The X-Entertainment Blog!

07/31/2003: ROCK PENCIL OK?

For those who were wondering…

That’s a rock pencil. =D

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 42 comments

Yes first post! Quick better shill something…see a great trailer at “sony.com/Mexico”. William Defoe as a Mexican villain?? Brilliant! Long live Mighty Max, Rocko’s Modern Life, Salute Your Shorts, Shelby Woo Mysteries(?), Capt. Simian and the Space Monkeys, Spielberg Cartoons, Eeek the Cat, X-Men (the old one not the teenage crap) and Brain Candy. Also how could you forget Mac & Me the greatest alien invasion / commercial ever made. Any body else have cartoon memories, Matt pretty much nailed it with this list, there shouldn’t be a lot of "hey you forgot so and so" like that Duckula fiasco. I’m looking forward to what Teddy will say. How is he gonna turn this into an issue, this will be his greatest challenge yet.

Ghosted by Happnin' Mojo @ 07/31/2003 3:17 PM EDT

Sweet, first post…

I used to get them on fourth grade field trips to places like the Franklin Mineral Dump and other lamewad museums in the Garden (Apartment) State. Nice to know they still make them (or did they just hoard them over the years, much like the Donkey Kong cereal turned monkey food?).

Ghosted by Konopka @ 07/31/2003 3:18 PM EDT

Damn, missed it!

Ghosted by Konopka @ 07/31/2003 3:18 PM EDT

I actually hate the way the Invasion list turned out. Not so much the list itself — that’s good enough, but I lost the original write-up and had to do a quick and dirty version on the fly. Oh well. :/

It did remind me that I need to review "This Island Earth," though.

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/31/2003 3:20 PM EDT

Yes! "This Island Earth" is a great flick…ok, to be honest I’ve only seen the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version, but that was great nonetheless. Also, was watching ET last night and I’m *pretty sure* ET flips through it as he’s watching tv. Anyone?

Ghosted by purplegirl247 @ 07/31/2003 3:30 PM EDT

Do a revew of the princess bride!

Ghosted by Shyguy @ 07/31/2003 3:48 PM EDT

HAY! i used to have one of those!

Ghosted by Jared @ 07/31/2003 4:05 PM EDT

hey matt,

am i crazy or did you used to have a review of teen witch?!?!

Ghosted by julia badtouch @ 07/31/2003 4:09 PM EDT

Never did that one. Just Worst Witch.

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/31/2003 4:12 PM EDT

Reminds me of those pens with the shredded money that used destroyed bills from the U.S. Treasury.

For things like that, and rock pencils, it was almost impossible to resist the urge to open the pen up (if it was openable…if not, then chew it/break it) and pour out the contents, thereby ruinging the pen.

Ghosted by Ubu Rex @ 07/31/2003 4:26 PM EDT

That’s the beauty part — eraser pops off, you’re free to peruse the rocks at your leisure. True though, this usually leads to the pencil losing its novelty. I always lost the rocks.

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/31/2003 4:27 PM EDT

Yeah…even when you’d try top be real conscientous and put all the contents every time, eventually the eraser (or whatever end-closer was used) would start to wear out, get loose, and eventually fall off in your backpack or while you were trying to write something.

I never had that happen to me while taking a test, but I would’ve been amused if it had. At least in retrospect.

Ghosted by Ubu Rex @ 07/31/2003 4:42 PM EDT

Which strong bad email had homsar and strong sad playing connect 4?
and homsar says "you shanked my jengaship." I’ll drive to the snake and animal farm and buy a rock pencil for anyone that answers my question. really, i live like 15 minutes away.

Ghosted by random loser @ 07/31/2003 5:28 PM EDT

You’re right, Ubu. I completely forgot about that. After making Uber-rock pencils, I would often open my backpack and realize I now had "air" pencils… All the rocks had spilled and congregated at the bottom of my bag, NOT in my pencils, where they should have been!

Ghosted by Nachokhaki @ 07/31/2003 5:33 PM EDT

my "air" pencils usually turned into "nerd" pencils, though. snacky time in algebra.

Ghosted by John @ 07/31/2003 5:36 PM EDT

Ahhhh. The description didn’t do the rock pencil justice. It’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen. Of course, I do spend most of my time in the crawl space with only my imaginary friend Karate McNinja and an old grape Jollyrancer to keep me company.

Ghosted by YetiMcSasquatch @ 07/31/2003 5:39 PM EDT

To random loser i dont know what you were talking about but thats not a strong bad e-mail its the cartoon "wheres the cheat".

Ghosted by Jared @ 07/31/2003 6:58 PM EDT

"I actually hate the way the Invasion list turned out. Not so much the list itself — that’s good enough, but I lost the original write-up and had to do a quick and dirty version on the fly. Oh well. :/ "

My condolences. That’s the pits. Was it a hard copy that grew legs and walked away, or did the computer eat your homework?
p.s. how many rock pencils did you buy?

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 07/31/2003 7:00 PM EDT

thanks Jared, i owe you a rock pencil.
I just couldn’t remember where that jengaship scene was.
Wheres the Cheat is the funniest toon, too.

Ghosted by random homsar fan @ 07/31/2003 7:28 PM EDT

Thanks Matt…I have honestly never beheld such things before. I can’t help thinking that if those were around in my school, they would have been used extensively to transport crack. I lived in a really bad neighborhood.

Bet you could kick ass in a pencil fight with one of those bad boys though.

Ghosted by Hellpop! @ 07/31/2003 8:32 PM EDT

Meh, I’ve always been a mechanical pencil girl. Sadly, never impressed by the rock pencils. The money pencils and pens were cool, the JUMBO PENCILS were hard to sharpen, but I was always disappointed by rock pencils.

They were something you’d regret losing, which one always did, plus they gave you very little actual pencil to use.

Ghosted by Melanie @ 08/01/2003 2:14 AM EDT

Now there’s a girl who’s serious about her pencils.

Ghosted by Jeff @ 08/01/2003 3:29 AM EDT

How sad. My cousin gave me one when I was 12. I’m much much older now and I still have it. In fact it’s sitting right here. *shakes it* See?

Ghosted by Basic @ 08/01/2003 4:47 AM EDT

I almost forgot pencil break, started in 2nd grade and lasted to high school, probably the longest running trend I’ve ever witnessed. My school of course banned it just like gum and pogs…retarded school. The best pencils ever though are those real long wire like pencils but they are a bitch to sharpen and coming in second are flat carpenter pencils, those things last for years.

Ghosted by Happnin' Mojo @ 08/01/2003 7:21 AM EDT

Heh, rock pencils.. The Cincinnati Zoo used to have ones that were supposed to represent animals: Zebra pencials had white and black rocks in them, leopard had brown and black, etc. And no, they didn’t remind you of the animal, save the giant letters that said "Zebra" all over the plastic sleeve. boggle

Ghosted by goeatweeds @ 08/01/2003 1:32 PM EDT

reminds me of those vials of rocks("Opals") they sold late at night on TV.

Ghosted by hjgdhfgd @ 08/01/2003 3:25 PM EDT

Speaking of banned games in school, I got busted for pogs, pencil break, and the ultimate game, Slap Attack. Also known as Hot Hands, and maybe some other things. Me and my buddies still play to this day, even though we are now college students. I love that game. Me and my buddies would play until our hands were swollen and red. Anyone else love this game as much as I do?

Ghosted by Bansheex @ 08/01/2003 6:42 PM EDT

Yup but we just called it slaps and it was considered more of a junior type of bloody knuckles. Almost exactly like slaps except with clenched fists and yes sometimes you do bleed, at least you weren’t one of those kids that masteurbated in the bathroom.

Ghosted by Happnin' Mojo @ 08/01/2003 7:10 PM EDT

My friends and I originated a game in junior high called "Chop to the Neck". It was very simple…you had to trick someone into looking upward, and when they did, you gave them a karate chop to the throat.

Yeah, we were kind of dicks back then.

You remember the pencils that had the row of little plastic nubs with a lead stuck on the end inside of them? You’d write til you wore down the lead, then remove the nub and shove into the back of the pencil, forcing the next one upwards. Haven’t seen those things in ages, but I always thought they were pretty cool (though not very practical).

Ghosted by Hellpop! @ 08/01/2003 7:18 PM EDT

We called it Slap Hands, I think. What’s Pencil Break?
Once I got busted for playing Rock, Paper, Scissors while waiting to take the yearly hearing test. We weren’t even hitting each other or pinching or anything, just 3-2-1-shoot, but the crazy ear testing hag dragged us to the principal’s office for playing the deadly game of "Roshambo" as she called it.
http://www.gameskidsplay.net/ is a pretty cool site that has the official playground rules to tons of games. If you’re the kind of geek who’s into that kind of thing.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 08/01/2003 7:23 PM EDT

Roshambo? Sounds like an Akira Kurosawa film.

Ghosted by Happnin' Mojo @ 08/01/2003 7:48 PM EDT

Isn’t Roshambo when you kick each other in the nuts till one of you gives up? I loved a good game of bloody knuckles. I bet Photog sucked at bloody knuckles. Just so I could bring up Photog.

Ghosted by Bansheex @ 08/01/2003 8:07 PM EDT

Roshambo is Japanese for rocks-paper-scissors.

Ghosted by Menchi @ 08/01/2003 10:06 PM EDT

Man, playing slaps or bloody knuckles against Fisto would have sucked, wouldn’t it?

Ghosted by Hellpop! @ 08/01/2003 11:34 PM EDT

In Western Australia "bar code" was the game, did you get that in the USA?

Everyone would stand in a circle a kick around an empty milk carton, if the thing come to a stop and the bar code was showing on the up side, everyone who touched the carton got to punch the last guy to kick the carton in the arm. Kind of half way between hackysac, and beating the crap out of people.

Greg.

Ghosted by GTS-4orced @ 08/02/2003 9:10 AM EDT

I’m looking forward to what Teddy will say. How is he gonna turn this into an issue, this will be his greatest challenge yet. >>

How did I get dragged into this? I don’t turn things into "issues." In fact, I pretty much dig everything Matt does and I don’t give him grief about anything…the only thing I make "issues" about is when people run the same shit into the ground blog entry after blog entry about the same shit (i.e. Mac and Me, the fucking Advent Calendar, etc.)…personally I liked the Invasion list…like all the other lists before them…

Ghosted by Teddy Ray @ 08/09/2003 5:29 PM EDT

"In Western Australia "bar code" was the game, did you get that in the USA?

Greg."

That is the fucking best thing I have ever heard of in my entire life (and, remember, that’s saying a lot, beacuse I still hum the theme song to Superhuman Samurai Cybersquad).

All we had up in Ohio where I grew up was thumb wrestling. But occasionally, for some odd reason, if you were losing, you could call out "Chinese Helpers!" and immediately use your pointer finger to pin the other guy’s thumb before he summoned his own "Chinese Helper".

My god, does that last paragraph sound absurd. I feel as if I need to take a shower just to wash the evil off.

Ghosted by "What the hell is the invasion list? Must be better than the WWF/E's invasion angle" @ 08/09/2003 7:24 PM EDT

ha we play bloody knuckles and slaps in school but we call it tennis…lol…its awsome

Ghosted by kk @ 12/19/2003 5:05 PM EST

"In Western Australia "bar code" was the game, did you get that in the USA?

Greg."

We still played barcode when i was in school- which wasn’t that long ago- that game is pure evil for a tiny 5′3 girl ….
and i thought a rock pencil was like one of those pet rocks with the googly eyes stuck onto the end of a pencil- i’m happy to say that i was more than impressed with what the actual rock pencil in question looked like.

Ghosted by cally @ 09/25/2004 8:04 AM EDT

I got my rock pencil when I was 6 from a natural history museum in Arizona.

Ghosted by Amy @ 05/10/2007 2:36 PM EDT

i HAVE one of those rock pencils somewhere in my house, and have an intense urge to go find it! i got it when i was like 6 at the monterey bay aquarium in cali. oh how i love aquariums and rock pencils!

Ghosted by the one and only Jenny @ 05/21/2007 12:27 AM EDT

Just to let you know, if you are ever in Toronto, Ontario…the Toronto Science Center still sells rock pencils. I bought one for my son last year for the grand sum of $2.99 (plus tax)

Ghosted by Haplo @ 05/21/2007 9:53 PM EDT

Add A New Comment!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2003 at 3:15 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.