Best Pen Ever. Been searching for years. This one came out, reviews said there was something different about these pens. I had a few generations of this classic and never got friendly with them. They blopped and smeared and made a mess. I still have about 20 of the old ones. They start making a mess about half way through the document. I used to use Parker Pens. Then they changed. Then I found Papermates. They were less mess but still would get messy. Then I found G-Force pens. Those were great, but then they stopped making them. The ink would dry up  shortly after starting them. I looked for a sub. Pentel BK420 loads could be shortened to fit. I had my solution. Then, I heard Bic had released a reformulated Cristal pen. Internet listings for it looked promising. I went a bought a 10 pack from Wally. I had my pen. But...they slipped down my fingers...

Oh yeah. Junk Blog Is Back for 2020. I got a few things to post about. Right now, it's pens. A long post about pens. We never said it would be exciting. We said it would be junk.

Bic Cristal Hybrid (In a Bic Stic Clear Grip Shell)

Here's what I did. The loads from Cristals fit perfect inside of the Bic Stic pen. These pens were just as crappy as Cristals used to be. I only had a few of the shells left so I considered them like gold. The fit my hand perfect, they are gripped very well and they write forever and ever and there are never blops of ink. They do last a long time and with the clear cases, I see the pen getting low. Now I really don't need a clear case because I keep two or three regular Cristals with me for refills, but I like the effort and love the result.

Bic Round Stic Grip 2018

They don't make the clear case Bic Stic Grips anymore. So, I thought I'd try to use the regular grip pens as backups. This is now the cheapest pen that Bic sells. I bought two boxes really cheap. I took one out, thinking they couldn't be as bad as they used to be. They ought to be okay right? I should have been wearing a deep diver rig as the ink that came out flooded my page. I could have gotten a canoe and floated out the door of the coffee joint on the excess ink these released just trying to write. They can't be that bad can they? They can. Do what I do. Spend a bit more and use these as hybrids with Cristal loads in them unless you aren't bothered by the slipperiness of that classic barrel. Really. Blops are bad. Gunky little blops that make your hands look covered in ink. Blops. I think the technical term is "blobbing" because if the pen doesn't write for a second, it's "skipping". Who cares. Pen reviews. Continue on.

Bazic Prima

Well, it was bound to happen. There is a ton of copies of every pen and well, Bic Grip pens would have copies. I was in Chicago and I was held over because of weather so I went to a small shopping center with a generic dollar store. I went to the office supplies portion and saw stacks and stacks of these pens from the "Bazic" corporation. Gee, the seemed like the GRIP hybrid that I have, but the pen ink was likely crappy. I took them back to my motel and noted they were EXACT to the Bic Cristal refills. (Following this crap so far? Do you care about the struggles for me to better understand the cheap pen and the purchasing thereof? Why would I be doing a post on this if I didn't feel the need to waste my time, get drunk and rant about pens? We do it all for you Rod.) Thing is, these are actually GREAT pens. They are a little thinner tip so they write a finer line and yes, they do not blop! As far as I learned, Bazic is a marketing company that makes just about every office product and they source them from China. These pens were sourced from India. Good on ya India. Album from the Movies (U.K.) called "India". Great Wes Anderson film called "The Darjeeling Limited" about a train trip through India. The Cleveland Indians. Okay, I'll stop.

Bazic Prima 2019 (Imported From China)

I was going to gush about these pens. I bought a few packs in Chicago and then couldn't find anymore until I found a generic dollar store in Cleveland that had these pens. I bought several packs. I went back and bought several more packs. This Christmas, when I was out doing shopping, I was in that store and I bought a few more packs. I noticed when I got them home that the packaging had changed. They used to have a green backing but now had a clear backing. Then when I was putting them away, I noted they were made in China. So, I opened the pack. Damn. Not the same. They have a threaded barrel. Really. For cheap pens... But the load is typical of click pens. Also, THEY BLOP! Damn. Needless to say, I got 16 Prima pens going cheap. :) Nahh... I'd never sell. I need them if I ever have to do a tracheotomy, Right? Right? Good thing is, when I went back, I bought one other of the old style pens and I even bought several multi color packs because they have 5 of the black pens. Holy SH*T! I'm a real idiot for buying all these pens I'll never get to using. But then, I can build a cabin with them. Yep. At least a small bridge over a stream with them. Yeah.

Linc Offix

Generic. I never heard of the company. I was in K-Mart. (Yes, we still had those in 2018 and even in 2019.) I was buying a foldable desk. Why? Because it was the first time I found a desk for a laptop or other that was much larger than those folding tables and had no obstruction for your feet. Of course, I covered this on an earlier blog entry. I found they had these boxes of 50 pens, and they were selling for the princely price of a BUCK. That's right, a box of 50 pens for a BUCK. OMG! K-Mart has a real bargain. I bought a box. I used a pen. I got out my canoe and began paddling out of the coffee shop and down the street. GORDFIG! (The Guess Who. Skitch. Thanks. ) You can see the ink on the barrel of the pen. You can see the blopping in the first letter of Linc in this picture. More pens for my bridge over the sewer system KWAI. Of course I bought several boxes. Why? Well, the barrels are not smooth so my hands held them well... Maybe a bird can make them into a nest. No. Plastic. Turtles everywhere are laughing at that joke.

Simplify Pen

When I was searching for Bazic pens in Cleveland, I found another dollar plus stuff store. I remember buying Certron tape cassettes in the original blue packaging and with the original "Zayre" department store tags on them. I used to buy tapes  at Zayre all the time so it was a pleasure to find them some 25+ years later.  These are also pens from a holding company that sells office supplies from China. The pens themselves are just like Pilot's basic pens. Almost identical. How do they write? Fine. Like the Bazic pens. Plus they are ribbed for my pleasure. I like these but I couldn't see writing with them. However, they are great for filling in my check book so that's what I use them for. I went back to buy more but they didn't have them. The website no longer listed them. Wonder if they were taken away for copyright infringement?

Bazic Pure

See, the cloning goes on. Yep. These are from Bazic. There are the same as the Simplify. These write the same. They are fine pens. They are also available from generic dollar stores. I like these. What can I say. If I want a Pilot pen, which I remember as being a fine pen but they cut the paper I used. I'd buy scissors to cut paper. Buy them. Use them. Enjoy them. Disassemble them. Marvel at them. Put a finger on your lips, move your finger up and down and make a moan noise. B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. 

Bic Velocity

Bic Velocity. I bought these a bit ago and well, they blopped. Not really bad, but they blopped. However, they were a click pen and I thought they wrote rather smooth so I put a few in my briefcase and used them for a backup. One day, a few years later, while in a McD's restaurant on a hot day when the air in the restaurant wasn't working too well. It was buck coffee and buck drinks and I was getting credit for writing there. (Long story, but then, isn't this whole post just a long story like Steve Landesburg talking about the latest whatever on Barney Miller.) I pulled one of these pens out of my briefcase as I forgot my regular pens and well, a goopy trail of ink followed. In other words, these pens LEAKED. I had about 10 minutes of cleaning up and I had ink on my hands for a day of two. One pen was trashed, one was only leaking a little so I saved that load. These were taken out of service, but then a little bit later, I put them as utility pens. This is before I had the bridge in mind. They are refillable clicker pens. Wouldn't you keep them? A man built them. They are pens. Pen Pen Pen Pen Pen Pen Pen. SPAM. I called it the Bic Atlantis as they pretty much don't make these anymore except in GEL as "Gelocity" and these were replaced by Atlantis pens. You can still get "Extra Bold" Atlantis pens, but who cares. I'm just trying to be your complete Bic news source. Plus, the name wore off all of them so I'm not sure what they are called. *Wah Wahhhhhhhh*

Jot by Dollar Tree

I forgot to get a pic of my Jot from Dollar Tree. Put a little foam on the pen, you have grip. It's how they get you to buy another dollar worth of crap. When all is said and done, these are actually good writing pens. They blop, but rarely and write really smooth and dark. They fit regular Bic Grips. It's all good. I'd prefer a Bazic load for my Bic pen if I wasn't going to use an actual Bic. Hell, does anybody realize that pens don't cost anything anymore? Who writes anymore? Why steals pens anymore? Who gives them away? Who buys USED pens from a local thrift shop without realizing that somebody was likely holding them between his/her ear and head and some of the cheese from unwashed skin crevices rubbed off on the barrel of the pen causing a cleaning cycle with Formula 49. Been there. Done that. Ick.

Cello Smooth

Wow. When Dollar Tree was out of the JOT pens that were "Bic Round Stic" style pen, they came out with these. Ten pens for a buck. They write great. They are only a mini blop and otherwise, are perfectly good pens. (They write instantly and with a cheap grip, work well.) These Cello pens seem exclusive to the Tree and had their distributed by info on the back of the package.  Looking them up, Cello is a pen manufacturer in India and they were purchased by BIC. Perhaps there were sell offs that the Tree got exclusively? Are these even available anymore? Again, why do you need to buy a bag of used pens when you can get a million pens for cheap. Not 50 Pens for a dollar. Those were sold at K-Mart and started leaking the moment after pressing the pen to paper. These don't. Of course they don't grip, but kids are going to love them.

Generic "Whoops" Pen

These were a real bargain but they suck so hard that they are worth what you pay for. Usually clickey pens, all plastic, usually with a business you never heard of printed badly on a pen that may or may not last for a bit or blop or be the worst pen you ever used. This was one of the good ones. Refillable, not with "Parker" loads. It was a crap shoot when I bought these from my local retailer for 15 pens for a buck. You see, if you're a printer and you sell pens with your company info on it, there's a lot that can go wrong with the process. However, you wouldn't find out until you print a lot of pens where the company info is on the pen handle or over the click spot or not printed correctly. If you have a machine to print these and it's not calibrated? Then you get 500 pens that don't look good. Sell em. Pen freaks will buy them. Honest. Amazon's got em. Go Get Em.

Paper Mate Write Bros.  (Old Logo)

Yes, they changed the logo and the pen went further South. I discovered these blopped very little but the box of new logo pens with a little lighter barrel, were similar to the older Bic Crystals in that they were messing up what I was writing or drawing with blotches of ink. Really. I mean does the logo, modernized, mean that the pen blows now? When they started putting holes in the caps so peeps couldn't choke on them, that made pens change right? Maybe they just wanted to sell them as cheaply as possible. The new logo is bold and space aged and the text "Med PT" was replaced by a simple "M" saving cents in ink cost. ZZzzzzzzz. Am I really adding this to my pen collection? Okay. Bastardized Bic Crystals. We get it. Oh no, there's more. Believe me there's more. I tried to use all of the Paper Mate old type that I had, but just couldn't make it. Not even with the foam wrap so Mr. Fat Hanz (TM) can gripify them.

Paper Mate G-Force 

So these were the perfect pencil. I was using Paper Mate's cheapest mechanical pencil. The disposable kind. I was a budding artist in 2004. I wanted a better pencil so I happened into a Walgreens and bought a pair of them. They worked great, and then the were discontinued. I had my friend Boomer buy a 12 pack of the great mechanical pencil G-Force with the fiery Pheonix and  Key-OP who stuttered. It was Americanized. The character in the original Japanese anime version swore like a truck driver. Funny anime from the 70's. Right. Well, I walked into a Dollar Tree near me and found that they made the G-Force Pencils in a PEN form. They blopped a little bit, but the comfort of writing with these pens was great. I bought a ton of the steel ones as well as a ton of the ones with colored bodies, red, green, maroon. Trouble with the painted ones was, the paint would start wearing off with just regular in pocket carrying. I can see why they stopped making them with colored barrels. However the STEEL barrels. Two things. First the loads in these pens were pretty small and wore out quickly if they worked at all. Second... if you take them apart... they are about 13 separate pieces including the spring. Um..."Hey can I steal your pen?" "You mean this extremely complicated device that makes you marvel that in some Paper Mate board room, they approved this design to keep plastic and aluminum and nail polish manufacturers in business for a long time? No my friend, you can go to the bridge over the sewer KWAI out back and pick up a NEW LOGO Paper Mate and blop your happy way home." "Okay, ASS!"

Pentel BK420

I will wrap it up here. Again with the Dollar Tree and again picked up tons of these pens for the simple purpose of gutting them, trimming the load and having it fit inside the 100 G-Force pens. The loads would eventually wear out on those, so I needed a replacement. With a little help, these fit. They were almost blop free like the G-Force pens, and , these had ink that didn't dry up so quickly. Now you ask, "why not just use these pens as is." No, you didn't ask that. I didn't ask that. I wanted the guts like a pen vampire and leaving the carcasses behind like the inside guts of a potato bug consumed by a spider leaving only the shells. ICK. No, they have a flaw that pens like them all suffer from. Pens that retract by pushing down on the pen clip. F**K! I mean, you're writing along, shift your position and F**K. You're wearing it in your shirt pocket where you run into the door and break off the clip making it useless. F**K. You go to use these as a trachea tube just like in MASH but the clip won't allow you to use it and the patient leaves the series after three years to star in "Hello Larry". F**K!   -----Junk Blog. -Ric