Blog 11-3-15 – Things are late, and unfortunately will continue to be late

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Hello followers and viewers. I value my schedule highly, and I believe I have done a good job over the last long while of keeping up with that schedule. That being said, if you view my content with any regularity you will have seen that I have been late the past few weeks on a few things, and have unfortunately exceeded previous records of my own lateness. This is especially not fun for me with my comics, which I consider the core of my online content.

Now I don’t want to just make excuses, but I have had a few things happen recently that have made progressing more difficult. I moved into a “limbo” situation that has not gotten resolved as quickly as I had hoped, and makes my work and living environments undesirable from a “getting things done” or “moving around comfortably in clear spaces” kind of way. I’ve also had to change jobs to one with irregular hours that prevents me from being in “work mode” for my various comic and article writing/drawing. And finally I have a large project I’ve been working on with a very hard deadline that is very behind schedule. I’ll talk about that more as it nears completion.

So with all of those things I was still able to be on top of things for a while, but it wasn’t going to last. And it looks like things will be problematic for a little while longer. I hope you can bear with me while I work this out, and I hope to have all of the items I have been late on and caught up to all of the new content by the end of November, but it might end up closer to the end of the year. I hope you enjoy the content regardless and I hope your holiday season is less stressful than mine is going to be.

Best Wishes,

Austin Smith

www.Dragoncompany.org

www.Dragonfunnies.com

www.Artsupplycritic.com

Review – Slant Collections Mini Journals Preppy Stripe

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I’m not exactly the type of person to be found in Tuesday Morning (the store) but I did find myself in there one day, and there was quite a bit of interesting stuff. And being someone who has been drawn to the stationery aisle since I was little I found myself in the stationery section, where I found a set of Slant Collections mini journals, this particular set in the discontinued “preppy stripe” (it was Tuesday Morning, after all). Let’s take a look.

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The books themselves are 3¼ x 5¼ inches, just smaller than a Moleskine pocket book. The cover feels like plastic-coated cardboard and in this version has a very simple design that comes in 3 colors. It is a single piece bent around and stitch-bound onto the 70 inside pages. These pages are lined with a thin 7mm ruling that is the same color as the main cover color, printed on a very white background.

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The paper itself is quite thick and a medium roughness. It is very bleed-and feathering-resistant despite this. Fountain and other liquid ink pens are handled well, and with most other writing utensils both sides of the paper can be used, though at this size I wouldn’t recommend that. The cover and binding are very well done and hold up (the stitching looks very slightly unsightly at times) and the corners are nicely rounded to prevent the corner bending that some books get. On the table the book lies adequately flat and while the cover does bend out of shape it bends back just as easily.

In the end I have been surprised by these little notebooks. They are hardy, easy to carry, great writing things. It has taken me some time to review them as they weren’t good enough to replace any of the books in my normal rotation (but that’s more because I prize consistency, a book would have to be head and shoulders above to get met to move something out of my rotation). I enjoyed using them very much (even the pink one) and if all of the Slant collection journals are as good as these were I’d consider more in the future.

Review – Interdental Picks

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I’ve had some problems with my teeth in the recent months. And as such problems usually do in people, this prompted me to get more active about my dental care. One of the items I looked into very quickly was the interdental pick, since most tooth problems happen on the sides of the teeth that face each other because that area is hard to reach, and I’m not a fan of using floss or the amount of waste generated by floss picks (though I do use them from time to time) I’ve used 3 of the most commonly available items and here is what I think.

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The Doctor’s Brush Picks – Starting off with the least expensive, these picks have a double sided brush on one end and a “toothpick” on the other, which is molded in a fairly hard plastic. The size is good for being able to handle and maneuver in the mouth, but the brush bristles bend easily and make even relatively healthy gums bleed with ease. The brush itself does a fairly good job of cleaning in between teeth but the toothpick part is almost useless, and the brittle plastic can break off very easily.

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GUM Soft Picks – These medium-priced picks are the smallest of the bunch, and the handles are very small, making them hard to get a grip on and bending (or even breaking) prone. The bristles on the end are soft, and while if one has never used interdental picks before they can seem to hurt a bit they are easily capable of fitting through most spaces in a normal mouth. They clean very well, but only closer to the base of the tooth, and if one is going through their entire mouth, the rubber may start to tear.

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DenTek Slim Brush – The highest priced per pick item here, these interestingly don’t come with carrying case like the others. The handles are far superior and are easy to hold yet slightly flexible to allow for ease of use. The brush itself is like a very tiny pipe cleaner, with a wire in the center and a set of synthetic bristles running up and down. One has to be careful with these so as to not push the wire into their gums, but otherwise the brush gives a very good (if again only to the base of the tooth) clean. They can start to flatten out and get the wire very bent with use but they are still by far the most reusable of the group.

So there are the three, and I would say, that if you want to have a good handle; go with the DenTek. If you want to get the most of the inside of the tooth clean; consider the Brush Picks. Bt if you want the best all around quality and value, the GUM soft picks are the way to go. They are easily transportable, easy on gums, and in my opinion, clean as well as any of the others. For me the DenTek handles just get in the way and the Brush Picks are just painful. I carry the soft picks with me anywhere I go and I have them at home for when I’m too lazy to floss (and for the record I know these don’t replace flossing). For me they just work the best and are the best interdental picks I have run across.

Review – Rhodia Pads

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I’ve been using Rhodia products for years now, and the way that I was introduced to them was their famous pad-style books. I got one as a gift and used it almost every day in school (only almost because I wasn’t taking notes with it but writing down ideas). And I’ve had a few around ever since. Let’s take a look at what made them so widely used and praised.

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The pads themselves are simple, and have very few differences between the sizes. They are an orange rectangle, with one or two heavy-duty staples in the top and 3 creases on the cover to allow it to be folded over the spine easily and cleanly. Both the front and back have the Rhodia tree logo, with the back one being smaller and above some of the book’s specifications (in metric and imperial) and usually a price tag/bar code. Inside there are perforations on the top of each page, and with the thickness of the paper and the quality of the perforations, tearing out pages is easy, but they do not tend to fall out with hard use.

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The size of the paper in each book varies, and it comes in line or graph versions (dot in the premium editions, and unfortunately no blank). The ink used is a light blue-ish purple that doesn’t interfere with ink or pencil, the line paper is a bit darker. The paper is vellum and very ink resistant, meaning long dry times but little feathering, bleed through, and page crinkling. Show through can still be a problem, but most ballpoints and fountain pens write very well on the paper with almost no side effects. Paints and markers such as Sharpies are where the paper starts to not hold up as well, but the minimal crinkling, and the lack of bleed-through is still a very good performance. The coating on the paper also allows for very smooth writing, but one might have to press down hard with less wet pens.

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I might have already given away my opinion of the books in the first paragraph, but they are lovely. The writing experience is super smooth and pleasant; the worry that one might have with other papers when writing with liquid ink pens in non-existent. The binding is hardy and the cover wears very well with minimal things to be problematic. I’m generally not a fan of covers that fold over the top of the book, but I make an exception here. They make great traveling journals, school notebooks, coffee shop list makers, etc. And they can survive both fountain pens and being tossed around in a backpack. If the styling was a bit more my speed I would carry one around all the time. Still they are very versatile, and for the smaller ones, fairly inexpensive.

Any of my Hobbies could be Someone’s Career

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As indicated by my Blog, I have a ton of hobbies, and I pick up new ones all the time (Fountain pens, Every Day Carry, and Lock picking for example). And as I move from hobby to hobby (not entirely from, I maintain several that the same time) I can’t help but think about some of the people I’m getting information from about these hobbies, and how for many of them it is a much more central part of their life.

I do do things for years, and I still enjoy many of my older hobbies as much as the new ones. But it is just something I can’t imagine doing to continue with only one hobby, developing skill set, or collection for as many years as I have been with all of my various collections, skill sets, and hobbies. But I am in debt to the people who do and provide me with such a wealth of information. I would never have learned as much about fountain pens, action figures (Jurassic Park, Star Wars, GI Joe, etc), knives, lock picking, and Chinese chess without these people.

I’m certainly the picture of the jack of all trades, and they are much closer to the master of one (I’m sure they have other hobbies and maybe jobs as well assuming they don’t do that for a living) and I certainly can’t say one is better than the other with how much they have helped me. I’ve considered stopping and concentrating on one thing for years but it just isn’t really in my personality. But many people have, and I could, make a career out of one of my many hobbies, and maybe I will yet.

So I’d like to thank everyone who both dedicates themselves to any one task in order to master it and share their knowledge online, and those others like me who absorb information from all over and can precipitate it throughout their social “networks”.