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Transcript
Take a sip of Beano real quick.
Did you say Beano? Do you have problems digesting broccoli?
Get ready, folks.
Yeah.
Hello. After weeks of grueling contract renegotiations and maternity leave settlements, we've regathered for a seven hour rooftop concert here at the Erasable Podcast. Thank you for listening. This is Tim Wasem, the John of the group. And here with me is Ringo and Ringo. What's up, fellas?
I don't even know how to respond to that. Oh, you.
Clearly.
Clearly, I'm the cute one.
I'm John. You both are the Ringos.
So I just want to say that my salary did not increase. So I don't know about you.
Still doesn't care. About the Yoko of the group then? I don't know.
I think it's clear that Rosie Gamber is the Yoko of the group. She was born and it just sort of like pulled us all apart or
all of my students are there. I think all of my students are the Yoko.
Yeah. The city of San Francisco.
Don't read too far into that. Yeah.
I miss you guys.
Yeah, likewise.
Yeah, we've all had a lot of, like, insane things going on for a little while, so we. We thought we'd just take a short break until after Labor Day.
Yeah. And Jane, as I was getting ready to record, my wife, like, have fun, like. Yeah, well, it's been a while. It's been like six weeks. She just looked at me, she said, no, it hasn't. It just felt like forever. And I, like, looked. I was like, no, it has. And I went on website and it said, like, our last episode went up August 15th. Oh, okay.
You know what?
I know what I thought you were
gonna say when you said that. As I started recording Jane, my wife and I thought you were gonna say, like, just went into labor or something like that.
She just had a contraction or something. I was like, just go back to the room. I'll be there. Just hold it.
We'll be done in a minute.
You could Skype on your cell phone.
Yeah, that's true.
Take it in there.
That'd be exciting. Okay, guys, hang on just a second. Wait, wait, catch.
What are you writing with Push?
Never heard of it. Yeah, so it's been a crazy couple weeks, and we all had a lot going on. I think everybody had a lot going on in general. It's one of those times a year where things kind of pile up. People are starting. Got a lot of people in the group who are going back to school. Teachers. And then, of course, Just summer is when things like moves and major shifts happen before the cold, cold winter sets on. To everyone in San Francisco.
Yeah, Speak for yourself. It's 85 degrees here today,
but is it humid?
No, it's never humid. There's no water. Yeah. What's funny is the local news. Sometimes when it is humid, they have to occasionally explain what humidity is. They have to, like, the humidity is high today. And so what that means is, you know, if you, like, feel extra, like, damp or the water feels heavy, that's humidity.
If you're doing nothing but you're sweating humidity.
Yeah. Cool.
Well, excited to be back. This is episode 59. We're going to be talking about best of back to school stuff. Anything we've noticed from back to School. And if we get to it, we might talk about yellow pencils, a topic we've been looking forward to talking about for a while. Or we may save it for next time, just depending on how, how this goes. But we'll talk about our favorite yellow pencils eventually. This goes for cheap ones. School one, you know, like officer school ones that you get, like, from a big box store. We try to include everything as well as the kind of fun, secret ones. We also, we just really wanted to talk about the new back to school stuff. There's a few things that have popped up this year that we've maybe mentioned a little bit here and there, but just kind of, kind of gather it all here right after Labor Day when school should start for everyone, as we just discussed. But as always, let's start with tools of the trade. And Andy.
All right, I am consuming a Tecate Original Cerbeza, and I've also been reading. I was trying to think about if I had any, like, new television or new podcasts or any of that that I haven't talked about yet because I seem to repeat myself. Katie and I discovered that on Hulu you can watch the Doris Day show. So the other night we watched a couple episodes of the Doris Day show, which is pretty bad. I love Doris Day movies. They're kitschy and fun and Doris Day's awesome. But oh, man, the TV show is so bad. What's interesting from what we read about it, is the first few seasons, she has a couple kids in the show, she has two sons. And then one season, I don't know what, they just decided that they wanted her to be edgier and more attractive as a single gal or something, so they just sort of wrote her kids out of the show.
Weird.
So some seasons she comes back and there's just her. And she has a different job. She lives in San Francisco instead of Mill Valley, which is in the North Bay. She's just, you know, they just rewrite it. But what I'm really enjoying is. So one of the reason that I have been super busy is we just moved and we are now living up in the city of San Francisco instead of in San Mateo, which is like 20 miles south. I've been reading a really great book called Infinite City. It's an atlas of San Francisco. It's by Rebecca Solnit, who's written a lot of things. She's pretty fantastic writer. But it's basically just a collection of different atlases involving the Bay Area. So there's one about like the old shipping ports of San Francisco. There's one that's basically overlaying fancy restaurants and dairies and creameries and oyster shucking facilities and things like that, overlaying it with different industrial things that are basically polluting San Francisco. There's just all sorts of interesting little atlases in here and an essay to accompany them. So it's really fascinating. I'll have a link in Show Notes. It's a beautiful book. And if anybody enjoys the city of San Francisco or lives in the Bay Area or something like that, you should pick this up. It's pretty great. And then I'm writing in my. I picked up my field notes byline the other day. For some reason, I think it was just sitting. It was the only reporter's pad I could find among my stuff. So I picked that up and so I'm using that right now. And I'm using one of those striped Ticonderoga pencils that we'll be talking about a little later.
Yeah.
Yeah. Johnny, how about you?
Awesome.
Well, I mean, I assume, like everybody else, I've recently watched Stranger Things. You guys catch that yet?
Yep.
Dying to. No, I haven't yet. I will. This I'm going to this week.
Should we spoil for Tim? No, just kidding. We won't.
The ending.
Aliens come back. No.
Yeah. Turns out it was all a dream. It was like ET's dream. It was all ET's dream.
They really blew a lot of it in the trailer. I'm like, when's that gonna happen? Yeah. And did you guys catch the Little Prince? The film that came out last year? It's on Netflix.
No, I need to.
So amazing.
Yeah, I've heard a lot about it. I watched the preview and looked awesome. I showed Henry and he said, let's watch it now. Two weeks before it came out. But I've actually never read the book and so I need to do that.
I'm reading that kid's the vintage book with the really pretty pictures. And what's supposed to be the better translation? Right now I don't speak French, so I don't know if it's a better translation.
I'd like a link to that, whatever you're reading.
Yeah, you haven't read it unless you've read it in the original French.
I'm going to learn French so I can read the Little Prince. Then I'm going to forget French after that.
So in Baltimore we have a line of Edrell and Po themed beers.
Of course you do.
Yeah.
All of which are delicious. So I'm having one now called the Pendulum Pilsner, which is a Pilsner, but it's very smooth and delicious in a frosty mug. There's also one called the Cask Double Bock. That's really good. And one of those like, oh, no, this is 9% alcohol beers.
Whoops. Yeah, I drink four of them.
Those have definitely, like caught me by surprise.
Sometimes they have Raven Lager and Telltale Heart IPA, which I'm not a big fan of. I hate IPAs.
You know, I have friends who like only drink IPAs for beer and I just. They're just too. Just too much for me.
Yeah, I'm kind of one of those people. So, yeah, I drink no IPAs and APAs. Like that's like almost all I drink when it comes to beers.
Like the hops.
Yeah, I just love it. Like the. Really. It's. Well, there's like a fine line. There's somewhere in the middle. Like it a lot. Some of them do get to a point where I'm like, that's disgusting. Like, that's just too much. But the, the ones that are balanced, like not very adventurous ones, but like Laganitas IPA and Sweetwater IPA and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, things like that. Like those ones that, like, they're like a nice perfect medium for me. Those are my go to's Sierra Nevada.
Pretty good? Yeah, yeah, pretty like tolerable. Have you tried the. I think it's an ipa. I could be wrong about it. Have you seen the ones with the, the Buddha bottles? It's. The bottles are shaped like they're green glass. They're shaped like Buddha. I swear. They taste or they smell just like marijuana.
It's like Heineken. Heineken does sometimes.
Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's Just like. Yeah.
Skunky.
Yeah. But, like, it seems like they're supposed to be skunky.
Mm.
Yeah. Cool. What are you writing with Johnny? Oh, you already said.
No, I didn't.
Oh, you didn't?
Okay.
No, I'm writing with Tombow mono 100 HB because I got a dozen of them for my birthday for my mom. Yay.
Yay.
I'm writing in an orange kindred spirit because I'll talk about later. They don't just come in orange. How about you, Tim?
I am having a glass of wine and stuff. I've been consuming lately. I've been really into Newsroom Jane, and I have kind of been addicted to the show. Have either of you watched Newsroom?
I watched the first few episodes. They were really good. I don't remember why I didn't finish it, but it wasn't because I didn't like it.
Yeah. So Aaron Sorkin. Every show Aaron Sorkin has ever done follows the exact same mold. It's pick a sort of big job that has to be done, whether it's the president or a news show or Saturday Night Live or a Sports center type show. And then the show is about the, like, six people who run the show. The, like, core. The core group of people with one person in the middle. And Newsroom is obviously about, like, a news show, and it's. It's kind of just like West Wing is the presidential campaign staff that you wish existed.
Yeah.
Newsroom is the news show that you wish was real so that you could watch it every night. Like, if the show was real, I would sit down, like, back in the 50s and watch the 60s and watch the news every night. Done by Will McAvoy. It's pretty amazing. It's all. You know, it's a. The anchor, Will McAvoy, is a Republican, registered Republican, who's just, like, fed up with both sides being so divisive and, like, pushing each other to the extremes in either direction. And so he just decides he's gonna do a newscast that is straight down the middle, no matter what. Even if he, like, makes people mad on his side. It's just really. It's an awesome show, and Jeff Daniels is amazing.
Yeah.
So I'd watch it. It's like the whole series is only, like, 22, 23 episodes. Something like that.
Yeah. And they cover, like, real events. I remember they covered likewater Horizon.
Yep. That's the. That's the thing that's different than, like, West Wing is. Yeah. It's real events. There's the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall street, the Gabby Giffords shooting. Yeah, Congresswoman Giffords got shot.
I feel like it's a little bit like, you know, hindsight 20 20. It's like, you know, there was so much like bad coverage of these things when it happened that Aaron Sorkin's just like, oh, well, you know, nice.
Oh, totally. That's how all of them are. You know, it just keeps. But like, in a way that's not like.
Yeah.
If you idealistic.
If you want to watch another really, really good. It's a newspaper newsroom and it's definitely not in the style of Aaron Sorkin. But on Hulu, there's a show called Lou Grant, and it's kind of a spin off of Mary Tyler Moore in that Ed Asner plays Lou Grant, who's this journalist. But it's a one hour newspaper drama instead of the half an hour TV station comedy that Mary Tyler Moore was.
This. Is this a new show?
No, it's from the late 70s, early 80s.
Oh, okay. Grant, like L, O U. Yeah.
L O U G R A N T. And it's the same Ed Asner from Mary Tyler Moore from that show, except nothing else is the same. It's a different format and it's really, really smart. Like, they. They cover topics that are like, super relevant right now.
That sounds awesome.
Yeah, yeah, Hulu.
I'll definitely watch that.
Yeah.
Speaking of Hulu, this is like you're talking about this very sort of noble newspaper room show. I just discovered that they have those who can't on Hulu, which is the, like, ridiculous comedy about teachers. So I just started watching that today. It's like a show about this core group of teachers that are doing like everything that teachers shouldn't do but kind of secretly wish that you did do. So kind of like revenge on students and things. It's very cathartic for a teacher to watch. But anyways, I just watched the first episode of that.
Tim's taking notes.
It's one of those shows, like in the first scene, one of them mentions, if I really wanted some revenge, I'd take his house off its foundation and move it a few plots down. And then there's a beat and then everybody goes, yeah, that was a fun night. It's one of those shows that on. If I'm being realistic, it's not a very good show, at least based on the first episode. But as a teacher, it's super entertaining. But I've been reading books by Tana French. Are you familiar with Tana French?
I've Heard that name.
She's a mystery novelist. She has a. She's American, but she's been living in Dublin for a really long time. She was an actress and started writing in, like, late 30s and started with the books, and they just kind of taken off and she bases them all. It's a series about the Dublin murder squad, but the way that. So it's kind of like just the murder division of the Irish Crime Investig Investigatory System or whatever. And it's a series. But the cool thing she does with the series is that each book from a perspective of a different person within the unit, so you're not following the same character every time. Some of them are in first person. I think some of them are in third person, so it mixes it up. But it's all, like, in the same world. And it's as it's literary quality crime fiction.
That's awesome.
Like, the writing is beautiful.
Yeah.
And it's also very realistic in that things don't always, like, get tied up neatly in a bow. Like, some things get figured out, but some things she's just like. Like, they just couldn't find out. They just couldn't find the information. They just couldn't solve it. So it's very realistic. I love it. So I'm on the second one, which is called the Likeness, which is about an undercover agent who finds out that a woman who looked exactly like her was living under her pseudonym, that she was undercover as, like, several years before and then was murdered. And so she goes back undercover under the same name to figure out who. Who committed the murder. Cool books. Yeah. And. Yeah. And I'm writing with a harvest by Musgrave that the wonderful Caitlin, inscribed with your life, is in our hands from our Incredibles conversation. So I'm writing with that, and I'm using my red maple Shenandoah, finishing up that edition.
That's awesome.
And loving it. All right, well, let's jump into our fresh points. Andy, Go for it.
I guess the biggest thing that's happened since we last talked was I have met both Ana Reinert and Brad Dowdy in person, which is awesome.
Aren't they awful?
Yeah, they're the worst. I was so disappointed.
Disappointed?
No. So the San Francisco Pen show happened since then? It happened.
Right.
Not that long after we recorded our last episode. And actually somebody who runs it, Mark Cohen, is here in the group, here in the chat, and I did not meet you, Mark. I don't know why I didn't run into you at the pentatic meetup. But, yeah. So anyhow, Anna had an afternoon to kill, so she came and took a tour of Facebook and hung out with me. We walked around and we looked at art, and we went on the roof and we ate, like, Asian noodles and had a really good time. So Anna is much smaller than I thought she was. Like, she's. She's five. I think she said on Art Supply Posse. She's five, four. So there's a picture of us that I posted to my Instagram where it's just us next to each other and she's much, much shorter than I am. But. So then later on, we went to the Pen Addict meetup at the SF Pen show. It was Friday night after the show happened, and Brad was there. He recognized me right away. Big hug. Got some cool, like, Pen Addict patches and stickers and swag and he's trying to brainwash you. Yeah, he's taller than I thought. He's about my height. So later we took a picture of me and Brad, got a picture taken together, and Anna just, like, photobombed us. She thought that she was going to be short enough that we wouldn't even notice her, but it was a really good photobomb. She did an amazing job. So I decided to just commit an act of defiance. And I brought a couple cigar boxes full of pencils to the. To the meetup. And I basically just found a table in the corner and just, like, spread all the pencils around and I had, like, a good amount.
$60 a piece.
Yeah, well, I wasn't selling them. I was just, like, letting people play with them. So we had, like. I bet we had a couple dozen people at some point, like, wander over and, like, try a few out. And there were a few people here who were like, oh, I haven't used a wooden pencil for years. Like, I have a pencil, but it's a, you know, like a rotring mechanical pencil, which is a very, like, pen. Pen person's pencil. So we played, like, we tried out that. Is it Tombow? Yeah, It's Tom. The KMKKs, the 4B, that blue pencil that I just love.
The blue and white and yellow one.
Yeah, I had one of those out. I had a couple, like, in, like, various hardnesses of Horizon. I had some 2Bs and some HBs just kind of laying out. And so we all just kind of played with them. And I had brought some notebooks and some sharpeners. And yeah, it was a good time. Brad came over, and his pencil literacy is pretty good, I have to admit. I think that we should have him on our show and just like quiz him about it. Just see what he can remember.
Put the bright hot light over his head.
Yeah. Later we stage a picture of Brad and I attacking each other. Me with a sharpened pencil and him with a fountain pen.
Him with a, like a super bright light on him. And we're on the other side of the table, like all three of us smoking cigarettes.
So yeah, it was a. It was a good, good time. I also met.
What's the difference between German and Japanese pencils? Go talk punk.
There's a. I met Bruce Iman E I M O N. He's a. He's in the group. He's a listener of the podcast. He lives like five miles from where I used to live. He's a super cool guy. He goes to Japan all the time. So if you guys have anything you need from Japan, we can have him make our be our mule. So, yeah, that was pretty fantastic. Had a really good night. It was the, the night before our final weekend before we moved. So it was pretty crazy. But it was good to take some time out and do that. So, yeah, we moved. I talked on the last episode about figuring out how to reduce the pencil collection. I did not really reduce it. I actually did get rid of. I had a box full of 50 some pencils that my sister got me that were cool. They're all related to different states and the Union and Washington D.C. and had the capital and the state flower and some facts of the state on it and it was just too much. So I sold it just for the price of shipping to the group and somebody bought it. So I got rid of that. But otherwise, yeah, I didn't really reduce it. They're still in cigar boxes, but I'm going to slowly transition them into. What are they called from Ikea, the big like cubby storage things with the 13 inch cubes. Kallax. I think those are the cube names. Yeah, that storage stuff that have like the square boxes that you. Yeah, Kallax square boxes that you can put stuff in. We still have a bunch of those IKEA shelves that we kind of use as a divider in our like living room. And it looks really attractive with, with colored boxes in there. So I'm just going to keep my pencils in there, I think. So I still need to like spend some time reducing because I just don't want to be. I don't want to be a hoarder, but that's what I am.
Be yourself.
Just embrace the hoarding. Last, last fresh Point. So this is just rampant wishful thinking, not even speculation. I have no basis of this, but the next Black Wings volumes edition is coming out. Well, if it sticks with the lateness of the last schedule, it'll probably be like a month. But I have the best idea, guys. So Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek airing. And was that an. Of disgust or an uh, of.
No. No. Yes.
Okay.
I'm not even a huge star. I want them to do that.
Yeah, yeah. So I really think what we need is a dozen pencils, four in each of the tunic colors. One in, one in red, one in yellow, one in blue, and then with like, like the little like delta. They call it the Delta shield. The little like triangular insignia that they have on their shirts. Either like stamped beautifully on the, on the pencil or like etched in the feral.
Blackwing Delta. Yes.
Oh, gosh. Blackwing Volume 50. And I, I've always thought Star Trek made like great strides in the 60s for being very inclusive of different, like genders and ethnicities and like nationalities.
Acting abilities.
And acting abilities. Terrible actors, writing, really great actors.
That was totally like. I've never seen. I haven't seen enough Star Trek to actually. For that to be true. I was just messing with you. Sorry.
No, no, you're completely right. Like, that's terrible acting. Mostly coming from its main star, William Shatner. But you know, the first like interracial kiss on television was on Star Trek. Yeah, it was. That was between Kirk and Uhura. Anyhow, I think it'd be great. I know that they just did a Sci Fi pencil last year. I don't think that we'll see this anytime soon. What'd you say?
That's an awesome point though you make that they should do a volumes edition that has a mixed bag of colors, all kinds of. I mean, I know that just gets harder and harder, but even just 6 and 6 or 4 and 4 and 4 of complementary pencils that have some theme. That'd be super cool.
Totally. Like, I can't imagine the logistics of that because not only do you have
to, it would just have to be a huge order. Probably, right?
Yeah, yeah. And I'm guessing that they generally like order blanks and then like maybe like put the lacquer on at some other stage, so maybe it would be better but like just sorting them into boxes. Like not only do you have to pick out 12 pencils to put in a box, but you'd have to pick out four of each, like color. So yeah, that's Just me daydreaming about an amazing Black Wings volumes. I'm sure whatever's coming is basically already there.
Yeah, I already got mine.
Did you? No.
That's amazing. Who do you know?
I'm a co host of a podcast about pencils.
Oh, that's why.
That makes sense.
Probably because I live closer to them than you do.
Yeah, just much closer. Amen.
My.
Mine comes. Mine comes in the mail on the same day as everybody else. Unless you live in Germany, in which case it's much faster.
Mine takes a little while to get here.
Yeah, cool. So, yeah, that's my fresh points. How about you, Johnny? This first one is it doozy?
Oh, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I guess everybody knows that the kindred spirit from Bright Notepads were those beautiful orange notebooks. And in the 750 boxes, they put 25 random blue ones. So I figured, you know, being a homeboy, you know, score one. But no, mine didn't have a blue one for my membership.
So
whenever I buy them, I like to buy them at a local shop here in Baltimore, which is, I think, like their biggest retailer, and, you know, support two local businesses in one. So I've been, you know, bugging the crap out of Chris, like, hey, when are they going to be at Trove? When are they going to be at Trove? So they're finally at Trove, and my other two kids have their birth field notes and the current field notes are byline. So I thought that would be kind of lame for Rosie because they're not their late. Well, you know, whatever, but they're not pocket notebooks. So I figured we'd get her a set of Kindred Spirit. While I was at it, I figured I'd get another pack and up the chances of getting a blue one. So I opened a pack and looked at Charlotte and I said, well, this one's mine. And I opened it on the street and found a blue one and I started jumping up and down and screaming. It was a crowded Saturday. It's funny, Charlotte's like, what is wrong with you, Daddy? I'm like, I was going to share with you, but never mind.
Don't you understand, Daddy?
A yogurt.
Yeah. Aside from the fact that you get, you know, a rare notebook, it's a beautiful notebook. They're also sending a prize to everyone that finds blue notebook in an effort to get everybody to open their damn packs of notebooks, which is awesome. So what did you get? I have no idea what the prize is yet. I think Chris said they were Thinking of sending them out this week because they want to get as many of the 25 as they can. Yeah, but I mean, he told me how many? I don't know, I don't think I'm
supposed to tell, but a lot.
He told you how many have been discovered?
Yeah.
Okay.
It's heartening. People are opening their books. That's awesome.
Like, how many are left? Like, can I go on their website and still buy some?
No, their website's gone, I think. Does Gary have some at Papery?
Maybe.
The local shop near me had like four or five packs left. I thought of buying up and then, you know, there's probably too many people for cost, but you know, if you live in Baltimore, you ought to be able to go buy it. So I never want to be a jerk to my hometown. It was a hot day. So, you know, people are cranky in Baltimore. When it's hot, it's always hot. So.
Yeah.
So when, you know, when the prize comes out, I'll put it all over Instagram. And were the membership extras that were secret, were they out last time we recorded the keychain?
I can't remember.
Tell them I don't think so. Because you looked at that text just the other day.
So if you remember, you got an unmarked envelope in the mail that had like a vintage keychain. Sort of like you'd see it like a bowling alley locker, something like that. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
And then you have to use pliers to get out of your keys and it has your membership number and then guarantee that if they get returned to write notepads on their way back to you. So that was super, super awesome and total surprise which is like, oh, this is really cool. I'd love to know where they got the aid my number seven. You guys get bragging.
I am not a member.
I. Yeah, well, I'm not an official member either actually.
Yeah, we're on, we're on like the distribution list, but we're not like the official member.
Yeah, I got seven because I especially asked for seven. I don't think I was really that early, but I'm so special. I didn't have to be that early. So, you know, get drunk Chris a couple times.
Get your number.
Yeah, I mean go out for call with Chris a couple times for a long time.
Yeah.
Anyway, moving on. So Tim and I both recently had birthdays. He's much younger than I am. So in my big birthday trove, I got two cool pencil related presents. The dozen tombow minor one hundreds that I already mentioned. And I got the Blackwing colored pencils, which are so pretty in person. The metal cap is very nice.
How do they lay color down?
They're pretty soft from what I can compare. I didn't put them anything toothy yet. I've just tried them in smoother notebooks, so on sketch paper. I imagine they're going to be ridiculous. But I wanted to ask you guys if you're aware of any metal capped pencils where the cap is hexagonal besides these?
Nope.
Yeah, all the ones I can think of are round, even on a hex pencil.
Aha. That's interesting.
Yeah.
So the only disappointment is that they're only 12 colors and I'm enjoying them. So, I mean, I wonder if this is just, you know, dipping the toe in and maybe more colors are coming.
Did you see that thing that Charles posted in the group, that $3,000 colored pencil set?
Oh, that Lodgerfeld thing?
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, no. Or the Karen dash one. The Karen dash one was pretty.
Yeah.
That Lagerfeld one is pretty ugly. I mean, no offense to Harris.
Sure, Carl Lagerfeld is listening right now.
Yeah, Fabricast.
I was like, ace of Shit. It wouldn't be an episode if Johnny didn't yell at somebody in German.
Curse in German at some point.
I had a high school teacher who would teach us to curse when we were good.
That was a reward.
Catholic school. So I spent an hour and a half this morning between errands because my wife is still on maternity to leave. Yay. Comparing five cheap yellow pencils. It was supposed to come out today, so now I'm talking about something that doesn't exist yet. But by the time this is out, I'm sure it'll be done.
Yeah.
Because now I have a fire under my butt to do it, but yeah. So the depths to which we will go for you guys, we will try really, really crappy pencils that we know are really crappy and do it in public. You know, premium notebooks.
So, you know.
You guys want to buy us some beers or something?
No, it's all for you. We do it all for our public.
Yeah, I embarrass myself thoroughly more than usual. When you're sitting there and you sharpen a pencil and you keep sniffing
the really bad ones. Were you cursing at it in German? No, English.
It was one of those college cafes, you know?
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Also, Charlotte and I went to New York two weeks ago and got to go to the pencil store, of course, and visit with Dr. Hans, which is super awesome.
And fun.
And we found right on the street from CW Pencils, there's a cafe called Cafe Henry, which was a really enjoyable little spot. They had one of the best little sandwiches I've ever had there. And the other reason we really went in the summer was to go to the New York Historical Society where they have the Mo Willems exhibit. It's called the Art and Whimsy of Mo Willems. So I wouldn't take a kid there because it was really just about his process. But if you're a pencil lover, it was like porn. It was awesome. They had. They had a lot of the kids to see them.
Yeah.
Forgot. For the love of God.
They had a little video of him wearing special gloves, drawing with a charcoal pencil. It was really cool. Like, the elephant and piggy books are drawn with a charcoal pencil, and the pigeon books are drawn with an aquarelle. And he draws everything in red. I'm sorry, blue. And the edits in red. And they had a lot of the sketches there. Was really, really cool. And of course, they had a sketchbook
you buy at the end for 10 bucks. Yep.
And twist up crayons that I bought for Henry. And they're like the crappiest twist up crayons I've ever seen. I feel like something's wrong with Twist Up Crayons. Takes all the fun out of crayons. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If you're.
If you're in New York, it's there till the 25th. And when we were there, I got half of my mission, but it was only 10 bucks. That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
And they have. They have potties. So if you're on a, like, tourist trip in New York with a kid, you have to know where the potties are. There's a potty there.
Separate potties.
Yeah. That's good to know.
Yeah.
My last fresh point is my daughter started first grade, so they're really vague about the back to school list. They're like two boxes of pencils. And then a week later, they were like, well, a box of pencils for, like, you know, the class stash. And three to five pencils for your kid. Like, there's no way my kid is going to pick three to five pencils. So she took three Ticonderoga Extra Fun striped pencils and three. I'm sorry, three Bic Extra Fun pencils and three striped Ticonderogas.
You should have sent her with just
a bunch of very soft and should
have sent her just with a bunch of 211.
I know she's actually working her way through 11 in her journal. She's determined to use every bit of it. It's getting really short to start knocking
at my second dozen box. We'll talk.
But Charlie had a bad day, so I gave her a special pencil to
put in her pencil box. And I wrote with the same pencil.
Like pencils make everybody happy. All right, that's all I have. How about you, Mr. Tim? Are you going to talk about what you have on your desk as a teacher?
Yeah.
I haven't really changed anything this year. Nothing too different like I did last year. I just snagged a bunch of palomino HBs from my stash and just have that so I don't even have to think about it just because there's so many things going on. But I did find a cool pen. And the only reason I'm bringing this up is that it's a big crystal. Johnny. So the orange ones? No, no. I was cleaning out my pen basement at my new house, which has like a bunch of stuff from Jane's grandfather. And there was a big box full of stationary stuff, which most of it was just, you know, nothing too exotic, but I found. And I'm about to pull it out from this box of pencils, so you're gonna hear pencils clicking. One of the best sounds ever. I found a Bic Accountant Fine Point Crystal.
What is it clear?
It's white. It's white. It says Accountant Fine Point Bic usa. And then has a clip on it. Has a metal clip and the cap is missing, but it would be black. So I was just gonna put another cap on it. Just this Fine Point Big Crystal is pretty cool. So I have been using. Have been using that. I doubt it's going to last much longer because it was super. It's super old.
I think Brad's talked about that on his show and somebody in the bit Crystal Lovers group talked about it.
It's like an original super fine point pen, like one of the early ones that you could get widely available. But it's pretty cool. It was an exciting find down there. I was also going to bring up a book that my Uncle Chris sent me, which I texted you all. It was an idea for our next book club book and it actually just came out yesterday. It's called the History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, which, FYI, which we always love talking about Amazon designations of things. It is the number one new release in Handwriting reference. The category is Handwriting references. And this is holding the number one spot just in Case you were keeping tabs on the handwriting reference section, but Synopsis in the digital age of instant communication, handwriting is less necessary than ever before. And indeed fewer and fewer school children are being taught how to write in cursive. Signatures far from John Hancock's elegant model have become scrawls. In her recent and widely discussed and debated essays, Anne Trubek argues that the decline and even elimination of handwriting from daily life does not signal a decline in civilization, but rather the next stage in the evolution of communication. So I've got a feeling that a book club on this will get us pissed off. So I think it'll be a good one. We've been reading a lot of books that we agree with, so I feel like we need to read one that we're like going to get angry about.
We should have Elaine from Jetpens and Owl Ink. We should have her come on because she knows a lot about handwriting and she's a pretty good calligrapher.
That sounds great.
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
That sounds awesome. So, yeah, so it just came out. I'm thinking about picking it up on Kindle sometime soon and then just. It's only 179 pages. So it's a shortish book.
Yeah.
I have no idea how uncle found out about it, but he. He did and I'm very thankful for that. So we should. We should look into that and maybe talk about it in a few months or something.
Yeah.
So I'll put the link in the show notes Next. I want to bring up a really cool thing in the Facebook group that was posted, I think it was yesterday by John. It was. He shared the pen company's post and it was about a pencil that is just about 200 years old. It was just uncovered. Did you see this post? The title of the article was Pencil found at Place. Artist Drew Castle. 200 years on, I think it just keeps going. But basically this artist named. What was it? It was William, Danielle, like D A N I E L L was at the island of Rasei. It says he was drawing these old strongholds, these old castles. And this is one of my favorite parts about it is that a amateur archaeologist, which I wish that that was my hob. Like I wish that's something that I did. He just kind of does it.
Amateur archaeologist.
Yeah. So he was just there and just kind of digging around and found the point of the pencil sticking out, which my favorite part of this article is that a pencil it says was still sharp 200 years and it was still a Sharp pencil, which is pretty awesome. It's almost like a bullet. It's like a bullet pencil kind of thing. I mean, it was custom made in India with a ceramic collar which it says depicts a Hindu bride. And it's believed to be commissioned by the artist's mistress way back before him. Which is just like. It just keeps unfolding as being this kind of fascinating. Yeah, fascinating story, but it's cool read. I'll put the link in the show notes. But yeah, just these amateur archaeologists was just kind of. He's a. This is even. Just even better. He's a chimney sweep. A chimney sweep named Alex Hemming, who is an amateur archaeologist. He was out digging, saw the point sticking up, just barely. And the guy who was with him said if. If he wouldn't have noticed it, it might have gone another 200 years without being noticed because it was just barely even peeking out of there. So apparently in Daniel's journals, there was a description of this pencil that was made by an Indian craftsman at the behest of his Indian lover, Hindu woman.
So my mistress has never commissioned me a pencil.
Yeah.
Come on. Custom pencil. So cool. Article from the Herald, Scotland. I'll put it in the show notes.
Yeah.
I think that brings me to Hester and Cook, which we all have something to say about because we got awesome packages from Hester and Cook that was totally, totally unexpected. I think, Johnny, you're behind this in some way or passing on information because it just showed up one day and there's this big box. And Jane was like, huge box. You order something. I was like, no, it's not for me. Must be. I have no idea what this is. And then felt the weight of it and was like, it doesn't feel like anything people will send me. Unless it's like notebooks or something. But we opened up and it was full of pencils.
Yeah.
So it was amazing. We got some. So Hester and Cook, which I had never tried before. I know. Johnny, you've talked about using their bridge pencils before. My making that up. Or is that true?
My wife's like a giant fan of those. Yeah, yeah.
And they are. So we got. It's just really cool collection of their pencils we got there. Or at least I got. I got a sampling of their jumbo hex pencils, which they have a big, like a wide variety of these jumbo hex pencils. They're just different, basically different color variations on the same kind of thing. One's called the Majestic. There's the stationers, the Excellence. The Hester and the Hester Jumbo. That's is there. It was round, right? There's a round or. No, it was just the white Jumbo. So got that. And the Nashville assorted pencils, which we talked about a long time ago. I don't remember when that was, but they basically had a set of all these different kinds. There was a chalkboard pencil, like white chalk pencil, a bridge pencil, a carpenter pencil, a big round pencil. There's like a whole bunch of jumbos. A bunch of jumbos all in the same white color. And then as well as some bridge pencils and relating to the eye koings we talked about. They're a really cool set of colored pencils.
Yeah. Courtney Cochran, who is the. She's the design and product development director at Hester and Cook, which is like a bigger design brand. They make more than wood pencils. But she's a listener of the show and a big fan of pencils in general, so she at some point sent them on. So. Yeah, Courtney's. Courtney's amazing.
Amazing surprise.
Yeah. Hester and Cook's located in Nashville and I definitely, like, next time I go to Nashville, I totally want to meet up with her and talk pencils. Yeah. I love the, just typography on the, on the sides of some of those pencils, those loose pencils.
I just love that white color. Like the color that they all come in, that like creamy white finish that they all. They're all just perfectly matching.
Yeah.
That there's that one standard size round pencil that I'm just trying not to sharpen because it's the only one I've got. Only one I've got. It's really, really pretty. I'll have to. Have to get more of those. But in each book. And I should. Should also point out that each set you get comes with these little like super skinny notepads, which is also like a cool little, cool little detail. The colored pencils, the assorted pencils and the bridge pencils all come with that long, slender notepad. Very cool. We've been using those around the house and for leaving notes on the fridge and stuff like that. And I like to. I keep one on my desk at school, so very handy.
Yeah.
And they make excellent bookmarks too. Yeah, I do, I do like the one I haven't tried yet, but they have a chalkboard pencil set. Have you seen this? So it's their white chalk pencils. It comes with similar skinny notepad, but it's black, black paper because the white pencils which is really sweet. Sweet looking.
Yeah.
I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to just their whole page of pencil, pencil stuff. But that's all I've got. So cool. There's my six weeks of catch up. My felt six weeks of catch up.
Well, we're in just about at like an hour according to this timestamp. Maybe we should just kind of focus on some of the back to school stuff and then talk about yellow pencils another time. Episode six. Cool.
So for our main topic tonight, we're going to talk about back to school products and try to focus on things that are at least slightly new or things we hadn't seen before. Some of these things we've talked about on previous episodes, they've come up maybe in freshpoints, but we're going to compile them all here and talk about just the new exciting things that have shown up on the shelves, which is always a big deal in the stationary world. Because new things don't always show up on the shelves in the stationary world. Like if you're one of us who walks through the stationary aisle at Target or Walmart or these big stores that are everywhere and you're like, wow, it is exactly the same as it was two years ago. Nothing has changed. But around back to school is when you see them take some risk to try to attract, I guess, kids and students to pick up something new that they haven't tried before. So we're going to divide it into three sections. So we'll just go through each section at a time and all three of us will talk about our favorites. But the best new pencil, the best paper product and then just kind of the best miscellaneous product if you, if you have something else in mind isn't a notebook or a pencil that you just saw that was new. So let's talk about the pencils first. And Andy, why don't you kick it off? Because we're both, I think, on the same page here.
Sorry if I like stole your. Stole what you were going to talk about.
No, no, that's, it's, it's our favorite. So we get the same favorite.
We talked about this, I think when it started showing up on shelves over the summer in freshpoints. But I've noticed, we've all noticed kind of an uptick in striped pencils, which is interesting because of course the Blackwing 56 is a striped pencil. But also there is one that BIC has made one of the extra fun pencils, quote unquote, extra fun, which has the plastic ferrule and a kind of a sawdusty body. Is that the one Charlotte likes, Johnny?
Oh, yeah. She's obsessed with those.
Yeah. I mean, they're. They're beautiful. I love how they look. I'm not a big fan of how they perform, but they look amazing. And they're so cheap. So they have a striped one of those. And then also there is a set of Ticonderogas which are striped and they're awesome.
They.
I'm trying to find a picture of it because I don't have the package in front of me. What I'm trying to see what stripes are.
Does anybody have any darker versions of the core color or kind of like a blurred version? So if it's yellow, then you've got yellow stripe and then kind of like a white yellow or something. Or like off yellow and then blue. Same thing.
Yeah, so. Oh, yeah, here's some in front of me right here. Somebody posted. Thanks, Les, for posting this picture. This is really useful. Yeah, so, yeah, this blue one and this pink one, they have the signature green ferrule. Yeah, I just think they're great. The erasers are also the color of the barrels, which are pretty great too. Like, they're kind of striped along with the barrels.
Are they?
Yeah, mine is. Mine is lined up. So the stripes kind of like are continuous, like down, down from the eraser to the barrel. So, yeah, this is. I mean, and they perform like kind of your standard, you know, Ticonderoga big box store, Ticonderoga. So to me, they seemed a little. A little bit better than some of the, like, random color additions that they've had. But I know they can be inconsistent. So, you know, mine. Mine performed pretty good, but the next package did not.
Yeah, I think these were the.
I enjoyed them quite a bit.
Yeah, these are Chinese, usually the other color editions are Mexican.
Yeah, they're not as nice.
Yeah.
I had one that I pulled out of my desk today, oddly enough, and I don't know if this was like a temperature thing. My room, my classroom gets kind of hot. But I have a. I had a box of these or a package of these that were in my desk and I pulled one out and the finish had cracked open. If you've seen that happen. There's like. It was like on the. Along the side there was probably a two and a half inch opening, like where it started to separate. So it could have been a fluke. Could have been like weird temperature changes in my room. So, yeah, not that concerned about it, but it was. I'd probably still use it. You know, it wasn't like a gaping wound in the side of it. It was just kind of like a line. So something about the finish kind of broke down. I don't know if it was something they were doing that was different to give them that multicolored finish that just couldn't hold up to the pressure or whatever. Still, I still enjoy them quite a bit. And I used them at the beginning of the school year, the very beginning when things were starting out. I was using those a lot along with the Palomino hp. Those are the two that I had in rotation on my desk and just had a big. I had my Cubs helmet pencil cup full of those two kinds of pencils for a while. And now I've since switched to just the. Just the hps. But, yeah, but they look good. It was. It was refreshing to have a new special color Ticonderoga edition that didn't have colors in it that made me just kind of gag. You know, I feel like they've had a lot of those where I'm like, why would I ever use, like a fluorescent or like a metallic purple pencil? Like, that's just not gonna. Like, I'm not. I don't want to use that. Which, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But for me, I was like, ah, I don't use that. Or I. I got the one like, oh, good. I have three different shades of pink within this. This group of pencils. Like, I kind of like the salmon one, but those other two just sort of look gross or.
Oh, gold.
Good. Yeah, that sounds. Just kept happening. And this time I saw the package and was like, ooh, I'll use all those.
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. Johnny, what was your favorite in this category?
2. The I Am Other series from UB. Yeah, you can go to their website and at Target. So they have like, you know, positive sayings on them. So I let Charlotte pick one and she picked the yellow one. And I said, why did you pick that one? And it says that which makes you different, makes you special. And she said, because it's true. Like, okay, these are my favorite pencils.
Oh,
yeah. They're on sale for like $2, maybe less at Target right now because everything's on clearance. And the other one is the star shaped pencils and also the heart pencils from Target. And the brand is Uline. So they came in like a little tube for A$50. So if you hate the letter U,
the letter U in line, that's like a big like, white label brand, isn't it? Like, they make a million different things.
Yeah, they make all of their, like
the new trendy boxes and chairs. And like, I've seen. No, like, yeah, like, okay, I thought maybe I'm mixing up with something else. And like. Yeah, there's a boxing company that sells like shipping boxes and shipping supplies. Yeah. So I was. And they. They also make like miscellaneous, just kind of knickknacks. So I wonder if it's the same company.
Yeah, the pencils are pretty good. They're not as bendy as bics and they write reasonably dark for, you know, being an extruded plastic pencil. Plus, you know, they're shaped like a star, which is really awesome. You've just seen like the Little Prince a million times. My kids kind of went bonkers for these pencils. I might have stocked up on like three packs of each. So if you guys don't have any, I'll hook you up.
I have one of each, I think that you sent me.
Yeah, they're heavy.
Wopexish.
Wopex.
Say, we need to open that door, man.
We made it. We made it into an hour and ten minutes into this episode or to this recording session without mentioning it.
So there was somebody who liked Wilpex at the Wopex pencil I brought to the pen show. They liked it because it was heavier and because it kind of like had that rubbery feel. And they liked the lighter. The lighter writing too. So, Johnny, did you get their name and address? I should have. You have a kindred spirit out here.
How about we switch to best paper products that we noticed from back to school this year? I mean, there's not like. I'm basing most of what I'm saying off of the stuff that's popping up at like Target and Walmart and Kroger, you know, the grocery store. Things that like mass. Mass produced things. Johnny, which one has stuck out to you?
Well, I don't want to steal you guys thunder, but there was that one composition book they had at Target that had pencils on it. It's here somewhere. But I'm just gonna say the right notepads. Kindred Spirit Edition, because I don't think they'd like being called fancy. And it's got the greatest paper ever. So I'm totally copping out of it.
Okay.
Because I've got a lot of them.
I wish more like, kind of mainstream brands would. Would embrace having like ruled paper that's in a different ink like that, that orange ink and the kindred spirit is just amazing.
It's perfect.
So, Johnny, can I ask you, in the blue kindred spirit, do they use a blue ruling or do they use orange?
It's orange.
Okay. I figure probably.
But, like, the. The orange sets off that blue so perfectly. I'm going to totally use it.
Make everybody cry.
Well, yeah, I've definitely. As far as paper products go, I've gotten obsessed with composition notebooks. I've been using a lot of them because I require my students to use them. And I've started doing this thing this year where if they're writing in class, then I want them to see me writing in class so that they don't think like, oh, writing is something that your teachers assigned to you. And then once you get out of school, you never do it again. So, like, I try to show them my writing as often as I can to show, like, hey, you can still write things when you get out of school. It's not impossible. Like, you're still allowed to Mac.
That's a different story.
Yeah, that you'll never use. Don't even worry about. Composition notebooks is what I require them to get. And so I got one and I let Henry pick it out, and he picked me out from Target. It was like $2.50. This finding Dory composition notebook. It's like, oh, funny movie. We went and took him to see it and it was hilarious. Which has obviously come up on this podcast before. I won't do the sound effect, but, yeah, but we gave to me. I took him to school, and so I started using pencils, and I even was busting out fountain pens and glass as we were doing our free writes almost every single day and was blown away by how great it was. I mean, I was using fountain pens and nothing was bleeding through. I was using pencils and it was super smooth. It was pretty killer. So I was excited, so I bought a few more to use for some other projects I'm working on right now. There's great little notebooks. I mean, you can, like, turn noses up to cheap notebooks like that, or even branded notebooks. I just gotta say, if I'm being honest, there's nothing wrong with them. They're great. I could use anything I wanted. I even used kind of wet fountain pens and used, you know, soft pencils that are, like, really dark. And there was no. I had no issues. So check them out if you haven't. I don't even know what the brand is. You know, it's some sort of just big generic brand that Accidentally put nice paper into their notebooks, you know, but they're nice. Andy, did you notice anything in mind or.
Yeah, I guess we're on the same page. I am kind of a sucker for composition notebooks. I don't tend to buy them a lot because I just like. I just don't need to buy more notebooks. I have so many notebooks that. More than I'll ever use. But even when I see them in the world that I just like. I like that there's a resurgence of them because not that long ago, you know, I couldn't even find like a college ruled composition notebook, let alone something not in that, like black and white kind of static slash QR code looking color. Yeah, so I. I love some composition notebooks. I have a couple like, Where's Waldo? Composition notebooks and also some really cool robot ones that I got a few years ago. Yeah, so there were some really great. I am. Other ones.
Yeah.
That I noticed. Yeah, there's. There's that one that has the. Oh, man. The green. Like the green graph on the front. That's pretty great. And I think there was some with like, some cool. Just little, like doodle illustrations in the front too. Yeah, they. They had some great ones. They have one. Mead is making one. I'm sorry, Five Star is making one that. Did you guys have like three ring binders that, you know, you. You could put your own design or like a blank piece of paper in the COVID to customize it.
Oh, yeah.
Somebody made a composition notebook like that too, which is pretty great. So they have those.
That's awesome.
Yeah, they have those at Target. Um, it's. Yeah, Target. Targets. Back to School is just amazing. Like, I. I haven't really noticed a lot of other Back to School stuff besides Targets, and they're always. They're always just on it.
So that's. I just put it. Five Star ones are great.
The chat. Yeah, yeah.
Five Stars in general. They have those, like. They have those composition notebooks that are. Have like the thin plastic cover.
Yeah.
Which are really cool. I bought a couple of those this year as well. Yeah, let me check that out.
Yeah. So can I talk about the miscellaneous product from Back to School?
Yes, go for it.
So this is not a product that you can buy. I took a very loose approach to this. Speaking of target, have you noticed the visual merchandising for Back to School? It's like all pencils and they used.
Yeah, it was designed by a fourth grader.
Really?
Yeah. They had a picture at one of the targets.
Here.
That was the girl that did the doodle. They turned into the main pencil.
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.
Yeah, that's cool.
I sadly left Behind a giant 10 foot long target pencil.
Oh, I like. That was rough.
It was so sad. There's just zero things I could have done with it out here, but I feel like they've just sort of. Last year they had like pencils in the theme too, but this year they really went for it and they used pencils as basically like wayfinding to get back to the back to school section. It's just all over the place.
So I like arrows on the way back.
Yeah, I definitely had to just restrain myself from like trying to find a manager and talk them into giving those
to me or bringing a machete and cutting them down from the ceiling and just running out.
It's mine.
Run.
So, yeah, those are. Those are super cool. I bet there's some pictures in the group. I'll try to post something in the show notes of what those look like for those of you. I imagine everybody has a target near them, but I probably shouldn't assume that.
I took a picture of the sign there where they showed the girl that designed it, but I think it's on my computer, not my phone. Take it up.
Cool. So how about you, Tim?
It wasn't something new, so it's not like a brand new item, but it's new to me and it's just something I've ignored forever. And we talk about gel pens every once in a while as just being generally pretty awesome. And I had never tried an Energel.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man, those things are sweet.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I got a Energel gel pen. It was the needle. It was a 0.7, so it was like a pretty decent sized line. But it was the needlepoint seven. The retractable. I love it. It's been my go to pen at school, like just for, you know, filling in dot. I can't use pencil on like a lot of the paperwork I have to do for school just because it has to be in ink. So I've been using that all the time and they're super nice. I actually bought them on X and I didn't realize they were the needle point. And I got them. I was like, oh, bummer. Needle point. But it actually turned out to be pretty great. So not new to the world, but new to me because I know just from listening to pen addict and Energel is, you know, people talk about it as being one of the Best gel pens out there. And I just never got around to it. I guess just because I had such a ridiculous stash built up of other kinds that I wasn't ready to try something new. But they're really nice.
Yeah.
What about you all? How about you, John?
Well, if you're ready to get rid of your Energel, the new best fast drying gel pen is the paper, mate. Inkjoy gel. Like when the Inkjoice came out five years ago. They are so awesome. They're kind of expensive if you get like a small pack, but they're. They dry really fast, they last forever, they're really smooth, they're comfortable, they're classy. But, you know, they say inkjoy and all the other inkjoy pens kind of sucked. Yeah.
Mm. Yeah, I actually get this neck. It has yellow. That's cool. I had a student who had the black ones like, and I noticed him because the shape, you know, they have the really uniform body and just a rounded off bottom. And I saw it. I for a second thought the kid had a Keras Customs pen. I was like, wait a second, there's no way. And I said, hey, that's a cool pen. She showed it to me, gave it back to her, and two days later she's like, do you want these? I don't like them. And she gave me the pack. And then I just traded her. Like, I just pulled out like some Uniball gel pens or something. I was like, here, you take these and I'll take those. And we traded and I love them. They're pretty cool.
Yeah, the colors are really nice.
We've been talking about pens too much today.
Yeah, this is.
This is bad, guys.
Real bad.
Let's delete this part.
Yeah, at least they're not stupid for pens.
Work your editing magic. I mentioned those too, so we definitely got to get.
I'll just.
I need to record pencils.
I need to record each of you saying souls. And I'll just.
Souls, souls. Or there's just going to be tons of typewriter bells the whole time. Just anytime a pen. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Energy until we start. God dang it. There's some cool new stuff out there. Do you guys have anything else that's in mind? Any new things you wanted to mention?
I was thinking about just bringing up a couple open questions just for the group. The discussion items. What do we want to see from back to school offerings. Just in the world that we haven't seen before.
More keychain pencil sharpeners. I'll answer that.
No,
I think just more brands, like more variety, just like a more diverse selection.
It's probably worth mentioning that a lot of brands like Ticonderoga and like UB and people like that will often release like special back to school brands that are maybe cheaper in quality but also much cheaper in price. I don't know if we've ever actually talked about that before, but mostly it's just because, you know, there's a lot of parents who need to go and buy back to school things and a lot of people don't have a lot
of money or they have like four kids and they're buying them for like a huge group of kids.
Combine in bulk. Yeah. So I think that that's definitely worth mentioning too. This is why we talk about back to school products because it's something that's like a limited release and often it's cheaper in price and sometimes cheaper in quality. But like Target often has like a 10 cent notebook which are basically not that much different than a lot of the other like cardboard, spiral bound notebooks out there. Yeah. I also kind of wanted to mention a shout out. I posted this on my blog and I should probably mention it here too, but did you guys listen to the Art Supply Posse podcast where Heather Ravard talks about school supply shopping?
I haven't heard that yet.
So they were talking about some back to school stuff as well and they were on time with their episode about it. So good for you, Heather and Anna. But I was riding the bus to work and I was listening and kind of dozing off and Heather was basically talking about her love of school supply shopping, which I'm sure that when you were a kid, you love too. Most of you listening. I sure did. And I'm going to read you this quote which made me just like perk up and notice and I wrote down the timestamp so I could go back and transcribe it and I blogged about it. But Heather said that school supply shopping was an emotional experience for me. School supplies represent the part of life that made sense to me, like doing homework and doing what I was told. School clothes shopping represented the things that didn't make sense, like social hierarchy and how to fit in and how to feel like an acceptable human being. School supplies, that was a source of so much warmth and comfort and excitement. And so, yeah, it was a little bit different because I wore a uniform. I went to Catholic school. Did you wear a uniform, Johnny? Oh, yeah, yeah. You didn't wear a uniform, did you, Tim, in your school? Never did Yeah, a lot of public schools do it now. I know, like, charter schools definitely do, but yeah, that made so much sense. Like, there were times during. We called it dress down day when you were allowed to wear, like, regular clothes to school for, like, a special occasion. And I sometimes just pretended that I forgot that it was dress down day because it caused me anxiety to wear clothes that like, everybody else.
At all.
Yeah, at all. It's like the opposite of a.
Never nude.
I was always nude.
No,
but definitely school supply shopping was the piece of going back to school that really excited me and I really loved. And I think, like, probably that's a lot of the reason why I like stationary to this day is it's like an extension of school supply shopping.
I really love that quote so much. School.
School was not my. Like, the other kids in my class, somebody in the group was saying about how kids between the ages of like, 12 and 15 are, like, the worst people. I'm not going to let. You shouldn't comment on that, Tim, but.
I think my views are clear on that topic over the course of time.
Yeah, I definitely, like, felt that when I was a kid that age. And, yeah, school supplies were just a way to, like, you needed them for school. And if you had, like, slightly nicer notebooks or interesting notebooks, like, other people didn't care that much. And I had, like, a Trapper Keeper.
Were they, like, universally thought they were cool? Like, no one would ever be like, oh, nice fancy pen that. Great. Like, everybody's so superficial that, like, you know what? I'm gonna get myself a nice pen. Everybody's like, whoa, what's like. That's something that people always would like. You're never going to catch any. Never going to catch any for that.
Yeah.
Whereas clothes, it's like, that's all you're going to ever catch, so. Totally. Because they're the worst.
Yeah. The traffic Keepers. Like, I had that Traffic keeper that Napoleon Dynamite had in that movie. Like that. That weird, like, abstract art thing that looked like space sort of a little bit. I don't really know how to describe it, but it's what the boys had and the girls had. Lisa Frank, of course.
So. Oh, gosh.
So, yeah, that's the. What episode of the podcast is. I'll have a link in shown as episode 12 of the Art Supply Posse podcast. They talked about that. So that will be in show notes. Just struck a huge chord with me. I sent Anna a picture of me with, like, that timestamp written on my hand, like, of where that was because I didn't have any paper handy.
Yeah.
So anyhow, that's about it for, like, back to school that I had. Anything else you guys want to talk about?
I don't think so.
Yeah.
Oh, I mentioned one thing. There's that one brand of American made plastic pencil cases that are stackable.
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
So they're those ones where the bottom is clear, the top is blue or pink. But these are all one color. The gray ones at Walmart are on sale for, like, 50 cents, and they're like the greatest pencil boxes.
Nice.
I have them every year. I go buy, like, 10 more.
They're stackable, so I need to get like, 60 of them.
Yeah,
they might even be a quarter by now.
Oh, man.
And they're gray, so it's good for pencils.
Look, Dee just posted that same thing in the group, the Advantas super stacker pencil boxes and not in the group.
Oh, no, that's way nicer than what I ordered.
Oh, okay. I see.
These are, like, really cheap, like, for kids.
Yeah, it's good to know. What are you doing over there?
You playing with spoons over there?
My big butt.
All right, that's good a place as any to finish the episode off.
Johnny's big butt. Do you guys watch. Ever watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure? Yvonne said like, well, I want to Pee Wee, but he's like, that's the problem, Yvonne. Everybody has a big butt. Why don't you tell me about your big butt?
There you go. We've been talking about butts for 30 seconds now. Sorry, my brain just is blank right now.
Your brain's all on butts?
Yeah. And all I can think about is butts, but okay. Well, thanks everybody for listening to episode 59 of the erasable podcast. It's been great to be back after this long hiatus. I keep acting like it's been super long, but really wasn't that long. But it's just good to be back. And now we're trying not to get back on normal schedule. Yeah. Now that we've gotten past some big. Some big life events and, you know, nothing big is coming up anytime soon, obviously, for any of us, except the birth of my child, which will be in about a month and a half. So we'll see what we can get in before then, before Lila gets here. But thanks for listening. I am Tim Wasem. You can find me on Twitter imwassum and I'm on Instagram TimothyWassom. Andy. Where can people find you?
I am on woodclinch.com you can read other non pencil related writing at Andy Coffey and I am on twitter at a wealthy how about you Johnny?
I am on interwebs@pencilrevolution.com on Twitter ensolution and on Instagram. My name
M Y N a M
E and everybody go look your instagram sucks.
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If I could just count the time this has happened.