Unconventional advice: Don’t schedule time for journaling

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Have you ever googled something like, “how to start journaling” or “journal tips for beginners?” If so, you’ve probably come across one piece of advice that is suggested consistently on pretty much every single web article that has to do with keeping a journal/diary/whatever: you’re supposed to make a specific time in your schedule to write in your journal, and do it at that specific time every day.

That’s some bunk, yo.

I journal regularly. Probably excessively. But for a period of time I tried and tried and just couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until I broke the supposedly iron-clad rule that says you’re supposed to journal at a specified, consistent part of the day that I was able to make it a regular part of my life.

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Pencil Review: Lyra Groove Slim

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Going all the way to Thailand to find a German pencil to bring back to Alaska may seem a bit counterintuitive, but that’s the story of three Groove Slim pencils from Lyra that came into my possession earlier this year. Given the state of globalization, and the fact that many German (and other!) pencil-makers crank out product lines in Asia, I shouldn’t be too surprised, but still yet, it was quite intriguing to come across these pencils in a chaotic Bangkok stationery shop.

With a triangular shape, notched grip barrel, and playful logo, these pencils place an emphasis on ergonomics, probably for students (it even has a space to write your name so your klepto classmates don’t make off with it). Details on the graphite Groove Slim are hard to come by; Lyra’s colored pencil version seems to be a much more prolific product. Nonetheless, I’ve dug up, tested out, and otherwise obtained as much information as possible and done a thorough write-up on these strange and interesting pencils.

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Eraser Review: Helix vs. Hi-Polymer vs. Arrowhead pencil cap shootout!

Jesse5 Comments

Eraser caps are kind of a big deal. A lot of times high-end or exotic pencils don’t come with erasers at all. Then there are the more mundane, everyday, school and office pencils; sure, they all have erasers…erasers that tend to be awful. For those of us accustomed to having an eraser handy at the butt-end, this is a problem. The solution is adding a pencil-cap eraser.

OK, but which ones? How do I find one that doesn’t suck as bad as the pink smudge-master “erasers” that pencil makers seem to be fond of? I, the Polar Pencil Pusher, am here to take some of the guess work out of surmounting this obstacle. I obtained three of the most commonly-available, affordable eraser caps and put them to the test to see how they perform. Then I ranked them to crown an overall champion.

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Chicken scratches about pencil blogging

Jesse1 Comment

I’m about a month into my contribution to the pencilblogosphere and my interest hasn’t waned. In my personal experience, that’s been kind of the threshold for whether or not a blogging project will sustain itself long-term, or just be a passing thing that falls to the wayside as I move on to rambling about a new topic.

I also received a mention on Bleistift, a pencil blog that is on my personal routine reading list, as well as a kind note from its author. That was followed by a bit of actual traffic and comments to the Polar Pencil Pusher blog. So, I take those as two signs that this blog might actually become “a thing”, as the kids say. Lately, due to these milestones, I have been thinking about where things may go with this blog, and decided to note some of those thoughts here.

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Sharpener Review: X-Acto Vacuum Mount manual helical sharpener

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I’m sure you can imagine what a quick trip to the grocery/big box/etc. store looks like for me. “Yeah babe, I’ll run out and grab some bread, be right back!” I tell my partner as I run out the door. An hour later I return with the bread…and a handful of random crap from the art and/or office supply aisles.

That’s more or less how I ended up with the X-Acto Vacuum Mount manual helical pencil sharpener (sidenote: I’ve also seen this or a similar product marketed as the “bulldog”). A quick pop into Wally World for some Oreos to comfort my beloved after she sprained her ankle necessarily included a trip down the office supply aisle. I’ve pretty much picked that joint clean of anything that looks promising or even interesting, but occasionally new surprises pop up, and I’ve been curious about hand-crank helical sharpeners as a happy medium between noisy electrics and bladed hand sharpeners. And there she was: the X-ACTO vacuum mount manual sharpener for the low, low price of eight bucks. Sold!

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New writing instruments of the Asian persuasion

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The postman has been nice to me. Last week he delivered some weird Japanese pencils I ordered off of Amazon, and some weird Chinese pencils I ordered off of AliExpress. I also realized that I haven’t written up a review of one of my favorite pencils — the Tombow 8900 — of which I’ve got a handful just kind of laying around. And then I took my kids to Blaine’s Art Supply this weekend and you bet your ass I can’t walk out of that place without buying something, so I grabbed some Tombow Mono pencils to add to my workload. I guess if you like Asian pencils, the coming weeks will be full of fun reads around here. Of course I still have a bunch from my Thailand trip, and some miscellaneous buys.

I’m afraid that if I don’t pace myself I’ll run out of pencils to blog about eventually, but with the backlog I’ve got to review and more coming in so often, I doubt that will happen any time soon.

Pencil Review: Elephant Blacklead 2B (bonus eraser!)

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In February of this year, my partner and I took our first ever trip to Thailand. In fact, it was the first time either of us had been to Asia. We had a great time, made a lot of memories, picked up a little Thai, and learned a lot about their history and culture. Oh, and their cuisine, of course! We really tried our hardest to stay as far away from the tourist areas as reasonably prudent, and engage ourselves with the locals. Much to my delight, I learned that Thai folks seem to have an appreciation for stationery shops, and I made it a point to wander as many of the dusty, cramped, mom & pop pencil and notebook stores as I could. That’s where I found, for the low low price of 35 baht, a dozen sharp-looking, dipped-end, 2B Elephant Blacklead pencils (with a free eraser, even).

Elephant Blacklead Pencils are made by DHA Siamwalla Ltd. of Bangkok. DHAS has been in business for over 100 years, and is a manufacturer of many of the office supply products found in Thailand, as well as a distributor of many international brands there. Although the Elephant Blacklead Pencils are made by a Thai company, for Thai distribution, they are actually made in China and come in both 2B and HB form. They also, apparently, come either eraser-capped or dipped. I happened to pick up a pack of dipped 2B pencils. And now, after hoarding them for months, I’m finally ready to sharpen them up and write up a review!

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I joined the Twitters

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Because of course I did. So follow me as I write about writing about writing. @PolarPencilPush is the handle. If you need more analog stuff on your feed, you know what to do.

I’m a little miffed that I can’t fit the entire “PolarPencilPusher” name as my twitter handle. I mean, they can expand the character count from 140 to 280 but they can’t let a person have more than 15 for their username? Oh well.

I’m also considering starting an Insta. I think it would be a great format (if I can get some decent lighting for my photos, anyway). But ya’know, one step at a time.

Eraser Review: Papermate Pink Pearl

Jesse2 Comments

Hey man, we all make mistakes. Some of us more so than others; that’s why one of the reasons I love writing with pencils is that they’re erasable. But we pencil geeks know that once you get into the realm of exotic pencils — Asian pencils, “drawing” pencils, etc. — sometimes they don’t actually come with an eraser. Of course, even those of us who stay safely within the realm of #2 “school and office” pencils and have an eraser always at our penciltips know that not all erasers actually, well, erase. So I reckon if I’m going to write a blog that focuses heavily on pencil reviews, I should review a few erasers while I’m at it.

What’s a good review without a benchmark? Something ubiquitous, middle-of-the-road, and easily obtainable to compare against, which you, dear reader, are probably familiar with? With those criteria established, I ran across the street to the office supply store and picked up a three-pack of the most cliche eraser I could find: the Papermate Pink Pearl, which will be the subject of my first eraser review.

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THROWBACK Pencil Review: Faber Castell Velvet 3557 #2

Jesse5 Comments

The Velvet 3557 had a long and convoluted history during its run. It was originally the Venus Velvet, before Venus was bought by Berol, who was eventually bought by Faber-Castell USA. In the mid 1980’s, FCUSA also bought Eberhard Faber, and by 1994 had applied that brand to its pencils rather than the Faber-Castell brand. Finally, the American branch of the Faber-Castell company was gobbled up by Sanford, which eventually merged its numerous pencil brands and product lines into the handful that now compose the Papermate lineup. And that’s the story of how the Velvet 3557 pencil was shuffled around from company to company until it finally went extinct.

But, as luck should have it, I happened upon a lone survivor of the Velvet line. We can deduce from the above timeline that this particular pencil was probably manufactured way back in the late 1980’s or the early 1990’s — almost as old as I am. Is this another vintage classic that fell victim to corporate consolidation? Or was it a weaker species that was doomed to fall to the wayside once natural selection ran its course?

Let’s sharpen it up and see!

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