I bought these pretty expensive Bic mechanical pencils and they are making me angry because the leads in there are really short.  I write out a couple of math problems and then have to pull the lead out and start over again.  I just figured since they were kind of pricey I would get better results.  The cool thing about these pencils is the fact that they have like a little rubber sleeve where you put your fingers to write, so you do not get all callused up.  That is my pencil rant!