Ramble About Town, March 22nd 2014

Just a tiny fragment of the delights on hand at The Tea Lady in Olympia, WA.
 
It had been awhile since I spent a Saturday just wandering, and with a bit of spring weather setting in (if only temporarily), I may have had a bit of cabin fever as well. So...this Saturday I did a ramble about.

Went to the Tea Lady first. I've professed my love for this place so many times before, it seems a little redundant to state it again, but...I love this place! I'm currently off coffee (if only temporarily), which made a shop full of nothing but tea all the more exciting. I'd sort of planned to buy a teapot, but they mostly had large ones, too big for me unless I start throwing daily tea parties. So I'm back to obsessing on-line on that front. Still came away with some new green tea, some fillable tea bags for times when it's less than convenient to fiddle with a filter basket, and an interesting herbal blend with citrus, turmeric, and ginger. The instant I left I got requests from Dad and my sister for teas of their own, so I have an excuse to go back soon.

Next up was downtown, and the antique mall: Finders Keepers. It's always a fun place to browse: different vendors rent cubicles within the building, so each has a different assortment and you never know what you'll find around the next corner. First thing I noted was this boxy Hermes 3000. It's $145, or I might be giving you a review rather than just a photo. Looks pretty clean.

Lots of other little assorted writing related things about:

Pencil sharpeners

 

Inks...and Shinola.

 

Ink erasers and assorted pencil leads.

 

Typewriter cleaner.

 

Some sorta old cash register? And a steno machine.
 

SCM Coronet, just to be equal opportunity to the electrified among us.

 

One of those heavy old staplers that could double as a blunt force weapon.

 

Slide rules! The big one here is about standard size for these. The little one is little bitty. Shirt pocket sized, or smaller. Cute.

 

Close-up of the little guy...

 

If Hop-along Cassidy says it's his favorite ice cream, who am I to argue?

 
Had lunch afterward with a friend at The Bread Peddler: peanut curry chicken soup. Good, as is only to be expected from The Bread Peddler. Yum!

NaNoWriMo Starting Position...

Everything is ready for lift-off. Pencils and notebooks are laid out, coffee supplies assembled, lunch and work clothes in order so I don't have to worry about them in the morning. Going to read a bit, hit the way early, and then get up in the dark to get this party started. Good luck to all participants!

Quick and Dirty Review: Kum 1-Hole Long Point Sharpener

I really wanted to like this pencil sharpener.

Since I primarily use my pencils for writing, long points are my preference. They allow more precise writing, and let me write for longer stretches between sharpenings. This is why I like the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener (CFPS hereafter): it gives you seriously long writing points, without breaking the lead or leaving it ragged. It has me very, very spoiled.

This photo brought to you (mostly) courtesy of the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener...

There are a few reasons I wanted the Kum as an option:

1. The CFPS leaves bite marks on your pencils. If you look up close at my pencil photos, you'll notice all the little pinprick holes left by the gripping mechanism*. I've learned to live with them, since I've found no other pencil sharpener that does as nice a job on the writing points (including a fancy Carl), but it would be nice to have another option for the most premium pencils.
2. The CFPS isn't exactly something I can toss into my book bag for coffee shop runs.
3. You can be a bit more conservative with a hand held sharpener: only shaving off juuust enough to give you a point and no more. Granted, the CFPS is pretty good about stopping as soon as you have a sharp point, but again, for the most premium pencils (or stubbies), I thought a good hand held sharpener might be nice to have.

I've tried Kum's two step long point sharpener. It's a pretty neat concept: the first step clears some of the wood away, the second sharpens the exposed lead to a nice long point. But...in practice, I found it finicky and a bit unpredictable, and broke more lead than I could happily live with. I hoped this new sharpener would be the answer to my wishes, especially since I really like my simple little brass Kum, and this seemed to be almost the same thing but with a longer resulting point.

Except...it hates me. I either mangle the lead or break it off entirely. Every...single...time. Even when I do get a semi long point, it's warped and brittle and snaps the instant I try to use it. Wah. So I guess I continue with my current approach, which is to sharpen only at home or at the office, and carry a boatload of pencils with me so I don't need to sharpen on the go. Bonus of this approach: validish excuse to carry a boatload of pencils.

But I'm saddened, nonetheless.

Attempted close-up of an attempted long point...

*One thing that helps a smidge with the aesthetics of the bite marks: I try to always face the pencil the same way when sharpening, e.g. with the text upright, so at least the holes line up...