach English and that's why I teach English and why I own several devices that'll calculate grades so I don't have to do it on paper.
Hell, yeah.
But, yeah, so, tj, well done. That was awesome. Really enjoyed that. And I'm going to be sharing it with a lot of people.
Did you see that in the group? There's somebody who works at Apple and he said he's going to share it with his team the next day.
No. Oh, man, that's amazing.
He works at one of the Apple campuses in Sacramento. And yeah, he. He said that. Everybody just thought it was amazing.
It's cool. Well. Oh, actually, hey, I just thought of one more thing. Yeah. They didn't put in the show notes, but we need to give some major props to the pencil erasable pencil community, Facebook, or I mean, just the community in general for bringing back a pencil that had died.
Yes.
I don't know how we forgot the. Yeah, put that in the notes. But so we have several. Who all was involved in this. I know Gary and I think Les was involved, right, Dr. Hans?
I think so.
Dr. Hans. Yeah, I noticed there was like a collection of people who are contacting them, harassing them at. Oh, I guess we should mention the pencil. The general Cedar Point number one. It's just a little softer and a little smoother than the. The number two that's still available. You can buy it Hobby Lobby and Michaels and things. That's like a little more accessible, but it's a great pencil. But they had a number one that had just sort of died and they stopped producing it. And we had talked about it when it happened as being this ridiculous thing, as the death of variety in pencils. And like, they're just thinking, nobody knows what a number one pencil is and they know they can't use it on Scantron test, which is totally bogus. And so they have died. And enough people in our group. Yeah. Harass them until they've decided to bring it back.
So can I tell you a story about that?
Yes, please.
So when I heard that was happening, I was like, you know, if these things are just coming off the production line, how cool would it be if we could do some sort of a group buy and see if they would be willing to just like, custom imprint something about erasable on there? Have our own little pencils. So I sent them an email just asking, you know, I didn't expect much. Just asking, hey, you know, we don't want to make any profit off this. We just love pencils and we love these pencils specifically. And we think that our group may have been partly responsible for them coming back. So can we get, like, some blank ones to imprint something on and I got a kind of a form response. It was like, at this time, we cannot do something like that. Thank you for, you know, for your interest. And I was just kind of, I was disappointed mostly in the fact that it was like a form response rather than, you know, the fact that they couldn't do it. Which I figured.
Yeah.
So I responded back to saying like, hey, I'm a little disappointed that this is a form response, but I understand, thank you. And then I get a phone call from a lady who works at General's Pencil who said, no, no, like I wrote that personally. Thank you so much. And I responded back and said, well, you kept saying we, we this, we that. She's like, well, whereas company, we have to say we. I'm like, no, you don't.
Well, I can't believe she called you. That's crazy.
Yeah, she. I guess my number was at the bottom of the email because I used like my super formal wood clinched signature when I, when I send emails like that just to make it look like I'm actually legitimate. But if anybody, if anybody thinks that voice and tone is not important for your product or your company, it is. Am I right? Michael Metz? Sorry. I love the fact that we just have this like back channel going on here. You know, we have our own in the Erasable doc, like the Google Doc and then we have the channel, the chat as well.
Yeah.
We have to resist making this not horrible for people who are listening to art.
I need to stop doing that next time.
Yeah. So way to go Erasable group. And I don't, I think it's, I think it's over. But I know Gary had bought a large amount of them and was giving a pretty sweet deal to Erasable members. I think that's finished. I don't know that for sure though. But it's worth checking, checking the post from Gary because he was giving a pretty amazing deal. I think it was $5 and something for a dozen. Yeah. So I did you guys, I picked up two.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, I love those. I've been, I've been using those at school a lot just to kind of celebrate. It was like once I had a dozen, almost a complete dozen. I've not finished one of one of them, but I had like three going in different places. And as soon as the announcement happened, all of a sudden like my, my appetite to use them kicked in because I wasn't afraid that that was the last set I was going to get. I've just been burning through them at school. Yeah. So good Job group. Oh, hey, and one thing, I was just scrolling through that KH20 Mitsubishi Amazon page and in the Q and A there's a question that says how do the features, performance and quality of the unique 20 compared with the similarly priced Carl Angel 5? And I want to. Whoever Nathan angel, weirdly his last name is Angel. Who wrote that question. I want to give you a hug because I want to meet you. But so there's the. There's an answer and there's a lot of things that is lighter because it's made of plastic. You have to hold it. The point is about the same. But then it says first the H20 has soft gripping mechanism that does not leave dents on your wood cased pencil. And then it also has the ability. There's a button you can push that stops about 2 millimeters early if you want to do a non rounded tip, like kind of the squared off tip. So that's pretty cool. So there's a. They're pretty good price. They're like 18 bucks for the black one, 22, 23 for the color ones.
But Erichan says that the KH20 is better for people with doll hands.
With doll hands, yeah, exactly. So and if you have. If you have tiny hands, get you one.
Okay.
It's been a long weekend. I think that's it.
Yeah. I wish that we record like a supplement after the Black Wings come in.
Maybe we will. Yeah, why not? Once we all have them house. It's good. Heck yeah. Well, but I guess by the time that happens, like with stuff will only be like four or five days away from recording, so. But then we get to beat the pan addict to it, which would be nice.
What?
Screw those guys.
We'll talk about it before we get to. Because they do their fancy, fancy once a week stuff and they, you know, have sponsors and all that fancy stuff.
High rollers.
Please, somebody sponsor us.
Well, why don't we talk about where people can find us on the Internet and wrap this up. What I think has been a very good show up. And before we even get into that, I will say thank you to everybody in the group for making this a lot of fun. It's been really cool to be able to jump back and forth between these two and see what people are talking about these whole conversations going on, aside from us, which makes me think you guys aren't paying attention and you need to pay more attention to us while we're talking. Not really, but it's been awesome. So thank you everybody who's listening live. That's really kind of mind blowing that people would enjoy something. We've made enough to do that. So thank you to the 20. Or maybe 100. I'm not good at estimating by sight. No, it says 21.
We need Dr. Hans to count for us.
All right, well, hey, Andy, where can people find you on the Internet?
I apparently Topher knows where to find me on the Internet. That's what he just said. I can be found@woodclinched.com on Twitter @awelfley A W E L F as in frank L E or oodclinched with just pencil stuff. That's where I am most of the time. How about you, Johnny?
I am@pencilrevolution.com on Instagram pennsolution and sometimes on Twitter ensolution. Thank you, Mr. Tim.
Mr. Tim can find me find me on Twitter imwassum. I'm on Instagram timothywassom. Thank you for listening. This has been episode 37 of the erasable podcast, which you can find at erasable us37. We encourage you to go to our Facebook group and join us facebook.com groups erasable we also have a Facebook page that lets us put out information about the new episodes or if there's anything we want to pass out to everybody. That isn't necessarily a discussion. That'll be, you know, potentially a wider audience for people who don't want to be in the group, which you should because it's awesome. That is at facebook.com erasablepodcast you can go there and like our page. We'd really appreciate that. And we really love it when people write us reviews on itunes. It helps us make the podcast better and also the ratings on itunes help us become more visible on itunes so that we get recommended more to other people. Also, you can recommend us on over or do whatever it is that shares what we do with the people, you know, using whatever you use to listen to podcasts. 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.