Pencils

Dangerous Pencils and Fountain Pens 6

16 Apr, 2018 in Fountain pens / Pencils / Seen in the wild tagged Bosch / Plane / Sky News by memm

What a cruel world:

In the real world…

…people seem to be taking planes hostage with fountain pens.

Look at this headline from Sky News:

An Air China flight had to be diverted after a passenger held a crew member hostage using a fountain pen as a weapon.

Picture from Sky News (Image © Sky News)

In the fictional world…

..people seem to get tortured with pencils. In the TV series Bosch this pencil is referred to as the Black Guardian Pencil.

You might think the torture is down to the pencil being so scratchy – or so overpriced and doesn’t keep it’s point …but the fictional world is far more physical when it comes to stationery torture.

Last chance to look away…

Bosch: The Black Guardian Pencil

The images in this blog post have been taken from Sky News and from the second episode of the fourth season of the TV series Bosch. I believe that the use of the images shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

Kaweco’s Apple Pencil Sleeve is out now 5

26 Feb, 2018 in Kaweco / Pencils tagged Apple / Kaweco by memm

The news a few people have been waiting for, especially after this product has been mentioned on the Pen Addict Podcast #294:

Kaweco’s Apple Pencil Sleeve is out

Image © Kaweco / Mostwanted-Pens

You can get all colours from Mostwanted-Pens.

Thank you to Sebastian Gutberlet for this information.

The images in this blog post has been taken from Mostwanted-Pens.com. TV series. I believe that the use of Kaweco’s image shown in this blog post falls under “fair dealing” as described by the UK Copyright service.

Staedtler at the Winter Games 2

22 Feb, 2018 in Pencils / Staedtler tagged PyeongChang / Winter Games by memm

Now that the Olympic Games in PyeongChang are slowly coming to an end and the Paralympics will start soon: Staedtler Noris colour pencils arranged in a specific shape you might find familiar. Over many years I have read again and again that the IOC is very protective of their trademarks (Wired had an article called Do not F@%! with the Olympics Logo a few years ago), so I won’t go into more details here what this is supposed to be 😉. I assume that my Welcome, PyongChang blog post didn’t break any rules and this one is hopefully sufficiently vague either, plus I don’t earn any money from the blog, no advertising here etc. so there are no commercial interests on my side if that makes any difference. Not that I expect the IOC to find a tiny blog like mine, but then again: AIs and machine learning can work wonders these days if they are looking for this kind of stuff.

Why such a click-baity title? It fits with the previous blog post title Staedtler at the Oscars and with so many people from all over the world in PyeongChang there’s bound to be a Staedtler pencil somewhere there.

PS: Since we are on the topic of PyeongChang again: Look what I saw in the language building of my University. Aren’t they cute?

Soohorang and Bandabi

Staedtler at the Oscars

20 Feb, 2018 in Pencils / Staedtler tagged Academy Awards / Oscars / Phantom Thread / Staedtler / The Silent Child by memm

Stephen, of Pencil Talk fame, told me about two movies that are part of the Oscar Nominations 2018 and that feature Staedtler pencils.

And here are the Nominees

Nominated for best pencil in the categories Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Original Score and Costume Design:

The Staedtler Tradition that made it into Phantom Thread.

Nominated for best pencil in the category Best Live Action Short Film:

The Staedtler Noris that made it into The Silent Child.

Well, I certainly know which two movies I’ll be rooting for.

In the Wild

If you like this topic have a look at the Noris in the Wild page that lists Noris sightings in movies and on TV from the 1970s onwards.

Thanks to Stephen for this information.

I have added these to my ever growing list of Staedtler sightings I should make screenshots of, but in this case it might take a while before these movies make it to free to air TV channels, so don’t expect to see them here anytime soon.

Make your own pencil (for $593.75)

12 Feb, 2018 in Links / Pencils by memm

Is there a market for people trying to make their own pencil?

Muji’s make your own pencil set sold out many years ago, but I guess that was down to insufficient supply rather than to overwhelming demand.

Well, if you missed out back then, fear not!

For the monetarily less disadvantaged there’s a solution. Bleistift.blog reader Andy from Leeds told me about this solution recently. Bridge City, an American store selling woodworking tools, has a pencil making kit (with extras) for $593.75. For the less well off there’s even a finance option available. You can also get blanks, ferrules and leads from them.

Here’s a video from them where they make a pencil that has a cunning resemblance to the Graf von Faber-Castell pencils. A Pencil Precision Perfect Pencil Copy.

Combine this with a spent shell casing as shown in the Fake News and you’re pretty close to owning a Graf von Faber-Castell Eine Cassette * hochfeiner Taschenbleistifte * Nr. II, versilbert.

With such a blog post I can’t resist showing this video:

Bleistift

Any old pencil won't do