The Pen Addict 108/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	108
Title:	The Worst Pen Review Of All Time
Release Date:	May 29th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Tim Fletcher
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 108
Audio File:	Audio Episode 108
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 108
Length:	4949 min <br />0.817 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 108 of The Pen Addict podcast, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined, as always, by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Very good, my friend. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. I'm excited about today's episode.

Myke Hurley: And why is that, Mr. Dowdy?

Brad Dowdy: Well, we have a special guest on today and it's a special guest that probably no one has ever heard of except for me. And maybe a few other people. And that's why I wanted to have him on. We have Tim Fletcher on from Funkmon on pens. What's up, Tim?

Tim Fletcher: Nothing much. I'm just, I feel kind of slighted. No one's ever heard of it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I think after this episode, everyone will know who you are. So we should be straight after this episode, I think. So how's that sound?

Tim Fletcher: That sounds all right. But, you know, I would like to make a note that I am on here because a fan of mine requested it. So I have at least one fan out there.

Brad Dowdy: You have at least one fan.

Tim Fletcher: You were inundated with a single request. That's right.

Myke Hurley: Unless Brad really wanted you on and then pretended to be somebody else and then sent a message to Brad. Ooh. It's like Bradception or something like that. Yes. Yes. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: So I actually have that whole conversation in my show notes here on how this happened, how this podcast came to be, how you came to be a guest on today's podcast. And we're going to get into that. And I'm going to save that. But first, we're going to go through a little news, a little follow up. We've got some cool topics to talk about real quick. And I'm going to get you involved, Tim, get your opinions on some of these things. And then we'll then we'll figure out how you got to be here today and why you're here and what all you do. How's that sound?

Tim Fletcher: That sounds great. It'll be very interesting for the listeners to hear the opinion of someone they've never heard of.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. That's exact. I mean, I did this totally on purpose. I wanted to see how this would go. So I'm I'm excited. And I think it's going to go swimmingly if I can tell by anything so far. So let's let's get into this. Let's get into this follow up, Myke. There's a pretty amazing pen coming back on the market. TWSBI has decided to reintroduce the rock, the old Republic of China, red, white and blue pen. So I'm assuming you've seen this and we're inundated with tweets and links to this.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. All week, people have been sending it. And it's amazing to see. I'm I'm very, very pleased. I assume that they're probably going to be engineering it the way that they engineer 580s now.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So it looks looks like they're calling it the TWSBI Diamond 580 RB, which I don't know exactly what RB stands for. I don't know if it's red, blue or it could be red and blue. Yeah, that's what I that's what I'm thinking. But I guess they wanted to get up. I mean, the rock stood for Republic of China, which, of course, is Taiwan, which is where TWSBI, TWSBI's roots are. So they're bringing it back, putting in the 580 hardware, you know, with the additional because the old 540, like you had cracking problems. And a lot of people had cracking problems with the grip section and things like that on that pen. And so they have the 580 hardware. Otherwise, it looks exactly the same and it looks as beautiful as ever. And I'll definitely be chomping at the bit to get this one. So are you going to order another one? Are you going to stick with your 540? Depends on the next link. Yeah. So this one threw me off. I have to admit, I was super psyched about the rock. Well, the reintroduction of the 580. So on the old 580, they had, I guess, was the old I guess was a Taiwanese symbol. It was like a sun, a light blue, blue black ground, excuse me, blue background with a white sun on the end of the cap barrel. Well, now they are putting, it looks like, I don't know if this is the full line or if they're going to do a, they're calling this the 580 USA. And it's going to be a separate pen with a USA flag cap symbol on the top. So being the non-American on this podcast, what do you think about that?

TWSBI Diamond 580 RB

Myke Hurley: I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Okay, good. I was interested.

Myke Hurley: Wait, Myke, you're not American?

Brad Dowdy: I love America. He's actually going to be in America next week. I am. Yeah, for a while, for like a week, week and a half or so.

Myke Hurley: So that's cool. Ten days. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. The United States, yeah. They should do a 580 UK as well. I mean, because it's all the same colors at this point.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and it's just the...

Myke Hurley: Might as well add Russia and France too. Yeah. We get the whole set. I mean, I would probably end up buying the whole set.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that little end piece diagram couldn't cost anything in the grand scheme of things, and the barrel of the pen stays the same. So yeah. Tim, do you have any Twisbees?

Tim Fletcher: I don't, though I do understand that everybody on the internet is a big fan of them, and I don't know why, which means I should really buy one because they might be... Yeah, you should buy one. Yeah, see, that's what everyone says. You don't have one?

Brad Dowdy: Come on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It is one that you kind of need to experience it. Because they look nice, but they're not stunning. Like, they're not incredible to look at. You know, they're not the best looking pen ever, but they're just really, really well built, and they write really, really well. They're strong fan favorites for a good reason.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so very un-Twisbee-like.

Tim Fletcher: I believe it. And they add these weird features to their pens that I like.

Brad Dowdy: So it looks like they're actually putting out a shipping date on this, Myke, which is something that they don't do at all. You know, they usually string these things out for months, if not years at a time, but they're talking about having these out in June. So we'll be watching. We'll stay tuned. But I know everyone has sent us their link because they know how much we like that pen.

Brad Dowdy: As good as that link was, Myke, that everyone sent us, this next link may be the single best link we have ever received on the Pen Addict podcast. So Richard Thompson, he's at RD on Twitter. He was a purchaser of the Pen Addict 100 t-shirt. And not only did he take a picture of him wearing a t-shirt, his tweet says, pen essentials for outback hunting. So he's decked out in his camo with his gun and his hat and his orange Pen Addict shirt out there. Looked like he's getting ready to go on a hunt. And I saw this picture. I just about fell out dying laughing.

Myke Hurley: There's another part of this, though, that you may not have seen. There's two pictures.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, there's a huge part of this.

Myke Hurley: Because I guess it might be the Twitter app where it only shows one. But if you see it, like a tweet button, it shows one. But yeah, he's got another one where he's using a Fisher Space Pen field notes, which is all duct tape up, which is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: It's amazing. So yeah, I put that in the link to both pictures. And his field, it looks like a day game field notes, if I'm not mistaken. It's that green color. But it is 50% covered in duct tape, which is just amazing in itself. And there is nothing wrong with this picture whatsoever. This is one of the greatest pictures I've ever seen in my life.

Myke Hurley: I agree. I saw it. And I was like, I showed my girlfriend. I was like, this guy's in Australia.

Tim Fletcher: Is that a huge achievement, being in Australia? Well, wearing our T-shirt. Oh, well, yeah, that doesn't make sense.

Brad Dowdy: In the environment that he's in, getting ready to hunt who knows what. I don't know. What do you hunt for in the outback? Yeah, I'm assuming not kangaroos or koalas. There's got to be something. Dysentery? Yeah. That's the danger. That's the danger motion out there in the outback. So yeah, I don't know. But Richard, thank you for sending this. This made my year, I think, so far. Because I couldn't imagine a better scenario for the Pen Addict podcast T-shirt to be displayed. So that is fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Now, about an hour after last week's episode, I don't even know if we had our episode up. I know we finished recording last week, Myke. And then I think you and I were both still hanging out online. And you may have just posted it. And then we started getting all kinds of other tweets going, oh, my God. Did you hear the Slate Culture Gab Fest? Do you listen to that podcast? Had you heard of that podcast before? I know you know what Slate is, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I know Slate, but I hadn't heard of the show now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's the same here. I mean, I know Slate. Slate's kind of a big enterprise doing lots of different things. And I had been talking with a lady named June Thomas on Twitter. She and I have been Twitter friends for a while. And we've just talked and talked, always talking about pens. And I knew she wrote for Slate. And I knew she, you know, worked for them. I didn't realize she was on a podcast. And much less a podcast that was this, like, hugely popular. So she put in a plug for us on the Slate Culture Gab Fest. And it was just, it was really nice. And it was funny listening to her talk about us and the Erasable podcast and listening to the other host reactions to her. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I felt bad for her because she was getting what we usually get. Yeah. Yeah. The one other. Really? A pen podcast? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The other girl. And I don't know the other girl's name, but she was kind of killing her. Like, are you serious?

Brad Dowdy: So, Tim, Tim, are you surprised there's actually a podcast about pens?

Tim Fletcher: I don't want to say yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But yes. Yeah. We're surprised, too, actually.

Gel Pens

Tim Fletcher: When I first got into the hot, I was really surprised that there was not just one. There are, in fact, a couple others. There's only one good one, though.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you very much. But yeah. Oh, wait. I mean, yes, I was talking about you. Yeah, I don't know if you've heard of this show. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cut Tim off now. Okay. I can do that.

Brad Dowdy: Band for life. But no, June is great. And I really appreciate her mentioning us on that, on the Culture Gab Fest. And, you know, people were coming out of the woodwork for that one. Yeah, for sure. We got a bunch of action on that. A bunch of people tweeting us. A bunch of people. A bunch of new listeners, I know. A bunch of new followers on Twitter. And a bunch of new readers to the Pen Act blog. So thank you, June. It was great to hear. And we've got your back. You know, from your... If we need to have a talk with your guest hosts on the Culture Gab Fest, we can make that happen. And set them straight. Oh, and I put a link into the note. Note, she's written about pens and stationery before. And we'll have a link in the show notes to... She has an Addicted to Stationery post that she's written for Slate in the past year or so. So she is definitely a full bore pen addict. So thank you, June.

Myke Hurley: One of us. Yeah, thank you, June.

Brad Dowdy: One of us. Exactly. One of us.

Myke Hurley: One of us. One of us.

Brad Dowdy: One of us. One of us. So Tim actually has taken me to task on something that came up last week, Myke. And we were talking about just pens in general. Just kind of revamping our glossary. Kind of touching on the very basics, you know, pen info 101, if you will. And my thought was, or my perception is, that out of gel pens, rollerball pens, and ballpoint pens, that in the grand scheme of the general America public, the non-pen addict pen buying public, that gel pens were probably the most popular. And like I said, I didn't have any, you know, hard facts on that. That was just kind of a guesstimate based on what I've seen. And Tim has a disagreement with that. So what do you think, Tim?

Tim Fletcher: Well, I think, well, in the general populace of people, I think gel pens are still looked at to be a kind of luxury item. Because you buy two of them, two Pilot G2s for like $3 or something. And rollerballs even more so. And when I'm in a, I have to take chemistry classes to get my degree, which is terrible. Chemistry sucks. But they require you to write your notes during the labs and stuff in pen because they think that you're going to falsify your data or whatever. And there were only two other people in my entire history of chemistry labs that I've seen use non-ballpoints. And those two people were using rollerballs, actually. Though I do see a lot of gel pens out there. I really, they're not, it's not very often, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I will agree with you in that instance and maybe in school in general. If you happen to use a pen and especially in chemistry class, the oil-based inks are not going to get wiped out by as many chemicals and solvents. We've actually done some testing on the blog way back in the day with someone else, another chemistry student, a guy named Brian Gushikawa, who I haven't heard from in a long time. Brian, get in touch. He actually did, took in a bunch of pens and did like a solvent-based test. And the rollerball, I mean the gel inks performed horribly. You know, they, you know, ran off the paper and didn't hold their inks.

Tim Fletcher: Those weren't off the paper with just a finger.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So I can totally see that. It's definitely situational. So I can see in that situation. So, you know, ballpoints, I'd say maybe even just in general, ballpoints are probably the most popular just because they're the cheapest and the most ubiquitous and people end up stealing them from everywhere. So they just have those to use. I'm not buying the rollerball thing though over gel. Maybe so. Maybe so. But there's such, I think, I don't know, there's very few cases I think where rollerballs are the best choice. I think there's a case to be made for ballpoints and there's a case to be made for gels. And rollerballs just seem to be the, I don't know, odd, oddest of the bunch in from performance perspective. But I don't know. It'd be interesting to see, like, Pilot, I know, commissions a study and I've actually tried to get a copy of it. The, saying that the Pilot G2 is the world's most popular gel ink pen. I would be interested to say what, to see, like, what is Pilot's most popular pen period that they sell. So, and I have a feeling it would be some base level ballpoint that they're mass filling office supply shelves with or something like that.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, probably. I mean, I think the, at the, at the university I work, they have Pilot pens that are, that are supplied for the graduate assistants to use. And I think they're Pilot Precise. Are those gel pens?

Brad Dowdy: The Precise is a rollerball.

Tim Fletcher: Rollerball. Interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Tim Fletcher: My friend just came from Chicago. I just, I just picked her up today and she knows I'm into pens and she whipped out her pen that she just bought for this occasion. And it is a uniball. It's another rollerball. I feel like the, like, there are so many, there are so many office supplies where instead of buying ballpoints, they try to go up a little bit in class and they buy a whole bunch of the uniballs or Pilot Precises or whatever. Those tend to be rollerballs. I feel like in office supply cabinets all over the world, whether it's an accounting firm or any other kind of place, if it's not a ballpoint, it's probably a rollerball. Though, I understand why pen enthusiasts would prefer a gel ink pen to a rollerball pen as I do myself. But I just, I think they're a little bit more ubiquitous.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think you're, I think you're right. And Myke and I talked about how the, that uniball, like the Vision line and just some of their basic rollerballs, those are in office supply cabinets everywhere, all around the world. And that's a lot of, that's a lot of people's first taste of actually a good, decent pen.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, it was mine. Yeah. I, you know, in the office supply space, that was probably mine too. So, I can definitely, definitely see that. So, all right. So, let's, now that, now that we've kind of, we've kind of started that ball rolling, Tim, let's get, let's get into you and I and how this came to be and why the heck we have you on our podcast. But first, I want to mention the pen blog of the week. We have a special pen blog on the week, this week, and it's called Funkmon on Pens.

Myke Hurley: How fortuitous. My goodness. I mean, you had no idea I was going to be on the podcast either, did you?

Brad Dowdy: That is just insane how that worked out.

Tim Fletcher: Wow, what a coincidence.

Pen Bloggers

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, you should check out this, you should check out this guy, Tim, that writes this blog, Funkmon on Pens. And so, he's a, he's a pretty interesting character, so I think everyone, everyone would like this blog.

Tim Fletcher: I hear he's dreamy too.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I want to, I want to talk to you about how that started. But I want to talk to you first about how you and I even came to have a conversation together. So, it's kind of a two-part story. So, it was only, it was like a few weeks ago, I found your blog through somehow. And I added it to my ink links, which I post on Saturdays on the Pen Addict blog. And about two days later, I get an email from this guy, Tim Fletcher. It's like, hey, thanks for the link, but how did you find me? It was like, it was like you didn't want to be found. It was like you, I felt kind of bad. I was like, did I, did I let the secret out or something?

Myke Hurley: Have I outed this guy? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I think that was, I think that was the extent of the email. It was like a one-sentence email. It was like, hey, thanks for the link. How did you find me? So, what made you, yeah. So, what made you even reach out to me in the first place? Because you and I, before like two, three weeks ago, you and I have never talked ever.

Tim Fletcher: That's correct. Not that you know of.

Brad Dowdy: Not that I know of, yeah.

Tim Fletcher: The, well, it was, my stats had jumped on my WordPress blog. Not by much, because that was actually the, that was a review of a Pilot Metropolitan that a lot of people had been passing around. And I had had a lot of views. But I noticed that a big one was Reddit. And a big one was the Fountain Pen Network forum. And then another big one was the Pen Addict website. And I'm like, hey, I know that website. I go there sometimes. And I went to find the page. And it was the Ink Links page. And I'm like, wow, these guys have found my stupid WordPress blog. I wonder how. And then I emailed. And that was that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And so I, I don't know what made it so funny to me that, I don't know, I guess I just enjoyed your style of, I enjoyed your style of writing. And you and I shared several emails just about, you know, a few different things. And then we went on about our merry way. And then like a week later, we both get attached in a tweet from friend of the show, Tony Roman at Supermassive. Tony is a Pen Addict extraordinaire. He's been a longtime listener. And his tweet says, he says, Doughty is, I found Funkmon via your Ink Links. His review style is hilarious. And I bet he'd be a great guest on the show. So, so Tim replies, I do occasionally podcast according to my Twitter bio. Also, holy crap, I have fans. And then, and then my next reply was, yeah, I replied right there. I said, let's make it happen, Tim. That was, that was eight days ago. You and I came together on, on the, on the back end, got it scheduled, got it worked out. So like in the span of like two weeks, you've gone from unknown.

Tim Fletcher: You came together on the back end, huh?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You've gone from unknown blogger to pen addict, uh, guest, uh, superstar. So what do you feel about that?

Tim Fletcher: I feel great. And it was all thanks to you guys. And, uh, I'd like to thank my mother and, uh, Jesus.

Tim Fletcher: Jesus and Pen. I don't know if you knew that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So Myke, you know who, you know who Tim reminds me of? And I'm going to really put the pressure on him here if he, uh, if he knows who this is. But Tim reminds me a lot of John Roderick and the way his inflection is and the way he talks.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Now you say I do. I notice it. Was he also an underwear model?

Brad Dowdy: He very, you know what? He very well could have been an underwear model. I would not put anything past John.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. At all. There's a strong chance that that's happened at some point.

Brad Dowdy: But that's what, ever since I've heard you talk right out the gate, I was like, God, this guy is like John Roderick in pre-incarnated, like maybe 10 years younger. Wait, how old is this John Roderick? Oh, okay. He's not that old. He's still alive. He's still alive. Yeah. No. He's only in his 40s, I think. Oh, okay. So, Tim Fletcher from Funkmon on Pins, why do you have a pen blog?

Tim Fletcher: Well, the whole scheme was primarily to become famous on the internet.

Brad Dowdy: Oh.

Tim Fletcher: That's the only reason you start a website, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Tim Fletcher: But in actual, I started liking fountain pens out of nowhere. I couldn't tell you why. And then I decided because I have this hobby, I might as well figure out a way to rationalize it. And I rationalized it by starting a blog. A blog on WordPress didn't have its own domain, despite me owning several domains. Just a WordPress blog, and I figured if people like it, they will like it. And that's something. Because like on the first review I did of the Monte Verde Impressa, Pen Chalet retweeted or tweeted about it. Because I bought it from them, and they were mentioned. And then Monte Verde, the pen company, shared it on their Twitter and Facebook page. And then people really liked that. So then that was all the validation I needed. As long as I have an audience of three or four people, I will keep writing stupid stuff online.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's a pretty good feedback right out the gate, I would say.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, and it was, and it spoiled me for all the terrible feedback I would receive later. One person said, on the Pilot Metropolitan Review, that person said, I think I may have just read the worst pen review of all time.

Tim Fletcher: Isn't that fantastic? I mean, a lot of people can say, I write pretty good pen reviews, but only one person can have the worst pen review of all time. And that's this guy right here.

Brad Dowdy: That actually takes talent.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I wasn't even trying. So I mean, if I really tried, I could probably make the worst anything.

Avril Lavigne

Brad Dowdy: So where did the name Funkmon come from? I mean, I don't even know what the hell that means.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, well, I don't either. I think I was, I think I may, I don't really know, but I may have mistyped something when I was 10. And I registered that, that username on a online forum or something. And then I've just always used it. And if you Google Funkmon, it's pretty much entirely me. Like, there was a point when it was only me. But someone's got like funkmonkey.com. So sometimes that shows up. But yeah, I think I'm the only Funkmon there is. So if you Google it, you're going to get a lot of results about fountain pens and Avril Lavigne. And I think that's pretty much it.

Brad Dowdy: So you have an Avril Lavigne fascination? Is that what you're saying? Or?

Tim Fletcher: I'm a, you know, yes and no. I'm a big Avril Lavigne fan. I really like her music. It's great. And there's a, the largest English speaking music fan site online is an Avril Lavigne website, believe it or not. So she actually has a large following around the world. Not so big in the United States or in other Anglophone countries. But in countries where they can't understand what she's saying, they love her. I don't know what that's meant to say. Well, Jerry, she's a boy. Let me, let me tell you some of her fabulous lyrics. He was a skater boy. She said, see you later, boy. Yeah, that's pretty special. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: That is deep. Man. You know, the things you learn on the Pen Addict podcast are amazing.

Tim Fletcher: It is amazing, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: So I want to, I want to get into a couple of your pen reviews, actually. And the Metropolitan was one of them. But the first one I saw, the Cross Adventura.

Tim Fletcher: Oh, that was a very small review.

Tim Fletcher: I just wrote it on the paper. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: My pull quote from that review is, this is the worst pen ever made.

Tim Fletcher: It's not long.

Brad Dowdy: Can you elaborate?

Tim Fletcher: Well, I, someone asked me a question about it on Reddit a little while ago. And I tried to explain how bad this pen was. And I said, if you made a pen out of oven mitt and then gave it to a monkey nibmeister with only garbage disposal for hands to affix the nib, you'd have a pen better than the Cross Adventura. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Tim Fletcher: It looks cheap. It feels cheap. And it writes as well as could be expected for, I don't know, a dry noodle with no ink on it. That's about how well it writes. I had to quit writing a review because it sucked so bad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't think I've ever owned a Cross Pen, much less a Cross Fountain Pen. How about you, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I bought a Cross Pen for this show once. I can't even remember what it's called, though. The one where you kind of pull it apart.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it was a short one, but that was like a rollerball one. That one actually seemed like a pretty decent design.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, the design's cool, the mechanism's cool, and the ink is nice. I just don't like the way it feels in the hand. It's uncomfortable to hold, but I've never owned or used a Cross Fountain Pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, me neither. Me neither. I think you guys have made a good choice.

Tim Fletcher: Let me tell you how dumb I am. I just bought another one three days ago, a Cross Dubai Fountain Pen. Same $15 price tag, and I thought, oh, well, this will be a laugh. I'll have another terrible review. It's actually not the worst pen in the world. It is a mediocre pen with nothing notable about it whatsoever, which means it could be the best pen Cross has made.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's like worse than a really bad pen is to have just a mediocre pen because then you can't even write a funny review about it.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, I'm trying to fill 2,000 words or something on this pen, but most of it has just been insults on the Cross Aventura pen. I have a picture that I photoshopped of Hitler using the Aventura pen just to explain how bad this pen is.

Brad Dowdy: That is amazing. I'd actually be curious to know if there is such a thing as a good Cross Fountain Pen, so maybe some listeners have had some experience. No one ever asks. I mean, Cross is not in the forefront of anyone's reviews or talking about pen, so maybe you can be the crappy Cross pen guy.

Tim Fletcher: Oh, God. That would be a fate worse than death. But I think you're absolutely right, which is remarkable in that I think Cross, maybe second only to Parker, has name recognition outside of the fountain pen community, I guess. When someone says, okay, maybe Mont Blanc, but if someone says I've got a really fancy pen, they either think Parker, Cross, or Mont Blanc, at least from my experience. That's what they think, and then I have to explain I would never use it.

Myke Hurley: Just great marketing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I totally agree with that. I mean, I get emails about, you know, this always comes up in the graduation time of year because everyone sees those Cross gift pens and things like that, and I try to steer them away for the most part. Not that I'm totally negative on Cross just for a basic pen, just that you can do better if you do a little looking around and get some recommendations.

Tim Fletcher: You can do better if you didn't look around and just held your hand out and picked something. Even if you were in a grocery store, it would be a better pen. I bought a banana. Yeah, a better pen.

Handwriting

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, definitely. So I noticed something else very specific about this Cross-Adventure overview is that your handwriting is horrible.

Tim Fletcher: Oh, boy. It would be the worst ever.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but you own it. I mean, you just – you say, hey, look, this – my handwriting is awful, but you know what? It's mine, and I love it, and here it is.

Brad Dowdy: Can I say I love it? You owned up to it. I mean, you owned up to it. It's like, look, this is terrible, but this is what we're going with, and I'm happy with it, so we're moving forward. You know, unlike Myke, who hides in the corner every time he has to write something publicly.

Myke Hurley: You're just a penmanship bully.

Myke Hurley: That's what you are, Doug. Wow. That might be the nerdiest type of bully there is.

Tim Fletcher: I know. But, yeah, that's what Brad chooses to be. Well, you know, I understand that. Like, my handwriting is barely legible, which is why – so obviously in a fountain pen review, you're going to want to have a sample of your fountain pen writing on a paper that everyone's familiar with. So I just shove mine on Clairefontaine paper, and I write on it, but right before that, instead of saying, here's a sample of the pen, I say, here's some terrible writing. Just so everyone knows. And I've checked the clicks on all the images I have on there. No one clicks the sample at the bottom. I've had, like, four clicks on all of my reviews ever since the blog started about a month ago. So I don't even know if people care.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I kind of don't think they do. So that's why I'm saying I'm good with that.

Brad Dowdy: And you do – I've always been interested in people who do, like, a rating system on their blogging and when they're reviewing pens. Oh, yes. And you started that right out the gate. Does that work for you? I mean, do you think that's, like, a valid thing for pen bloggers to do? Absolutely not. Should I –

Tim Fletcher: It's terrible and ass-sign stupid. No one should ever put a rating system on their blog. Anyone who does that is a moron.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, I feel validated now.

Tim Fletcher: I think it's pretty much invalid. But the other thing is you've got a lot of skimmers out there. And if someone sees this wall of text with occasionally a picture of Hitler, they're not going to stop and read every single thing. But they will look at the numbers. And the numbers are pretty arbitrary because they're kind of based on the price of the pen. I mostly do reviews of cheap pens because I want to do reviews of pens that I don't see very often. And most of the time, people buy an expensive pen. They shove a review out there immediately, and you can figure out if it's good or not. But frankly, if you're spending $400 on a pen, it's going to be good. But where it gets interesting is the $25 or $35 pens, which is what I like to review. So when I have a $7 pen and I give it a $9, it is almost certainly worse than a $25 pen that I give a $9, which is dumb. Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't scale like that.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, I think that's why I've always been hesitant.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so... You know. So, but talking about the cheap fountain pens, you buy a lot of Chinese fountain pens. And that's a lot... A lot of people have always asked me to review certain brands. And I've just never really gotten into it. I haven't really seen the need or the... Or that these would fulfill a certain need in my writing to go out and buy. But you've got a lot of Chinese fountain pen reviews like Jin Hao and Bear. And I don't know if I think you have Duke out there. So what's the... Yeah, tell me about some of your favorite ones and maybe some that I need to look at purchasing and reviewing. Because I get asked about them all the time. Because there's good ones and bad ones. And there's certainly some good deals to be had.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah. So some of them are good. And some of them are almost as bad as a Cross-Tex and Tour. So what you've got to deal with is... There's a lot of people online who like Chinese fountain pens. And they say anything made by Jin Hao is really, really good. I've only had one good experience with Jin Hao pens. Now, Jin Hao pens are in the middle of the price bracket for your cheap Chinese pens. They go as low as $6 and pretty much as high as $10. And that's about what you're going to pay for these things. And some of the bigger ones use a standard number six size nib. So a lot of people buy nibs from Goulet or from X Fountain pens or Edison or whoever they want to buy from. And then just take the nib out of the Jin Hao pens and then shove that in there. And if you do that, these pens are great, great value. Like a Jin Hao 159 weighs like 45 grams or something incredible like that. It's made entirely out of brass. And its build quality in terms of the actual... Actually, how it's made is really good. It's right up there with a $150 European pen. And for the Jin Hao X450 and some of the other pens that they have, it's just slightly less than that. And these pens are like $6.50 or $7. So if you're going to have to put a custom nib on anyway, like if you like an extra fine or a big broad italic or just a normal broad like I like because my handwriting is terrible, then you might as well get one of those because what you're really paying for when you're buying a big name fountain pen is not the build quality usually. It is the performance and that is primarily the nib and feed. So you might as well get a decent nib and then shove it on a cheap pen and you're going to be writing as well as anybody out there. And that's why I've bought a lot of Chinese pens. I've got Heroes, I've got Jin Hao's, I've got Dukes. The best Chinese pen, I think, is probably the Duke 209 in terms of performance per dollar.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, I'll check that one out. What about buying all these? Are there certain ones you're staying away from now? Like you're off a certain brand just because it's just been consistently poor?

Jin Hao Pens

Tim Fletcher: Yes, Jin Hao. I will never buy another one of those pens because I've bought a lot because I was just going to put my own nibs on them anyway. But the nibs that come on them are just so terrible, in my opinion, that they're unwriteable, which is contrary to what people online say. Like if you go on the Fountain Pen Network or something, they say that they have really good medium nibs. European medium too, not the Asian medium that come in a lot of them. I just have not had that experience. I think the quality control is lacking. But yeah, go ahead.

Brad Dowdy: How do you compare something like your Duke that you like to like a Pilot Metropolitan that's $15? And how do those two pens relate? Do they relate at all in quality and value?

Tim Fletcher: Yes, I think the Duke 209 is better. If I had to rank my sub $50 pens in terms of quality, it would probably be my Parker Frontiers followed by the Duke 209 and then everything else. With the Pilot Metropolitan pretty close to the top, but I think the Duke 209 at $5.50 or $6 shipped is a better pen than almost any pen you can buy for under $50.

Brad Dowdy: That's crazy. I guess we're going to need to try that out. It is crazy.

Tim Fletcher: Yeah, it seems like it. You should really try it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we don't want to have a visionary experience here. I don't think that will happen though because a lot of people talk positively about them. So it's something I need to look into and something I need to test out for myself just because I've never gone that route. And people tell me to all the time that you will like several of these pens. So I need to give them a look and see what I think.

Tim Fletcher: It's worth a shot. I mean for $5, it can't really hurt. But for a lot of people who are fountain pen fanatics like we all are here, if you've got 40 fountain pens, do you really need another pen that looks kind of like a Parker Sonnet that writes pretty good when you have a bunch of much better pens that cost you much more? Why would you want to write with that? Why does it matter? For a first pen, it's great.

Brad Dowdy: I'm kind of hitting that spot now, I think, to where I'm not just looking at is this pen a good value. I'm looking at, well, if I purchase this pen, am I actually going to use it in conjunction with all these other pens that I already use? And it's starting to be like where my collection or my purchasing habits are getting a little bit more refined. And that's getting a little bit tighter and I'm just not winging it as much. But I guess that just comes over time and figuring out what you like to use and things like that. So one of the pens you did review that I haven't bought yet that I keep staring at is the Monteverdi Impressa, the one that you talked about earlier. So what do you like about that pen? And talk me into buying it or not buying it.

Tim Fletcher: Well, man, it's hard to talk someone into buying the pen. Here, let me grab it and stare at it for a minute. I've just dropped it. I've just dropped the pen. All right, well, I'll stare at it from across the room. Anyway, I really like the looks of the pen. It just looks cool. And if you don't like how it looks, then you probably don't care about the pen that much. Because the thing about it is it's not – I mean, it's a pretty good performer. It performs like a much more expensive pen even though it's only $40. It's smooth. It doesn't skip. It's got a nice clip. It's got a nice weight. I could write with it for hours. And it's got a cool-looking black nib. It uses a standard number six size. So if you want something fancy, you can shove that on there. But primarily the cool thing about it is the looks. The one I have is red and gunmetal. And they also have a blue and kind of off-white thing to it. Frankly, it's really hard to say anything about this pen other than it's really, really good. It's just a gosh darn good pen. It is right below a Duke 209 in my opinion.

Brad Dowdy: Does the – does this one come with a black nib or is that a chrome nib? I can't tell on there.

Tim Fletcher: Oh, on the gunmetal and red one?

Brad Dowdy: On the gunmetal, yeah. Cool. Okay. I might have to get that. That's pretty sweet.

Tim Fletcher: Well, you know what you can do if you want to test the pen out without dropping 40 bucks is there's a – but how is that Chinese pen spelled B-A-O-E-R? Yeah. How do you pronounce it?

Brad Dowdy: I call it bear, but I really don't know.

Tim Fletcher: It starts with an A, right? But I've heard people call it a bower.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It could be any of those.

Tim Fletcher: Well, they have this – the unnamed Chinese company one has this pen called the unnamed Chinese company one 051. So the bower or bear or whatever, 051 is virtually identical if you close them to the – the Monteverde Impressa. I'm holding both of them right now. The clip is exactly the same. The size is exactly the same. And the weight is almost the same. When you guys in the ink links put up a – you linked to – what is it? Penhabit. The Penhabit blog's review of the bower 051. Now, I actually told him to review that thing because he reviewed it in Impressa and liked it so much. And I was wondering if they were the same. I couldn't. I couldn't wait for him to review it so I just bought it myself. And they're similar but they're not the same. So people have proposed that perhaps because Monteverde does not – they don't make pens in the United States. They make them in China. Perhaps they purchased this pen design from Bower and then made it frankly look better. It's got better finishes. It's got a little bit better tolerance. And it's the – what do you call the thing at the end of the barrel? The back end? What is that called?

Brad Dowdy: I just call it the butt of the pen. But if it's a piston filler a lot of times, it's called a blind cap and a vacuum filler or things like that. Yeah.

Tim Fletcher: Well, on the butt of the pen, it's a little bit smaller on a Monteverde. It looks cooler. There's a lot more detail on that. But I don't – Bower also copies pens. They have one called a 388 which looks exactly the same as a Parker's sonnet. And the Bower 79 looks like a Starwalker. They do really good copies. So I don't know if it's a copy or not. But it only costs $6. And the only real difference is on the Monteverde, they have a special feed and nib that's good. And on the Bower, they have a special feed and nib which is good for $6. But it is a standard number five, so you could replace it if you wanted. So if you're really, really cheap and are okay with sending money to a questionable Chinese manufacturer of pens, you can buy one of those 051s. It has to be with a zero. That zero is important for some reason.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Gotcha. My interest is at least a little bit peaked. I might have to poke around in this. So one more question real quick and then we're going to let you go and wrap this puppy up. But I see just through your Twitter and just through our talking that you're into astronomy, right? So what's your involvement with astronomy? And number two, part two of that question, do you use the Field Notes Night Sky Edition?

Field Notes

Tim Fletcher: What? Wait a minute. What is Field Notes Night Sky Edition? This sounds awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Are you familiar with that?

Tim Fletcher: I'm familiar with Field Notes. I have not seen Night Sky Edition.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, Myke. I think we have a problem here.

Myke Hurley: Too late, buddy, I'm afraid.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Too late, buddy. So you need to work on your Google Foo. Go look at the TWSBI Night Sky Edition. It is one of the most beautiful Field Notes Editions they ever made with holographic constellations on the back of this edition. Oh! They turned out beautifully. And I was just wondering, being the astronomy fan that you are, if you'd run across that. And apparently not. So I think I might have to hook Tim up as a special gift for being on this episode. Get him some of these Night Sky Edition Field Notes.

Tim Fletcher: Wow. Gee whiz. That would be awesome. But I don't know. Are they for sale still? Because they always put those special things out for like a quarter and then you can't buy them anymore.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, these are one of the special colors editions that you can't really get anymore. So, except on the secondary market. But I thought that might be right up your alley. So, yeah, definitely check those out.

Tim Fletcher: I had never seen that. But my involvement with astronomy is what I would call minor. I'm a big fan of astronomy. I teach astronomy labs at a university. And I guess I have a minor in astronomy in my degree. I look up at the night sky when I go outside and I look at stars and I tell people about the stars. It is pretty – it's a pretty dull hobby, let's be honest, because it doesn't change at all.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, you do realize you're on a podcast about pens, right?

Tim Fletcher: Yeah. Man, I don't know which one is more – hold on a second. Jackie, what's more dull, astronomy or pens?

Tim Fletcher: Pens are more dull. Okay. So, you're right.

Brad Dowdy: That was amazing. And I think we'll wrap it at that. Tim, tell people where they can find you online. Find more of your awesome work.

Tim Fletcher: Every website, there is a Funkmon. And that is because I've registered that name. That's spelled F-U-N-K-M-O-N. So, Facebook, which I don't use. Twitter, Reddit, you know, any forum. There's a Funkmon. That's me. And then I have Funkmon.com. And I think the URL for my pens blog is funkmonpens.wordpress.com. It is. And later, I think in two days. When does this episode come out? Today.

Brad Dowdy: Later tonight.

Tim Fletcher: Early today. Wow. All right. So, in two days, I will have up the review for the new cross pen where you can see the picture of Hitler. What more could you want?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Now, that's a tease if I've ever heard one. All right. Get us out of here, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. Thank you for, Tim, for joining us. If you'd like to catch up with the show notes of today's episode, go to 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 108. I am imike on Twitter. I am YKE. And Mr. Brad Dowdy is at Dowdyism. D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. If you'd like to catch Brad's writing, he writes all the time over at penaddict.com. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Next week, I will not be here, but do not worry. There will be a special episode for you. Brad will be enlisting our good friend. I won't spoil it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you were so close.

Myke Hurley: Good friend of the show. I won't spoil it. And you probably all know who that is by now. And no, it's not the dude. Until then, take care. Bye-bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye.

Myke Hurley: Oh, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.