Pens Etc.

Review Pentel RSVP RT

2010-05-11T10:09:00.001-07:00

I was very excited to see these at my local Staples because the RSVP is a favorite of mine since I tend to like medium point ballpoint pens. But these are nowhere near the capped RSVPs. The lines skip, the colors are not as bold and the ink leaves globs on the paper. I'd skip these altogether althought they do look very appealing. The writing quality is just not there and I haven't used them for anything practical since I've purchased them.

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T09:03:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T09:02:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T08:55:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T08:24:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

Work Bag Contd.

2010-05-10T07:48:00.001-07:00

Uploaded - 5\10\10-1

2010-05-10T07:46:00.001-07:00

All my pens from my work bag. (I have yet to find out how to post several pctures to one post from my phone.)

what's in my work pencil bag?

2010-05-10T07:42:00.001-07:00

Here are the contents of my bag which is supposed to be a makeup bag from MACs Hello Kitty Collection.

So, so sad.

2010-05-07T10:44:00.001-07:00

This can only mean one thing, I can't trust my students. This must be the sorriest looking pen/pencil cup especially for someone who owns well over 800 pens or so :( It is the most aggravating thing to see one of your students writing with what is clearly one of your pens right in front of you. Grrrr. Of course, they'll never admit it but where will a 12 year old go and buy a $13 pen?! Come on!

8\27\09- New Additions

2009-08-26T22:15:00.001-07:00

Aside from your standard office supply stores, one of my favorite places to find rare pens is at university bookstores. So here's a recent haul of pens I got at my old school. Hopefully soon to be my current school because I want to go back. I am going to visit more schools to see what I run out with. I found something special at a medical school bookstore when I was taking someone to a hospital for a visit. I'll show you that later but here's what I got this time.

Oh and I'm experimenting with a new background, tell me what you think. Too busy?

Test blog.

2009-08-23T17:52:00.001-07:00

Had to restore my phone yet again and doing a test run of my Shozu. Still works I guess. This is my newest pencil cup. Came with a makeup brush set from MAC Hello Kitty collection.

New Additions 8/19/09 - Michaels

2009-08-19T20:49:00.001-07:00

I stopped by Michaels for some vase filler beads and I walked out with these too. An eight pack of Zig Millenium .5 mm marker pens. They're Zigs and I want to use them for grading if they don't bleed. At least that's how I justified the purchase in my head.

Review: TUL Stick Ballpoint Pen

2009-08-18T21:41:00.001-07:00

I love TUL pens. I really do and I go out of my way a loong way to find them because I won't buy online. But these are not deserving the TUL name. The TUL gel pens in all shapes and sizes are awesome. They're a dream. These are a poor excuse at coming up with a stick pen. They're not even dollar store worthy in my humble opinion. Thank goodness I am a teacher who will have plenty of kids to lend these out to otherwise they'd be headed to the trash. (Was I too harsh?)

New Additions- 8\17\09

2009-08-17T16:44:00.001-07:00

So I guess I am back with a vengeance. A lot has gone on. My phone went wonkers AGAIN and my husband was mauled by a dog so I had to play nurse 24 hrs a day. But luckily I did get enough time off to get these new additions. If you live in Chicago, you know about (or might know of) an art store called Genesis. I gravitated there instead of an Office Depot or Office Max or Staples because I wanted rare pens and I was happy with what I found. Let me know if you have any questions or want to know more about any of these. Click for bigger picture.

Grrr.

2009-08-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

I am currently trying to get my Shozu back up and running. It went haywire after I downloaded the new iPhone software and then I had to restore my phone as well for some unknown reason. I have been shopping. Hopefully I can submit a post TODAY.

Review - Foray liquid medium .7 mm

2009-07-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Recently acquired from Office Depot. I must say that these might go up there in my top 10, maybe even top 5. I'll have to use them much more to find out. I couldn't resist when I saw that these were 1) Foray, 2) .7mm, and 3) fun colors!! I had to purchase them individually though at $1.49 a piece but I think they're well worth it. I got them in all the colors that were available in the store HOWEVER if you click here Office Depot online has a set of ten for $12. The set of ten includes a yellow, dark green, orange and purple that were not available at the store so Office Depot has got me again because I will definitely either purchase the set of 10 online or hunt down the other colors at the stores (though I'm pretty sure they're not available yet). I do like the way they write but I must warn you that I enjoy writing with thicker tips like these. If you like the feel of a fine or micro tipped pen, this might not be the pen for you but Foray does have other great pens of that kind. I highly recommend these and I can't wait to make my co-workers jealous with these.

I wonder if they will sell refills?

Review - TUL gel retractable four color pack (medium).

2009-07-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Where have these pens been all my life? Never mind, I'm glad they're here now. I go out of my way to Office Max for one reason only - for TUL pens!! I wasn't interested in these until I saw another teacher using them and she was soooo careful to watch these pens and make sure they didn't go missing. THAT means something. So I naturally went to try them out that same day. Fast forward about 1.5 years later and we've had some good times and bad times (I'll tell you about that later. Let's just say all TULs are not created equal) but the gel TULs ROCK!! This pack was roughly $6 and the colors are red, blue, green, and purple.

These pens are smooth and bold and amazing. They never disappoint and are a staple in my purse, travel pencil bag, office desk, and work desk(s). I do watch these like a hawk because being a teacher, most of my pens disappear then I almost do a double-take when I see my pens in the grubby little hands of my kids. Most of the time I let them keep the pens but not these!! No sir. They are only available at Office Max and I am very glad that they are now available in an array of colors (review on those later). I would dare to say that these are my #2 pen. I'll tell you about #1 on another occasion. Now run to get some of your own TULs!!

I don't really want to but...

2009-07-22T19:40:00.001-07:00

Do you ever feel apprehensive before writing in a nice pristine notebook? Or maybe you're normal. I'm about to use this Ampad Gold Fibre computation book to take down some reading notes. I hope I don't end up abandoning it like other fine notebooks that sit on my shelf looking sorry.

7/21/09 - New Additions - Office Max

2009-07-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

I specifically drove out of my way to Office Max to feed my need for TULs and here's what I walked out with. I also got some non pen stuff that I might post later.

Uniball Impact RT 1.0 blue

TUL Gel Retractable Medium in blue, purple, red, green.

TUL Gel Retractable Medium in black.

TUL Gel Retractable Medium in lime green and bright orange. Sold individually.

Review - Pentel Energel .8 mm cushion ball tip pen

2009-07-19T18:24:00.001-07:00

As you could tell from my previous post when I got these I am super excited to know that the cushion tip pens are still out there and not as elusive as I thought. The last time I wrote with a cushion ball pen it was in grammar school. My sisters and I would go nuts about these even though they are not pen nuts like myself. I found these online at Desert Arc's Pentel Store. I just Googled "cushion tip pens" and it was one of the links. I got these Energels in all the available colors (red, blue, black) and of course I got back-ups too. They are as good as I remember but for some reason the blue ones are defective (at least the ones I got). As you can tell in the picture #2, the beginning is globby so I think the tip is broken somewhere so then I switched to my back-up blue and every time I slightly rotated the pen when I wrote (never realized I did this), the ink would skip unlike the smooth and consistent lines of the black and red ink . Hmmm... I'm wondering if it's just a case of two bad pens who have been through a rough time in which case, I'll order 2 more blue ones, or if it's universal to all the blue ones of this specific type. Anyone know? I'm very pleased though and I'll have so much fun getting a lot of use out of these once I'm back at work.

7/16/09 New Additions - Major Haul Walmart and Office Depot

2009-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I don't know just how excessive I can be until I get home and realize I can fill an entire pen cup with just today's purchase. *blushes* I couldn't resist. Reviews later but here's what I got. If you'd like to see an immediate review of any of these let me know. I'm quite happy with most of these though and that's quite rare.

Office Depot

Walmart

Review - Pilot Frixion .7 all colors.

2009-07-16T19:11:00.001-07:00

Recently I attended a four-day training where I took over 10 pages of notes. Being a total pen nerd, I began the week with 6 pens on my area including the red, black, and blue Frixions. I had owned these pens for a while but I figured it was just a gimmick and I didn't really even try them out. After reading the great reviews about these, I was determined to take them for a spin. I still started taking notes with other pens, still reluctant to use them, but slowly after all the other pens failed to meet my writing needs, I reached for the blue Frixion. Well, I ended up writing with it for the rest of the week. And if you're a real pen freak, you know how big that is. The Frixion is one of those rare pens that I can use to print and handwrite. It actually makes my printing look very nice. I thoroughly enjoyed writing with these pens and they have become fast favorites. I am glad that I found the orange, pink, and purple at Target too. If you like dark colors, these might not be for you but otherwise, they should be given a decent chance. They also erase very, very well and the rubbery (?) end used to erase with doesn't leave eraser crumbs on your paper though I did chuckle to myself every time I still brushed the paper after erasing :) I guess it's a habit. These are going straight into my work bag.

Review: Sharpie pen fine.

2009-07-15T13:20:00.001-07:00

Review: Sharpie pen fine.
Originally uploaded by mraigoza1

Now that I have all six colors available, having found the orange and purple at Target on Sunday, I can do a review of the Sharpie pens. I was as excited as the next person about the Sharpie pen. I am not disappointed but not overly excited either. As you can see by the picture, the blue, red, and green look very light almost baby-ish if you know what I mean but I was happy that the purple and orange are much darker even after they dry up.

The pens write okay but I can't seem to think of them as pens, they still feel very marker-y to me. They're definitely not for quick note-taking, more of the type of "pen" you'd reach for if you had the time to write every letter very deliberately. Am I even making sense? I hope so. AHA! They would be great for grading and making comments on homework though since they feel like the markers I like to use minus the bleed through. Eureka! I will get much use out of them after all. Whew.

7/12/09 New Additions - Target

2009-07-14T17:53:00.001-07:00

So I did find what I was looking for on this particular trip to Target and then some. I was originally only looking for the purple, orange, and pink Frixions but I also found the 5 pack of Sharpies with the purple and orange colors. Being completely nutty I did have to buy 2 packs of the Frixions, one for work and one for home.

I also bought the following notebooks. I had to have them when in a recent training one of my co-workers had one, thus, I had to have 6.

GRAPH

LINED

POCKET SIZED

I apologize for the bad quality of the photos. I'll get better at this as I go along. I hope.

Uploaded - 7\12\09-5

2009-07-14T16:46:00.001-07:00

I am addicted to these Bic Mark-Its. I use them often to grade papers. Do I have the set with 24? Yes. Do I need to buy the set with 36 including 12 more colors that will most likely be useless? No. Will I buy them the next time I am at the store even though school doesn't start til September? Absolutely. Props to me though for resisting the urge to get them on this particular trip.

Uploaded - 7\12\09-4

2009-07-14T16:45:00.001-07:00

Will I find what I'm looking for in this Target???

Christmas in July via Target.

2009-07-14T16:44:00.001-07:00

Not that I'm complaining but school supplies already? Really? Ahhh they got me!

(Side note. Shozu went nuts on a recent sync so the next three posts were meant to be merged into one...except I don't know how but it's okay. It will all be okay.)

7/11/09 New Additions

2009-07-11T13:00:00.001-07:00

How do I love thee cushion tip? Let me count the ways. Fifteen new cushion point pens and I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief because I have found what I was looking for. Review coming up soon but in the meantime, wipe that drool off your face riiight there...

Quick question: What's your "white whale" pen?

Uniball Signo in purple.

2009-07-10T05:56:00.001-07:00

This is a very nice pen. It's quite solid and writes nice bold consistent lines. I'd buy more colors because I'm nutty like that even though I'm not sure exactly where I'd use them. Hmmm.

Nerding it up

2009-07-08T14:55:00.001-07:00

Here's my project for today. Inspired by the other pen blogs I am organizing my hundreds of pens by brand. Oink oink. Of course if you ask me what I did this summer I will never admit to having spent an entire day doing this. I'll post a pic of the finished project when it's (you guessed it) finished. (Click for bigger pic.)

7/07/09 New Additions & First Post

2009-07-07T14:18:00.001-07:00

FIRST POST

I'VE BEEN COLLECTING PENS SINCE 1994 AND I NEVER KNEW THERE WERE OTHERS LIKE ME. BUT SINCE I FOUND PENADDICT.COM LAST WEEK I CAN NOW FEEL FREE TO SHARE MY ADDICTION WITH YOU ALL. SO HERE WE GO...

Bought @ university bookstore. I always find good stuff there.

Viva gel pens (brand I've never heard about) in black and blue.
Uniball Signo in purple.