The Pen Addict 196/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	196
Title:	You Replace Your Carpet
Release Date:	March 16th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 196
Audio File:	Audio Episode 196
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 196
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 196. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined, as always, by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hey Myke, how are you? I'm good, Mr. Dowdy. How are you today?

Brad Dowdy: I'm excited. I'm excited because I was totally unprepared last night going into today about what we're talking about and you came up with one of the greatest ideas ever. So I'm looking forward to later in the show today. I mean, the first part's got some awesome stuff in it. We've got a lot of cool stuff to talk about. But towards the end, we're going to drop something pretty cool on y'all. I think it'll be fun.

Myke Hurley: We have a peculiar topic today.

Brad Dowdy: That's how we roll.

Myke Hurley: So last week on the show, you were teasing a product that was going to appear at the Atlanta Pen Show. And then for anybody that follows the Knock Co. Instagram, you've gone ahead and posted a little spy shot.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I was getting so many questions about it. And I was at the shop and I told Jeff, I said, I'm just going to post something because I'm getting a lot of questions. We can at least tease it right a little bit. And he's like, yeah, that's cool. Do it. Go ahead and do it. So I had to find where I could get a little blur app in one of my photo apps that I had downloaded. And I found one and threw this image up there. So what do you think? Looks pretty sweet, huh?

Myke Hurley: All right. Yeah. So I'm trying to work out what this thing is. It looks like a pouch of some description. Like there appears to be a button fastening. It's very confusing. I don't know what you've got here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's kind of blurry. It's hard for me to make out.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. If only you probably didn't have one in front of you.

Myke Hurley: Is this one of the knock products that you will own or won't own? Because I know you usually don't get your hand on many of these things.

Brad Dowdy: That's a very good question.

Brad Dowdy: Right now, probably not. We only bought enough fabric to make enough kit for the show, if you will. So you won't even buy one? I might. I might. It's kind of cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You gotta. It's like whenever we make, I know it's not the same, but whenever we make shirts and stuff, I always have so many. I just buy so many. It's ridiculous.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I do that too. I do that too. On this one though, I don't want to take them away from the people. You know what I mean? Especially if I don't know the number, but it's going to be like 40. I mean, don't hold me to that, but it's going to be a low number. I want one. Well, you'll be there in time to get one.

Myke Hurley: Maybe I'll buy you one as well. Okay. Fair enough. Then you can't complain. Fair enough. There's nothing you can do about it if I bought two. Right, right. Although maybe with such a low stock number here, you should just institute a one per person. Yeah. Maybe we need to set up a lottery or something.

Myke Hurley: Really going all out on this one. I follow you on Twitter, so I get to see the links to the pen addict, and I get to see all of the reviews that you write. This one really caught my eye for a couple of reasons. This review went up a couple of days ago for the Parker Sonic Great Expectations Subtle Big Red Find, which is one of the most ridiculous names of a pen that I've ever seen. Where does this name come from? That is the full name of it, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, the Sonnet's a traditional name. The Great Expectations, I'm not sure where that comes from. The Big Red is a traditional name that I think Parker just used for marketing purposes because they're old. The big, they're really orange looking. The old traditional Parker Dual Fold, which is one of the most famous pens in the world that's ever been created. Its nickname is Big Red. So, I think this was just a play that they're using that color, but I think more in the product name. It's just like a total marketing thing. It doesn't have any relation to the Big Red, which is the traditional Parker Dual Fold. If you search Parker Dual Fold, you'll come up and see all the... They really look orange. They're orange looking pens. Very pretty. And I would love to own one of those one day. I probably will. They're very expensive and good ones are hard to find. But yeah, so their name is kind of a train wreck.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. How did you even come across this pen?

Brad Dowdy: Just working with Goldspot, they're one of the advertisers on the blog. And we go every couple months and I go pick out a bunch of things I want to review. And I stumbled across this one. I don't know how long it's been out. I don't know why I didn't see it before. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. It's a really interesting design. This looks like a pen I would enjoy. So I asked them to borrow it, to do a review of it and test it out. So that's literally how it came about. I picked it out from their site as a product I wanted to review. So this is a loaner. I'll be sending back to them probably next week or so.

Myke Hurley: So it looks real great, right? Like it is a good looking pen. And the material was a surprise.

Brad Dowdy: Total surprise. It's an exceptionally well-made pen. It's lightweight. It's all metal. The full body is metal. Clip, section, body. The body you can see is like a clear coat, lacquer, black lacquer. It's shiny. It looks beautiful. So the section, you know, in pictures, I couldn't totally tell, but it's metal too. It just happens to be like a brushed finish on the grip section.

Brad Dowdy: It's really, really well-made. It's lightweight. It's not a heavy metal pen at all. It feels just right. There's no weight to it. You don't go, oh, this is a metal pen. And it's kind of heavy to write with. It's not like that at all.

Brad Dowdy: The nib is fascinating. And I guess the chrome finishings on it because they're that dark chrome. You know, I don't know what the actual name that they are calling this, but, you know, like you've seen it like on the sailors that I have where they have that dark colored nib. You know, it's like a nickel plating or a pewter looking color.

Brad Dowdy: Literally everything about this pen is great as far as the design goes, the feel goes, the functionality goes. I was shocked it was an 18 karat gold nib too. To be honest, you know, it's very nice nib. And it's got these cool little hatchwork design on there. The nib is just great looking. And my wife was even looking at this pen. She goes, wow, that's kind of a nice pen. You know, while I was photographing it, she was sitting with me. And, you know, then you get down, you have all these warm fuzzies. This thing's so cool. And then you kind of throw up in your mouth a little bit when you see how much it costs. Right. I don't. It's $270.

Brad Dowdy: And while that's I'm not going to say that's outlandish or ridiculous. It just doesn't feel like a $270 pen. You know, if someone's asking me to recommend their first gold nib price range, this one's so far off the radar for that. It wouldn't even be close. You know, like if I'm comparing it to entry level gold nib pens, like a Pilot 91, a Sailor Sapporo, a Lamy 2000, I would pick all of those before this pen. Despite the fact this pen looks great. And I was thinking about the pricing of it. And I was kind of talking about how Parker doesn't really have that cachet right now. You know, as a company, as a name brand company, no one's really talking about Parker. So can they get away with a premium priced pen in this market? And I was trying to think of who actually can get away with that. And I was thinking of Pelican, like the Pelican, the 400 series, the M400, 405, you know, just their standard, their first, their entry level gold nib pen on Pelican side runs in the upper 200s. They're the only ones that I've seen be able to get away with that price point. And that's because, you know, they've continued to deliver on a great product. They have great nibs, great design, great functionality. It's a piston filler. This is a cartridge converter filler. They didn't have that downturn of the company in the 90s and early 2000s. You know, Pelican's always kind of stayed strong. So they they're able to pull off that premium wealth. Like I have no problem. I had no problem paying. Like, I think I paid 275 for my M405, which is their entry level gold nib pen. And I didn't blink. I would totally blink at $270 for this, having used so many other better priced gold nib pens. Like the Pilot 91 is the perfect example. You can get that one for like low hundreds. And it's this pen's not better than that. Then the Parker's not better than the Pilot. And you could buy two Pilot 91s and some ink for the price of this. So as much as I love this pen, it's never going to be a pen that I recommend unless someone says, hey, I'm a big Parker fan. And I don't like what they've been doing recently. Have they come up with anything cool? I would show them this pen. This is an awesome pen. It's a flat out great pen. It's like one of those when you open up the box and you pick it up and you just grin. It's very cool.

Brad Dowdy: But price justification is super, super hard on this one. I don't see it. I wouldn't pay this much for this pen. I would buy a Pelican. If I was spending that exact same money, I'd buy a Pilot 823. Would be my first choice. And then probably then maybe a Pelican. But the Pelican is actually a smaller pen. Like the 823 is a big, substantial pen. Runs about 280. And it would just, you know, it's a way better deal than this pen. So, you know, it's just one of those value things. We went through it with the Statler, was it the Intium or one of those pens that I reviewed. I was blown away by the quality, manufacture, and performance of the pen. But it was almost $200 for a steel nib pen. Well, that just doesn't work. So, in this case, $270 doesn't work for this pen.

Myke Hurley: So, I was taking a look on Pen Chalet. Mm-hmm. And there's actually more styles of this pen. And they're all beautiful. They really are. All of them are just stunning. So, you know, I'll link in the show notes. Go and look at them. And there's an FAQ about why it's got that name. Okay, good. This is the answer. The Parker Sonnet Great Expectations Special Edition is referred to as a collection that surpasses the greatest of aesthetic expectations. The name simply references the fact that the pen is a new version of the Parker Sonnet that will exceed your expectations.

Brad Dowdy: It completely exceeded my expectations in design and performance. I will say that as a valid statement. It did not exceed my expectations on price. Let's say. But yes, all the designs in this line are really great. And Parker Sonnet, they've stepped up their game recently in like the last two years. Not like the past five or ten years, but like in the last two years, they've kind of come up with some cool designs and some things like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I'll put some links in the show notes. There's actually a lot of good stuff suggested there, especially some of those Pelicans and stuff like that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a pen I'm keeping an eye on. We'll see, you know, if I can ever get it like a good deal. Like I'd consider like $150 for this pen.

Myke Hurley: I was going to say, if I could get this for $150, I would buy one. Yeah. Do you know what as well? I found something on the web about I consider like $150. Check it out. Thanks, Siri. That was awesome.

Brad Dowdy: I let her play because how does that even happen when I'm on full mute and do not disturb?

Myke Hurley: If you invoke the Ahoy telephone, it will just go for you, man.

Brad Dowdy: But what did I Ahoy? I don't recall. Well, I guess it was just in there somewhere. It heard. But I didn't turn it off because I could read what it was going to say. And I said, well, I'll just let it play because it sounds pretty, pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: So I'm pleased that we have a third host. But yeah, I was going to say this is a, I think it's one of those really good looking pens to buy for someone who's not a pen person. Exactly. It's got that look about it. And Parker, I think, holds cachet in the non-pen world. Agree. Right? Because it's just a traditional name that people recognize.

Brad Dowdy: I very much thought that about this pen. Like if someone came to me, like if John came to me and said, hey, my dad used a Parker back in the day and he's really got this fascination with it, what should I consider? This would be one of them.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: I would recommend it in that situation. You know, for someone who's not like giving me a list of like 10 things to like figure out what their best pen is. And if they're just looking for like something to make an impression as a gift for someone who's kind of has like ancillary knowledge of Parker as a brand or pens as a whole, this would be a great thing.

Brad Dowdy: So there's that.

Myke Hurley: So you've been at it again.

Brad Dowdy: I've been avoiding being at it, Myke. Oh, I don't buy that. You should, because I started this about a month ago behind the scenes.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Kickstarter Pen

Brad Dowdy: And I was purposefully not talking about it, but there's a pen on Kickstarter right now, which we're not even going to link to the Kickstarter page. You can go find it yourself off this product hunt page, but this product hunt page came out this morning. So I kind of want to talk about it just a little bit, but you know, everyone knows the Ajoto pen that they did a wonderful Kickstarter, had a big blowout Kickstarter. There's a new pen called the Sends pen. And they emailed me about a month ago, sent me like their, their press kit. And I replied, I said, this is an exact copy of the Ajoto pen. That was my little response to like a 500 word email with all this marketing, whatever. So I sent this back and, and they gave me the link to like the pre-launch Kickstarter and all that stuff. So I hit send like a day later. Um, they sent me an email back. It says, no, it's not. And that was it. That was the end of our conversation. So I was like, okay, well, this is going to crop up at some point on the, uh, on the Kickstarter. And, uh, so it did like two weeks ago, maybe it launched on Kickstarter. I didn't mention it because it's, it's like literally the Ajoto pen. And they're saying it's made off this Russian pen from, uh, you know, this guy's father or whatever. That's fine. But they don't, they don't hide the fact that their product shots like are practically laid out the same as Ajoto. Their little pen case is the same as Ajoto.

Myke Hurley: It's the same. They're offering a leather sleeve. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: If you, if you had your, if you took all the words off the page, you go, oh, that's a, oh, that there's a Ajoto doing another Kickstarter. And, um, so I'm just putting the word out. It is what it is. I'm not going to bang on them too hard, except I was on Twitter this morning.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it looks as good as the Ajoto.

Pen Design

Brad Dowdy: Well, no, I don't like the, uh, the knurling on the, um, on the knock part.

Myke Hurley: And I don't like the logo. Yeah. They logo it.

Brad Dowdy: It's a minimal pen that they slap logos all over. So whatever.

Myke Hurley: The brand name, like they look at one of the pictures is on the page on the Kickstarter page. Uh, like there's, you can see the brand logo in three, three times in one little picture. I don't like it so much. And yes, it is a shame. I mean, look, I always take devil's advocate. We can assume it's a knockoff, right? Like we don't, nobody actually knows. They're saying it's not, which is fine. I know. But like, if you're interested in this pen, I put a link to Ajoto in the show notes. I love the Ajoto. Uh, and I think that you should get that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And let's, I mean, to be perfectly frank, the Sins pen is a much, much cheaper option. And there's probably reasons for that. Um, I mean, I've, I've never used one, so I can't say what the quality is like. Um, people look at the Ajoto and balk at the price, but they really stand behind their products. They believe in their products. They've spent years trying to perfect this product. Um, they have wonderful customer service. It's a company we are familiar with as a community and understand that, you know, they do good things and, um, you know, they're a solid reputable company, me company. So I definitely send people to Ajoto all the time. Um, and, uh, I'm a huge fan of their pen and I, I talked to them behind the scenes plenty. They're really good, good people over there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I agree. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: So are you on the market for any new retro 50 ones, Myke? Because there's a, there's a couple new ones on the scene that, uh, that might be something you're after. What do you think? Yeah, I've seen them. Um, are you down with, uh, some coffee with your bouquet of flowers?

Myke Hurley: So I like the look of the bouquet one. I don't really like the look of the coffee one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: The bouquet one's not out yet, right?

Brad Dowdy: No, but it's coming. It's really pretty.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I might, I might pick one of those up. The gold, uh, the gold furniture is a nice touch.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Gold Furniture

Myke Hurley: Uh, I think I have one with a, with gold furniture. It's the, uh, the giraffe one. Okay. Uh, I think I have that and it has gold furniture. So I'll be keeping my eye out, I think, uh, for this, for this retro 51 here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Someone asked me, he said, there's an announcement coming up. You have any idea what it is? I said, no, I have no idea, but it's spring. So let's go with cherry blossom. You know, it's cherry blossom time. They said, oh, you were close. So, uh, props to me on that one. But I, I would pick, I would pick the coffee one. I think the coffee one's better looking, but that's me. But I, the bouquet is really, really pretty. And, um, Jeff reviewed the coffee one, which is a gold spot exclusive. Um, it's really good looking. I actually have one on the, on the desk here, um, as well. Um, they were nice enough to send us a couple of these. Um, I love like the, the copper finish, you know, like the dark copper finish, um, much better than the gold furniture, you know, um, or the, I don't know what they call this, bronze or copper. I'd have to look at the specs, but I just think it's, it's a really pretty pin. It's definitely more my aesthetic than the bouquet. But, uh, despite the fact that design on the bouquet is really killer.

Myke Hurley: I wish that they would have gone with a design rather than words personally, like even just like a coffee bean design. Uh, I like the texture. I have a, it looks quite similar to the texture of the basketball one, maybe just inverted. Um, I like it when they make textures on them. So yeah, uh, this is, this is a good idea. There are parts of this coffee tornado that I like. I just, I don't like the overall design of the, of the words. I prefer when they use imagery. So, uh, I'm going to be keeping my eye out for, for the bouquet because I think that that is a, uh, that's a beautiful one. See if I can try and catch the bouquet.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, you should do that. Did you catch it at Matt's wedding?

Myke Hurley: No, actually I was considering it. Get some elbows in the way, but I thought I might upset some people.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Okay. Um, so yeah. And, uh, I know retro 51's got a bunch of other stuff in the pipeline too. So the, there's even more and more and more and more common. So, and there's some cool dude. I've seen some cool things that I can't talk about, but you'll know when it happens for sure.

Myke Hurley: Oh, why are you doing this to me? Also, I have something to say here. It's a retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sworn to secrecy.

Myke Hurley: I have, I have something to say here. Why are they not showing this stuff to me? I am the retro 51 guy, right?

Brad Dowdy: They didn't send this to me. One of our, one of our listeners, Penhall sent it to me. I didn't know about it. They said, Hey, look at this. He just forwarded it onto me.

Brad Dowdy: This is ridiculous.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Well, use your 50 retro 51's for this next project. Okay. This is kind of cool. And I was just sent this this morning. I was like, Oh, I got to put this in the show notes. Cause it's really cool. I'd never heard of this, but there's a project called dear data. Some of our listeners may have heard of this. Have you heard of this before? Myke? Nope. So like in, in 2014, two people started a postcard exchange where weekly they would exchange a postcard of the things that happened that week during, uh, based on a specific topic. So they would take a week and write a postcard or draw a postcard of all the drinks they drank for that week. And then they would exchange them. So, and then the next week they would do animals they saw and things like that. So every week had a topic, sent one postcard exchange back and forth. Well, that kind of blew up. It turned into a whole book and everything like that. So I just wanted to put this link in the, in the show notes for everyone to see. Cause it's kind of cool because, um, website five 38.com, which those in the U S are probably familiar with it. I don't know how much this site gets out. Um, it started by a guy named, uh, Nate silver. I was a huge Nate silver fan when he was working for baseball prospectus. He's one of the founders of baseball prospectus and y'all know my, my baseball, uh, fandom.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: He's a guy. Yeah. So he's a, he's a numbers guy.

Myke Hurley: And then he got, um, popular for election stuff, right? Like that's his big bag now.

Brad Dowdy: He started working for, um, I don't know if it was the wall street journal, the New York times. And he was there, um, he was their election numbers guy polling. Uh, he was doing all the modeling, the predictive modeling for election results. You watch house of cards.

Myke Hurley: Yes. You seen the most recent season? No. Okay. Cause they basically, they create one of those characters to be him.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So he got a lot of press, uh, four years ago, um, because he like nailed, I think he hit like all 50 States.

Myke Hurley: Um, well, didn't he like accurately predict the Obama stuff in a way that everybody thought would be impossible? Like the actual results didn't make any sense, but he predicted them was right. That's how I'm familiar with him anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So that's how that's. So now he's blown up on the political side. He doesn't do anything with sports, um, very much anymore. He'll write a few articles here and there, but it's all political stuff now. So five 38 is really his political blog, but this data thing they're doing, actually doing a contest. They're saying, keep track of all the podcasts. You listen for seven days, pick any seven day period in March and, uh, send them a postcard about it. I thought that was pretty cool. And maybe our, uh, maybe our, this is like the perfect thing for our listeners to participate in. Um, cause they're listening to us, they get to use their stationary and, uh, you just visualize somehow, you know, how you listen to podcasts. You can draw their logos or write their names or do something cool. So we'll have that link in the show notes. I thought it was just kind of a neat thing that, uh, one of our, uh, our listeners sent it, sent that to us this morning. It was very cool.

Myke Hurley: Um, you can tell by looking at these postcards that these are, I could tell that these people were data visualizers because the way that they choose to display the data is so peculiar.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. There's some, there's some cool imagery in this, uh, in this, in this post. I mean, it's not that very, not that many images I haven't gone to, to, to the, uh, gallery. There's a gallery of all the stuff. I think, um, I haven't gone through that yet, but just the ones in the image are very cool. I like it. I like it. Um, remember, remember right after new year's when our good friend, my custom puppet got, uh, got the big run on new year's Eve for all of his, uh, calligraphy work on Instagram and got all these followers. Well, another guy I follow on, uh, Instagram just got the, uh, Huffington post just did an article just on all of his calligraphy and handwriting and flexi nib styles. King Blotto the third, which is an amazing name. I don't know the full story around it, but I imagine it's an awesome story. And I don't know if you follow him on Twitter, but I've been following him for a while and it's cool to see this just appear on Huffington post yesterday out of the blue. Like, uh, some listeners sent that to me and, uh, all his videos are so good. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Another one. I love watching, uh, a custom puppet. Like I just love watching it. Yeah. Hearing them. Exactly. I always put the sound on for those. That sound is so beautiful. The sound.

ASMR

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. And that's what the title of this article is fall into a deep trance watching calligraphy pens in motion. That's what it is.

Myke Hurley: ASMR.

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: It is a trend of video where it's basically, it's meant to be like an audio thing. Where people talk very quietly and they make sounds. It's a bit peculiar, but it's a whole big thing. And, uh, it's similar to that in that you, you are meant to just focus on the noises and the sounds and it's meant to be calming.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So yes, it can get a bit weird though, depending on what kind of ASMR videos you're looking for, but everyone has their thing, I guess.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, they do.

Myke Hurley: Yes, they do. Our thing is the pen, shall I? You're damn straight. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more, including pen carrying cases. I got my wallet carrying case thing the other day. Uh, pen holders. They sell refills, fountain pen converters, you name it. They've got it. And they have all of your favorite brands as well. Pen Chalet believe in very fast and reliable customer service. They guarantee their quality or 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high quality pens. They sell internationally, have great shipping rates, and they also do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. They have always have great offers, and they always have great codes. You can go to penchalet.com. You want to click that podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password penaddict, and you will find this week's special offers and the code that you will need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. This week, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, speaking to Ron about this, Pen Chalet have a selection of green pens and ink on offer for penaddict listeners, including a lovely green Lamy Safari, a green Pilot Metropolitan, and Lamy Charged Green ink in bottles and cartridges.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so this was really cool when I pulled it up, and I saw, I was like, what are all these green pens? Oh, it's St. Patrick's Day. How cool is that? So, yeah, that's very cool. I love the Safari. I'm not going to lie. I recommend the Metropolitan as my number one beginner's fountain pen for other people to buy. I love the freaking Safari. Every time I pull that pen out and use it, it always brings a smile to my face. It's such an enjoyable pen to write with.

Brad Dowdy: The Metropolitan should be your first fountain pen if you're trying, but if you want something a little different, get the Safari. I love that stinking pen, especially these neon lime colors. Their molded plastic colors are better than just about any ones, I think, as far as pen barrels go. And they're just, I'm a fan. And plus, you know, just like the Metropolitan and the Safari, once you become a real addict, you realize that you enjoy those pens. You can just swap the nibs out on those things for other nibs. You know, if you buy a medium, you can swap it out for an extra fine or on both of those pens, things like that. And that's very cool. So great job, Pen Chalet.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Myke Hurley: So on the upgrade this week, I was making reference to, we were talking, I can't even remember how it came up, but I made reference to the way that my accent has changed over time and how I've become a little bit more transatlantic. I think some of the words that I say, some of the phrases that I use and the way that I say them has changed over time. And one of the ways that you can hear this is basically the only way that you can hear this big change is in this show, because it's the only show that I have that is multiple years old that is still readily available on the internet by choice. Because, and whilst looking at this, I realized that we missed another milestone. The show is now four years old as of February 9th. That's crazy. I don't know how we always miss these things.

Brad Dowdy: Because we're busy, man. Yep. Once a week gets there fast and you don't realize what's happening.

Myke Hurley: So, we are now four years old, which is madness to me. And I thought as we were approaching episode 200 and we start to get a little bit soppy, one of the things that I thought we could look at this week was actually episode one.

Brad Dowdy: You said this to me and I was so excited. I was like, that's a great idea. Because I keep meaning to listen to it because we actually have a bunch of listeners recently, a bunch of new listeners that say, where should we start and what's our answer every time?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I actually have a thought about that as well, about the where do we start thing. So, I wanted to talk about my experiences, or we could both obviously talk about our experiences of listening to episode one. A couple of the things that are really interesting to me right off the bat is there is like a 30-second ad right up front. I don't even ever remember doing that as a thing, to have pre-oral ads, because I tend to now actually not really like to do them. I don't do them. It was strange that we did do them, but that just shows like at that point, I kind of had no real idea of the business side.

Brad Dowdy: That was so strange when I hit the replay and that came in. I don't remember that at all.

Myke Hurley: Nope. I had no recollection of it. And then the first thing that you notice is to me, I sound really strange in a few different ways. My microphone isn't good, or as good. The environment that I'm in is not as good as the one that I'm in now for sound. Um, my voice is a, is a lot higher. I, my, my voice is a lot deeper now. And that is an affectation that I've developed over the time of doing this. So that's something that I know has changed the deepness of my voice. It's not just with age. It is a, how I like to sound thing. And that has now just changed the way that I talk. I hear many, uh, differences in the way that I pronounce certain words. Um, I skip way more consonants and stuff like that. Like, it's very strange to me. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. And the funny thing for me for you is you sound terrified.

Brad Dowdy: Dude, I was, I was scared out of my mind. It took like two or three episodes to, to get out to shake that. Mm-hmm. Um, and I remember us talking about it afterwards about how, like, I was super nervous. I really was.

Myke Hurley: As the show went on, though, you, you did get more comfortable. Um, but talking about as the show went on, it took us six minutes to actually get to any topics.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that sounds about normal.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We're just, no, but it's not even fun stuff. We're just talking about why the show exists. We're doing a, a, a big thing about the fact that you work at JetPens. Uh, cause we used to have that little, um, we used to have a little thing at the end of the episodes when you were working at JetPens, which I'd forgotten about.

Brad Dowdy: A disclaimer. I completely, totally forgot about that. I mean, it's, four years is not that long, but when we recorded 200 episodes, I totally forgot there was a, not only was there a period of time that I was recording this show and I was working at JetPens, I forgot it started with episode one. I thought it picked up somewhere more down the line. I didn't realize it was right out the gate.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. There's so many things about it that are funny. Like you should think about the passing of time. So it was part of 70 decibels. When you listen to it, I was listening to it in Overcast. It has the very original artwork in it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Which is great. I love that artwork. I know. Aaron Manke did that for us, uh, before he got, before he got, uh, famous and not talking to us anymore now. Yeah. Yeah. Now he's a superstar and he doesn't have time for the little people anymore. I know.

Myke Hurley: There was a time where he was designing my artwork. Not anymore. Uh, although I, I have to say, I like our new artwork the most. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I know that you do. Obviously I use it everywhere. Yeah. We decided to, to kind of co-op the artwork, right? Oh, I totally whore that thing out. Yeah. That was funny. It was like, this is the artwork that Frank's worked on. It's like, uh, can I use that everywhere? I was like, yeah, man. I think it makes sense to me now, now looking that we've done this, that it does make sense to share the branding between the two. And we just had never done that before. But I think that that is a smart business move.

Brad Dowdy: For this, for this, it works.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I wouldn't do it for anything else. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: We do. And that's a lot of, of this show. That's how different this show is and how it's always been. Um, it, it works differently than other podcasts and other websites and other, other joint efforts and things like that. It's a very, very different. And, um, we, we, we run it. We see that all the time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Well, like, you know, just looking at my approach to the way that this show is and the fact that it is the only thing that I've stuck with. Everything else has, has gone by the wayside, has gone through iterations, has been rebranded, but not the pen addict. Like it's on its third network. Like I will, I just will never let it go. Like, I will never let you go. You're stuck with me forever. Yep. Um, same here. Neither of us are confident during this episode. You can tell, like we're not used to each other. The jokes are a little bit more awkward. Like me and you had had probably two conversations like on the phone before this, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We were definitely both like, um, like on the straight and narrow, if you will. Yeah.

Needle Artwork

Myke Hurley: Well, except for the point where you, you accused me of using drugs with needles. That's true. That's, that happened.

Myke Hurley: The needle never went away, did it? Now it's, now it's part of the artwork. Um, I had a couple of little quotes that I liked. So you said, field notes are a big capturing tool for me. I'm sure we'll talk about them a lot.

Brad Dowdy: That happened, didn't it? Yeah. We were very, uh, we were very observant even in our youth that, uh, something, something's, something is kind of important about this field notes thing. And, uh, it, you know, as your, uh, our friend, Stephen, like to, like to say, turns out.

Myke Hurley: Turns out. And I think it's funny that, um, it just shows the point of, of, of how much we love them. We were talking about them in episode one. Like we, you know, we just both referenced how much we love them. Even then. Uh, you said at one point, the fountain pen world is pretty amazing. That's going to be many episodes.

Brad Dowdy: And that was before I'd committed to like using the fountain pens. It was, it was a few more episodes.

Myke Hurley: I was more of a fountain pen guy at that point than you were. Oh, absolutely. Which is so funny to look at now. Uh, you received a box of jet streams during the episode. The doorbell goes and you're like, Oh, there's a box of jet streams.

Brad Dowdy: That was awesome. I didn't realize like the, the doorbell became a running theme for probably somewhere in the first a hundred episodes. It was pretty often. I didn't realize like right out the gate, we got interrupted for a pen delivery, um, during the episode, which is just hilarious. And, um, then it turned out to be jet streams. I had ordered from my wife.

Myke Hurley: Just quickly, John, uh, John in the chat has made a point. A lot of the earlier episodes, maybe kind of around the first 20 episodes, they don't really have show notes attached to them anymore. Um, they used to actually basically with the way it's been imported so many times over different websites, they've, they've disappeared. And, uh, recently basically the only place that had all of the notes was the five by five page that, and that, that, the, the show's actually gone now from five by five down to a bit of a reorganization at some point. I'll see if I can try and get those notes back somehow, but I don't even know where you, where I would get them anymore. But yeah, so there, I think it's like the first 20 episodes has no links to it, which is a shame. Yeah. But that's just because importers, they're weird. Um, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Cause we've been around so long and moved all over.

Glock Terminology

Myke Hurley: So this episode kind of the main theme of the episode was a glock. Um, basically giving terms to people, which is why I think one of the reasons that we suggest people go back and listen to episode one, uh, as well as to get the whole journey of the show. There's, there's a lot of just interesting base terms because I didn't know any of them really. Right. So you're teaching me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I thought the conversation, when I re-listened back to it, like, oh man, I'm going to, I probably butchered everything, got everything all wrong. Just the general basis of him. What's a ballpoint? What's a roller ball? And how did these, all these terms work with each other? That's all still valid today. Like, I thought, um, that was actually pretty accurate. So go, go me.

Myke Hurley: And my favorite, but my favorite part of the show is cause I, I have a list. We're looking at a list together of the words and, uh, I say now the next word, I can't even begin to know what it means. Knock.

Brad Dowdy: How awesome. It's unbelievable.

Myke Hurley: Like, it's just so funny now. Like I, I didn't know what the word meant. You explained the word knock to me, but like you look at it, you look at now, then to now what knock means to us now. Um, it's just, it was just a funny little moment and it put a big smile on my face when, when, uh, when I said it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's the one where I, where I shook my head going, whoa, this is crazy. This is really crazy. You know, just all the, you know, the field notes and the fountain pens and the jet streams arriving during the show. And then we start talking about knocks and, uh, I was just like, what has happened in this episode? Yeah. It was so nice. And then we went through the whole explanation of what a knock is cause you know, it's, it's, it's basically Japanese slang pretty much. I mean, I don't know that it's a technical term. Um, and, uh, it's, that's pretty cool that did that, that name, you know, I guess just, uh, uh, a play on that word, uh, took me along, took me, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, to interesting places, I guess. Huh?

Myke Hurley: Yep. Um, so this was an interesting episode for me to listen to cause there was, there's some definite benefit to it. Um, and this actually goes back to a question we get a lot and you mentioned it and I've been thinking of it. I feel like we've been getting it more and more recently. New people wanting to know where to start. Right. We're approaching 200 episodes. That is a daunting task.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That, I was going to say that's intimidating to tell someone, well, start at one.

Myke Hurley: Cause that is what we tend to say because getting the knowledge, the shared knowledge of the two of us over that time will really help somebody grow, especially if they're coming to this relatively new to the pen world. Like I was at that point, the benefit is I have learned a lot and you would learn a lot going back to the start. That's like hundreds of hours of stuff that you have to go through. Right. So I want to propose something. I want to give people a new starting point.

Myke Hurley: So we create a new episode. So maybe like episode 205 or something that we could then from now on say, we suggest going back to the start, but if you want to, we created an episode, which is meant for new listeners.

Brad Dowdy: And that way we can like, um, point out other episodes that are like important in the history kind of thing. Is that like, exactly. I think that would be good. Okay. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So for us to do this, we need the help of everyone listening. So we need, I want to do a couple of things. What do we need to put in an episode like that? So I think it would be a longer episode than usual. So we would maybe go over a glossary of terms again. We would maybe address some memes of the show. So it helps people understand our jokes. Um, I think it would be good if we could talk about the pens that we use and why we use them and why we love them just to kind of like talk about that and talk about just some of the basics of all of the stuff that we have.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Like we have like, now we have like base knowledge of a vanishing point and not just as a pen, but what that means in the context of the show in the community and fountain pens and regular pens. Right. You say vanishing point, it has a whole connotation within the entire show.

Myke Hurley: Yep. So like, yeah, like big, big pens, you know, like the big ones, the ones that really mean something that the ones that are important, um, to reference maybe some of the long running themes of the show to help people understand that. And I'm really importantly, and this is, so I want people suggestions for stuff like that and for answers within those categories. But one of the big things that we need is significant episodes.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. Like specific episode numbers. I used to keep a list of like maybe a top 10 and it's been a long time and I don't even know if I can find the one that I had, but I had, I know I had a good five episodes that were like required listening kind of episodes. I'll see if I can find that list. So we want to know what episodes are your required, required listening episodes. Yep. You know, be it one episode, be it five, 10, whatever you got.

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh. I don't know when we're going to do this, but I want this to be like a longer running thing of collecting this kind of follow up and feedback from people. Uh, I guess tweet to us, email us and let us know your suggestions. And then at some point in the not too distant future, after episode 200, I think. Yeah. We create a long episode detailing all of it. I'll put chapter markers in it, like really make it a thing that helps new people come on board to the pen addict.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that's a great idea. I love it.

Myke Hurley: Because it's something that I've just become more and more aware of that as the show becomes older and older, it becomes harder and harder for new people to find us. Agree. Agree. Um, and then I'll try and find some way to call it out on the page, uh, as something for new listeners to start off with.

Brad Dowdy: I completely agree. And I love having, you know, like if we could, once we get like all the episode numbers and if we find them, if we can keep it to like 10 and then maybe have some links to like some other important conversations that happened in other shows, like you're talking about the chapter marker part. I think that would be good. We can have like a core set of episodes to listen to, you know, your, your starter pack, if you will. And then you, we can have like important points throughout the, the history of the show that we can link to directly.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. Cool. So that's what, that's what I think. I think it would be a fun little project and I think it would really help people. Uh, cause I know we have new listeners now that haven't gone back and there's going to be things that they're missing, but I think that there is some real benefit in the back catalog, but this might actually help new listeners decide to go through the back catalog as well.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. We definitely need like a subset or a subheading of shows where we cry. I have at least two, if not three.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So what have we got on crying? Got, uh, the original Kickstarter. I cried.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Uh, when we broke up, I cried. Um, did you? Yeah, I think so. Remember how sad I was? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: We were, I don't remember that.

Brad Dowdy: I was just like, maybe I didn't cry, but I was like totally despondent. People like talk about that episode when they re-listen to that. They're like, holy crap. I haven't heard that in a while. That was a real sad time. I don't want to hear it. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So I haven't listened to that either. Um. And then probably something knock related, like when the Kickstarter was going on. I'm sure there were some tears there as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So we'll have the crying episodes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The crying subset, you know, for the emotional contingent. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So yeah, this could be, this, this sounds like fun. I'm all about this.

Myke Hurley: Excellent. So we need your help. Yes. Make some suggestions for us.

Brad Dowdy: Hit us up with your, your episodes or at least your ideas. Yeah. You know, if you, you remember hearing, oh, you said this one specific thing, we can probably track it down pretty easily.

Myke Hurley: And also the idea of like what, what goes into an episode like that content wise, you know, that that is also a, would be a useful thing to know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. What would you want to hear as part of a, uh, uh, you know, kind of the core pen addict episode where we can bounce everyone off of.

Myke Hurley: This week's episode is also brought to you by Harry's. It is Harry's third anniversary right now. Happy birthday to Harry's is the third month of the year. It is clear that good things come in threes. And if you sign up to become a new customer of Harry's right now, I've got a special deal for you to try three of their expertly crafted five blade German razors along with a new handle and shave cream for just $10. That's three great products for just $10. Harry's blades are fantastic. The German engineered five blade cartridges, you will get a close, comfortable shave without cuts or razor burn. Harry's believes so much in the quality of their blades that they guarantee it. And they'll give you a full refund. If you're not happy, you should be one of the over 1 million people who switched to Harry's. These, these are people who get a high quality shave at about half the price of other big brand blades. Not only will they ship them to your front door for free. That's a great saving. If you shave every day with Harry's, you will save over $150 each year than if you use a competitor's blades. This is excellent stuff. Their great starter set, which I mentioned, which you can get for just $10, includes everything that you're going to need to get started. Harry's stuff is fantastic. Smells great. Looks great. Works great. It's time to stop overpaying for a great shave. Go to harrys.com right now and you will get $5 off if you type in my code PENADDICT if you're first purchased. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S.com. Coupon code PENADDICT at checkout to get $5 off your first order. Thank you so much to Harry's for supporting this show.

Brad Dowdy: Can I give you my Harry's anecdote of the week? I always seem to have something. This one's very simple and plain. Last night, Tyler had a late baseball game, getting home about 9 o'clock and going to take a shower because we're all filthy. I'm very particular. Everyone knows I'm very particular. Everything has its home. Everything's always in the same place because I know it's always in the same place. I go in the shower and my orange-handled Harry razor is sitting on my sink area, which it never is. I turn to my wife. I said, did you use my razor? She just turned around and walked out of the room.

Brad Dowdy: That's my Harry's anecdote of the week because it's always in the same spot. And when it wasn't there, I was like, what's the deal here? Don't touch my razor.

Brad Dowdy: Harry's.

Brad Dowdy: Don't touch my razor, man.

Brad Dowdy: All right. We haven't done an Ask TPA in a while, so we're going to knock out some questions. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Don't forget, you can always tweet at us with the hashtag Ask TPA. It seems like it calmed down recently because we haven't done it on the show.

Q&A Feature

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and we haven't been promoting it as well. And speaking of which, I'm totally hijacking here. I'm going to do a new Q&A feature.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw this.

Brad Dowdy: On the blog. You were part of my test. You enjoyed it, didn't you?

Myke Hurley: I did, but I didn't enjoy the answer you gave me. So Brad had a little thing on his site, and I went there, and I asked him who his favorite co-host was, and he told me, Stephen. But it was a nice little system. What's the name of that program?

Brad Dowdy: Dilmot. D-I-L-M-O-T. D-I-L-M-O-T.

Myke Hurley: Never heard of it before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it took me a hard, long time to figure out what, if anyone could do what I actually wanted to do, and I finally found it. The test went really well, so look for something soon. We'll do like a weekly Q&A on the blog. Just something fun. Something new I can do on the blog that I think would be enjoyable for everyone. But anyway, we have our Ask TPA hashtag, which we use on Twitter for everyone to ask us questions to be answered on the podcast, which we love doing. We just haven't been talking about the hashtag very much. So we'll do a better job at that, because I think this kind of stuff is very cool, right? I mean, it's stuff we forget about or stuff everyone wants to know, things like that. So the first one's from Sarah.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if we have an answer for Sarah, but any fountain pen people know how to get half a bottle of Noodler's Dragon's Napalm out of the carpet? And I do actually know how to do that. You replace your carpet. Really? That's how you get a half bottle of Noodler's Dragon's Napalm out of the carpet.

Myke Hurley: See, I put this question in, in the hopes that you would have done this at some point. Not that I want you to have done it, but I'd worked out a way to do something about it.

Brad Dowdy: So there's some cleaner that I know, like Goulet pens, Van Ness pens, Anderson pens always sell. I can't think of the name of it. Someone in the chat room will drop that name in there. That actually will work on clothes, pants, you know, things like that. You know, kind of the small spills. The only time I've had a huge spill, thank goodness, was outside of my driveway. I dropped a brand new full bottle of Organic Studio ink one time that just shattered and green everywhere. Luckily, it was just on concrete in a driveway, so it didn't matter. I've never had the experience of having to get it out of carpet. I don't know that you're going to get that.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I just received a delivery. Hold on. I'll be right back.

Deliveries

Myke Hurley: All right, so continuing the tradition from earlier in the show.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know what it is, so. Yeah, you told me, you said we have a good odds of a doorbell today, but you didn't know what it was going to be, so what do we got here?

Myke Hurley: I don't know. Let me see. Some cardboard box and ripping open some carrier bags.

Myke Hurley: Oh, some pajamas.

Brad Dowdy: What a letdown.

Myke Hurley: I know. I'm waiting on the Art Snacks box, so I was hoping it was that. And your field notes. And my field notes. Wasn't either of them. Sorry, everybody. Right, so did you get to Tim's question?

Brad Dowdy: Did I get to Tim's? No, I told you we completely held for you. We were waiting with bated breath, so let's go with Tim. Tim got a new Hobonichi Techo cousin and is not sure what to make of the pink extra. I have been asked this question before, and we're not sure what to make of it. And it turns out, Myke, what is it? It's a tissue holder.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't understand why you get this. Why do you get sent this?

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to answer you. All right. Japan. Okay. That's all you need to know.

Myke Hurley: I love the phrase, the pink extra.

Myke Hurley: I don't get why they would send you it. It doesn't make any sense. Why do you get that?

Brad Dowdy: Japan. It doesn't make sense. I don't know what to tell you, man. I'm just going with Japan. All right. All right. Connor wants to know if the Pinchot is still available for purchase.

Myke Hurley: That's the nib holder, the P-E-N-X-O. It always says, sounds like we're talking about, that's what I meant. Sounds like we're always talking about Pinchot. Yes. Like Atlanta Pinchot.

Brad Dowdy: And I still don't know if that's the accurate pronunciation of this product, but it seems pretty good to me, so I'm going with it. I don't know, but I gave Jeff mine and we use it in the shop all the time. It's a good little product. So yes, you should check that one out. It looks like they're pre-ordering from their website at this point.

Myke Hurley: It seems like it's still happening. They're shipping out and it's a great product.

Brad Dowdy: They blew out their Kickstarter, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're a little bit behind and get everything else ramped up. I mean, they really, really blew out their product. It was a good product for a good price. I mean, that's what's going to happen when you do that, right?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. No doubt.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep, yep. All right, Rob wants to know, are the TWSBI Eco nibs interchangeable with the 580 AL nibs? And they are not. The Eco nibs are smaller, narrower. They will not fit if you remove them into the feed or nib unit of the ALs. They are not interchangeable. So I think maybe the mini nibs, the TWSBI mini nibs are interchangeable with the Eco. I haven't tried that, but they look to be about the same size. I just haven't pulled any out yet to swap them. But they're absolutely not swappable with the 580, so that's not going to work.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Related to that, Stella wants to know, did I ever get my Pendleton nib grind? And how do I like it? Can I get picks in a writing sample? I say it's related because I got it on a 580 AL orange. Can you remind me what this is? So he does several different nib grinds. He's known for just like a, he calls it a butterline stub. So it's just like a stub grind. But what he does, I think with the grind, I basically didn't get a grind. I got a cut. I got the butterline stub plus an angel wings modification, I think is probably the best term to use, to give that nib extra flex. Okay. So it's wide, wet, flexi steel nib, and it's awesome. And I have not, I've taken some pictures of it in the past, but it's just one of those that I keep forgetting to review because we've done so many 580 reviews on the blog. But I should just do a review of the nib itself. I will do that for you, Stella. I will write that down now.

Brad Dowdy: So what's this last one, Myke?

Kukuyo Campus Notebook

Myke Hurley: So our last question this week, well, it's not really a question so much. Yeah. But I wanted to include this just because, you know, it's fun to see this stuff. Kao sent in a picture of their haul, the stuff that they had bought after listening to the entire run of the show. And we get these pictures quite a lot. And I always enjoy seeing the products that people go for after listening to us. And I see an iPad with a pencil in here. There's a couple of, I think it's a Kukuyo.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it looks like it. It looks like it's the Kukuyo campus notebook.

Myke Hurley: And there is a, oh, what is that? Is it the Pilot? Is it the Pilot?

Brad Dowdy: It's got the Pilot. It's got the Pilot. Pilot Prera. Prera. Yeah. Kukuyo. It's got, it looks like at least one. I always forget the name of these, the backing that you write on.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, gosh. Like the see-through grids you put behind the paper. He's got a Lihit Lab Teffa pen case on one side. I'm not sure what the other smaller green one is.

Myke Hurley: There's some old school pen addict stuff in there, like the Prera and the Lihit Lab. Like, they are like, you go back deep into show enough, those things came up a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Oh, all the time. All the time. Because it was a different case at the time. But one I didn't like for one very particular reason.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, the pen's touch. Oh.

Brad Dowdy: But it's an awesome case. I actually used their bag in a bag product. It's really nice. I use that all the time. It's like a little go bag you can throw in other bags. Hence, bag in a bag.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Makes sense?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: All right, man. I know you've got some pajamas to get into, so why don't you get us out of here?

Myke Hurley: They're not for me. If I put those things on, it's going to be a disaster.

Brad Dowdy: Like I said, I know you've got some pajamas to get into. Jesus.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I think the very final episode of the Pen Addict. We are over. You want to go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 196. You can find a list of great show notes this week. We've been putting together a nice little collection for you. Or if you want to find us online, you can find Brad on Twitter. He is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. That's where you can send us suggestions for helping us create a new starting point for Pen Addict listeners. You can find Brad's work over at penaddict.com and knock.co. And he is penaddict on Instagram. I am imike on Instagram. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal Gal