It’s time for another edition of Weekly Link Love The last few weeks we focused on Twitter and Instagram accounts we love and follow. This week we’re turning to cool websites of friends and more we want to be sure get the recognition (and love) they deserve.

You may have heard of none, some, or all of these sites. And yes, we know we’ve featured a few of them in previous Weekly Link Love posts, but they’re worth your time, so we’re link loving them again!

And, of course, there’s so many more we follow and love. We can’t list them all. This post would be way too long. Instead, here’s a taste.

As always, don’t forget to spread the love. Now, on to the links!

Baronfig – Tools for thinking. These folks make some of our favorite notebooks and more. 

BoingBoing – A site full of interesting and mostly wonderful things. An internet staple for so many years.

CBR – The place for comics, movies, and other news. Old school, but still one of the best.

DnD Beyond – If you play D&D, this site is a must. Try it and you’ll never play without it again.

Engadget – The OG of tech blogs. Still one of the best.

Field Notes – Our other favorite notebook company. Can’t get enough of their stuff. 

GeekDad – Are you a geek or nerd? Are you a Dad? This site is for you. 

Jason Lee – Actor and amazing photographer. Jason Lee is the real deal. Check out his work. It’s pretty amazing.

Kottke – Hard to describe, but if you’re a nerd/geek, or just like cool, quirky stuff, this site is a must. 

LAist – Our favorite website about Los Angeles. Still going strong after all these years. 

Lifehacker – You know this one. Want to get better and, well, everything? You need to read this. 

Pencil Revolution – We love pencils, so this is a favorite. Lots of great info, reviews, terrific zines, a podcast and more!

Pen Addict – The site that pretty much kickstarted/re-ignited our love of pens, pencils, notebooks and more.

RPGBot – A great source of knowledge to help you optimize characters for D&D and other RPGs. 

Tabletop Hero – Your library of adventures, monsters and encounters for D&D 5e. Plus, D&D kids club. Great stuff. 

Terribleminds – The site where author Chuck Wendig offers “gentle” writing advice, rants and more. Well worth your time. 

The Typewriter Revolution – If you love typewriters like we do, this site is a must. So much great info for fellow enthusiasts.

Whatever – Author John Scalzi’s website where he talks about, well, whatever. Love his work? You’ll love this site. 

Wirecutter – Our go-to site for reviews & recommendations for pretty much everything from TV’s to toasters, and more.

That’s it for this week. Did we miss any of your favorite websites or blogs? If so, let us know in the comments or hit us up on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. 

Until then, happy linking and don’t forget to spread the love!

Welcome back to another edition of Things We Love. This time around we’re turning our attention to something that might seem like an odd choice given how prevalent digital technologies are these days. As you an tell from the title of this post, we’re talking, of course, about pencils.

Yes, that’s right, pencils. An artifact created in a time before iPads, iPhones, computers and most any other form of technology designed to help you create, remember things or get things done. They’re still in use today and more popular than ever. There’s even a podcast dedicated to them.

The pencil is generally credited to people such as Nicolas-Jacques Conté, who figured out how to mix graphite to mold it into a strong core, Joseph Dixon, who developed methods to mass produce pencils in the classic hexagonal shape they are known for today and Hymen Lipman, who was the first to attach an eraser to one end. According to pencil collector and expert Caroline Weaver in her TED talk about this very subject (which you can watch in its entirety below), this is a major factor in what makes the pencil special. 

“. . . it’s that long history of collaboration that, to me, makes it a very perfect object.”

She makes a compelling case for the pencil during her talk and you should definitely watch the video. It’s pretty cool.

Now that we (and Ms. Weaver) have convinced you pencils are awesome, where do you go to get some for yourself? Well, we mostly go to these places:

Pencils.com

CW Pencil Enterprises

JetPens

Some of our favorites include the Blackwing 602, the General Pencil Test Scoring 580, the Musgrave Tennessee Red, the ForrestChoice #2 and, for you mechanical pencil fans, the Pentel P205 and Rotring 600.

These are just a few of our favorites and some of the places we go to get pencils. Many of these are also available at Amazon.

So, why not give the pencil a try? You just might love it as much as we do.

Do you ever use pencils or other analog tools in your daily life? If so, what are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Image: Blackwing
Video: TED
Note: This post contains affiliate links.

We’re spreading the love here at The Flickcast. This time around it means the debut of another new series: Things We Love.

To kick us off, we’re turning to one of the things we love the most: Art Supplies. They’re always great to have on hand, especially if you’ve got kids, need activities at home during a global health crisis, or just want to create something beautiful.

Whatever the reason, art supplies are a must. They promote creativity, help you spend quality time with friends, family or on your own. And when you’re done you have a beautiful piece of art to hang on the wall or post to social media. Or both!

But what do you need? Well, it depends on what you want to create. There’s a wide variety of supplies for artists to express themselves in lots of different mediums.

For the purposes of this post, though, we’re going to focus on supplies for sketching, drawing, coloring and painting. Of course, this is by no means an exhaustive list. It’s things we personally love and use.

You can always create in any way you want. But if you need help figuring out how to start or what you might need, we’ve got you covered. 

Ok, let’s get to it!

Pencils

Many great things start with a pencil. Sketch an outline, make some project notes, write a story or draw an entire picture. Whatever you want to create, sometimes all you need is a pencil.

Blackwing 602 – A beautiful pencil for writing, drawing or sketching.
Faber-Castell 9000 – A German brand offering a set with a variety of grades. These don’t break easily and sharpen well.
Staedtler Mars Lumograph – Like the Faber-Castell, these pencils have a place at the drawing tables of many artists around the world. We go back and forth on which is our favorite.
Caran d’Ache Graphite Line – Expensive? Yes. But these are the best drawing pencils you will even use. Although, the two above are no slouches either. 
Rotring RapidPro 600 – Mechanical pencils are great for sketching, layout and drawing too. This metal masterpiece is the top of the line and one we love.
Pentel P205 – We also use this mechanical pencil quite a bit. It’s great and a good value.

We thought it would be great to link to other blogs, websites, podcasts, videos and stories that caught our fanc,y or we think deserved to get noticed, during the week. So, to further that, and spread a little love around, we’re bringing back the Weekly Link Love.

No, it’s not an original idea. Lots of people do it. And we’ve done it before too. Granted, it’s been a minute. But that doesn’t matter.

We think it’s important to bring it back and uplift others, especially these days. So, welcome back the Weekly Link Love.

Since we produce a podcast, it made sense to start with some of the ones we listen to on the regular and enjoy. Find the links below. Spread the love. 

The Beerists – For the love of craft beer. Podcast produced in Austin, TX. 

Dragon Talk – The official Dungeons & Dragons podcast.

The Erasable Podcast – The No. 2 pencil podcast about, you guessed it, pencils. 

HomeWork – The podcast by and for people working at home. 

Inside of You – Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville’s Lex Luthor) interviews great guests.

The KingCast – A Stephen King podcast for Stephen King obsessives.

The Pen Addict – We love pens and pencils, so this podcast is a favorite.

Random Trek – Scott McNulty discusses a random episode of a Star Trek series with a non-random guest.

Scriptnotes – Screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters, with John August & Craig Mazen. 

Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast – A tech podcast for the gadget lovers and tech heads with Marques Brownlee.

WTF? – Marc Maron interviews everyone and gives his personal views on issues of the day. 

That’s it for this week. Let us know if you find an interesting link you’d like to share. Until then, don’t forget to spread the love.