The Pen Addict 15/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	15
Title:	Casing the Joint
Release Date:	May 24th, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 15
Audio File:	Audio Episode 15
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 15
Length:	4141 min <br />0.683 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools we all love so dearly. I'm Myke Hurley and I'm joined, as always, by your host, The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, Myke. How's it going today?

Myke Hurley: Very well, my man. Very well. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace and Pernote and you're going to hear a little bit about them as the show goes on. So, Brad, how is it in your pen world this week?

Brad Dowdy: It's going good. It's going good. I got several new items scattered around my desk, a few that I've been anxious to get, a few that other people have been anxious for me to get and tell them if it's any good.

Myke Hurley: So they don't know whether to buy them?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it kind of puts me in a weird position. It's like, hey, have you gotten this one yet? And tell me if I should buy it. I kind of get roped up in that, but heck, most of the pens I want to get anyway and test out for myself.

Myke Hurley: Yes, of course you do, because you're an addict. That's right.

Monami Pen

Brad Dowdy: We know this. There was actually one pen I got in this week that I've had a few people asking me about. It's a brand new pen in JetPens. It's called the Monami Super Gel Q Gel Ink Pen. Kind of an awkward name, but that doesn't surprise me. This pen is poised to be in the pilot high-tech C realm of things. So that's why people have been anxious. How does it compare to the high-tech C? Is it any good? What's it like? Because it came out, it's a 0.4 millimeter gel pen, a needle tip. So tip-wise, it looks just like a high-tech C.

Brad Dowdy: And actually, this pen looks a lot like a lot of things.

Brad Dowdy: Monami has been very, how should I say it? They have not been shy about using the best parts from some of the most popular pens in putting this together.

Myke Hurley: This looks like so many pens I've seen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the barrel is just a base plastic barrel with a rubber grip. But the barrel with the cap off is a dead ringer for the Uniball Sino DX.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it just is. I mean, down to the dots on the grip.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that was what I couldn't put my finger on it. The dots in the rubber grip will look something, look like something I knew. And then you've got the tip looks like a high-tech C tip from the image that I'm seeing here on the jetpack.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So that's what they've done. They've, you know, kind of, you know, I'm not totally familiar with Monami. It's a Korean brand. I think I've used one or two of their other pens before. I don't know if they're, like, there's another Korean company called Dong-A that makes several pens. They make some popular, like, scented pens and things like that. But then a lot of their other pen lines are, like, I don't want to say rip-offs. But, you know, they are definitely.

Myke Hurley: Imitation.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That was very nice of you, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I'm diplomatic.

Brad Dowdy: They are imitations. I mean, like, even to the naming conventions a little bit and just the whole design of the pen. So, anyway, I don't want to get too far off track. But it's not a very unique barrel or look to the pen. And it's got a lot of the features that, you know, if you use a Sino DX or a high-tech C. But, you know, people don't really care too, too much about how it looks. It actually looks good. I mean, it's a good-looking pen. I mean, it's got the huge barcode built in on there, which I'm not crazy about. But that doesn't keep me up at night. Some people, it annoys the snot out of. But what people really want to know is how it writes and if it's even worth looking into just as a pen, regardless of how it looks. I've got to say, it's pretty good. The ink flow has not stopped from when I started writing it. You know, there's been no gaps in line thickness or, you know, ink dispersal, if you will. I mean, it's just been a solid line. It starts right up. The ink's very dark. I've got a black and I've got a blue-black. The blue-black is actually a really nice color. I'm pretty happy with it. And the black's real good, too. It's a very smooth pen for a 0.4 millimeter. You know, it's relative, right? People get mad sometimes when I say, oh, this 0.38 millimeter pen is smooth. Well, it's never going to be as smooth as your 1.0 millimeter gel ink pen. It's relative to other pens in its size range, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pen Design

Brad Dowdy: So this one isn't super scratchy. The only, the main gotcha I have with this pen, and I don't know if you can tell, I haven't posted my review on the Pen Addict yet, but you can probably tell in the pictures on jet pens, is there's a drop-off from the base of the grip area to the tip section.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it kind of, you had the metal tip where you screw it in, and then usually after that point you see the grip, but there's like a part of the plastic barrel in between the two, isn't there?

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And the way the pen's designed, that's for the cap to snap on. I see. Other companies have figured out how to not have that big drop-off, but that's right where I'm a, we call it a low gripper. I grip the pen way down on the barrel. My grip is smack in the middle of that ridge. So it's not a great grip area for me.

Myke Hurley: Because ideally, the metal should be raised to allow for it to snap in, right? Right, right. Rather than being on the plastic.

Brad Dowdy: Right, but they do it the way the, it's how, that's where the cap snaps on, so I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: There's ways around it. Other pens don't have it like this, so.

Myke Hurley: Never mind. Anything else that you want to talk about?

Brad Dowdy: No, it's a, it's a pretty good, pretty good, a new entry into the, to the micro tip world. I think it comes in about 10 colors or so. So it's, it's, they're definitely trying to be the pilot high tech C with this pen. And they've done a decent job. I mean, I have to say, you know, another needle tip pen that was kind of doing that same type of thing in, and that hasn't gone as well is the, there was a Zebra Sarasa clip needle. I don't know if you ever saw one of those. And it's similar in design to this pen, and it did not do well. It was a very, very poor writer, which is shocking out of Zebra. I never have issue with the way Zebra pens write. And that pen, for whatever reason, no matter how many different ones I try, it was a poor pen. I think they ended up discontinuing it, so.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I can't find it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so people are looking for new things to try in the 0.4 millimeter range. It's not bad. I'm not going to give it, like, my glowing highest marks, because there's a couple little annoyances, like the grip area, and also the grip, the rubber grip area, it turns. Like, it's not glued down firmly. So, like, the grip twists around the barrel. It's not, it's not too bad when you're writing, but it's just, you know, I'm real nitpicky about certain things, you know. Yeah, I'm complaining awful, awfully a lot for a $3 pen, right? Right.

Myke Hurley: But, you know, we come to expect a certain level of quality from things.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And it feels like a, it's a good build quality. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to belabor the point. It's a good pen. I'm not going to go, this is the greatest pen ever. At least not yet. I mean, I need some more time with it. I've only had it a day, and I've written about two full pages with it, which is actually a lot for me to just get a pen.

Myke Hurley: It does sound like, though, it's not going to be pushing the high-tech C off of its perch.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think so. There's just a few little differences. And it's really all in the writing experience. I think the high-tech C writes a little bit cleaner, a little bit nicer, a little bit tighter line. But this one writes pretty well. I'm just, we'll see how it goes long-term.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Retro 51 Pens

Brad Dowdy: So what about you? What do you have going on?

Myke Hurley: At the moment, I'm on the Retro 51 site again. I'm just looking at their new stuff. They have a, the line that they've got at the moment, the 2012 line, there's some really, really, really nice stuff in here, including some fountain pens. And so, because I haven't yet bought a fountain pen, and now I want to wait to try and, to try and get one of the new ones rather than get an older model. And some of the tornadoes, they've got some really cool-looking tornadoes coming. They have some, they have like a vintage, they're called the Vintage Metalsmith series. And a couple of them are named after presidents. So you've got a Jefferson, a Lincoln, and a Franklin. And they've, they've all got these very different finishes on. Some are antique copper. That's the Lincoln, like a penny. Okay. Yeah. And so they look really interesting. Like the Lincoln, it looks like it's had like some severe rust damage. Really interesting. And they, and the, the Jefferson has been acid finished. And I'm basically, they've got a product brochure, but I'll, I won't link to that because it's a PDF, but I will link to the page where you can download it. So from there, what's new. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I haven't, I haven't looked at that yet, but are the finishes, is that the external finish of the pen or is that the finish? And then they're lacquered over like a lot of their other pens.

Myke Hurley: It's difficult to tell, but I think that they might, I don't think they're lacquered because they have, I still have a lacquered series as well. Okay. But the, the King model that I have, which is what I'm currently using now, that's actually in this selection, but they're not available everywhere yet. And I was talking to the guys at Retro 51 and I'm not going to be able to get them in the UK for a while. So I might have to try and get them imported from somewhere. Hopefully check pens will get some soon and I'll have to buy probably all of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know. It's a, you know, I was listening to you and you and Patrick on the enough podcast just this morning at work and going, y'all got into a pen and paper or mostly a pen diversion. And I was, I was laughing at you and Patrick is so right. I mean, it is, I mean, it is a rabbit hole deep into your wallet.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's, it's dangerous.

Brad Dowdy: Like Patrick's, Patrick's, that's something to the effect of don't get into pens if you, if you want to have any money in your pocket.

Vanishing Point Pens

Myke Hurley: Totally. Because that's what it does. It drains money from you. While we're on that subject, let's talk about the vanishing points. I've been using the vanishing point all week. I continue, there, there are things about it that I am in love with. There are things about it which it's a little bit difficult for me. So the things that I love, the line is consistent. I have not had any problems at all. I've not had any scratching. I've not had any spluttering. I've not had any line breaks. It has been perfect. Perfect. Not, and that is so rare for me with fountain pens. I've not, I don't feel like I've had to break it in in any way. It's just from the moment I bought it to, to be using it all week. I've been doing a lot of writing this week as well because I've had some stuff going on at work. Made me do a lot of writing. I've needed to do lots of note taking. And it's been perfect. The problem for me, Brad, is the clip can get in the way for me sometimes.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? The way you grip the pen?

Myke Hurley: It's because of my left-handedness. So I kind of have to, at points, I have to tuck the clip underneath my finger. And it's okay. But if I'm writing for extended periods, I need to take a few seconds break. So it's not a make or a break. Like, I'm still going to continue using this pen every day. But it is, for me, it would be the perfect pen if the grip wasn't there. If the clip wasn't there. Yeah, right on the grip point. Because holding it the regular way doesn't work for me. It's not how I hold my pen. I don't hold my pen to the left or the right in the opposite direction. I hold my pen typically from above and sort of curl around the page. Right. So it can kind of get in the way of my grip, which is a shame. But I've got to tell you, there is nothing more satisfying than picking up that pen and clicking. The feeling of clicking this pen. I've not had anything from my pen collection at the moment that I find more satisfying. I really feel like I'm about to do something awesome every time I pick up the vanishing point.

Brad Dowdy: That's a good point. And it does make you feel that way. It's just so solidly built. And it's just, yeah, I catch myself in meetings now just clicking. I have to finally stop. I'm like, okay, put the pen down.

Myke Hurley: See, that's the thing. Usually I fiddle with my pens a lot. Like if I've got a knocker, I will click and click and click. But I'm conscious of it because it's so loud.

Brad Dowdy: I know. It is. It's very loud. It's not a little dainty sound. It's a thud. I mean, it's boom, as Mr. Hackett would say.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. He would say that. He does say that. So, you know, I don't really want to just be going.

Myke Hurley: So at the moment at home, when, you know, I'm using the vanishing point at work at the moment. And at home, the only pen I have used all week at home from my collection is the retro because I'm not using it anywhere else now. And I still think the retro 51 is my favorite pen of all time.

Brad Dowdy: That's great.

Myke Hurley: And what I love about, see, this is terrible in a way, but what I love about it is they have so many models. So I'm just, and it's because I love it because there's so many, but it's terrible because I'm going to start collecting them. I think I need to just admit that that's going to happen and I'm going to start collecting them. And as soon as I can find some and I can get these new models, I'm going to buy about four or five of them. I know I'm going to do it. And there's nothing I can do about it, but I will collect these. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to collect them. So never mind.

Myke Hurley: Never mind. So we have some topics this week, right? But before we do that, should we talk about our first sponsor? Yeah, fire away. So our first sponsor this week is Squarespace. Everything you need to create an amazing website, which both looks extremely professional and has unparalleled reliability. I've been talking about Squarespace all of this month and I will continue to talk about them until the cows come home. I love Squarespace. For me, it's the only way that I would ever want to start a website. I have a personal blog, which is on WordPress. For whatever reason, I chose to do that. I don't know. And for some reason, I wasn't going to take it. I don't know why I didn't go to Squarespace with it, Brad. I think I'm a bit of a fool, but I'm taking it to Squarespace. That is a project for me that I'm going to undertake over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to move the mikehurley.net over to Squarespace as well because that's where its home is. That's where all of my web properties should belong. The reason I love Squarespace so much, I don't have to worry about the hosting. I have stats built right in, real-time stats. I don't need to wait for an hour or two days or a week to come back and check what my stats were. If somebody's gone and visited my site, it will show. If I want to see who's been linking to me, great. I get that too. I can get that on my iOS app, which I love, and I can post on the go from the iOS app. Fantastic. Now, we have spoken in the past about Brad was going to be bringing over his penaddict blog to Squarespace. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hiccup. What did Squarespace do? He was talking with them. They fixed it. And you're going to be bringing the site over. You're going to finish the transition now.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. As of a couple of days ago, we finally got the... Basically, if you haven't caught up with all the podcasts, I hit a bug when I was importing my type. It was basically a TypePad import bug. And Squarespace worked to fix it. They actually pushed a fix to correct this in the future. So, if you're moving from TypePad, hopefully you won't run into the snags that I ran into the first time. I haven't moved everything over there. Made the big move yet, but I've done some testing based on the bug and the fix. And everything's working as I anticipated it to work. So, I will be getting the migration back in order soon. So, hopefully this weekend. We'll see if I get some time this weekend to give it a good go. And, yeah, I think we're going to be in good shape. I'm jonesing hard to get over there because I really want to use the iOS tools. They are so slick. It's not even funny. That's like the thing I'm most anxious for.

Myke Hurley: I think the problem for you was you accidentally moved, didn't you? And then when you found the bug, there was not really too much that could be done because you'd moved the site over by accident. But now you can do it properly.

Brad Dowdy: I had a DNS change. I mean, I'm in the IT field and I know better than to do this. You don't make two changes at the same time. You make one change. You test it. If it's good, you make the other change. Well, I tried to roll two changes in at one time and I just ended up, you know, making my life miserable for a day or two.

Myke Hurley: So, we're talking about DNS. Just the last thing before we finish this sponsor slot. Talking about DNS. Now, this is something that I hate. I know all of us nerds hate it. You know, I think that once you've set up enough sites, you understand how to set up a domain, right? You have to change whatever you need to change, see names, all that sort of stuff. You know you've got to do it. But nobody likes to do it. And because of the propagation time, you're never sure you've done it right. Yeah? So, you're a bit like, oh, have I done this correctly? I'm not sure. Well, if you're starting a site from scratch, if you sign up for an annual plan with Squarespace, they're going to give you a free domain. So, if you want a .com, you can get it. Like, if you want Myke's Retro51Collection.com, which I might just have to get anyway. If I want to set that up on Squarespace, buy an annual plan and they'll roll that straight in for free. If it's available, they'll register it and they do everything. They take care of all the forwarding and whatever it needs to be done. They get it done. The DNS stuff taken care of by Squarespace. All you need to do is wait 15 to 20 minutes and then your website will have that domain attached to it. Perfect. And that comes for free with every annual plan. The annual plans start with the equivalent from as little as $8 a month. You can also, if you want, pay monthly. You won't get the domain, but you can pay monthly for $10 a month, which is an absolute steal. Find out more by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. You'll start a two-week free trial. That's on us. And if you use the offer code 70decibels570decibels5 at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first purchase, whether that be your first month or your first year. Go for the year, get the 10% off, and get that free domain. There you go. That's Squarespace. Thank you very much for sponsoring the network, Squarespace. We love you. So what are we going to talk about now, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Apparently, I'm going to talk about how far off the deep end you've gone with this Retro 51 thing. I'm thinking you might have to stage. Yeah, you might have to stage an intervention. You're going to start building Twitter feeds and all this stuff.

Something Bad

Myke Hurley: Something bad is going to happen. That's all I know.

Brad Dowdy: Anyway, I thought that was funny. We're going to talk about pen and pencil cases real quick. We've had a couple of emails here recently about some different pen cases. What are my options? How do you carry your pens? And I think we've covered it. We've at least mentioned some pen cases in passing in some other episodes. But I've had a couple of specific questions and just wanted to go over some general types of pen cases and some of the things I use and why I use them. And just recently, I talked about one pen case that's my favorite pen case that's unfortunately been discontinued. It's the Nomadic PD04 roll pen case. If you follow me on the blog at all or follow me on Twitter, you've seen me posting about it in the past, I don't know, maybe a few weeks ago. It looks like a mini burrito, the way the pen case rolls up. It zips across the top and you open it up and you pull out the roll for your pens to slot in. It slots five pens in their own protective sleeve in this little roll section. And that roll section also contains a spot to hold refills, lead refills, pen refills, eraser, things like that. And the cool part is that case isn't just built for five pens. So that roll case rolls back into the pocket of the pen case and you can dump like five or six or seven more pens in there. So you can get about 10 or 12 pens in there. And that's the case where I can keep some nice pens in the little five individual sleeves and keep some more mass pens in the big section. And I'm sad that I love this case so much because I talk about it all the time and people want to know where they get it. And you really can't get it anymore. Or you might be able to find some old stock that just haven't sold out somewhere. But I don't know why they don't make it anymore. But this is definitely my favorite pen and pencil case.

Myke Hurley: All right. Stop rubbing it in and give us something you can buy.

Brad Dowdy: The very first pencil case I bought at JetPens, and I guess it was the first pen or pencil case I bought in ages, is called the Kokuyo Neocrits Stand-Up Pen Case. I don't know if that's the exact proper name. But it's the Kokuyo Neocrits.

Myke Hurley: It will be in the show notes. You don't have to search for it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's the Neocrits Transformer. Transformer. And I don't guess they're getting sued by anyone for using that name, Transformer. Not that I've heard of. It looks pretty cool, actually. Yeah. So what it is, the reason why I liked it is because it's still a good portable size. And when you take it with you to your office or to your school, to the library or whatever, you unzip it. It stands up vertically. It spreads out. And you can just kind of flip the top. You just pull the top down. And it's like it's a portable pen cup, if you will. So it's really well built. I've had this one for probably four years now. And it's always packed to the gills with pens and pencils. I use it a lot. And I've got some of the biggest, heaviest pens in here right now. I mean, I've got like a – gosh, what – I got one of the Moleskine rollers. I got one of the Jetstream 4 Plus Ones.

Brad Dowdy: Charbo X. I mean, some really large size pens. And one, two, three, four. I got, I don't know, 12 maybe pens in there, maybe 14. And the thing just stands up steady as ever. It's a very good, portable, durable pen and pencil case that you can use, I mean, like I said, anywhere. I mean, you can leave it on your desk at home and it looks like a cool desk accessory.

Brad Dowdy: So I've always been happy with that pencil case. Now, one other one that has been really popular that I keep forgetting to order is the Lihid Labs Tefa pen case. And let me find that. It's a real basic looking case from the outside. It's kind of a lay flat case, if you will. And it opens up book style. And everyone who I've read about or has talked to me about it, I've had a guest post about it on Pin Addict, doing a review of it, just raves about this case and its durability and its ability to hold so many different items. Because it opens book style, right? And then it has a middle divider. So there's basically two pen sections. You flip the divider over and then you have another section for erasers. You could probably fit like a field notes notebook in there, scissors and things like that. It's just really nicely done with all the pocket accessories in the case. So if you're looking to try, that's probably the most basic case. That'll give you the most flexibility. If you're looking to try like your first pencil case and you need something to throw in a backpack or take to work or take on the train or whatever, this Lihid Lab Tefa is really good. And I don't have one yet. I keep meaning to order one so I can review it. But I've never heard anything but just raves about it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm going to put that on my list actually. I'm taking a look at it now. It looks like there's loads of little pockets and compartments. That's what looks really cool about it to me. So, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Do you use any type of case? I know you take a backpack to work, right? Yeah. When you leave, do you use any type of pen case inside of it or anything?

Myke Hurley: I don't. I mean, I have a pen case that I leave at work which is just like a standard zip and just chuck stuff in. Like just for the random pens that I have like from Sharpies and that sort of stuff, you know? But the only – I mean, so I have like three pens that I carry around that are important to me which is the Retro 51, my first one, the Vanishing Point and the Hi-Tech C Colito. And in my backpack in one of the zip compartments is some pen slots so I keep them in there. Gotcha. I don't really need to keep – you know, to do anything else with them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so when we were talking about this, we actually got this question on Twitter for this topic. And, you know, we had some follow-up with that. Once people saw we were talking about pen cases, someone wanted to know what's a good portable pen case I can carry in my pocket that holds just like two pens or something like that. You know, I want to protect my pens, throw them in my pocket. But, you know, I don't just want to clip them to my shirt or clip them to my pants or something like that. And that's actually a pretty hard thing to find. I'd seen them before at Levenger. So I hopped over there and I did find one like a – it's called the Careza double pen sleeve. I'll shoot you the link for the notes. It's just like a little leather sleeve that's, you know, sewn to hold, you know, one pen on the left side, one pen on the right side. How well that fits in your pocket, I'm not positive. But that's one of the smallest pen cases that I could find. You know, this – I forget the man's name on Twitter. But he just wanted like – he wants to hold two pens in a case in his pocket. You know, that's actually a pretty decent request. You know, I'm surprised there's not a few more things out there. You know, if anyone else out there knows of anything, let us know. I know Kaweco makes a – they make a killer two-pin pen case. But its dimensions are made to hold your Kaweco Sports and Classics and AL Sports when they're closed. So that's a pretty small – that's not going to fit – that's not a universal type of pen case. It's built for the Kawecos.

Pencil Cases

Myke Hurley: I just found on the JetPens site, Kukuyu, Kukuyu. They make a mini pencil case, which is very small for a couple of pens. Is it the Slims? It's called the Actic Mini. Actic Mini. And it looks like it just holds two pens. It looks really small. So I'll include that as well because obviously I haven't got any – I've not got any experience with it. But it looks cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, see, I've seen that one. It looks smaller than the original one. I thought about that one. But for a pocket carry, you're not going to be able to throw that in your pocket, I don't think, with the zipper. I don't know. You might be able to. I've seen that one. I love the look of it. It's a beautiful little case. The Jowon looks quite large, though. I'm not sure how well it would do in a pocket.

Myke Hurley: But I guess it's slim, isn't it? Mm-hmm. It's long.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. It's long and skinny. Mm-hmm. It's got a decent-sized zipper.

Myke Hurley: But the Kuwaitka one is very attractive, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Those are really cool. The pencil cases, I mean, I end up – I finally had to stop buying them because I wasn't using them. You know, I only take one with me when I leave the house, and I use some others for storage. So, I mean, I've still got three or four other ones. But just in general, I've had great luck with the Nomadic and the Kokuyo brands as far as durability goes. I mean, I've probably got maybe five or six pen cases, and they're either Nomadic or Kokuyo. And I have zero complaints about any. I mean, they all do different things well, but as far as quality-wise, you know, the nylon construction is durable. The zippers, you know, I'm not having any flakiness in the zippers. The Velcro stays strong and things like that. And I haven't bought a new pen case in a while, so I've been putting these through the ringer, you know, pretty well. And durability has been the least concern. The biggest concern is why can't I take 100 pens in a tiny pen case? Yeah. That's my biggest problem. So hopefully that helps out some of the listeners with their pen case questions. And certainly, if you have more, let us know.

Myke Hurley: You need, like, the Mary Poppins bag.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: That's what you need.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I could see that. Now I have back problems carrying all my pens around. Right.

Myke Hurley: So we've got another topic, haven't we? But before we do that, should we talk about our second sponsor for this week? Yes. So our second sponsor joining us again is PairNote. Throughout this month, we've discussed how awesome PairNote is for taking notes in meetings, lectures, and conferences. PairNote allows you to combine notes of audio, video, and even slide decks. Whatever you type is kept in sync with the timeline of your media, allowing you to come back to the app, select a word, and be taken straight to that point of the media timeline, or watch it back, and you watch your words highlight in real time as you type them, when you type them. PairNote for Mac has been recently upgraded to version 3 and takes advantage of higher features like versions, autosave, and fullscreen. And they've also added the ability to record higher bitrate audio and 720p video. All of your notes sync over Dropbox to PairNote for the iPad, so you always have your notes with you, no matter where you are. And they've recently added integration for a Skype plugin called Ecamm's Call Recorder. It's something that allows you to record Skype calls. PairNote now links with this. So if you can record your Skype calls right into PairNote using the Call Recorder. And the notes that you take will be kept in sync with the Skype call, which is really cool for if you take meetings over Skype. You can get PairNote from the Mac App Store, the iOS App Store, or directly from UsefulFruit.com, which is where you can go to see the awesome demo we spoke about last week. You can get a bunch more information and a 30-day free trial. Thank you very much to UsefulFruit and PairNote for sponsoring the 70 Decibels Network this month. So, what is our final topic for this week, Mr. Dowdy?

Brad Dowdy: We got an email this week that was right up my alley because it sounded like I typed it myself just because the way the reader and the listener described what his needs were. So let me read this email from Joe real quick. It says, I've got a show topic suggestion. Pens for the non-artist. Maybe for one of the shows you guys can talk about good pens for sketching, drawing patterns, or geometric shapes, chicken scratch, or just simple drawings. The list might include marker pens, brush pens, pencils, things like that. I have a very type A, black and white, regimented personality. And I want to try to be more creative. And I figure this might be a good avenue for me. I already have the paper and notebooks. Now I just need something to help unlock my creativity. Using something other than a pen might help make me feel more like an artist or not. And that was from a listener, Joe. And that is something that the way he feels about wanting to try some of these different pens to kind of unlock some other creative aspects of his life or just his writing style or his drawing is something that I think about all the time.

Brad Dowdy: Because I'm not a very artistic person in that I can't just sit down and draw and create. But when I use certain pens, I feel more creative.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I don't know. You know, in the grand scheme of things, that's probably nonsense. You know, just...

Myke Hurley: Mind over matter.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You know, we'll get from the psychological aspect. You know, people are like, oh, no, there's no way. But, you know, there is a feel. Like, just like you're saying, when you feel like when you click down that vanishing point, you know that, man, this feels great. And I'm psyched to start writing. And, you know, whatever ideas are just going to start spewing out. And you feel different writing with that pen than you do with another pen. And in Joe's case, he's looking for, you know, some more of the drawing art type pens. And if you've read The Pen Addict for any length of time, you know, that's one of my favorite types of pens. And I don't use them for drawing. I use them for writing. But I do it because I don't know if I feel more creative using those pens. I like the way they look on the paper more than a lot of pens. So, you know, just a few drawing style pens recommendations for Joe. And I did shoot him an email back already. But, I mean, get a few Secura Pigma Microns. I mean, they come in several colors. They come in several tip sizes. They're reasonably priced. They're not difficult to find. They are very good quality. They last a while. And if you do turn into a budding artist, the ink is archival quality. It's not going to fade over time. It's waterproof. I mean, the Secura Pigma Micron is just one of those pens that everyone should have. Even if you're not an artist or you're not going to use it for drawing or sketching, it's a creative pen. You can write with it. I write notes with it. I used one last night at work, drawing some diagrams out for work. It's a real functional, durable quality pen. And just like Joe says, I feel better or I feel more creative or more productive writing with that type of pen than if I do just grabbing a ballpoint pen. It's different. It just is. It's hard to explain that. And I don't know if that's exactly what Joe's getting at. You know, what's going to what what type of pen is going to give me just that little creative edge, you know, whether it's actual or just dreamed up. But, you know, what is going to make me feel a little bit better? And, you know, those type of pens are really something that I use for that. So outside of the Secura Pigment Micron, if you really want to if you want to step it up a notch and I don't know that we've ever talked about it. If if not, we haven't talked about it much. It's called the Copic Multiliner SP. It's a it's a drawing pen. It's an art pen.

Pen Tips

Brad Dowdy: I want to say they just come in black, but they come in maybe eight different tip sizes. And the two things about that pen. Well, three. One, it's expensive, but it's expensive because it comes in a nice aluminum barrel and it's refillable. So people that go through a lot of, you know, drawing type pens are not are not great portable pens for, you know, just it's not something you want to leave in your car or, you know, hand out to a friend because the tips, those plastic tips are fragile. They're going to get damaged easy. So Copic actually does a refillable where you can you can buy refills, you can buy tip replacements and you keep this really, really nice aluminum barrel. I use that pen a lot. It's I'm a huge fan of what what Copic does. They make very high quality products.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So that looks really top class like that. It's like a really nicely built pen by people that have put a lot of thought into it by making sure, you know, they know that people like to draw in these pens. Well, you know what? Why not make it refillable? You know, that's right. Many other refillable pens. Why not? Why not drawing pens?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And yeah, I don't know what the mechanics of the inside of the cartridge on why why other companies haven't done that. I haven't done that before. But, you know, that's a good idea. And, you know, like I said, it's not a cheap pen. But if it's one of those that's more of a system pen, like if you get into that pen and you're really going to use it hardcore, well, you're going to have a bunch of barrels and you're going to want to use a bunch of refills and things like that. So it's extremely well made and quality wise is top notch. I've used them for years.

Myke Hurley: I find it quite peculiar because you'd expect people that draw, what's really important to them is the individuality of their pens. So breaking it in, breaking the nib in, for example. So to have to change that out every time the pen runs out seems very peculiar. So that's why I think that obviously the Copic is probably quite a smart design because you don't need to do that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Yeah. And, you know, artists are very peculiar in that they will be able to tell the slightest change in the tip as far as where it goes. Right. I mean, when you're looking at different lines and line widths and doing a drawing or making a piece of art, you can tell really quick, you know, from an artist's perspective or someone like Joe, who's like type A, you know, anal retentive, detail or any. And like me, I can tell the slightest little change in pens. And, you know, it's it'd be nice to, you know, if you have a favorite to be able to replace a tip or replace it or just refill it in, you know, just like the Copic does. So it's a good it's a good pen. It's expensive. I keep saying that. I mean, I think they're about seven bucks a shot to get into before you start buying refills and tip replacements. But quality wise and and style, it's probably the best.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Brad Dowdy: Sounds great. So I hope that helps Joe. I hope that what he was getting at with his what is with his question, you know, something to, you know, help him unleash some some creativity there. Sure.

Listener Contact

Myke Hurley: So Joe contacted us to ask us this question. And actually, most of the topics today have been through people contacting us. So, Brad, tell people what the best way to get in touch with the show is.

Brad Dowdy: Best way to get in touch with me is either you can find me at pen addict dot com. So that's my blog and you can read all the reviews and find all these pen cases we're talking about and all the bunch of pen cases we didn't talk about and all the drawing pens and everything. You can search on the on pen addict or shoot me an email at the pen addict at gmail dot com or find me on Twitter at Dowdy ism. And yeah, I think every single topic that I covered today came in through one of those routes.

Myke Hurley: So there you go. That's really cool. We like that, right?

Brad Dowdy: No, I love it. Love it.

Myke Hurley: That's what we want. So also as well, you can you can contact us by going to 70 less of bells dot com for contact. You can pick the pen addict from the the drop down list and send that into us there. You can get me on Twitter as well. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I. You know, if you maybe need to tell me that I need to calm down about the retros or if you want to share in my love for them, that's a good place to do that. And in the next couple of weeks, we're going to have our first guest on. Yes. We'll tease that for now. We're not going to say who it is. Maybe we'll tell you in a week or two. We're going to have our first guest on the podcast. Imagine that, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: I'm excited about that. It's a it's a gentleman. Well, I'll tease you. It's a man. It's a gentleman. I've talked to online for many, many years. So I'm looking forward to it.

Myke Hurley: And they're going to they're going to bring something really interesting to the pen addicts. I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So very much. Different perspective.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. That'll be good fun. So watch out for that. And you'll hear more about that over the coming weeks.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Hey, maybe we need to get someone from retro 51 on.

Myke Hurley: Yes.

Brad Dowdy: We need to work. We'll work on that.

Myke Hurley: We should do that. Just so I can just profess my love to them for a while. That's right. That's right. And then they'll never talk to me again because they'll be slightly worried. But right. So, Brad, thank you very much for joining me again this week. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. It's always fun. I really appreciate it, Myke. I'll talk to you later.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we will. And thank you very much for listening. Until next week. Bye bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.