The Pen Addict 104/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	104
Title:	Hate That Dude
Release Date:	May 1st, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 104
Audio File:	Audio Episode 104
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 104
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello, welcome to episode 104 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. Welcome, my name's Myke Hurley. I'm joined, as I always am, by Mr Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: This is like masterpiece theatre.

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh, I'm bringing the people in this week. Come on in guys, take a seat.

Brad Dowdy: You're very welcoming. Here, come join us.

Myke Hurley: I'm calm, maybe calm and tired today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, you have a good reason to be tired. I'm surprised you're calm after the week you've had. So, you have been doing a little travelling this week, which is why we're recording on Thursday. So, why don't you tell us what's been going on?

OOL Conference

Myke Hurley: So, I have been in Ireland, in a town called Kilkenny, attending the OOL conference. It's an Apple-based sort of conference, developers, designers, and people in the industry. And OOL is Gaelic for Apple. Okay. Hence the cool name. And yeah, so I've been there this week. I've watched some great talks, met some really great people, had some drinks, ate great food. I met a bunch of pen addict listeners as well.

Brad Dowdy: That's hilarious. That boggles my mind. Like, you can't even believe.

Myke Hurley: I was very surprised. Like, basically, if anybody came up to me and they're like, oh, I listen to your shows, I'm like, great. And then if anybody said the pen addict, I would, like, embrace them immediately. I think I met, like, maybe three or four. But I can, Brad, you know what? I can only remember a couple of names, which makes me feel terrible. But I will say, I want to say hello to everybody that came up and said hi during the week. It was very, very awesome to meet people like Bruno and Alexander and Terry. And those three guys, I have special reasons for remembering them all because they gave me things or were nice to me in a certain way. But everybody was lovely, of course. There is one other person I'm going to mention in a moment because I can see we've got something in the dock and it's pertinent to that. But Terry, he had with him at all a Visconti Wall Street.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's one sexy pen right there.

Myke Hurley: I thought that he might kill someone, but by accident. It's a big pen, huh? It's huge.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And me and Terry had a really great chat of a dinner, actually, about just everything pen related. He was the first person who outed himself as a pen addict listener to me.

Myke Hurley: That's amazing. So, yeah, I had a great time and met loads of really awesome people. And if you came up and said hi, thank you so much for doing it. I'm sorry if I've forgotten your name. I remember you all. I remember all of your faces. Names are just really, really bad for me. I remember the names of people that gave me their cards. That certainly kind of cheated, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Do you remember my name?

Myke Hurley: Who are you?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't know who this guy is. I just sit here and then sometimes you're here and then I talk to you. So, people started receiving their shirts.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, man. A bunch of them. Maybe all of them. All 149 of them.

Myke Hurley: So, do you want to know who received a t-shirt? Who? My girlfriend. Do you want to know who hasn't yet received a shirt? Me. You. I love it. I could not be happier. I think they're stuck in customs because I ordered like three of them. So, I think they're stuck in customs and the mystery pen that you bought me is stuck in customs. And I've only been able to deal with it today. So, they should be coming in over the next couple of days. Yeah. So, you've been out of town. So, you haven't been able to spring them. Exactly. They put these lovely little cards through your letterbox. You owe us 11 pounds.

Brad Dowdy: I feel so bad about your customs situation. I just wish there was something I could do about it. But I guess there isn't.

Myke Hurley: You could bring them over like personally. Yeah. That would be the only real way that we could deal with that situation.

Brad Dowdy: Death, taxes, and customs. Hmm.

Myke Hurley: Oh, there's something I wanted to just throw into the notes because I really enjoyed it from this little blog that I read from time to time called The Pen Addict. Where you did a roundup of your worst pens that you've ever reviewed. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. I like that.

Brad Dowdy: It's in the show notes.

Myke Hurley: Oh, is it? Yeah. I didn't see it in there. Oh, yeah. You put it right at the bottom. Let's forget I ever said that and we'll come to that later. Yeah. Brad, I think I'm a bit tired right now. I don't blame you one bit. I'm sorry. That's okay.

Brad Dowdy: I just woke up and I'm properly caffeine. So, I'm actually feeling pretty decent for a change. So, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Wow. Well, look at us guys. You have some follow-up.

Graduation Gifts

Brad Dowdy: I do have some follow-up. Just a quick one because I'm still getting a lot of questions about it from last week's episode where we did the Twitter Q&A. Okay. This time of year is graduation time for high schools, colleges. So, I'm still getting a lot of the graduation gift questions. And right after we recorded, someone sent me the link that Brian Goulet at Goulet Pens had just put up a post about the top five fountain pens for graduation gifts. So, I thought it was kind of pertinent and his list is really good.

Brad Dowdy: He breaks it down into three factors to consider when you're buying a graduation gift. Presentation. Is the pen going to look good? Is it going to make an impression on the person that you're giving it to?

Brad Dowdy: Kind of a quality of the pen. Is it going to last a long time? Is it durable? Is it a pen they're going to be able to use for years, perhaps the rest of their lives? And ease of use. Is the pen enjoyable? Is it an easy rider? Is it an easy cleaner? You know, maybe the person you're giving it to hasn't necessarily experienced a fountain pen. So, you want to give them an easy pen that's easy to use that they can figure out quickly. So, he put together his list. And I got to say, it's pretty good. His number one is the Lamy Studio, which is just a very well-designed, kind of striking Lamy. It's one of the few Lamy's I think that you can get in a steel nib option and a gold nib option, which they usually just kind of do one or the other. So, that's a good choice there. Then he's got the Edison. Anything from the Edison line. Then he's got a Lamy 2000. And he's got a Monteverde Invincia Deluxe, which is just butt ugly.

Myke Hurley: That black nib is horrible.

Brad Dowdy: It's bad. It'd be better if it was all – they make an all-black one where it's actually reasonable. But with this gold or – that might even be rose gold. Yeah, that's rose gold, which is just – that's not pretty. And then a platinum 3776, which is a pen we will talk about later because I'm enjoying the one that I have. And then it has the honorable mention of the Vanishing Point. You know, that's a tough gift pen. Aside from how cool it is, it's just not made for everyone to write with. So, anyway, I wanted to throw that out there for people that are still looking for graduation gift ideas, especially from fountain pens. And what's interesting, a lot of these options – well, not a lot, but some of them have rollerball options. Like if you're not a fountain pen person or don't want to buy a fountain pen as a gift, I know the Lamy's have rollerball options for these same pens. So, something to keep in mind. So, that's a good link, good reference from Mr. Goulet. And since we haven't done it in a while, I wanted to give a quick NotCo update just because we're about to wrap up this thing, Myke. Can you believe it? Wow. Yeah. So, last update, I did an update Sunday. We only have 140 orders left out of 2066. And then I just shipped out about 40 of those today. So, we're down to about 100 orders left. And I'll have, I don't know, another 30 or so shipped out tomorrow. And then probably most of them by late next week, we should be just about there, just about done. So, I just wanted to give people the heads up that we're not going to roll straight into the store opening. Once the Kickstarter is fulfilled, we need to build up some inventory. So, we're going to take probably the rest of the month of May to build up inventory. We're going to look for a workspace that we can rent. We're going to look to hire some help. I think we're just at that point. The feedback has been so good. And we got people lining up for this stuff that we want to, you know, do a better job of getting our production out quicker. So, we need all these things. So, we're going to take May to kind of get that going. And then we'll have the shop open in June sometime. I'm not going to say June 1st, but it'll be in June at some point in time. So, it's looking good for that to wrap up here in the next week or two. And we'll be done with the NotCo Kickstarter. And then we'll be on to phase two and open up the store and get into retail. And then we'll really see what's going on with this thing. It's pretty crazy.

Myke Hurley: Wow, you've been a busy guy.

Brad Dowdy: I am. Yeah, I'm extremely busy. I'm so busy, Myke, but I'm not too busy to order new pens. And I ordered a pen last week. I'm not sure if you caught this on my Twitter because you've been busy all week. Yeah, I haven't really been busy. I haven't seen you online hardly. Yeah. But I placed an order for a Nakaya.

Myke Hurley: Wow, what one?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm not going to tell you.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: How's that?

Myke Hurley: So, that was what I was going to say. I have actually tried out a Nakaya this week. Oh, cool. Now, this is from, again, this is one of the very, very lovely people whose name I cannot remember. He had incredible blonde flowing locks of hair. Nice.

Nakaya Pen

Brad Dowdy: Let's call him Mr. Nakaya.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, Mr. Nakaya. And I was at lunch and he had it with him. He's like, it's the first fountain pen that I bought. I'm like, are you crazy? What?

Myke Hurley: Because he was in Japan and they're kind of everywhere. And then with the exchange rate and he saw it and it was in this lovely little like fabric sheath. You know? Kimono. Is that what they call them?

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: So, it was in a kimono.

Myke Hurley: That's kind of nice that they call them that because the kimono is like the gown, isn't it? But anyway, yes. It was very similar in fabric and style, actually, to a kimono. And it had like a ribbon that kept it all together. And I didn't use it too much because I didn't want to because he was like, no, no, do it. And I was like, ah. This is how I could then tell that it was maybe his first fountain pen because I wouldn't really be that keen on letting somebody.

Brad Dowdy: Well, now, if I was in Japan and saw it, I could see that being someone's first fountain pen. That's a pretty big deal. You know, like if you're traveling and you're over there and you see that, I could see that happening for sure.

Myke Hurley: Very, very, very beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, what did it look like? Do you know anything about the one that he had?

Myke Hurley: It was very similar to the ones that we've looked at before. Where's a good place for me to go where I can maybe try and point this out?

Brad Dowdy: Nibs.com.

Myke Hurley: Nibs.com.

Brad Dowdy: But what did you – the biggest thing I want to know, what did you think about the weight?

Myke Hurley: It was light.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They're extraordinarily light pens. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: It was very light.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to say it was like the Naka Eye. Okay. Yeah. It was that sort of style. Okay. Yeah. It was. It was one of these. Yeah. For sure. Very, very pretty. Very, very pretty. Yeah. But unassuming. Yeah. Very. I would need to use one a little bit longer, I think, to try and understand what I'm getting for that money. Sure. Because there's not a lot going on there, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah. And how did the nib feel?

Myke Hurley: It was – I literally wrote two words and did a little scribble. Chicken. You're a big chicken. I don't like – I just – I don't like to use other people's pens. It's just – I get very nervous. I can understand that. To do that. Plus, I was eating a burger at the time and my hands were all greasy.

Guest: Yeah. And I was like, my hands – he's like, no, just do it. I was like, my hands are covered in grease. And he was like, no, it's fine. I'm like, ah.

Myke Hurley: So, the whole situation was obviously very charming but terrifying for me.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's great.

Myke Hurley: So, I look forward to your Nakaya arriving. How long do you think it will be until it arrives?

Brad Dowdy: It should be here Monday. Right. It would have been here Friday. But when I ordered it, you order it and then they send you an invoice to confirm everything and then you pay for it. So, they don't obviously get it going until you pay for it. And the invoice went straight into my spam folder. So, I had to email them back on like Monday night. And they said, yeah, we sent it. Here, we'll send it again. And so, I didn't get it paid for until Tuesday. So, it would have been here by Friday if I had seen it Monday. But it will be here Monday in time for next week's podcast. Speaking of which, we're going to record Thursday again next week. So, I actually should have time to use it and give some initial impressions.

Myke Hurley: Looks like it's going to be a big show next week. We're both going to have new purchases.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, sir. Because hopefully your pen is actually one of those things sitting in customs that I got you from the pen show. Yep.

New Pens

Myke Hurley: It's been a while since we both had new pens to talk about.

Brad Dowdy: It has been. It has been. I'm real anxious to see what you think about yours. Me too. I'm still nervous. Still nervous. But that's okay. That's okay. So, yeah. Next week, we should both have some really different stuff than we normally have.

Myke Hurley: Should we take a quick break?

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it.

Myke Hurley: Let's thank our sponsor for this week's episode. It is the fine folks over at Squarespace. They are the all-in-one platform that make it fast and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, and an online store. For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter the offer code NockK. That's N-O-C-K at checkout. A better web starts with your website. Squarespace websites are really easy to build because they make everything super simple, but it's all beautiful. So, they have really fantastic templates that you can create Squarespace websites from. You create all of your pages using their drag-and-drop content and page building system. All of their beautiful templates feature responsive web design, and it makes it super easy to set something up that looks really professional and just get to the work that you want to do. So, when I was at All, the photographer that they had there, his name was Ben McCarthy. Ben used Squarespace to host his portfolio. One of the really cool things, so he was showing me his website, and one of the cool things is he had the Squarespace portfolio app on his phone, and he was showing me his photos by just going into the portfolio app because they have a special app that will then just collect up all of your images. So, he could just show me all of his photos and all the media that was on his site without even needing to go to his Squarespace site. But then I went there to look at some of his work as well. He's actually very talented. So, yeah, that's just showing how they're fantastic for portfolios. I know people that have blogs there, like, for example, MrBradDowdy. PenEdit.com is a Squarespace blog. My co-host on The Prompt, Stephen Hackett, 512pixels is a Squarespace blog too. As well as that, I know that Brad is also going to be the Nock co-store that he mentioned. That's going to be all on Squarespace too because of their commerce platform. Every single Squarespace website can have an online store built right in. And you can sell physical goods, digital goods, and they give you all of the tools that you need to do that. They have 24-7 support through live chat and email. And they have teams located in New York City and Dublin. Squarespace plans start at $8 a month and include a free domain name if you sign up for a year. You can start a free trial right now with no credit card required and start building your website today. And when you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure that you use the offer code NockK, that's N-O-C-K, to get 10% off your first purchase. And it will also show your support for The Pen Addict. So thank you so much to Squarespace for supporting all of 5x5 and this show. So that's Squarespace. Squarespace is where a better web starts with your website. Sorry, Brad. I wasn't done. I was taking a dramatic pause. That's all right.

Brad Dowdy: Sorry to interrupt you there. But I was going to say that's the best offer code ever.

Myke Hurley: NockK. N-O-C-K. 10% off.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Hey, and one thing about the Squarespace apps, all those are free. Those are free apps. And they've finally gotten them right since back in the Squarespace. Five days, they had a tough time with the iOS apps. But now they're extraordinarily useful and work wonderfully. So I haven't used the Portfolio app for obvious reasons. I don't have a Portfolio that I need to show. But someone like Ben, I bet that's pretty cool and pretty perfect for him to show off his work real quick.

Myke Hurley: They have Squarespace Metric, which is their sort of stats tracking app. Yep. That's on iPad now, too. Cool.

Brad Dowdy: They have an iPad version. Very cool. Very cool. Well, we have a brand new Pen Blog of the Week. Some people guessed it today. Shocking that they were able to guess what my Pen Blog of the Week was going to be on today's podcast. But have you seen this yet, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I have seen this. I tweeted about it earlier today.

Brad Dowdy: I bet you have. It's called The Cramped, and it is from our mutual friend, Mr. Patrick Rohn.

Myke Hurley: How cool is this? No friend of mine anymore coming in here, stealing our ideas.

Brad Dowdy: He's a competitor now.

Myke Hurley: No, this is amazing. I'm really happy to see this. Pat is a longtime friend of mine, and we've had him on the show a couple of times.

Brad Dowdy: We've had him on the show, and we're trying to get him back on. We've had some scheduling conflicts.

Myke Hurley: We're both pretty difficult.

Brad Dowdy: Mostly because of me.

Myke Hurley: Well, and me. I mean, we're both pretty difficult.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. We're both difficult schedules. It's amazing our schedule has worked so well for so long, to be perfectly honest.

Myke Hurley: We are definitely podcasting divas, you and I.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, we are. We are. You have to really get in there and get to know us well to be able to come on the show. But no, we've had Patrick on before, and we love Patrick.

Baron Fig Confidant

Brad Dowdy: He's teasing that he might do a podcast, and he's already got some reviews up on the blog. He's got the Baron Fig Confidant review up. He's going to have some guest contributors like our other friend, Harry Marks, who I very much enjoy from Curious Rat. And if you're familiar with Patrick at all and Patrick's work, you know that this is going to be extraordinarily well done and spectacular. And I can't wait to see what the guys are going to do with this blog. So you guys check it out. I did a post today on The Pen Addict, which I rarely do, but I appreciate everything that Patrick's ever done for me, and I wanted to show him some support by giving him a boost right out the gate. And, you know, like a lot of long-time listeners of The Pen Addict know that it was you, Mr. Hurley, and Mr. Patrick Rohn, that got me involved into creating this podcast. So I thank both of you for that, and I will never forget it.

Myke Hurley: He is an instrumental part of our history.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely.

Myke Hurley: And now he's building his own pen future.

Brad Dowdy: So good luck, Patrick, and I'm sure we will be talking more about your blog soon.

Brad Dowdy: All right. On my blog this past week, Myke, I had a lot of changes, a lot of updates, especially to the Top 5 Pens page, which is the perpetually late Top 5 Pens page. I can tell it's time for an update. If I haven't done it in about three or four months, the emails start to come in. Hey, when are you going to update your Top 5 Pens? Hey, have you done it yet? When are you going to do it? Have you done it yet? So once I started getting about a couple of those a week, I know it's about time for me to update it.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And this was a pretty good update. There was a decent amount of changes, and I just wanted to go through a few, if that's okay with you, and see what you think. I'd love it. So I just wrote a short little intro post saying that it had been six months since I've updated the Top 5 Pens list, and there were a couple of things. Looking at the old list compared to the list that's now currently published, I've noticed a couple things, and those kind of bullet points were that my fountain pen love and knowledge continues to grow. I have a serious fountain pen ink problem, which is so true. There's lack of innovation in the office supply stores, which we all know that, and if you're a listener of this podcast or reader of the blog, you know I have little patience for that.

Brad Dowdy: And I say good pens stay good, which there's some things that are just hard to be beaten on a lot of these lists, and also that I'm perpetually behind on reviews. When I make a new Top 5 list, Myke, and I'm going in to link the posts, and I don't have a link to the product that I want to review, of the product that I've put in the list, I know I'm kind of behind on the reviews when I see all the unlinked items on the Top 5 list.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I was about to ask you that, why some had links, and now I realized it, but yeah, you've just answered the question.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm starting to take care of that, especially on some of the inks that I've already done. I've already started on the reviews to kind of fill in those blanks, so it's a good reference for me to see what needs to be filled in on the blog, what reviews I need to get done. So let's look at the list real quick. So my overall Top 5, which I just think are, they're pens I recommend a lot to people. You know, either their first fountain pen, or an upgrade to their fountain pen, or a great micro gel ink pen, or a great ballpoint pen. These are pens that are kind of tried and tested, and every time I recommend them, people seem to enjoy them. I still enjoy them.

Brad Dowdy: They've held up with the test of time, I guess. So this is the list that a lot of people say, hey, I just bought all the pens on your Top 5 list, and I love them all. Thank you for doing that. So I try to keep this list, I don't know, kind of covers a lot of bases, if you will. You've got a fountain pen in the number one spot, the TWSBI 580. That was at the number one spot last time, too. It's just a really good quality pen for a really great price.

Brad Dowdy: I've said before just how much of a great value that pen is, how much enjoyment I get out of using it, how much versatility you get out of it by being a piston filler. You can change the inks real quick, clean it out real quick, put in a new ink. The nib units are replaceable, which someone made that point in the comments, or in an email to me, you know, saying that adds value, that you can switch out from an extra fine nib to a stub nib, on the fly if you wanted to. So it's a really versatile pen, and it's hard to beat the price.

Brad Dowdy: And then two of my favorite pens that I always carry with me, the Uniball Sino DX 0.38, which I just recommended to someone on Twitter about 15 minutes ago. That one comes up a lot. And the Oto Graphic Liner, which I still use a lot. That's a real good Field Notes pen. Those two, actually, the Sino DX and the Graphic Liner, I use those in my Field Notes a lot. Now, one pen fell off the top five, because I'm not using it as much as I used to. And in its place, the pen that fell off is the Secura Pigma Micron, which I love. There's really no problem with that pen. I just find myself reaching for the Kuretaki Zig Cartoonist Mangaka pen. Of course you are. For my plastic tip pen. Huh? Of course. Of course, absolutely. Do you not know this pen? No, it's just the name. Yeah, it's it. I think that's even the short version of the name. I actually think it's longer than that.

Myke Hurley: What's on the plastic tip pen topic? Because I don't take fountain pens away. Right. I took with me an Oto Graphic Liner and a Sharpie pen. I have the aluminium Sharpie pen. I loved using the Sharpie pen this week. Yeah. Yeah. Just a real solid, just solid, good workhorse, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. What I love so much about these plastic tip pens is kind of they have a sharp line. Yeah. Like the edge is sharp. And it generally, it tends to make your handwriting look better, honestly. And it's just a good, it's just a good writer and good sketch pen and just a good all-around pen. So I actually use them, use them a lot. I use them, I'll definitely use them more than ballpoints. I probably don't use them more than gel ink pens, but probably gel ink pens and then plastic tip pens outside of fountain pens are what I use the most. And then the Uniball Jetstream rounds out the top five. That's just such a good all-around pen that's available everywhere and is affordable. And it fits a lot of needs for a lot of people and being smooth and good-looking ink and quick-drying and archival. And it's a ballpoint, so the ink refills kind of last a little bit longer. Like I recommend them to a lot of students. I've had that email a bunch in the past couple weeks. You know, a lot of them are doing finals and having to write papers or, you know, doing exams and things like that. And they need something that's going to last through like a whole exam session and, you know, not give them any problems. And Jetstream comes up a lot for that. So that's the top five. It's going to be hard-pressed for that to change a lot unless I, you know, really get sideswiped by something. These are, like I said, these are just the tried-and-true pens that have never let me down and a lot of people enjoy. The top five micro gel ink pens, they pretty much stayed the same, except the Pilot Juice .38 has made the jump into the top five. That's the pen I've been using for any non-high-tech seat Kickstarter pens that I get because they fit. A lot of them are made for the Pilot G2 ink refill. And you can just kind of get some of the basic colors. With the G2, with the Juice, you can get about 20 different colors. And you can get them all in the .38 millimeter size. The blue-black is my go-to Pilot Juice.

Brad Dowdy: If I don't have a high-tech C in all my Kickstarter barrels, I have the .38 blue-black Pilot Juice. It's really, really good. But, yeah, I could see it even moving up the charts further. I recommend that pen a lot. And the reason it's better than the G2, I find the ink not to be as blobby. It's a little bit cleaner writer, a little bit smoother writer. And the ink is archival if you care about those kind of things. That's kind of a big feature for a lot of people. So that's something to consider if you're looking for a pen. And all these gel ink pens, I don't think any of them are over $3. The high-tech C might be over $3 now. It might be like $3.30. But I think most of these are around the $2, $2.50 range. So you can check out all these and see what you like. And definitely check out the Juice. It doesn't get a lot of play. But it's a pen I find myself using more and recommending more.

Top Pens List

Brad Dowdy: Now, the top five pens in the store list. Guess what, Myke? No change.

Myke Hurley: Hooray!

Brad Dowdy: I don't know what... I should just cancel that list.

Myke Hurley: It's probably never going to change. Like, how long would it take before that could ever change? Take a while. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: They'd have to start bringing over, like, the Pilot Acroball. That could probably be on this list. Because now that they've made it available in, like, big box retail stores now, that actually has a chance to be on this list. You know, but it would take them doing something like making a big push, like with the Pilot Juice or something, you know. But it's probably not going to change. And these are all good pens. You know, if you need to go to the store and pick up a pen, you know, you want to grab the Jetstream or the Sino 207 or the Sharpie pen, like you just mentioned. These are pens that are readily available at grocery stores, you know, drug stores, office supply stores. You know, if you're just in immediate need for a pen and you can't order online, that's the kind of – those are the kind of pens you want to look at. So my fountain pen lists are broken down into two lists. I kind of have the top five fountain pens, the no-brainers list, which are kind of the pens you – are more mainstream.

Brad Dowdy: There are – a lot of people use them. A lot of sites sell them. They're easier to get, easier to come by. And there's not a lot of crazy options that you have to think about when buying pens like this. So this list obviously has the Twosby 580 at the top. It's – I think everything's been said about that pen that I can say. It's just a really, really great pen. Lamy 2000, number two, which I'm going to hedge on this a little bit.

Myke Hurley: That seems like a quite a big –

Brad Dowdy: I'm still fighting mine. Yeah, I wouldn't – I might have to knock this one down some. It's becoming a frustration point for me. So even though I've just updated this list and I've been using it, I found myself using it now and getting frustrated with it. But we'll see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that seems like a strange choice for a no-brainer considering how many issues you had with yours, for example.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. But it's just such a classic pen.

Brad Dowdy: And people love it. Everyone that uses it loves it. There's very few people that hate it. Like I will never hate the pen. I'm just having frustrations with the nib. And part of it is self-inflicted. But, yeah, I mean, I see your point. And it's a valid point. And if I recommend that – recommend Lamy 2000 anyone or talk to anyone about it, I always bring that up. Saying, you know, they're known for being a little bit squirrely in the nib area. So that's something you need to check out. But someone like Goulet Pens, if you order from them, they'll test your nib before they send it out to you. If you request that, they're happy to do that. So, yeah, that's something – that's a pen that's given me a lot of consternation here recently. So we'll see. But I got two new entries on the no-brainer list. And one of them is the Edison Beaumont. Not everyone is familiar with Edison pens. They're not carried, you know – they're carried in a lot of places. They're not extremely widespread. The more I use the brand, the more I am impressed with the pen. I know you have a Perlet, Myke. I know that's one of your favorite pens. It's just a really good quality pen. I listed the Beaumont in my – that's number three in my fountain pen list. It's just a classically designed, well-made pen. It's very comfortable.

Brad Dowdy: The nibs are great. It's one of those pens I have a hard time putting down. And it's just a – it's a very simple pen.

Brad Dowdy: And I can't recommend it enough. And it kind of goes hand-in-hand with number four in the list, the Pelican M205. Neither of these pens are – god, what's the word? They're not going to – they're not like show pens. These are workhorse-type pens. And, you know, the Edison Beaumont has a lot more colors, and you can do a lot more different things with that and get a little bit more non-standard design than, like, the Pelican M205, which just generally comes in solid colors, black, white, red, taupe. The Beaumont has a lot of different type of colors, materials you can get it in. But I find both of those pens to be similar characteristics in that they're kind of understated, but just very high-quality, very good writing pens. And then number five, I've got the Vanishing Point, which I still love that pen. I know you're not a fan of it, and not everyone's a fan of that pen. But I think that's the pen to consider if you're looking for – obviously, for a retractable fountain pen, it's about the only one you should even consider. Some of the other ones aren't as great of an option. They just don't function as well as the Vanishing Point. And it's actually still a pretty good value for the price for what you get. So I love that pen. And I'm debating on whether I should try out one of these new metallic barrel ones. I showed you those, right, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you did. We spoke about them a couple of weeks ago.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm still undecided. I think I'd still want to try to find one of the white and black barrel ones before I try the bright and shiny green, orange, blue, purple, red. I think we're the five colors, so I can't decide. We'll see. I'm in no hurry for that. Now, the second fountain pen list I keep is called the Sumbrainers, which I have to thank Toffer for these names. I was struggling with names to differentiate these two lists. By the Sumbrainers, I mean that there are things about these pens that you need to consider before buying, either in availability or the type of filling system that they have, the size of the pen, you know, the price of the pen. They may be more expensive than a normal pen. So these are pens that are very good, pens that I like and use a lot, but I don't just straight up recommend these pens because there's other questions you need to ask yourself before you're considering these pens. Like the first one is the Franklin Kristoff Model 40 Pocket. I love that pen. It's pocket size. It looks cool. It's got the options to use the Myke Masuyama nib line that Franklin Kristoff carries, and it's got an option to convert it. You can use it with a small international ink cartridge, or you can use it as an eyedropper, which is what I do. So there's things to think about when buying that pen. And I never just straight up recommend a pen like that because there's lots going on with it for someone who's just buying like a first fountain pen. Like I would never recommend a pen like that. I actually would recommend number two on the list, the Pilot Custom Heritage 91, just because of the price. The problem with it is availability. This model is Japan only. They pop up on eBay. Some of the... I mean, not eBay. They are on eBay, but on Amazon sometimes.

Brad Dowdy: And, you know, they're generally around $100 for a 14-karat gold nib. That writes amazingly. That's a really good deal. It's really hard to be beat. It's just not easy to track down, especially in the U.S. or Europe. It's pretty much in the Japan market only. Same with the Pilot Custom Heritage 912, which is just like the 91, but bigger and bigger nibs and more nib options.

Brad Dowdy: It's closer to like $180, $200 for that pen. But it's a very business-designed pen, like black and silver trim. And it's just a real classic-looking fountain pen. A couple of new ones on that list are the Platinum 3776, which that's actually a new pen to me that I've been more than impressed with. And I'm really happy with the one that I purchased. I actually purchased... It's called the SAI, the S-A-I. And I'll try to do a review soon because it's not the traditional 3776, but it's along those lines. It's a great pen. I've been very happy about it. And you'll hear me talking more about that soon. And same with the Edison Menlo.

Brad Dowdy: This is the pen that Jeff bought me that has a... kind of like the old-school vacuumatics-type filling system that Brian Gray made for Edison pens. And it's just a really... I think it's probably the pen I'm using the most now. But it's hard to recommend it and put it at the top of the list because it's a very expensive pen. I think they start around $350 for Brian to make those because they're all custom-made. They're not a production line pen. Brian's got two lines of pens. He's got a production line, which is where the Edison Beaumont falls and the Edison Perlette falls that you have, Myke, where you can buy them at different pen retailers. The Edison Menlo is in the signature line, which you actually have to get in touch with Brian and you get to pick out everything you want about that pen. So they're pretty much one-offs that he makes. So he charges more for them, rightfully so. But I'm loving mine.

Cursive Nibs

Brad Dowdy: Brian actually did a really good job on the nib. So I've got a 0.5 cursive italic nib. And that may be the single most used pen in my arsenal right now. But we'll see. We might have a change next week, hopefully. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So my fountain pen inks list, this changes a lot, actually, because, like I said, I have a fountain pen ink problem. I'm always trying new things. I really enjoy fountain pen inks. And that's kind of, people ask why fountain pens a lot. And a lot of it is just because of the customization. And by that, I mean, you know, you can buy one pen and two nibs and five different inks. And you have more options than you know what to do with, with colors and writing style. And you still just have one pen. So that's been a fun learning experience about fountain pens. So I pretty much always have a pen inked up with Pilot, a Roshizuku Shinkai, which is their blue-black. That's my favorite blue-black ink and pretty much my favorite ink overall. I use that in my Edison Menlo, actually, a lot. The Roaring Cleaner Scabiosa is an amazing ink. I cannot believe how much I like this ink. It's kind of a deep purple. It's kind of a, I wouldn't say deep purple. I guess I always say, what, dusty or dusky purple. It's a really interesting ink. It's an iron gall ink, but it's super well-behaved. It works just as well from a cleaning perspective as any ink. I never have any issues cleaning a pen that I use. Roaring Cleaner Iron Gall ink is either Scabiosa or Salix. It's a great ink, and it's a good alternative to blues and blacks, but it still looks professional. It's not, you know, neon or super violet to where it stands out like a purple ink. It's actually a very business-y color. I like it a lot. The Pelican Edelstein line I like a lot, and Tanzanite is one of my favorites. It's a very blue, it's a blue-black ink, and it's got the Edelstein line has a lot of sheen in their ink, so there's kind of like a little shimmery red layer on top of the ink when it dries. It looks very cool. Now, the number four one is the Sailor Sky High, which is their bright blue, kind of like the Oreshizuku Kanpeki, and I think I like it better than Kanpeki, Myke. It's a little bit more blue while still keeping some of those bright qualities. I don't know. I kind of like it, and I use that a lot in my Franklin Kristoff Model 40 pocket, number one, because that color looks cool, and that clear barrel, and number two, I just like how the ink looks on the page. It looks fantastic, and apparently I'm turning into a Sailor ink fan because number five, the Sailor Apricot has kind of taken over the Noodler's Apache Sunset for my orange ink. I still haven't tried the Fuyugaki, Myke. You still all in on that one?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, definitely. Yes, 100%. I was recommending this to people at Ool as well. Yeah, I need to get that. That's my ink. That is it. I love it. Don't get bored of it at all.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's good. That's actually a good, that's a high recommendation to say I don't get bored of it because that definitely happens with certain inks, and you know, I'm bored of this. Let me just dump it out and do something else. If you always have something inked up like that, like the Fuyugaki, that's a very high praise, so I still need to look into that. I will take care of that soon. So people asked me to separate my fountain pen inks list out, so this is a new list on the top five pen list, the top five blue-black fountain pen inks because I, if I have six pens loaded up with ink, I probably have at least four of them with blue-black inks, just because that's what I like. The Shinkai, obviously number one. The Edelstein Tanzanite, number two. And then I like the Pelican Blue Black, which is, it's not available in the U.S., but it's easy to get a hold of from someone like Cult Pens. It's a real classic-looking ink, along with the Lamy Blue Black. Both of those are a little bit, the Lamy especially, it's a little bit lighter shade, but I like it.

Brad Dowdy: And then the fifth one is Sailor Blue Black, which I didn't like at first, but the more I use it, the more I'm appreciating the colors and ink qualities of it. I actually, turns out I like it a lot and use it a lot. So, you'll probably see a lot of changes on my blue-black list, because I've probably got another ten sitting here on the shelf that I rotate in and out. Like, I don't have Noodler's 54th Massachusetts on here, and, you know, I don't have the Roaring Klingner Salix, and I don't have the Roaring Klingner Blau Schwartz on here, and, you know, I've just got a stack of blue-black inks that I rotate in and out. So, there'll probably be some changes on this list, but right now, Shinkai, tops them all for me, and I usually have either Tanzanite or Pelican Blue Black loaded up in at least another pen or two. So, blue-blacks are kind of my thing, but I do like to mix it up with Scabiosa and Sky High and Apricot. Those are, gives me a good range of colors. So, the top five plastic tip pens we kind of talked about already, the Kuretake Zig pen is wonderful. It tops the Secure Pigma Micron for me, even though the Micron does have more options. You can get it in lots of different tip sizes. You can get it in more colors. I just find that the Kuretake is a little bit more durable, and I like my lines with it. You know, I'm not an artist. I write with these pens, so that's important to me. If you're an artist, you probably want to look at the Pigma Micron or the third one in the list, the Copic Multiliner, because of the range of options you have in that. The only holdback from the Copic is the price, but people who use Copic products swear by them, so price really isn't an object for people picking up the Copics. And then the Sharpie pen, which you talked about earlier, which is, every time I pick one up, I keep those on my desk at work, and I'll grab them from time to time, and I'm always pleased with how they write. Sharpie did a good job there, and I'm glad this pen has some staying power, unlike some other pens that kind of come and go. So it's been able to hang on there very good. And then the Uni pen, which is just a good basic drawing pen. It's a very simple barrel, very sturdy, very good tip. Just comes in a few sizes in red, black, and blue, but it's a really good pen. I always like using it.

Brad Dowdy: So my paper products didn't really change that much, Myke. You know, I love the Dome Paper Idea Journal, the big, burly notebook that, you know, anyone from war correspondents to IT people like myself can use. It's just, it may be the ultimate notebook ever made. And then the Rhodia Dot Pad, number two, which is I use a lot for my fountain pens. And then our friends at Field Notes, the memo books. I love the memo books. Always have one with me. And did you have some, did you have some hot Field Notes action at all, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I took one of the Green Day game, so I figured it was Irish enough.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Nice. Did you fill it up?

Guest: Not as much as I thought I was going to,

Myke Hurley: in all honesty. I never take as many notes. I never take as many notes at conferences as I think I'm going to.

Brad Dowdy: That's true. I can see that. I kind of know what you mean there.

Brad Dowdy: The fourth one, the Mormon Memo Sign Inspiration. That's a super high quality. It's not the most cost-effective product on this list, but it's such high quality that I love it. I still use it a lot. And then a new addition to the list is the Tomoe River Paper.

Brad Dowdy: I said it might be number one.

Myke Hurley: I thought we always put it Tomo.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I can't remember. Oh. Tomoe River Paper.

Brad Dowdy: I said it might be number one when it's available in more formats. So, I mean, a lot of people have been buying the raw reams of paper and making notebooks out of them. You know, there's softback, hardback journals. Someone's making pocket-sized journals of them now. And obviously, it's in the Hobonichi Teko, which is a paper I love. But it's still a little bit format restrictive, if you will. There's not a lot of options for it yet, but I could see it continuing to move up the charts as it gets more and more popular, which it's made good inroads here in the past year. Another new list that I had a bunch of people were asking for, which I can't believe I forgot this from the very first time I did my top five pins list, was the top five multi-pins. People ask for that all the time. And this is one where number one is pretty much far superior to everything else on the list, and that's the Pilot Hi-Tech Sea Coleto. The barrels are good. The refills are great. The options are fantastic. There's so many barrels, so many refills, so many colors, so many sizes, so many things you can do with this line, and it's pretty fairly priced. This is the no-brainer number one.

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty much number one, and then everything else. Like, the Uni-style fit is number two. It's not as nice a barrel. I don't like the refills as much, but it's a good-looking pin. It works well. It has a lot of options, just like the Coleto. The Charbro X is a fantastic pin, but it's very expensive, and it has a very high cost of use. The refills are expensive, and you use them up very quickly because they're gel, and they're small, and you just burn through them if you're a heavy, heavy rider, but I have to put that on the list because it's technically an awesome pin. It's just made wonderfully. It looks great. It feels great. Then after that, I've got the Uni-ball Jetstream, which is pretty much your only choice for a good quality ballpoint multi-pin, and then the Zebra Prefill, which is a really good entrant from Zebra. Not as many options as the Coleto and Style Fit, but a very good rider. Now, the top five ballpoint pins didn't change. You know, Jetstream and Acroball are one, two, and everything else is kind of after that. The Pentel Vicuna, Pilot Dr. Grip, Zebra Sarare, those are all kind of down the line a little bit. The Kickstarter pin list changed a little bit. The Render K is still my favorite, but the Tactile Turn Mover has jumped into the number two spot, and the TI2 Tech Liner, which is still wrapping up funding, but I have a prototype of it, and I love it. So that's in it number three. And then we have the TI pin from Big Eye Design, the solid titanium pin and stylus. That's one that loads up a lot of refills in it. And then the Now and Then Eco Essential pin, which is a really neat pin that I keep on my desk at home that is just manufactured very well. Very good quality design on that. And then the top five extreme weather pins. That's kind of a boring list because there's not a lot of options there. You either Tombow AirPress, Fisher Space pin, or Uni Power Tank. The Uni Power Tank actually got a lot of love in the comments section. So I found that to be interesting. And the Tombow AirPress, a lot of people had problems with it, the barrel breaking, which I haven't really heard before. So definitely read the comments section on the post. And people have some things that they're interested in and some disagreements with me. Like someone says that someone's really not a fan of the TWSBI line at all. They had bad experiences with the 540 cracking and just feel they're cheaply made and things like that, which I can understand. And someone else really doesn't like the Edison pins at all, which I can understand. Everyone's got their own taste. This is why I do lists like this to kind of get the conversation going and kind of see what everyone else is into and what their likes and dislikes are.

Brad Dowdy: And we have some dislikes, Myke. So when I was putting together the top five pins list and said I was working on it, I got some comments on Twitter and an email to get me to mention some of the worst pins that I've ever used. So I put together a post called The Worst Pins I Have Ever Reviewed just kind of as a follow-up to the top five pins list. And the number one was the easiest for me. And it's really a trifecta of pins, even though I only listed two. You could also throw in the Oto Fine fountain pen and the Oto Dude fountain pen, and you could also throw in the Oto Rook fountain pen. I don't know what Oto is thinking with their fountain pen products. They make very good... Their pen designs are great in general. Like, I don't know, some of their older pens, like the Oto Orca and some of their other compact pens. And just in general, they make a good-looking pen. But the quality of their fountain pens, especially the nibs, are horrible. I mean, downright unusable. And it's consistently bad. It's not just random. It's everything. So I've... When I... The Dude was the last of the three Oto fountain pens I reviewed, and I said on that one, never again. No more Oto fountain pens ever. I don't care what they come up with. They... It's three strikes, and they're out. It's been just a horrible product. And then, you know, both you and I love something like the Oto graphic liner. It's an amazing pen.

Myke Hurley: So I don't... No love for that dude. Yeah, no love for that dude, man. Oh, dude.

Brad Dowdy: So that's... I don't know what's going on there. And in the comments section, the Rook came up a bunch of times, which is their mini compact pen. And yeah, I was going to add that in there, but I figured I'd already piled on enough. But it's really the three of those pens. The Oto fine, the Oto dude, and the Oto Rook.

Myke Hurley: That was just such a waste of money, the Rook.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, the Rook has been a pretty horrible pen, and that should have been in the list too. The second one I had in there was the Pentel Sleachy's multi-pen. And it's not the most terrible performing pen on the list, but it's been... It was one of the biggest letdowns on the list, which is why it's there.

Pentel Sleechy

Brad Dowdy: It's just a really badly designed pen from a performance perspective. The ink cartridges come out at an angle, which is a challenge with a multi-pen, right? Because you have two or three or four ink cartridges sharing the same barrel, so when you deploy an ink cartridge, you have to consider from an engineering standpoint that that ink cartridge, the tip of the pen has to come out straight to provide you a good writing experience.

Brad Dowdy: Pentel failed on the engineering of this pen because the refills push up against each other when you eject them, which makes the tip of the pen come out at an angle. And you just can't write like that. It's an obvious issue and it's a design flaw and it just makes for a really poor pen. And on top of that,

Brad Dowdy: like if you use the Hitec C single cartridge pen and you use the Hitec C Colito, the pens are going to write the same. Like they feel the same. the quality of the nib of those pens is identical.

Brad Dowdy: The different, there's a huge difference between the single cartridge Pentel Sleechy and the multi-pen Pentel Sleechy's refill. The Sleechy's refills do not write as sharp or as well as the single cartridge models. And it's just a really poor design. And kind of a letdown because they had an opportunity there to be a big player in that multi-pen genre which is huge in Japan. And it's just been pretty much a failure to me.

Brad Dowdy: The Toll line from OfficeMax which I like the Toll gel or tool. Is it tool? I think it's tool. No idea. Yeah, we'll go with tool. Yeah. It rhymes with ooh.

Brad Dowdy: It's Gaelic for pen. We're going to go with that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that sounds right.

Brad Dowdy: Alright. Anyway, the tool ballpoint is a waste of money. A lot of people love this whole line of pens. The gel pens are excellent. They're very comparable to something like the Uniball Sino 207 which is high praise. But just stay away from the ballpoint. They've gone through two models of all these pens. The ballpoint has not improved at all. It's just a ballpoint pens that write messy are a waste. And that's what the tool ballpoint does. It's just a waste.

Brad Dowdy: So I would skip over that and stick with the gel ink pens from the tool.

Brad Dowdy: Bic has over the past few years they've kind of made a little bit of inroads into making a better quality pen. They've done some roller balls that have been nice and some needle points that have been nice. They came out with something called the A1 gel which is something I picked off the store shelf. May have been in a grocery store even. It is horrible. It is just messy, scratchy, terribly designed. The barrel looks like there was no quality control on the barrel. You know, all the seams are visible and rough from where the plastic barrels getting sealed together. It's just kind of a train wreck of a pen which, you know, I don't expect a lot out of Bic as a brand as a whole but just to totally waste money on a pen like that it's never a good experience. The last one I listed was the Karan Dash 849 and I got a lot of blowback on this one because it's really all about the refill on this one. It's a great barrel and I said I'd try to find a new refill and I haven't. A lot of people have the same experience that I did with this refill. It's such a good pen. It's not a cheap pen. It's like 15. I think I got mine off Amazon. I think it was about $15. So it's not expensive. It's a really great barrel for a retractable pen. It comes with one just a horrible, horrible ballpoint pen refill. So that's one if you're going if you want that pen expect it to write poorly and have a new refill ready to go for it when you buy it because it's no redeeming values no redeeming qualities of that refill at all. So the comment section of this post was really good. Probably better than the top five pens comment section. So check those out. A lot of Odo Rook hate. Mary Collis mentioned the Lambie balloon rollerball which is one I forgot. that is a really good pen barrel with a really bad refill. It's very much like the Caran Dash and with the Lambie balloon the refill was proprietary. There's no option to replace it which is kind of sad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I guess that's about it. A lot of people hate the dude. A lot of people hate the Rook. The Twisby Back 700 got a mention which I can see that. It's a very oddly designed pen and I have a review pending in the queue for that one along with the Noodler's Ahab which is a flex nib pen from Noodler's. They have some issues with quality control on those I think. I'm not a fan of those. And one of the ones that I missed that I really should have put on there is the Uniball Vision RT. It's a horrible horrible liquid ink pen. It's like writing with a marker. It just leaks through page after page. It'll bleed through two pages at a time if you just write at a normal pace. It's been a really really bad pen. An awful pen. You can look up my review on that and it's just terrible. So that's pretty much it. There's a bunch more comments in there so people complaining about the pens that they hate. So it's good to check out. So I think that's about it. It's always fun to do these exercises to see what has changed, what hasn't changed.

Brad Dowdy: In six months' time there was surprisingly little change I think which is kind of good. The pens that we think are good or that I think are good are kind of holding up to that and I think that's a good thing. It solidifies the recommendation of some of those pens. So I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and as always if you have feedback on those lists let me know.

Myke Hurley: And let me tell you how you can let Brad know. You can get him on Twitter. He is at dowdyism D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M or you can go to our show notes page which is today 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 1-0-4 and not only will you find all the links there to what we discussed today you'll also find the contact button which will allow you to send an email to us. I am iMike I am YKE on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. Until next time we'll be back next Thursday as we spoke about before. Have a great week. Enjoy your pens. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.