This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to episode 234 of the erasable podcast. Today it is just myself, Tim and Johnny. Say hi, Johnny.
Hi, Johnny.
Andy is traveling the world, so he is on the other side of the planet at the moment in Japan. So more on that down the road. But today Johnny and I are just going to be catching up and covering some things that have happened in the past, I guess month since we've recorded an episode. We've been at a slower pace now as we just try to stay above water with the state of the world and life. So apologize for the, for the delay, but we're, we're getting back on it. So. Happy to be here. Hey, Johnny.
Hey.
You doing good?
Can we blame the extreme cold and lack of an Internet for a delay? Even if it's not completely true, that
can definitely factor in it once for a couple hours. Last year I did.
I wouldn't have known.
Last year I lost Internet and we lost power and it was all this crazy stuff. But last year we didn't even like barely have any snow. And then this year we got nine inches almost of snow and didn't lose power and didn't lose anything. So sweet. Go figure.
We have sharp pitched slate roof on our building that's over a hundred years old and things fall off. So someone's car was smashed out back and the kids were like, oh, it broke the sunroof. Like, no, it broke the rear window, the sunroof, the windshield, the hood and the roof. Like, oh my God.
Totaled the car?
Yeah, I'm like, it's just sitting there.
I'm like, is it still there?
So when it happened a couple years ago, the person was wintering in Florida, like trying to get a hold of him, like, dude, your car is smashed. That one they fixed. I guess it missed the roof.
Okay, well, that's good. Your car got Hulk smashed by the snow on the roof. All right, well, let's start out with some tools of the trade, Johnny.
So what are you into? Switch 2 has really slowed my reading down, but I picked up a couple cool books recently. I read a book by a French philosopher called A Philosophy of Walking, which was. And it had a couple slow parts, but like, really, really good. It was one of those sort of, this is the end of my career and I don't care who I piss off, so you'll be pissing people off, but kind of books. It was cool. And there's a new paper back out so it's easier to get. And I just started a book called Finding youg Walden. And I don't like to read books about throwing because they're either like, oh, this dude lived in the woods. You should live in the woods. Or, hey, did you know that his mom did his laundry? And it doesn't matter. This is so terrible. The author spoke in Concord, and I'm like, okay, I'll read that. And so far, so good. She splits up five principles from Thoreau, and the first one is knowing the real cost of something, which is my favorite. The Ruvian topic of, you know, how much of your life you trade away for things. Try to tell my kids all the time. But, yeah, I also have become addicted to the Science Versus Podcasts. If you listen to this before, is there also, like.
Is that like a series of podcasts? Do they have one that's like Poetry Versus? Or maybe that's a totally different podcast. But I. Yeah, but no, I don't know that one.
They had one on caffeine. Of course it was. I think I've read. Or I was listening to a podcast about fluoride, and then it was a bunch of podcasts networked, and they went into this one. So I just listened to that. But spoiler, caffeine's not bad for you. Energy drinks are. And they don't know why. Cheers. Because the crap. But it's. It's got its own flavor and, like, too many ads for drugs. But it's on Spotify, so you can skip them if you're by your phone.
The podcast I was thinking of was it's by the Poetry foundation, but it's called Versus. Like, Versus. Oh, I was just confusing those.
But it's like Science versus the Keto Diet. Like, at the end, they tell you how many citations they have, which you can pull up in the transcript, which I've never done. But their. Their shtick is that it's not crap, so I haven't checked. I hope it's not for writing with. I'm using. We'll talk about later. I don't think it's gonna show up. Test scoring 100 from Musgrave, which has always been a good pencil, but has gotten a facelift. And I forgot what this is called in Japan, but there's a plastic pen from Pilot called the Explorer in America, and they have new matte versions, so this is the Japanese version. And I got black, and I realized I should have bought navy blue to actually match my planner. Talk about later.
Sweet.
So how about you?
I've been. Let's see. I've been listening, or listening To a band that I've, like, heard their name for a long time, but never made the jump. There was something about their. Their band name that just gave me pause, which is not that weird of a band name, but they're called Turnpike Troubadours. They've been around for a while, and I just heard it. It was like, I don't think that's my thing. They're great. They're fantastic. So I was listening. They have a new album. It's called, like, the Price of Admission or no Price of Admission, something like that. But it's a great album. Really, really digging that. And I've been reading a book, which I'm gonna have to look up the title now, but I remember we talked about it on this podcast years ago, but Justin Towns, Earl, the son of Steve Earle, when he died, like, I remember we talked about on the podcast, I remember Andy being like. When he heard about it, he was like, tim's gonna be sad. He was one of my favorites. And he died of an accidental drug overdose in Nashville during the. I think it was during the pandemic, anyways. But a writer from Rolling Stone came out with an authorized biography of him, like, a month ago. It's called what do you do when youn're Lonesome? And it's really good. It's a really great book. And I knew that he had a Johnson City connection, but there's actually, like, a whole section of the book about him living in Johnson City, which is kind of, yeah, wild. It's mentioning all these places right down the street and stuff. But it was before my time here when he was. I think he, like, was here around his third rehab stint, and he was, like, 22 or something. I mean, he was, like, really young or even younger, I think. But anyways, the book is great. So enjoying that quite a bit. Just watching a bunch of Olympics. Really.
I forgot the Olympics are on with the state of the world. Okay, man. School stuff happening.
I think there's, like, three days left. It's been a couple weeks. It's embarrassing, but we've been. We're. We're always like, Olympic nuts. Like, when it happened, so. And I got addicted. You ever played the phone game or heard of. It's the app called Offline Games. Have you heard of this? It's like. It's great. It's great. It's all these, like, little simple games. There's, like, you. It's like five bucks and there's no ads, but they're all these very simple sort of Analog, but on your phone kind of games. Like to play darts where you just like have to stop the things or you drop like Tetris style games, things like that. But my kids love it and so we'll play it and it's. You can do two player and like pass it back and forth. And there's this game I'm obsessed with that's called soccer pool. And it's basically like there's these like pucks and you like slide the little pucks towards each other and then they knock into each other and you try to get them into the goal at the other end. It's really fun. And then the Olympics happened and curling is on every 11 minutes and I was like, oh my God, I love curling. This is like, it's pretty much curling. Like it's like two direction curling. But I've watched a lot of curling and a lot of, a lot of skiing. As far as what I'm writing with, I am using which I'll talk about these later. But I've got the, this Micro Spark notebook that I just got. It's a hardback notebook. And I was cleaning out my, this cabinet here where I've got all my pens and pencils and finally found my baseball retro 51 which I bought I don't know, five, six years ago. It's a really cool looking pen. It doesn't really show like, it's just got a lot of stuff going on. But it's all black and red and white and very cool. It's got a blue liquid refill. I've just really been enjoying that. I haven't used a retro 51 in a long time. They're great pens and. Yeah, so that's me. So we're just going to do like some fresh points basically to catch up on some things and if you want we can just kind of like throw it back and forth since it's just the two of us. But why don't you go first?
Absolutely. So talking about video game and analog games.
Oh yeah. We almost bought that. Yeah, we, we got back into Animal Crossing in this past like two weeks.
We've been awesome. That's what I was going to ask you.
Yeah. We haven't played in a year. Probably like.
Yeah, I have. I started a new island with the update because I had so much of everything. Like this is going to be boring and starting over is way more fun. Plus you know, knowing what you're knowing. Like I better not put that there. I'm not broke anymore.
But we stopped right at the like when I first was playing, I stopped right at the point where it's like my house was. I had all the rooms in the house. Henry had his house. We had like a lot going on but hadn't done the like terraforming or like putting walkways and really like setting up the whole island. So we kind of stopped right at the point where I think it gets fun. So we just decided to keep going on where we were.
It's awesome. So we have to exchange game ideas.
Yeah.
Later. But yeah, my kids have been like kind of obsessed with it. When I played carnival the other night where you get feathers for the peacock named Pave and he dances and wants you to gyrate and yells at you for not gyrating. He's like stupid fun. But yeah, this. I mean it's not erasable. Erasable. But with Switch 2 update 12 people can get on. So we could have a mini party one day.
Awesome. Which could be awesome.
How about you can do one that's not related to video games because you have cool ones here. Right.
Well. But also connected to video games and board games. Henry just got like really fixated. He really wanted to get the board game Life but on Nintendo Switch. And I was like, why would you want to get that? That makes no sense. And he's like, it's. I just really want to get it. It just looks really great. And I was like, that's so dumb. Like in my head I'm not saying this to my child because I'm a nice good parent, but I'm just like it's. It's like no. And it's $30. I was like, no. Anyways, it happened. He ended up getting it. It's so fun. It's so fun. And there's like different. It's. Yeah, it's like the board game plus but there's like all these different sort of like worlds you can do it in. Where you can do it in like a sort of like fairy tale world or you can do it in a city or you can do it in all these. We're having a great time. We played it like three nights in a row. Okay. So yeah, I'll start out talking about this notebook. So I have been just like out, you know, in work life. I've got a new job and then a new part time job with that job. So I've like gotten. I went from very busy and then I think I talked about on here but was laid off from CRS because of all the funding cuts from usaid. But now things are getting complicated again. And so I needed to rejuvenate my bullet journaling. But since I'm kind of like on the move a lot, I decided I needed an option that I could do in my pocket like, that I could keep with me in my pocket a little more easily and just to, just to test it out and see how it works. And so I found these little. I got it on Amazon, but if you notice it has two, whatever you call them, bookmarkers. And so it's a dot grid hardback, fake leather cover notebook. Really nice paper and it has the two bookmarks so that I can mark like the index and the page that I'm on. And it's been fantastic for these first few days that I've been using it. So I'm really excited. So I can just like keep my bullet journal in my pocket. It is pretty small. So like some of the stuff I would usually do with my bullet journal, I haven't been doing the same way. I've also started like trying to remember to write in my journal every day because that was kind of the kind of where I think you might do this too. But they were kind of blending together where I was like journaling on one page, which I liked. But with this, it's so small, it's like, oh, but I've got the other journal going, so it's going to be fine. But I really like this notebook and they're, they're pretty cheap. I mean, I think it was like 10 bucks for two of them.
What?
Yeah, it's similar in quality and for all I know, it could be the same company that makes those paper age ones that I've talked about before. Like, I mean, they feel very similar, but packaging was totally different. So probably not. But yeah, great notebooks, Microspark, pocket notebook, dot grid. But I was just shocked that it had the double bookmarks just to make it much more like a bullet journal kind of setup.
It's cool. When you said microspark, I thought it was going to be like E paper.
Yeah. Or microspark. I think I have an amp that's called a microspark Finger Guitar or spark
what it looks like. And the name Don't. Don't light up. I like the book better than the name.
Yep.
So I mentioned earlier the test scoring 100 and the only fault I can find with this pencil is that it's not made of cedar. But I don't know if this is going to show up for those of you watching at home. But they used to have a silver ferrule and a pink eraser, which I always like. That's a good look. But they recently made a black ferrule with white stripes and a white eraser, and it's like, killer.
Yeah, I dig.
Looks more expensive. And if you open the tab on your browser, the tab at the top will have text that's not on the page which says, like, Musgrave soft core pencil. And like, oh, it just sounds cool to stay softcore. I'm not referring to. Not as opposed to hardcore, just that their advertising being very soft.
I'm actually kind of shocked that so much time's gone by that we haven't, like, connected those two, like, naming conventions.
This is true, especially as I enter middle age and I prefer a pencil that's not as soft anymore. In book binding, I like to have a hard pencil and a soft pencil around. And this has become my go to soft pencil, which is awesome because then, like, you know, they get short really quickly, which is satisfying. Like, why not buy a dozen if I'm not going to use them up?
Yeah, that's cool.
And they still come in that great box, so they're. They're cool.
Do your kids ever watch or. Do you ever watch Dude Perfect videos? Do you watch those, like, those guys that they do, like? Yeah, it's like a huge YouTube channel. It's like they do. They started out doing, like, trick shots and stuff, but anyway, it doesn't matter. But they have this, like, one series they do where they. Every member of the group has to bring something that's called cool, not cool, and, like, show each other, and then they vote if it's cool or if it's not cool. And my daughter loves it, and so she's like, let's do cool, not cool, but just find things around the house. So it's like, that's awesome. It's like, let's try it, you know? And so I went downstairs and the thing that I ended up finding, it just reminded me when you're talking about, like, a softer pencil I found, and I don't. I don't have one right in front of me, so I don't remember what it's called, but Ana Reinert sent us indelible pencils. Those, like, red indelible pencils. Did you get some of those? She might have sent us different ones probably, but they had like a cap, like a silver cap on them.
What was that place?
It was called, like a copying pencil or something. It was a. Had like a silver end cap on it, and then a silver, like, thing to cover the tip has a little. So I. I brought that. And she's like, okay, cool. It has a cap. And I was like, no, but. And I. I showed her and wrote with it, and I hadn't written with it in years. It was so smooth and it felt so good. And I was like, also, they. They don't make these anymore. And she's like, why? And I was like, well, because it's, like, borderline poisonous. And she was like, cool, that's cool, that's cool. She's like, is it illegal? I was like, I don't think so. I don't know. It's just not recommended for use anymore, I guess. I don't know. Yeah.
And apparently in the last days of the no blot, they were popular for tattoo artists. So I wonder, was that one toxic? Because then you stuck a needle through the marks. I've never been to anyone who did that. But the stuff they print out is that color, when it transfers over. I have a. I don't think they're killing me.
Yeah, I have a. My. One of my best friends growing up, his younger sister, who I also grew up with, now lives out west and is. Has become, like, Instagram famous because she, like, somehow ended up in. What do they call that tattoo work, where they, like, it's like dot, like the dots, like, they just use, like, a needle and they just, like, do it pinpoint point tattoo, man. I forget what it's called, but I'll send you a link to her. Her account where you can see the stuff that she does. But it's like this special sort of, like, slow, specialized way of getting a tattoo. But it's all done with dots, like, dot after dot after dot. Like, by hand.
Yeah, that's how they did it before. Tattoo guns.
Yeah. So she's just going back when you had. When you had three months on the sea and you're like, I'm bored. Give me a knee.
I need to feel something.
Okay, so that. There's another little ADHD tangent for you. But. So let's see, my next one. I'll mention for the next. I. It's been a while since we've mentioned these, but I started using fountain pens pretty regularly lately, and this always happens. I always get to a point, especially during the day when I'm using them, like, for work and stuff, where, like, one of them annoys me because it, like, leaks out or I drop it and I'm just like, screw it, you know? And I. And So I decided to find a pen that was the closest I could possibly find to what it felt like to me to write with a fountain pen. But wasn't a fountain pen to use during the workday. Cause I still use my fountain pens and when I'm writing in my journal and stuff. And I discovered we've talked about the Uniball Air before, but I realized that I had only ever had the micro. It was like the air micro because that's what they sold in like big box stores. But that, that's not like the full size. And so there's like a broader version. It's just the regular Uniball Air, which I had never tried and ended up ordering a pack of these. Do you have any of these? Have you used these before? Yeah, they're amazing.
They're like.
And you can write like. And I realized that I can actually. This is just. I'm showing it on the screen for if you're watching this on Patreon. But yeah, but you can actually like write an angle and get like line variation with it and stuff. And I friggin love those pens. So I bought a dozen of them. I've just been using those all the time.
So kids are obsessed with them. The two older ones.
Oh yeah.
Except when they want to write in something that's not black, they make like
a blue and red.
But they're uni ball washed out colors.
Okay. I've never even tried. I just only use the black.
But I like the design of those pens a lot. The ones that are all black with sort of looks like a circuit board.
Yeah, yeah.
Surely I have really cool looking.
Yeah, yeah.
Right here.
These guys. Yeah, these are. So this is. And this is another of the. Just a different color of the big one. But I, I ended up going through my hoards of my, my hoarding of pens and pencils that are in bins and stuff in the garage and. And there are a couple bins out there that are just a nightmare. I mean it's just like a jumble of all this like of the random stuff that I don't have in boxes. And I was like there's gotta be some in here. Digging, digging, digging, digging. And I ended up finding like 4, 4 of em of the micro ones. So I've got those that I've been carrying around in my pocket to use like in pocket notebooks and stuff and just fantastic pens.
Yeah, I like the micro one better. I find the other one like I don't know what's in the ink but it really bleeds.
Oh, really?
More than any fountain pen I have. But also like, eh. Use better paper.
Yeah. I was using like my journal that I'm using right now is the. Andy sent me that Blackwing Fender collab notebook. Oh, yeah, yeah. He got. Got one of those for me and like through his subscription or whatever. And it works great in there. So. Yeah, so that's. That's that.
So did you try the new Mongols?
No, not yet. No. I've got them in my wish list on online, but I haven't ordered any yet.
They're alarmingly cheap, so I didn't think they'd, you know, be any good, but they're really smooth. The eraser is really nice. The fit is really good. If you've gotten black wings, you know what I'm talking about. Like the ferals on straight and securely. And even the course entering the lacquer, like the really, really nice. So at like six bucks a dozen, I was like, whatever. They're.
They're made by most of them paper mate still.
So I don't know what the deal is because for some reason I thought Musgrave was doing it. But I think it's because their font looks a little like Musgrave or their art does. So it mentions the barrel timer family.
Yeah.
So I meant to read it before the episode and I forgot, but they're digging into the history thing. Like yellow black wings.
Interesting. Like, I. That's not one that I would have guessed that would have been like, revived because it's also like a vaguely racist name or just like reminds you of. Just like. I don't know.
Yep.
I just. That's not one that I would have been like, that'll come back someday. That's one that I was like.
It's not a brand that I think most people who buy pencils remember. Like, I remember them from when I was little, but, you know, I'm older than a lot of these kids who were buying pencils.
I just know about them from my Steinbeck. My Steinbeck Triumvirate. You remember this?
Yay.
A little shrine I've got. Yeah. Because that was the first time I'd heard of Moon. They had the Mongols, which, I mean, yeah, they're good pencils because they were made. It was never hard Faber pencil, but then eventually was made by Papermate for a while. Right. Like after they. Yeah.
Bought them, they're selling them in like
real cheap ones in like, the Philippines. Yeah. It was like in the. I was gonna say in the South Pacific or something.
I really wanted to like them, but they were scratchy, and whenever you picked them out, it was like powder everywhere. And they've eaten natural ones for a while, which were cool. But I think eventually my kids stole them all. They went through a phase. They tend to go to school with adjustment of pencils and come home and be like, dude, I need pencils. Okay, you're cleaning me. I'll kid.
I walked upstairs recently and put probably two dozen or more of those Staedtler Noricas because I had just, like, a huge stash of them. And they constantly were asking for pencils. Like, they're asking to get pencils so I could go get some pencils. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, do you know what house you live in? I was like, I'll get you some. And I brought them up. I think it was like, four days gone. Like, they're just all gone. I was like, I think maybe they took some to school, but they're. I'm probably. I always joke that, like, when we move out of this house, we're gonna, like, uncover a thousand rolls of tape. There's gonna be scissors everywhere, and then pencils everywhere. It's like. And guitar picks. Those are the four things. They'll just be scattered all over our house in every, like, hidden corner.
You could have a goblin. Like, I have where the room I'm sitting in now, I've lost a large pair of scissors, several crafting knives, my favorite bone folder, and really big sewing needles. And I have no idea where they went. They just disappeared.
Is there, like, a. Do you have, like, a rival bookmaker who's just, like, messing with you?
Even. We replaced the bookshelves, and they're. They weren't there. I don't know what happened.
And that's. There's not a whole. There's. Yeah, there's not, like, a lot of places for it to hide. Like, our house has a ton of places to hide. There's just, like. It's just a weird house that's, like, narrow and kind of, like, goes. But you're been to your place, and it's like, kind of. All right, right there. Like, yeah, that's bizarre.
They're all in this one area.
Maybe it's like, Ethan Hunt style, like, operation by some rival bookmaker who's, like, coming in through the ceiling and. Yeah, there's so many of dulling your scissors.
I want to do rebinds.
Breaking your bone folder.
Excuse me.
Let's talk. Let's talk about something Blackwing related Very unsuspected. So Blackwing Pencils has come out with a new product, which is the Blackwing pen. I'm not sure why, you know, like, I mean, I know why they need to come out with something new that wasn't a pencil because they. They maybe are wanting a break from coming out with more stuff. But it looks pretty familiar to a lot of different things that already exist and aren't $175. I mean, in some ways, it's like they're slowly creeping into, like, this isn't a knock against them at, like, Levenger territory as far as, like, customer base. You know, like a movie's for sales. Right, exactly. I said this is not. Not a knock against Levenger because I love ler. But, you know, they're like, yeah, target audience is like, executive types.
Leather binder that matches my leather wallet and my leather carry on that goes in my leather bag.
But, yeah, I mean, I saw it and I just, like, of course, immediately thought of the Baron Fig. Yeah, the. What was the. They even have one that's, like, hexagonal. I forget the name of it. I've got it somewhere. Yeah, the hexagonal squire. They have the. Like, the one that they. So it's even kind of the same shape. So I am. I mean, I'm curious about. It looks like it has a really nice texture to it. I will give them that. Like, I don't have one, obviously, but it looks like it has, like, sort of a matte finish, which I can see being very pleasing. But. Yeah. What do you think?
I mean, when new black wings come out, what makes them a black wing? It's a black wing pencil or the sharpener. It goes with a Blackwing pencil. Like, why. Why does this say blackwing? But. And this is gonna. I hope this isn't mean. And I'm sure if I held one, I might think differently. But, like, this is, like, the most pretentious thing they put out. Like, it's just useless plumbing. People make pens. Blackwing doesn't need to make a pen. Like, not stay in your lane. But it's not. I'm not holding it. So maybe it's awesome, but it doesn't look different than other pens.
Yeah, I mean, it has, like. I'm looking at some of the closeups again, and it has some features that are like. Well, that's. I mean, they definitely put, like, time and care into, like, designing it, because now I'm seeing that. So is it not hexagonal? It's actually, like, two Sided. I actually, I think I was miss. Am I seeing this right? Like, there's like, a flat side and the rest is round.
I hope not, because that sounds uncomfortable.
That's what it looks like to me here. I don't know how I can share this, but if you go to, like, the product page and there's like, extra images and it shows the clicker, which I will say I do prefer a clicker to a twister, definitely. But. But the clicker is, like, round with a flat side. So, like, I think it's round, but just has, like, the flat side that's used for gripping. So I mean that, like, that is like a new. They are bringing something that's like, at least has something different. They say it's ergonomic. And I was like. At first I thought that was hilarious that they said it was ergonomic, because I'm like, well, so a pencil is ergonomic. So why do we need a $175 pen? It's the same shape, but it's not. And that's. There's not really, like, a good view. So it might turn hexagonal, like, as it goes down the barrel. That seems possible because some of the pictures, like the way the shadow falls, I can't tell if it flattens out and decides anyways, probably. Probably inevitable.
Is my memory crazy or was it $175? Cause it's $75. Forget everything I said 70. $5 is not crazy.
Yeah, I. I was not aware of the price, so. Yeah. So we went on a real journey here.
I'm thinking, like, for 175 bucks, it better have a nib.
Yeah. So I don't know.
That's not terrible. And I think if you're a subscriber, don't you get 10% off or something?
Probably. Usually that's how they run things. Okay, so we went from, like, dead silence of like, I'm not sure why, to like, yeah, this is kind of cool.
Never let it be said that we wanted min.
Well, there we go. Here down in the pen features, it says ergonomic quote, half moon shape. So it is not hexagonal. It's just has like a flat side. Which, I mean, I can imagine that being like, kind of nice to, like, rest your thumb on and then use your. You know. Well, depending on how you hold a pen. But anyways, I'm. Crap. I'm more intrigued now than I was before. Hey, we're just being honest. We. We did. I'll say. I came into this wanting to be like, wow, this is dumb. And then by the end of it, well, I'll reel that back in a little bit until I can, like, hold one in my hands. But I do hope that since Blackwing is, like, easier to, like, track down in, like, stores these days, like, they've definitely been routing. So I'm kind of hoping that they might show up at, like, Barnes and Noble or something, and maybe I could, like, see it in person.
I don't know.
We'll see. So speaking of pens, I do have a pen that I kind of am, like, a. I haven't started using it yet, but I'm ashamed that I haven't used it in, like, two years. But I dug it out the other day, and it became kind of a fiasco. But I dug out my Lamy 2000, which I haven't used in years. It's a Lamy 2000 that I bought or traded with Mike Dudek a long time ago and got it from him. And it has a medium metallic nib on it. And I just got away from using it. I don't know why, but I opened it up, and I'm not going to open it up right now because it had ink in it, and it had dried into, like, a congealed ball on the end of the nib, and it fell. Like, a piece of it broke off. And for, like, a full 24 hours, I could not figure out what the hell was going on, because I would just look down, and I would just have red all over my hands. And I figured out that it was coming from the pen, but I was like, where? I. I know it had all that ink, but I didn't have it on me. And I figured out that it was. It had gotten stuck to the bottom of my, like, travel mug, my coffee travel mug. So every time I picked up my travel mug, I. It would just smear, like, concentrated ink. Like, it would just be all over my hands. I was like, crap, I can't figure this out. But it took me a full 24 hours that I finally, like, connected it, because I just picked up my coffee, and I looked underneath, and there was just, like, a blob of ink stuck to it.
This is just, like, what red was it.
It was writer's blood, I think. Yeah, there's actually still. And I got some on my. My desk right here when it first happened. And I was, like, in the middle of a meeting, and I was like, what do I do? Like, I was listening to this meeting, and I had the ink on my hands. I was able to kind of like wipe it and then I just took a. I have some painters tape on my desk that I'd use. I use for like guitar when I'm scrubbing frets and stuff like that. And so I just like slapped a piece of painter's tape over where it hit my desk. It's still there. I still need to like peel that off and like scrub it down. Cause there's. I can. There's still like a ball of ink underneath there. But I. Today maybe I'm going to give it a good long soak with some ammonia or something and just like clear it out and use it because that's too good of a pen not to.
Yeah, diamonds usually clean up pretty easily.
Yeah.
Not as. Not like sheer bond. I'm always surprised. I'm like, no way this is going to get cleaned in like one rinse. Like boom, it's gone.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I need to get using that, using that again because I've been mainly using those airs and my baseball scoring pencils.
Natural or the white? Those are like perfection.
So perfect. It's the perfect pencil. I love it so much. So I've been carrying that one around. But yeah, I need to ink it up and use my Lamy 2000 sometime soon.
So I realized something seasonally appropriate yesterday, my Snotko pen thing, if you can see this on Patreon, they're all winter.
That's cool. Yeah, it looks great.
And for the curious, it's a waterman perspective, a lavender. They did those elements. I don't know what element this is, if it's air or water. I think it's air. And this narwhal horizon, that was sort of like a hatch thing. French chateau, that's what the color is called. And it has a double broad. So it's like paintbrush.
Yeah, that's cool. I've never had a double broad.
There's like gush, but they don't bleed or they don't leak. Rosie's like obsessed with it. She's like, that's so big.
Doesn't. How's that work? It doesn't bleed just because of the ink you're using or.
Yeah, it puts down a nice thick line but it doesn't put down a really wet line. If that makes sense.
That's awesome.
I shouldn't have said paintbrush but I didn't realize how big that pen was. It's like enormous. And the threads for the caps are at the very end of the section by the nib.
Okay.
Weird. I'm looking at them like, why does this look so weird? Oh, that's where the threads are. Yeah.
Yeah. That's interesting. That's. That's one thing with this. With the Lamy 2000. I remember used to bug me, but I'm curious if I've gotten over it, but do you have a Lamy 2000? So, like, it has these little. I don't know if you can see it on here, but it has. See those little, like, tabs?
Oh, yeah.
Which most people. It doesn't bug him, but I guess some point. Some. I opened it now.
Okay.
No, I'm good. I'm good. But you look at that. Can you. Ew. Yeah, I wiped some of it off.
Somebody with it.
Yeah, it's got, like, congealed blood on. Okay. Closing that back.
That's your alibi because you did stab somebody with it.
End of the recording.
A writer.
See if that. The writer's blood. Yeah. So I'm gonna see if that's still bugs me or not. I don't know. See. Yep.
Which one has that Waterman? Koren, I think. But they're really small, and evidently if you always have it at the same direction, they'll wear out. Really poopy. Because it's not a cheap pen. No, it's pretty pen, but. And it looks like it would fill like the 2000, but it's just a converter. Yeah, that's the other cool thing. Aside from a couple of the most narwhals are piston. It's like so much ink.
So much.
I was cleaning my Christmas 2023 pen, which was full of wild strawberry, and the piston came out as I was cleaning it. It was like bloodbath all over the counter.
Oh, no.
But luckily, it's. That color doesn't look like blood. You're like, wow, an alien died in here.
So I find that what red is in this one I've got. I was using this Twisby Eco. That's like the. Yeah. Piston fill, not piston filler. What do they call these? Has like the spring, like a vacuum sort of thing. That's a good pen, but not super smooth. It's not heavy enough, but I like a little weight to my pens.
But some of these narwhals could be kind of beefy. Especially the. They did a titanium one, like a black titanium that was like, you know, I'm going to rob a store with this and then go write about it.
Yeah. I like a heavy. I like them to be heavy because I have a really light touch on, like, holding the pen. Like, I just barely even, like, hold onto it. And so if I'm using a light pen, I have to, like, sort of bear down. I have to, like, really squeeze to, like, hold onto it. So I like a pen that's got some weight that will just kind of sit in my hand. But that the eco is great for, like, just throwing your pocket just because it's got that big cap on it. But it's too light. So I think I'm going to ink up the Lamy 2000 when I clean it up with. I haven't used it in forever, but I've got the. I think it's. Is it Waterman or. No, it's. It's the. The Einstein Gray Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc has. It's like an Einstein gray with, like, a little, like, sparkle in it.
Oh, cool.
I've got. I was. I cleaned. Like I was saying earlier, I cleaned out my stash. Like, the. Had all my blackwing boxes and pencil boxes and inks and stuff and was just finding all this stuff that I just didn't even remember that I had.
But fountain pens and pencils, like you find in the garage, clean. It works like. It also Unibaught airs work. I found some that I bought when they came out, like, way over 10 years ago. They were. Have you smelled it? There's something in the ink that smells funny.
Oh, I'll just.
Not in a good way.
Not my head.
Terrible. Like, diamond blue inks all have this, like, sweet, detergenty smell. Like, in a good way.
Yeah.
I wish I said to somebody, this reminds me of you, and they were insulted. I thought it was smell. Sargasso Sea Blue.
Pretty interesting. Yeah.
I'm in, like, super blue kick lately. I think all three of those pens have blues. But Polar glow from. I think you have this too. That is, like, almost perfect blue.
Well, I think I have a sample of it. Yeah. From when I.
Who's a Vi Diamine. It was their first ink fat.
I think I got. Yeah. I bought at some point from, like, Goulet or something. I bought a sampler of, like, they're like wintry colors or something like a couple years ago. So I've got that to see if I still do. Yeah.
I've been using this paper in book binding where it'll show you all that nice sheen and stuff. Like Tomoe river. But dry in less than a day. It'll actually, like, completely dry.
Yeah.
River doesn't. And you can use the other side. Like, not. I can Use the other side. But you can really use the other side. Yeah, but I'm just sending you something with this paper.
Cool.
But yeah, I, I, I really like blue sheening inks, and I probably own, like, a lot of them. And they're probably all diamine because they make them all. And organic studios.
Yeah.
So they're local and I don't know if they still make inks. Oh, really? I'm trying to find one of theirs
that I bought at the pen show.
Did you get the Thoreau one? No, I think it's crazy.
I don't remember which one it is. Opta dig it out.
But they have an Edgar Allan Poe raven red. That's pretty cool.
That might be the one that I bought.
And there's a. It sounds like something Unicorn blood that Rosie wants, but she tends to let her pens get inky. And that was shimmer or get clogged up.
Yeah.
But I'm trying to track down the Walt Whitman green Leaves of Grass green, but I can't find it anywhere.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, those things are cool. But, like, there's that nitrogen one where you have to keep it, like, in a sealed bag because if you walk by, your hands are blue and it never dries. I have one more fresh point that related to black wings. So in Baltimore, at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is near Johns Hopkins, where they have the famous cone collection from the cone sisters who lived in Paris for a while. They, in their gift shop, sell a lot of really cool stationery and black wings. And you can get open stock black wings going back because they charge, like, a lot of money for them, so nobody buys them. But they had the Fender notebook, which I almost bought, but it was the last one and I knew I wouldn't use anytime soon, so I didn't buy it. But the reason I was there was for the Amy Sherrill exhibit for folks that don't remember. She wrote she made the portrait of Michelle Obama that was at the portrait gallery. And there was going to be a show there that I'm not sure who censored it. And they wouldn't let her show the painting that was a trans person that sort of looked like the Statue of Liberty. So, like, the New Yorker put it on the COVID and the Smithsonian didn't want that. So she was like, well, whatever. So she did the show in Baltimore instead. And it's here through April.
So not awesome that that's happened to her, but awesome that you can see it. Yeah, I saw portrait.
Sorry. And they have the Michelle Obama portrait there and the big, giant trans post painting. And a lot of the stuff in the show is from private collections, so it's something like, you'll be able to see this again together. And she. She has her studio here in Baltimore City.
Wow.
So it's awesome. So if you're anywhere near the mid Atlantic, it's definitely worth a trip. It wasn't expensive. It's like 18 bucks. Kids are free.
I saw both the Obama portraits several years ago when I was in D.C. and they're. They were just incredible. I mean, they're both great, but her. Hers was just like. I remember seeing pictures of it online or something and not knowing, like, the size of it and just like, the scale and just like, when I saw it in person, it was just kind of like, whoa. It just like explodes off the page. It's really cool.
Yeah. And a lot of them, she. She likes Lavis. So you sort of like, meet the painting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how it was there. It was like, borderline, like, just leaning up on the wall.
Yeah. I've never seen, like, that kind of concentration of security there before. And, like, they have some really valuable stuff. It was, like, weird. Half the people in there, like, worked there. Maybe they got threats. I don't know. This is Baltimore. We don't do stuff like that. Burn cars and not painted. Would you like to button up beyond our episode?
Yeah, let's do it.
Andy shares a hello.
Yeah, Andy says hello. Andy, we miss you. If you're listening to this, hope you're enjoying the other side of the world. We've been enjoying the pictures, so keep them coming if you hear this.
Good rhyming.
Yeah, that looked amazing. All right, well, thanks for listening, everybody. You can follow us on the different social media sites if you'd like to. You can support us on Patreon, which you can find at Erasable Us Patreon. And there are different levels of support. All of our supporters get certain bonuses, like a bonus episode. We'll do Indelible Inc episodes. We haven't done one of those in a while. We're overdue with for those. So there's. There'll be one of those coming. Coming soon. But you can support us there. That helps us keep the podcast running, helps us pay for the hosting fees and all that stuff. So we really appreciate all of our patrons and especially our patrons at the producer level, which is 10amonth. We've got some of those here that we'd like to thank. So thank you to pdxj Morris Reiko Henning, Chris Berry, John Schroeder, Ellen Dana Morris, Liz Rotundo, Melissa Miller, Angie Aaron Bollinger, Ida Umphurs, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Tkuk, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, John Cappellouti, Stephen Thanksali, Aaron Willard, Millie Blackwell, Michael d', Alosa, JAFX in the Midwest Mary Collis, Kathleen Rogers, Hans Noodleman, and John Wood. So thank you so much for listening to episode 234 of the erasable Podcast, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Do you like our podcast? Most people like our podcast, but if you like our podcast, maybe we'll turn it off.