Scribe

Very good.

This. This issue of Plumbago is not PG rated. I would say it would be PG13 rated. Or maybe like a soft rated R.

Hopefully not an After Dark episode.

Oh man.

So come they told me.

Yeah.

I am also Digging The Crown Season 2. Tim, how far are you?

Okay. I. I'm up to episode seven and yeah, it's so good. I'm a big fan. I am not. This is. This is not a spoiler, but. Well, I guess. I don't know. This is on IMDb so I'm going to say it's not a spoiler, but Michael Seahall plays JFK and he's so bad.

His hair and his like. His like Boston accent is just awful. So bad.

That's Dexter, the guy from. Is that who it is?

Anthony Michael Hall.

Do you guys ever see that, that SNL skit? That's Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney. And it's like you have to. The whole game show is like answering questions about which one is which. And nobody knows. You can do Anthony Michael hall and Michael C. Hall. No. So, yeah, his JFK is real bad, but otherwise it's so good. I'm a big fan. So digging that. I am digging right now. Apple Brandy. I'm drinking that instead of my usual rye.

or something, you know? My favorite band is Apple Brandy. It's pretty obscure. You've probably never heard of it.

No, it's. Yeah, we bought some for. To make a Christmas sangria not too long ago and get some leftovers.

Really excellent. I should be writing with a 24, but I'm not. So doing that. I am writing with something we'll talk about in a bit, but a very beautiful, beautiful, but hard to hold pencil that is part of the new Write Notepads edition, the Goldfield. It's a bridge pencil. So it's like very skinny and it's hard to hold, but it makes me feel so fancy. And I am writing with it in my Write Notepads Goldfield notebook, which is an amazing experience, which I'm going to talk about it before you do, Johnny, because you always get to talk about. Right. Notepads.

And then. So if I were to pick the last holiday album I listened to, not like by my choice yet. It was in the car last weekend when we listened to Sia's Christmas album. Sia has a Christmas album? It just came out. It's like a lot of, I think tongue in cheek Christmas Christmas songs. But she does have this one song called Puppies Are Forever. And it's basically for all the people who get like a puppy for their kids for Christmas and then don't take care of it. It's basically like, hey, like, are you gonna love this thing? When it's like old and sick and slow. So don't. If not, then don't get a puppy. So that was pretty good, but feels it's really strange, like. Yeah, it's a strange album.

The last album I listened to by choice was probably years and years ago when she and him came out with a Christmas album.

Yeah, they're both like. I know that like, Zooey Deschanel is not like, you know, everybody's favorite right now, but I think that she's a really good singer. And I like, sort of like the like serious kish kitsch that they have. Like she's. They sound like, you know, like something from the mid century. And her album has like, just the right amount of kitsch. I really like kitschy Christmas songs like Percy the Puny Poinsettia and Grandma Got Ran over by a Reindeer. And like all the bad ones.

Whenever they start to take themselves too seriously like Christmas music, that's when I'm like, no, that's not good.

Are you high?

Well, you haven't.

You haven't lived. Yeah, you haven't lived until you've heard like a dozen or more small Filipino orphans sing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus in this, like really high, heavily accented falsetto.

Soon. Someday. Don't worry.

Cool. How about you, Johnny?

That's probably a good idea. We were lost for the first episode.

I want to hear it.

Darn it.

Beautiful.

Well, who is in the chat right now?

I love Twitter.

Who wrote that? Usually you write those. Johnny. Did you write that for yourself? Are you parking Baltimore? No, they're.

outside, it's a place where you might find a bloody, severe finger.

Nice.

Have you guys.

Yeah, neither have I.

Okay, I'll check it out.

That's amazing.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. We got it together, baby.

I love that gun oil smell on typewriters. Yeah, yeah, it's like a machine shop.

You're such a hipster.

Sorry. I just, like.

Not on this show. I could have an entire Alpha Smart podcast. I really. To talk about the Alpha Smart.

Yeah, they're the original Hemming, right?

Yeah.

It's like 2000, 2003 version of the free write.

We should mention that these were like $300 back in the day, like 10 years ago. And what did you buy yours for?

I'm so excited. I totally didn't know that like. So that. That ebay auction where you got it from is incredible. They have like. Did you see how many they had? They had like a hundred of them.

Nice.

the name of it?

So I learned about the Alphasmart when I was in high school and early college. I had something made by Apple Newton which was like Apple's short lived PDA company. I had something called an Emate, which was their first foray into curvy translucent plastic. So it kind of predated the Bandai Blue Mac imac. And I loved it. It was the power of a new message pad which is about the power of Palm Pilot but like in a laptop form factor. And it had a little ergonomic handle on it and it was fantastic. And I took it with me and I just typed forever on that thing. I love that a lot. And it died. And I just never found another good thing like that until I was in a college like features writing journalism class. And somebody came in and said that they like a like a reporter came and talked to the class and said that they used one of these things to write with. And I was like what is this? So an AlphaSmart. And I was like this looks like a new version of the Emate, the Apple Newton Emate. And so at that point it was still way too expensive to buy. So I never got one. But I didn't realize until you bought that Tim, that they were like this cheap again. So I'm so on board. I need to go on ebay and get one.

Wow.

have just to hoard.

But that would be an interesting thing if you had like a student who you saw a lot of like writing potential in but they were just distract by the Internet. You could just break that thing out and be like here, use this for a little while.

Wow, wow. I'm super excited. I think everybody here, if you want to write distraction free on a keyboard, get yourself a Alpha smart.

Yeah, they have a nice mechanical, like, Cherry MX keyboard on the free rides, but still, that's just way too much.

That's awesome.

And then you posted your. Your gore photo to the erasable account

You're a thing about the Alpha Smart was something I really wanted to talk about, so I'm glad we did it.

Let's start an AlphaSmart podcast.

We should start an Alpha Smart underground Alpha Smart NaNoWriMo community.

Yeah.

That's so cool. All right, all right. The big. The big thing I wanted to mention is Plumbago, which we have talked about plenty of times here before, but they are officially available for pre order, which just basically means that now I need money up front so we can go get it printed. So I have a few things of interest that I just want to mention. First of all, it occurred to me that both Mordecai Lightstone and Father Kyle Sanders and our group have submitted stories so literally, we have submissions by a priest and a rabbi. So I think. I think our new teaser is. What do you. What do you call a priest and a rabbi who contributed to a pencil magazine? Just like a fun joke

Plumbago, issue three. That's the answer. Yeah, they're both really good. Mordecai wrote sort of an invocation about writing with pencil as opposed to other things. We have this really amazing five page typewritten story, like typewriter written story by Harki Jewett, who is in our group as Reason Zebulon. He's really great. It's kind of like a science fiction. I told it kind of felt like a Madam Madeleine Lingle book. Super good. There's a really great series of poems by Vivian Wagner, who wrote about urban sketching in the last issue. There's one that I'm going to try to get her to read and record so we can talk to her about it in the next episode. There's just like lots and lots and lots and lots of really good things. This issue is going to be like more than 60 pages long. It's kind of ridiculous at this point. And I wrote my first short story that I've written in like 10 years. I showed it to our friend Harry C. Marks, who is a multi novelist and he gave me some good feedback. Just a lot of like, you know, sometimes that I use too many commas or I'm using too much like cliche metaphor. Like fantastic feedback. So I have a little bit of work to do there. But yeah, it's going to be 10 bucks on sale right now for 8 bucks. Go get yourself a copy. Oh, did I tell you guys this? So I was wondering, I really wanted to like sweat the font that we used. I wanted to like a really nice typeset font. And I, I was trying to figure out what to do about that and I realized I work at Adobe and Adobe is the like, like the people. Yeah, yeah, the people who like make Typekit, which is like professional typeface and font software. And we, we employ multiple type designers. Like people like Adobe created the font that like the New Yorker uses. Like, it's a, it's, it's Adobe Caslon Pro. And so I was like in the right place to talk about typefaces. So I went to a happy hour at Typekit, where they like every Friday they have bespoke cocktails that somebody invents and they just sit around and drink and talk about type. And I showed up with some examples and I talked to a professional type designer who gave me amazing blunt feedback. But he was friendly and he was patient. So, yeah, he, he was great. So I have a little colophon. So how you say it? Colophon. Colophone. The like Thing where you say what the type is. I have that in the back of the issue, so go read about that. But I'm very pleased with our typeface selection and I hope that you all are, too. So this isn't just me being hyperbolic or, you know, whatever. You should definitely go buy a plumbago if you can't or don't want to get the print edition. If you wait probably a couple months, the PDF edition will be here when the print edition sells out for cheaper. So hop on that. Also, this is probably worth a longer discussion, but I just wanted to talk about. Did you guys get your Baron Fig bags?

Okay. Did you get one, Johnny?

Okay.

Okay.

So I ordered a backpack and I got it about a week ago, and there were some. Some talk about, like, how the color. Like, I got the slate blue one and the color is, like, not exactly what was originally represented. And they had some, like, vendor problems. Whatever. That's fine. I actually really like this one. It's kind of a. More of a. Like a dusty gray blue, actually kind of like it better than they said it was. And I. I really love how, like, slim, lined it is. Like, it's very thin. It's very slim. There's. I guess. I guess if I were to give you. I guess it's less than a hot take. It's like a lukewarm take because I've had it for like a week. It's. It's very nice looking and it's very. I love how slim and simple it is. There are some details missing that I wish was in it. Like, I wish it had a few more, like, pockets and like, little clamps and things inside just to, like, clip stuff to. And I. I think the strap. The straps are just plain, like, cotton or nylon or whatever. I wish it was a little bit more padded, but generally I'm happy with it and I, I appreciate the. Like, I think Baron Fig put their usual, like, philosophy of product design into it, which is, like, very, very simple and reductive and straightforward. And I feel like that this is what this backpack is. So, yeah, I'm. I think I'm a fan of it, but I'm not. Like. Like, I've had better bags in my life, but I think, yeah, I like it because it's from my friends at Baron Fig, and I like it because it's. It's very slim. Like, I. If I stand on a Crowded like, like light rail train during rush hour. If I had a bigger backpack, I feel like it would just get in people's way. But this does not. So that's great. Yeah. So bear and figure. I guess I should also mention. So you guys got. Got this. Recently, we have a. A listener, a friend in Tokyo. I believe he's.

I believe he's British. He's living in Tokyo. His name I can't pronounce. It's M, A, T, T, J, S. Mattis is what I would say, but I don't. It looks kind of Nordic. I do not know how to pronounce your name. Sorry. Mattis. He has an Etsy shop called Remain Stationary, and I actually told him he should post this in the group sometime. I don't. But he. He basically sources and sells vintage Japanese children's stationary. And that means that there's a lot of, like, crazy, like, if you think about hello Kitty, like, hello Kitty's pretty, like, in the American mainstream. But if you think about how kind of ridiculous, like, she and her, like, cast of friends are, like, it's kind of weird. He has a whole series of, like, other characters like that. So we have some pencils by this dog called MC Beans, and the packaging says Carefree.

Carefree. MC Beans makes blunders, but he is a gentle, pacifist dog. And he had a bunch of, like, other, like, interest. And it's made by Tombow. They're. They're Tombow pencils.

Yeah.

Yeah, he sent. He sent us, like, three different boxes, and I. I separated it out. So we each got four of the. Of each of the dozens, but I obviously couldn't. So, yeah, there's just really delightful little Japanese characters on the stationary.

Yes, that's right. You got the Pooh Field one.

So I'm going to. Doing it live. I'm going to check my email real quick, and I'm going to see what his. His thing says, but. Oh, he sent it. He sent us a note and I texted this to you guys, but, okay, here it is. So I will keep a 15% discount active until the end of January 2018. Your listeners in the community want to purchase anything, they can simply use the code erasable FB as in Facebook 15. And that is remainstationary, which I Will put a link to in show notes. So thank you. Thank you, Mattis. This is. These are super fun. Yeah. Last thing I'll mention. Are either of you guys still getting the CW pencil box?

Okay. I am. It's nice. I think it's mostly because I forgot to turn it off, but I enjoy the little things that I get. They sent out kind of a wrap up of 2017, sort of our favorite things of 2017 package and included some cool stuff. Like there is a gold fabric Estelle polychrome colored pencil in mine. There's a MD Paper Products. I don't actually know what that is. MD Paper Products. And a Content de Paris 2B Pierre Noir. It has a big thick ledge on it, which is really cool. And they have some stickers and a patch and a really beautiful greeting card by Iron Curtain Press, which is a great little print company in la. So, yeah, go check out the City of Pencils pencil box. I'm a big fan. Oh, and it also has a little desktop calendar, sort of like how Field notes puts out that little like calendar you can like hang at your desk that I assume Meredith made. That's beautiful. And on the back there's like this little table where you could like, you can put the brand name of a pencil and the nave of a pencil and some notes about it. That's really, really cute. So. Oh, Topher says in the chat that MD is Midori products and Mike does as well. So yeah, the MD MD products is Midori. I did not realize that. Awesome. So those are all my fresh points. How about you, Johnny?

Underwriter.

I don't remember.

Tim, do you want to go or just.

Do you want to.

Who's on first?

Oh, wow.

So I am. I'm a lefty and my mom is a lefty. And so before I ever went to school, I guess anybody who would have given me instruction in my formative years on holding a pencil would have been my mother. But I would say so imagine holding your hand down closest to you and your pencil is above your fingers. Now imagine just slowly rotating that until your hand is at the top and your pencil lead is below. And I would say that most left handers are sort of on the spectrum somewhere on there. So I would say I'm about right in the middle. I usually hold my pencil directly to the right of my fingers. So unfortunately that means that it's a. I'm a smearer. A smearer. And I often. One thing I like about mostly writing in like pocket notebooks is I don't often smear because the paper's a little bit smaller. But I definitely. And I. And I've learned to like write light enough where I don't smear so much. So I. Yeah, I remember in the fifth grade when I guess we sort of like formally learned handwriting and like the proper formation of like, like I think we did it earlier too. But I specifically remember my fifth grade teacher who I didn't like trying to like, she, she. It's funny, she wasn't a nun, but she was, she used to be a nun. Like by the time I had her, she was not. She was not a nun, but she had previously been one and she's just the worst. Like. So I, we had some nuns who I liked, but she would basically come over and be like Andy. Like she would try to like adjust my grip and then like she read how a left handed person writes out of a textbook and I remember just getting so annoyed and snapping at her and just being like, you're not left handed. You don't know. I would like to blame her for my terrible handwriting, but I probably shouldn't do that.

But yeah, I'm a sidewriter, I guess you would call it. But I also know some people who will just turn, turn their paper like at a 90 degree angle and just write completely like sideways.

Yeah, I have no idea. There's no way I could do that. Yeah, a lot of people do that. So any.

Yeah, yeah, so yeah, that's a lot

So don't let any. So my mother, my mother went to school, she's so she's left hand like I said, and she, her teacher tried to get her like to switch to right hand. Like tried to teach the right handed is the proper way. And her mother had to actually go in and talk to the principal and tell them that they will not do this because my mom was forced to write right handed for a while and she did worse in school and she was upset most of the time and she didn't want to do her homework and as soon as she was able to switch back to the left hand, she was fine.

Yeah, that would be interesting.

You know what, Johnny?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you've been in alpha smart buying mode.

It's almost like a bujo bojo bullet journal.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think they, yeah, they look, they look great. Like, I think they're beautiful. I haven't opened it for, like, or I haven't started using it. A, because I'm, like, still using this Baron fig, like, wallet thing, the Pocket Vanguard cover. So of course I have to put a Pocket Vanguard in it. So I'm still in the middle of that.

I'm still a little bit mad at Field Notes, so, yeah, I'll open it eventually. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, we talked about it the last issue, the last episode, but. And it's fine. I'm not really that mad at Field Notes, but I just. Yeah. I have a lot of other, like, pocket notebooks in my life right now, so I haven't, like, dug into it too much.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's very prescriptive.

I thought it was part of the charm. Yeah.

Yeah. They were badly stamped. Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, go on.

I do have to say that I think, like, you know, that sort of, like, pseudo, like, checklist layout that they have. It's a lot like word notepads or word notebooks. But the word notebooks are great because they are lined anyway. And it's really easy to ignore those check marks if you want. Whereas the way, like the alternating. What am I saying? Like the alternating colors, like the gray and the white and the gray and the white, makes it a lot harder to just use it like a regular notebook with the resolution. So it feels a little bit more prescriptive to me.

I loved Ambition.

That cracking open the COVID and little sparkles of the gold gilding going off is one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. That's like an ASMR Instagram video.

What does he know? He spills beer all over his field notes.

He's in the chat, so I feel like I could say this

He really likes it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you want to hear my hacking idea for that? That feral?

Put it on one of those, like, slightly rubbery Noricas, like the really matte ones, and make a tactical 24 edition. Looks like titanium Blackwing 24. That'd be fun.

black Wopex and it can be like. Yeah, I'm not even going to say rubber wing.

Johnny, do you want to. Do you want to talk about. Should we talk about Matthias's blog post?

called

he's not really in the Palomino Blackwing camp. He's not really a big fan of practices and their marketing and their reappropriating the Blackwing brand. But he did have. He did have a good idea or a good point in that he kind of led us through what he guesses the thought process was. And it's funny that we had the same thought, but we drew different conclusions to it because he was like, oh, we have to make a pencil to honor a woman. So Ada Lovelace and 16.2. And so I see that. I'm like, great. They're having the forethought to say, oh, hey, we need to step out of ourselves. We're all like, I think mostly white dudes are just dudes at blackwing, and we need to. It's about time we have a woman or a person of color or something. Something Else, like as a tribute. So I'm on board with that. I think Ada Lovelace is cool and I guess I don't care about the math that much. Although Ada Lovelace would care about the math and Charles Babbage would care about the math. But that's not my bag, I guess. What do you think, Johnny? About 16o. And it writes really well. I think it's a. It's a 602 core and I love the way it feels that like satin finish that feels like a Baron fig Archer to me in like. Like it's balanced differently but has that same like satin feel to it. What do you think? What do you think about it, Johnny?

Can you imagine?

It takes so long. I mean, we don't know their numbers, but I'm sure that's a lot.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Did you see somebody made a like Star wars lineup out of the black wings. They took a 530 and it was C3PO because he's gold and they took a. He took the Yankees one because it's white and blue, like R2D2 and then the Stormtrooper one and then I think they took a 24 and it was Darth Vader. I can't remember who it was who posted that. I'll have to look that up. But it was great.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was a big fan.

Well, I mean, for you. No, the. The volume one was fine. Really. It just.

Just fugly.

Volume guts.

Yeah.

That was. That was great. Yeah.

Should we talk about the Blackwing 504?

That's why we called it. Some of us called it the Blackwing 504 because you got a 504 error for the server being timed out. So, I mean, Blackwing 1917 is fine, but definitely the 504 is more fun.

I wonder. I wonder because it has such a different, like, because it's an extra from a core, like in a natural finish. It's such a completely different, like, feel to it. So I don't know. I mean, I'm sure that's not why it doesn't write the same, but you're right, like, there's something a little bit different about it.

Yeah, I'm a big fan and I'm definitely. I feel like I'm going to use three of them and put the rest of them away because, like, yeah, I should. I should hoard these for a while. I'll try not to use too many of them. But I do have to give a major shout out to. Oh, who was it in the group? I think it was. Oh, I'm looking through my. Yeah, Paul Hoffman. So he organized a really amazing. Oh, hey, Paul, you're in the. Yeah, you're in the. In the chat, you. So Paul organized a very fantastic, like, swap. It was basically like, hey, if you are a member and you ordered two dozen of these, would you donate a dozen to people who are not members and just like, like, give away one. One pencil. And so he got. I think he got everybody covered. He had like 50 some people who wanted to get a single and he had, like, enough people to give them away. So, Paul, that was an amazing thing you did. You should be proud of yourself. And this is. This is why even though, like, sometimes social media can get kind of hyperbolic and reactionary and full of hot takes, something like, our community is still, I think, a net positive just because of stuff like this. So, yeah, that was. That was really cool. Yeah, so that, that's. That was the 504. I. I did love the limited edition. I. Yeah, I didn't quite love like the way they went about it, but yeah, I'm glad that this exists and I hope that something like this is still added to the regular lineup.

I don't want to get all cocky, but I definitely think that if that happens, I'm just going to call it the Blackwing Erasable because our community basically designed this thing. Yeah.

We will give you our make it

Can you talk about my Chris Roth from Right Notepads and company who's based in Baltimore, Maryland. Perhaps you've heard of it. Had an edition where he came out with. It's called the Gold Field and I'm. Nope. You know, you got to take it over because I can't remember that boxer's name. Johnny, sorry, I failed.

Yes. He came out with an addition.

Yeah, Joe Ganz, he's a boxer. He had a club called the Gold Hotel. Hotel. Never mind.

Johnny knows more about Baltimore than I do, surprisingly. Yeah, Johnny, take It over.

Well, this, this edition is just like, I think so. I, I think kindred spirit remains my favorite right. Notepads edition. But I think that this has taken over second place. It is amazing. I like, there's nothing, there's nothing I don't like about it. Like, the box that it came in is super thick and luscious. This, like, this doesn't even feel like, like cardboard. It just feels like, it feels like plastic, but it's made out of cardboard. And it has this UV spot color on it that's very like, has these Victorian like floral patterns. And then Joe Ganz is like cut out on the front of it and then he uses this bright, bright, bright gold leaf, like gold stamp, says the gold field. And then like the stuff on the back and it's, it's amazing. And then you open it up and it has. So it has like black, black notebooks with like the gold stamp on it. And it has also a very faint Victorian style, like floral print, like ornate spot coating to it. But it's not as. It's a lot more subtle. So when you look at it straight on in the sunlight, you don't see it at all. But the moment you turn it, you can see that pattern and it just look, it looks amazing. Um, yeah, Mike Hagen in the chat is saying that it's 24 gold, 24 karat gold stamped, which I believe it. I, I wouldn't be surprised if like Chris has gone like way into the hole for, for these things. Like, they're so well produced. I hope that he made some money off of it. Johnny, you probably know the intel, but I won't press onto that.

Yeah.

I messaged Chris yesterday just to tell him how amazing it was when I got it. And he says that so he has like a big picture of Joe Ganz on his wall. And so every edition came with like a little almost like a baseball, like trading card of him. And he said that they, he used that, that picture that hangs on his wall for the scan for this thing. So yeah, this isn't like some fly, like some fair weather fan chip of Chris's. He's like a huge, huge fan. Which is cool and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first limited stationary edition that pays tribute to a person of color, isn't it?

Taking this long, guys. Yeah,

Hell yeah, I'm going to do that. So I have to talk about these pencils because to me this is like the star of it. And I actually today just bought six more of those pencils on the website. But they're bridge pencils, which means that they are very thin. They're probably, I would say they're like 2/3 the diameter of a regular size pencil. So they're pretty skinny.

They're exactly those. I'm. I'm assuming they're both made by Musgrave. Um, okay, but. But for some reason, like whenever Chris is like a Musgrave whisperer because he, whenever he gets his pencils made at Musgrave, they're always so much nicer than other Musgrave pencils being made. For example, the Franklin Kristoff pencils. But yeah, Musgrave is the only people in America and as far as I can tell, the only people I've seen anywhere that have bridge pencils still. And there's been a lot of talk about, like, why they're called bridge pencils. And I think the popular theory is that they're thin enough to tech, to tuck into a deck of cards

you, like when you're playing bridge. So when you're done, you keep, you keep score with it and then you can just tuck it in your. Tuck it into your cards. So I'VE have, I have a few vintage bridge pencils and I have some Hester and Cook bridge pencils but this one, I mean I love it because a, like every right notepads pencil is left handed so the, the stamp is printed so it's right set up when you hold it in your left hand because Chris is a fellow lefty. But also just, just, just like the black, dark black pencil and the bright, bright gold feral and then the, the gold field stamp on it. So I can't say enough good things about this edition. Chris, this is incredible. Even, even Brad Dowdy said, I think he said that this is the best, this is the best pocket notebook currently made out there right now by, by red notepads. So I, I agree. Yeah. And he's definitely like the smallest shop I guess you would say out of people who at least I can tell are making them. So yeah, this Goldfield edition is so good. I hate to just. I just took up. I just monopolized everybody's time there. So sorry. Yeah, you covered it all.

Nice.

Yeah.

Just use offer code with free shipping.

I do want to mention real quick.

This is a trick I've learned from, from right notepad shopping cart is which. Okay so last, last episode I had some, some words for right notepads. But I can only assume he was working on this thing because he's. And I never said it's like creativity isn't amazing. So if you leave items in your shopping cart in the situation where you don't have free shipping, like when you have to pay for shipping, just leave the item in the shopping cart for like a day. And then you will get an email saying like, hey, you've abandoned items in your shopping cart. Check out with this coupon code and get free sh. So, yeah.

Yeah. Anyhow. Yeah. Oh, Lenore says in the chat that the paper really glows under UV light. Like it's really bright. That's. I will have to try that. That's amazing. All right. Should we button up, guys?

Johnny, what do you think?

Yeah. How about. This is. These are tips.

How about these are tips for pencil users to give non pencil users a little bit. Like to get them. To get them on our side a little bit.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. I guess my pick would be. Yeah, like, if you were. If you have a bunch of pencils, like, curate your own sample pack if you don't want to do that or you can't do that. I really love the pencils in the sketchbook sampler pack from CW pencils. I mean, they're mostly darker pencils, but there's some really interesting ones. Like, there's a Blackwing MMX in there. There's like, like a Geoso 8B mini jumbo pencil, which is great. Like, I think that a lot of people don't realize how nice a dark pen, darker pencil can feel. So that's kind of a good way to do it. And then besides that, like, I think Caroline's book would be really fantastic just to read. To read about. Yeah, I've been. I've been doing some. I've been at some book swaps lately, and I think anytime I can, I'm going to, like, include her book as my pick in the swap. Just to read about, like, the history of pencils and how. How interesting. Interesting they are and how deep people think about pencils, which I think a lot of our friends who think we're freaks, that's something they don't realize. So that's my gift pick. How about you, Johnny?

Yeah.

I just gave my Slate Pearl sample to a coworker of mine who's a really amazing sketchnoter. She ran out of notebook space, so I was like, take this.

Yeah.

I don't think so.

Happy Christmas, everybody. And Happy New Year.

That's awesome. It's been. 2017 has been. Well, let's not get into 2017, sort of like at large, but 2017, our own personal 2017s and like our little community 2017s have been. Been really fantastic. So there's been so many interesting things coming out. There's been some drama that has happened, but in general this has been great. So I'm so glad we could do another year of this thing.

Yeah. Plumbago. I guess Plumbago technically started existing in 2016, but it really took, took, took life in 2017.

for my blog and Andy Coffee for my Internet website. Johnny how about you?

this has happened before.