Category Archives: Reviews

Review – Scotch Plastic Tape

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Sometimes you don’t want clear tape, whether it’s to obscure, or to label by color, or the transparency just doesn’t matter to you. Scotch has also got you covered in that area with its plastic tapes, so called because they are made out of plastic. The roll I have happens to be red, but they come in all sorts of colors.

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Really this can just be rated by its stickiness, and as such this review will be short. It is suitably sticky, if you have something that needs to be stuck temporarily or is quite light it will get the job done. It is as strong, but less adhesive than, the average electrical tape, though it’s possible it could serve that purpose. What it’s really great for is labeling things. It sticks quite nicely by itself and can be used as a color code or is easily written on with most writing utensils, though it could smear easily. When it comes off it leaves little to no residue, and can potentially be reused, though only a few times.

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It’s a good tape, not a life-depending tape. It does the job of the regular transparent tapes while being less see-through and easier to pull off.

Book Review – The Rejection Collection – Edited by Matthew Diffee

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I love cartoons of all types. While many people express dislike for the standard newspaper cartoons that are everywhere, I love them. But I also like cartoons featured in other places, like online or in magazines. And while I do appreciate the family-friendly, I’m not really a fan of censoring cartoonists. Which is where the Rejection Collection comes in.

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Here is a collection of wonderful cartoons that couldn’t appear in the New Yorker magazine for various reasons. Most of them are wondrously funny, and those that I personally don’t like will definitely be enjoyed by others. And since most of these cartoonists do work for the New Yorker, the jokes that might be distasteful are presented in at least an appropriate and (almost) intelligent manner.

Accompanying the cartoons is a collection of forms filled out by the various artists to represent themselves. These forms are somewhat tedious, but in many cases you get to find out fascinating and funny things. In other cases it’s clearly a joke, but at least you find out the cartoonist’s sense of humor. Occasionally there is one who unfortunately takes it seriously (I would if the New Yorker sent me a questionnaire), and these can be skipped. The drawing and answers in this portion really make the book, in my opinion, as otherwise it would just be a collection of mostly obscene jokes done by New Yorker cartoonists. And while there is a market for that thing (I would buy it if I had a lot of money laying around, while I’d buy this with just a little more money than I currently have, as my copy was a gift). The cartoons are fun though quite fast, and the only thing that makes this a book and not a collection of cartoons are the forms.

This book is a wonderful insight into both the heads of cartoonists and what will and will not get published. It is hilarious and well drawn. The execution is what one would expect from the New Yorker: excellent.

Review – Bic Cristal Bold

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Bic makes a lot of pens, and the Cristal is one that everyone knows about. It’s a staple of the modern world: an admittedly cheap pen that can be, and is, used by everyone. But most of the time you find the medium version (or a fine if you’re either lucky or unlucky). And those have many of the problems we associate with ballpoints. And when one is running a business or doing art, sometimes it’s more important that the pen write on the first try, and write smoothly, than have a thin line. That’s where the Bic Cristal Bold 1.6mm pen that we’re looking at today comes in.

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The body is a simple as can be: a translucent piece of hexagonal plastic with key info on the side. The base of the ball point is plastic, while the tip itself is metal. The cap is a single piece with an integrated clip that works, but isn’t the best. The cap’s only real function is to prevent the pen from marking things when set down.

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But the real thing here is the tip, which is much wider than usual Bic ballpoint tips. Bic says that it is an “easy glide” pen. And I’d agree that that is the case. The ink is super smooth, and requires very little pressure once it gets going. After pushing down for a little bit, the pen, in my experience, will be writing perfectly a quarter of the way into the first letter, so not perfect startup, but good for a ball pen. After that it’s smooth enough to write cursive easily. There are a few points where the ink breaks up, and those are unsightly, but with a little hand control they can be covered up nicely. Like most ballpoints it’s suitably waterproof. And while the pen and packaging say it’s 1.6mm, Id’ be much more tempted to say it’s simply 1mm.

Really, it’s a great little pen, and not very expensive. If you’re looking for a cheap way to get a smoother (and partially less globby) writing experience, I’d say this is the direction to go first. They don’t match liquid ink pens of any type, but they certainly do work quite well and are convenient, having replaced most of my other ballpoints right now.

Review – Pilot BP-S Medium

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For quite some time, pen companies have been trying to come out with the “superior” ink. And many succeed in varying ways. Every ink has its benefits and faults. The Pilot BP-S (which I can only assume stands for “better pen” as it uses the “better” refill) claims to have a “revolutionary” ink (perhaps when it was first made) that is very smooth and writes the first time. But all my quotation marks just make me a skeptic. Let’s look at the pen.

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The body of the pen looks like a hyped-up Bic Cristal. It’s got a similar hexagonal shape, with a black end cap that screws off for easy refilling (with the Pilot better refills). The body is clear with a minor amount of information physically molded into it. It’s enough to tell you what you’re using. The grip is series of tiny ridges that lead all the way to the metal cone tip, and are surprisingly grippy compared to the rest of the pen. The refill in this model is medium, and it comes out a ways beyond the cone. The cap is nothing to write home about, though it does have a flat surface for easy removal, which is nice.

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On to the writing.  I can tell you for a fact that no pen that isn’t liquid ink will write the first time every time, but this one comes close. It does take some pressure to start, usually, and a more constant pressure to continue writing than a regular ballpoint, but the overall experience is smoother. With the right amount of pressure, the ink comes out in a consistent line, and with a little let up, a serviceable one with a few gaps. Neither of these options are more strain on the hand than a regular ballpoint. The ink is black, most of the time. Sometimes it’s more of a cool dark grey. And that’s fine for any office setting, though not really for art. It is also smudge-resistant and water-resistant, like most ballpoints, so it will survive a spill as long as the paper does.

Overall it’s a good pen. Perhaps it was better comparatively when it was first introduced. It is nothing terribly special, but it is superior to standard ballpoint offerings from most major companies. Again, just slightly. If a ballpoint is the perfect writing or art utensil for you, but it just isn’t quite smooth enough, these are probably worth a look. They certainly don’t cross over into the realm of feeling or acting like another type of pen, which unfortunately tends to happen with these “smooth” inks.

Book Review – No Man’s Land: 1918 – The Last Year of the Great War – John Toland

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No Man’s Land by John Toland is a book about the First World War, as the abundance of evidence in the title suggests. It is a very comprehensive and lengthy account of the war, throughout using many official memos, documents, and various journals to showcase the varying perspectives on both sides of the conflict. While mainly focusing on the Western Front, the infant Soviet Union is also talked about a bit (perhaps too much), though the various other sides of the war in the Middle East, the Italian front, and the Bulgarian front are glazed over. And that is for the better in the larger narrative. The book is really about the famous hell that was the trenches in 1918.

This was the best photo of the cover I could find, mine is quite different but doesn't work in a photo

This was the best photo of the cover I could find, mine is quite different but doesn’t work in a photo.

And what a hell the book paints it to be. But far from the illogical slaughter it is usually made out to be (okay, not that far) this book made me realize that in the situation, it made good military sense. With faster transportation and longer ranges and accuracy of weapons, a larger front was needed to contain an enemy army. With a longer front comes a higher need for cover, and without tanks to break enemy lines, massive artillery barrages are the only way the trench defensive networks could be broken through. Now, this might not be what the book intended to tell me. But it gives the reader a good enough feel for the people involved that I believe they could simply have not reached another conclusion about how the war should be waged. And even though the trenches were a grinding hell, the book accurately depicts the great surges that were required to break the lines, and the enormous amount of movement needed to capitalize on a victory.

The book runs through many battles, all along the front, by the various forces. All accounts are of people who lived through the war (for obvious reasons). From Patton strolling through the battlefield, collecting retreating units and sending them forward again; to the British artillery officer Patrick Campbell, who dealt with a series of characters and ineffectual commanding officers; to the German Franz Seldte, in charge of creating motion pictures out of battlefield scenes. Through talks of both advances and retreats, where 90% casualties were easily expected, and communication so limited that individuals had little to no idea what they were supposed to be doing. Up to the Field Marshals: Douglas Haig, Ferdinand Foch, and Paul Hindenburg. And it ends with the politicians: Prime Minister Lloyd George, representative Colonel House, Premier Clemenceau, and Chancellor Prince Max.

The book covers from high to low all throughout the year in a very well researched and orderly manner. Everything is presented, as a historical book should, in a manner that does not judge, but only tells. The reader is left to make their own judgments about each of the various people presented. The author seems to put more into judging people who later wrote biographies and deleted some of the more rousing passages from various texts, though that is left to the footnotes.

The things that are presented in extravagant detail and the things that are almost glossed over are sometimes puzzling, as is the reasoning of which get better treatment, but that is very little of the book. Overall, it is quite excellently written, and a great in-depth look at the final year of the Great War. The things everyone knows, and the things only the few would know are all presented fascinatingly.

It is a bit of a disappointment to me that the negotiations preceding the Treaty of Versailles and the treaty signing itself were kept out of the book, but it was already at 450 pages when it does end, just after the armistice celebrations. It took me more than a month (with a vacation where I didn’t read much) to finish the book, and the pages are dense enough that going is slow. This, of course, does not diminish the quality of the work.

If one is at all interested in the last year of the first Great War, and has the time to devote to this book, it is great for both the casual and historic reader, with its only detriment being its length, and some might consider that a bonus.