A Pencil by Another Name...

Ready for a bizarre post?

Although getting considerable attention for their "liquid pencil" technology (and resulting "ever-sharp" leads), I wanted to toot about the SYNTECH product (JAKKS PACIFIC). Metal barrels, .7mm lead, cool colors, excellent heft (for me anyway), soft grip, point protector (another big plus for me), and CHEAP (~2.70 @ evil Wal-Mart). VERY cool.

For pens, I'm a HUGE fan of ZIG archival pens - excellent flo rate and footprint and simply one of the best freeform line drawing pens I've ever had the pleasure using... and about the same price at evil Wal-Mart!!!???

While I'm on the rant, is it just me, or is the pressure from Target (pronounced, Tar sjey') and Costco actually affecting what evil Wal-Mart puts on the shelves? I'm starting to see duplicated focus on the products I buy for the first time in well over 6 years. Its a facinating conundrum: were I not poor, I would not buy things from Wal-Mart (and no- its not because they employ so many people). ;)

Target and Costco get props for the kind of suggested sale old-concept department stores used to give (from my dim recollection). They actually put smarter products in front of you and say "wouldn't this work better, and wouldn't it actually save you some time/money in the long haul?" I'll actually browse some items in those stores and think "that's a cool idea, but doesn't make sense for me" or something like that. Not since my last visit to Wal-Mart have I thought they were actually trying to sell something that wasn't crappy... making it the first time in over 5 years. Did I mention I saw some items made in the US?