What I Read: July 2018

Hey everybody! If you saw my what I watched wrap-up for July, this reading version is going to be along the same lines. I haven't read as much as I typically do. Most of my life has been taken over by exam studying. I do have about a 30 minute commute on the bus each weekday, so I've managed to read most of these on that ride. A lot of them are shorter too, so that's helped. I've managed to read 7 things this month which puts my total for the year at 176. There were a few great books, but mostly average ones. I'm still on the streak of no 5 star books.

I read two celebrity memoirs this month: In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham (3/5) and So Close To Being The Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know by Retta (4/5). Lauren Graham's was pretty much just a way to make money off some graduation speech she gave. When I got the book from the library, I was surprised to see how tiny it was. It was no more than 60 pages and probably took me half an hour to read at most. The advice wasn't that great, though I do like how her main message was that you should just let things happen and not worry. Retta's was funny and a nice look into the life of a smaller Hollywood actress. She's was in Parks and Recreation, one of my favorite shows, and a newer one I've enjoyed, Good Girls. Her dialogue was cringey at time. It was neat to hear she went to college and originally planned on going to med school. I have a lot more respect for her now that I've heard more about her background. A lot of actors/actresses have worked extremely hard to be where they are today. If you're a fan of her in Parks and Rec, than I recommend you check it out. After seeing the movie Wonder last month and loving it, I had to check out the book as well. I read Wonder by R.J. Palacio and rated it 4/5 stars. It didn't have quite the same appeal as the movie, but I did thoroughly enjoy it. The dialogue seemed cringey and juvenile in certain sections. It was neat to hear all the perspectives of the different characters. I still like the movie way more. I finally got around to the classic Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (2/5). I love short books, yet this one felt too short. There didn't seem to be much of a plot or fleshed out characters. It left me with a lot to be desired. I did not expect the ending at all. I didn't like all the slurs used against certain groups of people. It was okay but I don't get the appeal. I also read a YA novel called We Are Okay by Nina LaCour (2/5). It wasn't that great either and wasn't what I expected. The main character seemed too whiny.

Normally I check out a bunch of graphic novels on Hoopla, but I didn't get a chance to read anything I checked out before they were returned. I found a bunch of survivalish books that I was excited to read, so I'm bummed I didn't get around to them. I'll have to check them out again next month. That's about it for this month. It was kind of disappointing, but it's better than nothing. Thanks for looking!

What I Watched: July 2018

Hey everybody! Another month down, another what I watched wrap-up. This will probably be the most disappointing wrap-up yet, because I've watched little to no TV shows or movies this month. I think I've watched one movie in July and that's it. I've been busy studying for some career related exams which has consumed my entire life. I'm trying not to let myself watch much of anything until I'm done with the exams in mid-August. I have traded my typical TV time for some YouTube time though, so maybe I'll talk about the channel I've been mostly watching.

I do want to talk a little about one movie I finished at the end of June that didn't make my wrap-up. If you saw one of my last posts about my recent library pickups, I had checked out Justice League and Wonder. I enjoyed both, but Wonder is the one that far exceeded my expectations. It was so heartwarming. I was surprised to see myself get so invested in the family. I would highly recommend it! It's probably going to be one of my favorite movies I've watched this year.

I normally only see a few movies in theaters a year, and Ocean's 8 happened to be one of them. The trailer looked very cool, so I had high expectations. Plus, I of course wanted to support an all woman heist film. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was still good. I loved all the cast and thought it was clever. Was it the best? No, though I don't think it was a waste of my time.

I've got no updates on TV shows unfortunately. I don't want to start any new ones, since I'm the type of person that will binge the series in a matter of days/weeks depending how many episodes are out. I don't have the time to get sucked into that black hole right now. Hopefully I can watch a lot of stuff before school starts. Season 4 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and I believe season 3 of Last Chance U recently came out, so I'm eagerly waiting to start them.

YouTube has been my primary source of entertainment. Birdshot IV is my absolute favorite channel at the moment. I can't believe I hadn't watched any of their stuff until about a month ago. They are hilarious, informative, and just have a ton of great content. I love seeing the relationship between Frankie and Bird. If you somehow haven't heard of their channel, you need to check it out. They've always got all sorts of new EDC gear to talk about. I've been going back and watching a lot of their older reviews/EDC updates on stuff that I've always been interested checking out. Sorry this wasn't as interesting of a post. I wish I had more things I could talk about. That should all change in a little over three weeks luckily. Thanks for looking!

My Favorite Albums/Artists/Bands of All Time

Hey everybody! I wanted to do this random post about some of my favorite albums, artists, and bands of all time. I'm pretty picky when it comes to music, so it's kind of rare for me to enjoy all or at least most of the songs on an album. I've actually found quite a few that I love to listen to all the way through. I also think I'll talk about some of my favorite artists/bands. My music tastes generally are all over place, but I do like pop and rock the most. I tend to like a lot of older songs more than some of the overly-produced trash that's popular today. I hate country and screamo music with a passion. Other than that, I'll give anything a listen. I generally like upbeat songs more than slower ones. I absolutely hate having to wait for like a minute for the artist to start singing any words. Sometimes I like longer instrumental intros, but few people can pull it off in my opinion. I'll be italicizing album titles and bolding song titles to differentiate from the rest of the text.

Okay so album wise, some of my all-time favorite albums would have the be Badlands - Halsey, The Hype - Hoodie Allen, Beautiful Trauma - P!nk, and Death Of A Bachelor - Panic! At The Disco. All are great and deserve a listen if you're looking for some new music. They're all relatively recent releases within the past couple years I believe. I've been a huge fan of Hoodie Allen for years now. He's a rapper that has more of a poppy sound. I used to be way more into rap when I was younger. Now there's very few rappers I can actually tolerate. The Hype is Hoodie Allen's most recent album and is probably one of my favorites of his. Some of my favorite songs off it are Believe, Ain't Ready, All My Friends, and Mad. People Keep Talking and Happy Camper are also great albums from him but each have some songs that I'm not a fan of. Badlands is one of the few physical CDs I have. This is still my favorite album from Halsey as I don't like a lot of newer stuff. Drive and Strange Love are two that I still love to listen to now. Beautiful Trauma is also P!nk's most recent album. I'd always heard her songs on the radio as a kid but that was about all the exposure I'd had to her. This album is probably the only one I've listened to fully, so I might have to go back and listen to some of her older stuff. There's a lot of different variety in all the songs. Some of my favorites are Beautiful Trauma, Better Life, Secrets, and But We Lost just to name a few. It's such a great album overall. Panic! At The Disco has always been pretty popular, but I didn't listen to much of their stuff until I got on Spotify. Death Of A Bachelor is still one that I'll jam out to when I'm doing homework or something. P!ATD is probably my favorite band at the moment. They've got such an interesting sound that works in upbeat and slower songs. I love every song on the album though LA Devotee, Victorious, Hallelujah, and Crazy=Genius are some of the top ones for me. If I had to pick my top favorite of all these albums, it'd have to be Death Of A Bachelor. It's that good.

I do have some honorable mentions for favorite albums that have a lot of good songs yet aren't perfect for me. Those would have to be Rainbow - Kesha, Electra Heart - Marina and the Diamonds, and Wiped Out! - The Neighborhood. I loved Kesha's music when I was in middle/high school and was excited that she started releasing music again after dealing with an abusive producer. There's a lot of powerful songs on Rainbow about her experiences with that. There's some interesting songs genre wise that I wasn't expecting her to do, like some countryish songs. Favorites would have to be Let 'Em Talk, Praying, and Learn To Let Go. Electra Heart is more poppy with some of my favorites being Primadonna, Homewrecker, and Power & Control. I'm not as into The Neighborhood as I used to be. Wiped Out! is another one of the few ones I own physically. Prey, Single, and R.I.P 2 My Youth are good ones of that album.

When it comes to my favorite artists and bands, like I mentioned earlier Hoodie Allen, P!nk, and Panic! At The Disco are some of my favorites. Another band that I've gotten way more into recently is Bleachers. They've got some awesome songs like, I Wanna Get Better, Rollercoaster, I Miss Those Days, and Don't Take The Money. I'm not generally a fan of live versions of any songs, yet their MTV Unplugged album is some of my favorite stuff from them. I found it on Spotify and am so happy it's on there. As far as some of the classics go, I'm a huge Queen, Journey, and Red Hot Chili Peppers fan. I've enjoyed their stuff over the past few years that I've gotten more into music. Three favorites from each are The Millionaire Waltz, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, of course Don't Stop Believin', Any Way You Want It, Faithfully, Can't Stop, Scar Tissue, and Californication.  Florence + The Machine, Bruno Mars, Aly & AJ, and Lady Gaga are just a few others that I've been into lately. I could go on and on but I'll stop here since this post is getting long enough. Thanks for looking!

Karas Kustoms Render K Mini Thoughts

When it comes to new pens for my EDC, I probably only try out a handful of nicer ones a year at most. I've seen Karas Kustoms pens all over Instagram for awhile now and was intrigued enough to want to buy one eventually. I found the Render K Mini on clearance for $30 on their site which seemed like a great price for a higher quality pen. My biggest gripe with it is that you can't put the cap on the body. I knew this going into it though. I mostly wanted to see if the quality and form factor would work out. It's the perfect size as an EDC pen! I wish more companies would do compact pens like these. Karas Kustoms discontinued it, so I'm assuming it didn't sell well enough. What a bummer, because it is a neat pen. I still think the Fisher Bullet space pen is the king of compact EDC pens at the moment, though there are more and more popping up.

Onto the Render K Mini, it's a very high quality pen. It is nicely machined out of aluminum. The threads are smooth, and I've never had any problems with the cap coming unscrewed. There's no rattling when you shake it either. The knurling around the top of the pen near the clip is well-done. It allows you to differentiate what end of the pen you're grabbing as well as making it easier to take out of the pocket. The packaging is pretty nice for the price as well. It actually comes in a custom box, which is much nicer than the crappy plastic bag for the Hinderer Investigator pens. These used to come in a ton of different colors too. Now you can only get them in a silver, brass, or copper body with a silver, black, tumbled, or copper grip. I have the silver body and tumbled grip variety. The brass and copper options will run you an additional $10 to $25 for each piece depending on what configuration you do. I do like that you can do various grip and body combos. It's nice to see that level of customization on pens. I wish I was able to get a purple one, as this silver is a little too shiny for me. As I mentioned earlier, you can't put the cap on the end of the body or you'll badly scratch up the pen. This is a minor annoyance since you always have to make sure you don't lose the cap when you're writing with it. It's relatively easy to unscrew the pen one-handed if you had to. It of course doesn't beat the one-handed use of a clicky pen though. Karas Kustoms pens are all made and designed here in the USA as well. They've also got a multitude of other clicky, capped, and fountain pens if you like the look of this one but need something bigger.

As far as how it writes, I've mostly enjoyed it. A slight issue I've got is that the refill has a bit of give to it when you're writing. I can feel the refill pressing against the spring, which makes these slight clicking noises. I've not had issues like this with cheaper ballpoint pens, so I'm not sure what to make of it. Any refill should be completely solid in the pen when writing in my opinion. Besides that, this feels great in the hand. It's a slick design with no machining on the grip area, but honestly I'm fine with that. I've never felt like this would slip out of my hand due to lack of grip. The size, about 4.25" long, is perfect for writing too. There's more than enough to grab onto without your hand feeling too cramped. It's also a lighter weight pen, around 1.1 ounces I believe, so it doesn't weigh down your hand unnecessarily. They come with a Schmidt Easyflow 9000 ink cartridge. I've never used one of these refills before, but I've liked it. It's a gel refill that writes smoothly. These can also take all sorts of Parker and some of the Fisher refills. Overall, the pen does feel good in the hand although I didn't like the springiness when I was writing. I just got a Tactile Turn pen that has that same springiness, so maybe it's a fault with the design of these machined pens. Who knows. It's not the end of the world by any means. I'm just very picky.

This pen does carry well due to the light weight, small size, and good clip. I love that the clip screws on with two flat head screws. It makes it easy to replace if it somehow broke/bent weirdly. I don't see that happening unless you really abuse your pens. I'm sure if you wanted to rock it clipless, you could do that too. The clip works exactly as it should. I have no major complaints about it. It's a little tight, so it might have issues with thicker materials. It has clipped to everything I've attempted to clip it on. I like that it doesn't stick out that far, which helps keep this pen on the slimmer side. For you dudes with actual pocket space, it should be easy to carry in the pocket.

Ultimately this pen gets the boot since it's not purple and the cap doesn't post (apparently that's what it's called when the cap can sit on the body). I'm impressed enough with Karas Kustoms as a company that I would be interested in trying out some more of their pens. The Retrakt looks like a solid clicky pen. The Render K Mini is a cool pen though. If you don't mind the cap issue, you can't go wrong for $30. Here's a link to their site if you want to check them out. It didn't fit all my preferences, so unfortunately I'll be selling mine. It was a fun pen to try out though. I'd love to see more pens out there in this size range. Thanks for looking!

Benchmade 940 Osbourne Thoughts

There's only a handful of Benchmades I've wanted to try throughout my knife collecting journey. The Mini Griptilian is my favorite knife from them, but I've always had my eye on the infamous 940. Everyone and their mother seems to rave about this knife. I was very fortunate to get the chance to borrow this from a guy that watches my videos. Huge thank you to Jacob for letting me try it out! Otherwise, I probably never would have bought one for myself. I set my expectations very high for this knife. Everyone I follow on YouTube, Instagram, and on the internet in general loves the 940. I'm not one of them. I see why it's popular, but ultimately it's not my cup of tea. Is it an awful knife? No, not by any means. Is it worth $160+? No. I personally don't think so. Quick side note, Benchmade has always produced the worst valued knives out there. That's how they've been and how they'll probably always be. If I paid the $180ish price tag on Blade HQ, I would've been sorely disappointed with this knife. If you're going to pay that much, my expectation is that it's going to be a perfect knife. I've had other mid-to-large-sized EDC knives that I've loved way more. I wouldn't want to carry this thing every single day, so that's where it fails for me. There's too many quirks that I don't like about it. I don't personally recommend. I'm just one in a sea of thousands that doesn't seem to enjoy it. Take all of this with a grain of salt. At least I can check it off my list.

The quality is for the most part what you'd typically expect from a Benchmade. Blade centering looks good, and fit and finish is fine. There is a decent amount of side-to-side play that I can't get rid of without making it insanely tight. Design wise, it looks nice, but I don't like in person as much as in the pictures I've seen before. I think all the cutouts are what's throwing me off. The blade shape just has a weird symmetry to it that I'm not a fan of.

Probably one of the first things I should mention is that I didn't realize how big this knife was. I thought it was supposed to be more mid-sized, while it's definitely on the larger end. It's got a 3.4" blade where the biggest I typically go for is a 3" blade. That wasn't what I was expecting for some reason. I will say Benchmade is able to fit a lot of blade into a light and compact package. The handle isn't all that long for this big of a blade. The steel on here is S30V. I've always thought of that as one of the highest end steels, but I think it's been surpassed by other super steels by now. I'm not into the high end steels, so it's been perfectly fine for me.

The black coated blade looks much cooler than a satin finished one. Of course you will deal with issues of it wearing weirdly depending how hard you use it. I don't really dig the reverse tanto blade shape either. It works well enough for cutting, yet it doesn't appeal to me visually. A major gripe is that the thumb stud is way too close to the handle. Benchmade should have either widened the knife a smidge or done some sort of cutouts so you can access it easier. If I wanted to flick it with the thumb studs, I have to be very deliberate with what angle I flick it from. There's not enough clearance for me to flip it well 100% of the time. The Ontario Rat 2 is about the same size in width and has a perfectly placed thumb stud with lots of room to flick it from every angle. For the 940, I've resorted to open it slowly with my thumb or using the Axis lock to open it. As far as the blade goes, I'm not a fan of the shape overall and the thumb stud placement. It functions exactly as it should for EDC tasks though.

Getting onto the handle, the texture of these aluminium scales is awful. It feels like you're grinding your nails on a chalkboard. I have heard that it wears down as you carry it more. Ultimately, some of my problems with this knife would've been solved if I got the G10 version. Metal scales can be hit or miss for me depending on how they're done. These are a big miss for me personally. I absolutely love this colorway the most though. They do have a carbon fiber one that is of course way more expensive along with the G10 versions. This is such a popular knife that they've had a lot of variations over the years. The black on green with the purple backspacer looks so cool! I wish more companies would start doing their backspacers in an accent color.

The Axis lock is by far the funnest lock to play with. It doesn't cleanly close 100% percent of the time which is kind of annoying. A lot of the times the blade will bounce back out if you close it with too much force. I've had this issue on other Benchmades I've tried, so it's not just exclusive to this knife.

I don't personally like all the cut-outs on the handle either. That's mostly an issue of design taste. The ergos are kind of weird to me. It fits my entire hand, yet Benchmade stupidly decided not to round off the edges of the handles where they did the two cutouts. Every other edge is rounded except the ones in the middle for the cutouts. Why wouldn't they just round off every edge? It makes absolutely no sense to me. I was trying to get a picture of it but my camera wouldn't focus that close. My middle finger always gets jabbed by the squared off cutouts uncomfortably. The hotspots in the middle throw off the whole ergos for me. I've not heard anyone mention it before, so take that as you will. I'm not sure if the G10 version has the same issue. Again, these are all little details but they add up. There is a bit of jimping where your thumb would rest. I've never had an issue with this knife slipping out of my hand and haven't felt like I needed the jimping or any extra grip. It is nice that it's there.

This knife does carry phenomenally. It's super lightweight and is so slim that you barely notice it on you. If I was a bigger fan of the design, I'd probably enjoy carrying it quite a bit. The clip looks ugly to me, but that's only because I like Benchmade's split arrow clip more. It's tip-up for left and right hand carry. You wouldn't think you're carrying such a big knife considering the compact form factor.

These go for about $180, which I personally find to be a terrible value for what you're getting. Aluminum and S30V for that much is kind of crazy. So many new companies coming onto the knife scene, like Kizer and Steel Will, are doing better designs for way less. You're not paying for value when you buy a Benchmade though. You're buying for the higher class knife I suppose. I'm happy I didn't drop the money on one.

All in all, I did not fall in love with this knife like I thought I would. The size didn't match up to my tastes, the finish on the handles feels awful, the blade looks weird, the thumb studs are too close to the handle, the squared off edges on the cutouts suck in the hand, etc. There are some positives, like how well it carries and the color combo. For the money, I'd much rather buy a variety of $30 to $80 knives that will suit my tastes much better. I don't need the higher end finish/materials that come with these $150 plus knives. When compared to knives like the Ontario Rat 2, Spyderco Native 5, and even the Mini Grip, the 940 would be a loser for me as an EDC knife every time. If you like the design, check it out. Otherwise, I've found other knives that I enjoy using way more. It didn't stand up to all the insanely good hype it had. I personally would not recommend it, though that's not to say it's a completely awful knife. I'm bummed that it wasn't what I was expecting. Thanks for looking!

Pick 5 Under $50 (Last 5 EDC Knives Ever)

I've gotten really into watching Birdshot IV videos lately and love the videos they do about picking 5 knives from their collection that will hypothetically be their last EDC knives for the rest of their lives. I thought it'd be fun to do the pick 5 under $50 version, since most of my knives are under that price point anyways. I did this about a month ago but am just now getting around to getting this post up. If you've kept up with my videos, you probably won't be surprised by what I picked.

So here are all the 13 options I had to choose from. I'm going to attempt to list them out from left to right working my from the top to the bottom. Starting with the silver knife in the top left, we've got the CRKT Jettison, CRKT Pilar, CRKT Ritter, Mora Eldris, Cold Steel Mini Tuff Lite, Ontartio Rat 2, Ontario Rat 1, Sanrenmu 681, Spyderco Ladybug, Spyderco Dog Tag, Boker Subcom, Kershaw Cinder, and Boker Kalashnikov. If you want to hear more about any specific ones, just check out the gear thoughts tab. I should have most of them reviewed by now. I did a video of this where you can see most of my process for why certain knives got eliminated. It wasn't as hard to narrow it down to five as I thought. Some of them weren't practical enough to have as my only options, while one in particular just plain sucks. 

If I could only pick five of my knives that are under $50 to be my EDC options for the rest of my life, they'd have to be the Ontario Rat 2, Mora Eldris, Boker Subcom, Cold Steel Mini Tuff Lite, and Spyderco Ladybug. The Rat 2 is about the biggest blade I think I'd ever realistically need on a daily basis, hence the majority of these being smaller knives. It's the best mid-sized knife I've tried over the years. I thought it was just over hyped, yet that's not the case at all. It is truly such a great knife for $30. I'm not around knife people every day, so I do like to have smaller, people-friendly options. The Ladybug is my favorite keychain sized knife out there. The Cold Steel Mini Tuff Lite and Boker Subcom are both smaller options that I really love. I'd be fine with the Eldris being my only fixed blade option. I don't have much of a use for them in my EDC nowadays, though I do think having one around is important. For $25, you can't beat it. It's such a high value knife that can take a beating. All these knives are what I consider to be perfect, so I don't think it'd be too bad to have them as my hypothetical options for the rest of my life. If I had to narrow it down to just one, it'd be between the Rat 2 and Ladybug. I'd probably go for the Rat 2 since it can handle bigger tasks better than the Ladybug might. Check out the video if you want to hear more about the selection process. I might try to do another one of these out of my whole collection or revisit it in the future. Thanks for looking!

Recent Library Pickups #2

I've been browsing around my library somewhat recently and checked out some more books and movies. I've got most of them until the end of the month, so hopefully I can finish them all by then.

The stack from top to bottom is: In Conclusion, Don't Worry About It by Lauren Graham, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Lost In My Own Backyard by Tim Cahill, We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, So Close to Being the Sh*t, Ya'll Don't Even Know by Retta, From Twinkle, with Love by Sandhya Menon, Alligator Candy by David Kushner, and Dangerous Ground: My Friendship with a Serial Killer by M. William Phelps. So far, I've finished Lauren Graham and Retta's books along with Lost In My Own Backyard. I'll have more of my thoughts on them in my upcoming what I read post at the end of the month. I wasn't blown away by any of them, though Retta's book was the funniest and probably my favorite of the three. The rest are some random YA novels, a memoir, and a true crime book. I don't know much about any of them which is kinda how I like to go into a book. Of Mice and Men is a classic that I've wanted to read for a while. I saw Dangerous Ground in the new release section of my library and was of course intrigued by the title. I'm thinking that's the one that I'll read next since I'm obsessed with true crime. 

Movie wise, my hold for Justice League finally came in, and I also saw they had Wonder available in the new movie section. I thoroughly enjoyed both movies. I know Justice League has gotten a lot of hate, but I don't get why. I thought it was fun overall. It was neat to see all the heroes working together. The Flash was my favorite character of the bunch. Wonder looked intriguing to me in the trailer, and I was just waiting for it to come out on DVD. It was a very heart-warming and cute movie. It was nice to see how the main character changed over the course of the movie. I loved the family's relationship and how the movie would focus on different characters points of view. I just read the book and liked it as well. I'd definitely recommend both! It'll be interesting to see which of my holds come in next, because I've got quite the variety of new books/movies that I'm waiting on. Thanks for looking!