Indeed pencils are cool. If you want to go to of the line pencil you need some blackwings. My dear wife loves hers.
I was nerding out on wood pencils the other day and was thinking of getting some very nice ones. I usually temper enthusiasm with an awareness of shipping costs; I could get my $30 box of pencils for an additional $50 in shipping, which was the cheapest rate. Makes me chuckle (grimly) that I can order something from China and it takes all of $1 to ship it to me. Of course it also takes six months to get here, but I'm good with that for most things. But, international postal agreements and China doesn't go along with them.
I had another sort of chuckle today (not grim) when I discovered that most online retailers show the Kaweco raw brass 5.6 SketchUp as "sold out" but the exact same thing with an eraser insert is in stock for usually about a dollar less. Out of curiosity I compared the two, and yup all-same-same. I see on one pencil blog that the Kaweco is apparently favoured among people who highlight texts, which might be something I would find useful on occasion but frankly it'd mostly be "I can play with it in a fashion that I can rationalize."
Usually after looking at cool tech for a while I'll go take a walk. This helps keep my wallet in my pocket. See y'all in a bit...
O.H.