Twist Bullet Pencil giveaway winner!

In case you ignored all my hints, there was a giveaway going on as part of my Twist Bullet Pencil review.  I didn't announce it explicitly because I wanted to reward people who actually read the blog, not just people who show up hoping to get free stuff.  I would like to do more of these sort of ninja giveaways in the future, but that will probably have to wait until I have steady income again.  

Goofy numbering because of how entries were arranged in my spreadsheet, but 47 here = entry 45

Anyway, I wanted to announce the winner!  There were 47 entries, and my random number generator came up with entry 45, Rafael!  Way to be awesome!  I have already notified him (sorry if that's the wrong pronoun, please let me know if it is), so I guess that concludes this giveaway.  Like I said, be on the lookout for more of these in the future, but not the immediate future.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered and everyone who reads this blog regularly.  It really means a lot to me and I have some really awesome stuff planned for October.  :-)

Science Stuff episode 2 - how pencils work

Thanks everyone for a wonderful Pencil Month! Wrapping it up today with some of my rusty chemistry knowledge and attempt to enlighten you as to how pencils work on a chemical level.

Here are the links to information I used to put this video together:

Basic info about graphite
SEM image of the surface of paper
Basic info about pencils
Basic info about erasers
Patent for method of preparing pencil cores

And here is the step-by-step process that is used to put pencil cores into the wooden slats

PSST!

Hey there lovely people!  In case you didn't read it yet, you should head over and check out my review of the Twist Bullet Pencil.  Or, at the very least, scroll down to the bottom of the post.  And do it before Thursday morning!

Pen Talk #8 - end of Pencil Month reflections

Check out the Blackwing Volume 211, if you haven't yet.  They are pretty snazzy looking.  :-)

Pencil Review - Caran d'Ache Swiss Wood

It is a dreary, rainy day here and I have a bit of writers block.  So that this review actually gets posted, I'm going to write up just my overall thoughts on the pencil as well as some pictures and my video review.

Overall thoughts:
At $4.50 per pencil, the Swiss Wood is stupidly expensive.  But, it's also a really good writer and quite easy on the eyes.  I definitely recommend that everyone try one of these at some point, but I would make it more of a "treat yo-self" kind of pencil, not a daily workhorse.

If you want more info, check out the video review below.

This pencil was purchased with my own money and I am not being compensated for this review in any way.  All opinions above are my own and you are free to disagree with them if you like.