The Pen Addict 205/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	205
Title:	Recreational Grade Titanium
Release Date:	May 18th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 205
Audio File:	Audio Episode 205
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 205
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 205. Today's show is brought to you by Van S Pens and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, Michael?

Myke Hurley: What up, Dowdy?

Brad Dowdy: Feeling pretty good. Feeling pretty good about today. You know, I came on, we came on a little bit early. I was like, I'm a little down. Let's chat a little bit early. And now you've got me all pumped up, so I'm ready for a good show.

Myke Hurley: How can you be sad when there's pens to talk about?

Brad Dowdy: I'm not sad. I'm not sad. I'm never sad.

Myke Hurley: It's impossible to be, right?

Carry On Podcast

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right, right. So we got lots of good stuff to talk about. We didn't cover a lot last week that we had in the notes because Tiffany was so awesome and we love having her on. We got lots of good feedback on that. So we will have her on again sometime. But we actually have some carryover from last week and some stuff I'm going to rail on pretty good. So this should be interesting.

Myke Hurley: One of the things that I really wanted to talk about last week, but we couldn't fit in was your buddy and good man and co-worker and co-founder and everything. I can't even think of all of the names that would be needed to describe the magnificently bearded Mr. Jeffrey Brockwicky. He has a podcast of his own now, which is actually really good.

Brad Dowdy: He did a good job, didn't he?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, he did. It's called Carry On and it's a fortnightly show, I believe, where Jeff is interviewing makers. And he sent me the audio of this a few days before it went up. And I thought it was a real great episode. And it's with Mark Dwight. He's the guy behind Rickshaw Bags. And Jeff does a really good job of talking to him and finding out kind of his history and why he makes. And that's kind of what it's about, right? Like it's about people that make stuff. It's about kind of the world that he operates within with you, right? With making the cases and stuff like that. So you can go and check it out. It's at brookwicky.com slash podcast. Or you can search in your podcast player of choice for Carry On. But I'll put a link in the show notes. If you enjoy this show, I think you'd love that one. So you should go and give it a listen. If anything, just because Jeff is my main man.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. And how awesome is his logo?

Myke Hurley: Oh, I love it. Yeah. Who did that?

Brad Dowdy: He did.

Myke Hurley: With the beard? Man, that's a great self-portrait.

Brad Dowdy: So that's pretty cool. But yeah, the quality is good. The content is great. Jeff's awesome, as you know. And he's already got a couple other episodes in the bag, a couple more. He's going to be working on the recording schedule. And it's off to a rip-roaring start. Episode one has been fantastic.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I know that this is something that he's putting a lot of work into and really cares about. Because he's had lots of questions for me, which I've been really happy to help him out with. So go check it out. So it's a fun show. And I think it's just only going to get better and better.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So listen, this next topic, I think you're going to have a lot of questions about, too. Yeah. Because I sure is.

Brad Dowdy: So this was me raging last week about the N2 Neo Smart Pen. So this was the precursor to the Moleskine Smart Writing Set. I believe that's the correct name. Yep. So we've been talking about that since the Atlanta Pen Show. And, you know, one of our listeners said, hey, I got a review unit of the N2 Neo Smart Pen that, you know, I never really used. Do you want me to send it to? And I was like, absolutely. I'd love to check it out. So this is what that Moleskine technology was made off of. So he sent it to me. He sent me the pen. It comes with two notebooks, an extra refill. And, you know, so I unboxed it. I was anxious to try this out. The pen feels really good. I love the shape of the pen. It's large. It's triangular shaped. You know, it's got to fit, you know, whatever electronics it needs to fit on the inside for the camera and things like that.

Brad Dowdy: So I had to charge it up first, which that was the first thing that caught me off guard. I never thought about having to charge this pen. Like, because I don't have an Apple Pencil, right? So I'm not used to that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But even then, like, I hadn't thought of that. But yeah, of course it needs to be charged.

Brad Dowdy: Didn't cross my mind.

Myke Hurley: The thing about the Apple Pencil is I know that people complain about the fact that you kind of had to stick it into the bottom of the iPad. But it's actually a really ingenious charging solution. Because when you have the Apple Pencil, the iPad is always there. So it's like, and I know, I can see where it came from. It's like putting a pen in an inkwell or something. Right. Because it charges so quickly. It's like 15 seconds for 30 minutes or something like that. It might be 30 seconds for 15 minutes or whatever it is. Right. But it charges so fast that you just pop it in there. You give it a minute. You take it out and you're ready to go again. Like, and I know it looks kind of awkward. But if I would have had to have plugged that into something to charge it up, it would be way worse in use. And I assume that's what you're doing with the N2 Neo is plugging it into a mini USB or something.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So that sucks. It sucks. It does. So right out the gate, it sucked because that caught me off guard. I was not considering that at all. Like, I pick up the pen to, like, write with it and, like, turn on the little button. I was like, oh, there's a little charger thing back here, mini USB. So I plugged it in. You can't use it while it's charging. At least I could never figure out why. You know, I was, or I never figured out if you could because I was raging on it so hard. But anyway, I installed the software and got the pen charging and got the pen connected to the software. And then I had to update the firmware, which, you know, I want the most current firmware on there to test. So I update it while it's charging and it gets all the way to the end and fails. I was like, well, okay, something could have happened. Whatever. I'm willing to always give technology, you know, a couple shots.

Brad Dowdy: Unplug it. Reset the software. Plug it back in. Check the firmware level. My firmware is up to date. So it gave me, like, a false positive. Or would that be a false positive? I don't know. Whatever. Whatever. That ended up being a recurring theme. Every time I connected something to it, like, I wanted to test the Evernote integration. So I connect with Evernote. It says it failed, but it actually worked.

Myke Hurley: That's weird.

Brad Dowdy: When I would connect Bluetooth to it, it says the connection failed, but the connection was there. Every time, every little thing I did with it, it was infuriating. So whatever. I got it charged. I got the firmware updated. And I have the pen on and I'm writing with it in the notebook that you're supposed to write with. And at no point, I did this for about two hours, fidgeting with it, trying to get it to work. At no point could I ever get any of my words that I wrote in the notebook into the app. Ever. Not once.

Myke Hurley: This is really weird, right? Because the Moskin one was flawless.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know what the deal is. It's probably me. But, you know, I, you know, I read everything I could to figure out, you know, am I missing a step? Am I doing something wrong? Everything I was doing seemed completely correct. Like what I should be doing. And even if like I didn't have the app on, it's supposed to record your writing. You know, if you're just using the pen and the pen's on and you're writing, it's supposed to record that and put it in the app later. At no point in either of the notebooks that I had, and I even used different refills, different colors. At no point did I ever capture any information that I wrote in a notebook in the app.

Myke Hurley: That's, that's real bad. It sounds to me that that, that, that failed firmware screwed everything up. Maybe. That's how it sounds to me. Can you like reset it to factory settings in any way? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Start over? Yeah. Because I had to do that when I first got the pen. Like it doesn't recognize like the first pairing. If you don't know the pen's password.

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So you do a hard reset and then make it your own because theoretically it can, it has memory in it, right? It should contain some of that data. So you want it wiped. So that was the reset I did the first time. I didn't ever factory reset it again.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I would give it another factory reset if it will work because I don't know, like to me, it just sounds like that firmware failure seems to have just, just basically gutted the thing.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I could never open the notebook that I created digitally. Like you create a digital notebook, right?

Myke Hurley: Well, that's just an app problem.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Every time you'd, every time you tap it open, it says it has no content. Well, duh, because I could never transfer any, but it was just such a infuriating product.

Myke Hurley: So you never really got it to work then?

Brad Dowdy: I never really got it to work.

Myke Hurley: And so I would say, give it a reset and see if it will work after that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'll get right on that. I feel like you're not going to do that.

Woodcase Pencils

Brad Dowdy: All I can think about when I was doing this was like, thank God for woodcase pencils. Like seriously, that was the thought I had while I was doing this. Like you just pick it up and it writes, you might have to have a sharpener, but my God, this was so frustrating. Why anyone would ever want to go through this and have to have, even if it's working flawlessly, right?

Brad Dowdy: You still have to carry the particular notebook. You have to make sure it's charged. This thing rent sucked battery, like no business. That was another thing. It would go from 60% to zero. And then I'd charge it again. And as soon as I plug it in, it'd be like at 40. I was like, oh, this thing is stupid.

Myke Hurley: Oh man.

Brad Dowdy: It's just lots of little things like that. So why anyone would want to go through this, even with the moleskin that works well, you have to carry so much crap just for this thing to work. And like in my case, it didn't, but if you have the moleskin, you just got to have like all these, there's lots more to think about. There's a lot more friction in getting your words on a page in this. I would rather just write however I want to write and whatever I want to write. And if I need it digitally, you know, scan, you know, take a picture, scan bot, whatever, and upload it into something I need. This was super frustrating. So, um, two thumbs down. If I had more thumbs, there'd be more thumbs down.

Myke Hurley: What about this product slate by ISKN? I don't know if that's meant to be some funny pronunciation there. Yeah. This is like, this is looking to do this kind of thing, but without a lot of the issues you've had, right? In theory, that's what they're trying to do here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So this, so we didn't know about this product. I didn't know about this product until someone tweeted, tweeted it to us and wanted our opinion on it. I pull up the page. I'm looking at it. And all this page is teaching me is that you put this ring around the pen and then you go. And then it goes in your app. That's not at all what this is. It took me like five minutes of reading this to understand that it's actually a tablet underneath the pad and the pen. It took me a while to realize that. Huh?

Myke Hurley: I kind of got that. Maybe, maybe we saw, because there's a looping video. Maybe we just come in at different points of the video.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, I scrolled down. It says understanding the slate and three easy steps. Your pen. Oh, yeah. Because your pen, your notebook, from paper to your iPad. And there's a ring that's added onto the pen. It doesn't say, it doesn't say our slate, you know?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It says your pen, your notebook, but it's actually, what makes this different from a Wacom tablet? Just that you get to use your own pen as opposed to a Wacom and maybe it's more refined. This just, this looks like too much.

Myke Hurley: There's a couple of things for this. What I think is why this is interesting. So it has its own app, right? So that's all good. And you can put it into other, they have like an app for lots of different platforms, right? Mm-hmm. So you can draw that way. I do think though that the real benefit with this is that you use your own tools, right? So drawing on a Wacom is not the same as drawing with a pencil. Like it's just not the same. And a lot of people are able to kind of transfer those skills, but I don't know. Like I feel like you're still not getting to use the stuff that you love to use. You've got to use the Wacom pen, whether you like it or not. And quite frankly, the Wacom pen is nothing like any of the pens that I own. Sure. So I guess if you're someone who's like an illustrator, I can see there being a genuine benefit to this because it will replicate what you're able to produce with the stuff that you love to use. Mm-hmm. Like if it works, I mean, who knows? If it works, I mean, I would be interested in this if I was artistic in this way.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Because otherwise, I guess the way to get it is just a super high-res scanner, right? Yeah. From your drawing. That's what artists would normally do as opposed to something like this. So I'd be interested to hear if anyone's ever used this, what the digital output's like directly from the slate.

Myke Hurley: So apparently using their application, which is called Imagink, it allows you to export PSDs and vectors. Okay. So in theory, if that all works, that sounds really cool to me. Yeah. Like if you were an illustrator, if you're an artist, I can see there being a genuine benefit for this. However, the slate itself is pretty small. So. Was it, is this A5 sized? Something like that. Yeah. Which I think. Maybe a little bigger. Maybe a little bigger. Yeah. That could be a bit of a problem. But other than that, I genuinely think that this is an interesting looking product for the person that needs it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. I'd be interested if anyone listens to this and has it, shoot us an email or a tweet or something, or if you've reviewed it or whatever. I just never heard of it before. It was sent and it was a Kickstarter project.

Myke Hurley: And I was going to say, this looks like it was a Kickstarter project. And I was surprised that we didn't find out about it then, to be honest. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I think it did really well and was behind like everything else. I remember bouncing through the Kickstarter last week. But yeah, I mean, it seems pretty good. Our friend Lee Rubenstein from ArtSnacks wanted to make some comments about this, but he said not until we talked about it first. So we'll ask him now what his opinion of it is.

Baron Fig Squire

Myke Hurley: So I wanted to give a bit of follow up about the Baron Fig Squire box. Remember I mentioned last time that I got, I didn't get the fancy box. Right. Well, I got some feedback from people saying that they believed it was just for the charcoal pen, not the silver pen, the aluminum pen. But then somebody sent me another piece of feedback after this, a guy called Terrence. And he said he purchased both of the colors and both of them came without the fancy box. It came with like the regular box that I got. And he contacted Baron Fig and they just said that they only use that packaging for a few shipments and gave him no reason why. Hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So something weird must have happened in the manufacturing.

Myke Hurley: I think that like they maybe sent them out initially and then it just will fall to pieces. Like, you know, like it was just not going to work out for him.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Interesting.

Myke Hurley: But yeah, I just wanted to give a bit of feedback on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They could have made a blurb about it. You know, would have been helpful.

Myke Hurley: Nevermind. And you've got a bit of news for me here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They, uh, they're available for purchase as of, uh, yesterday. Okay.

Myke Hurley: So I do really recommend that pen. I don't, you know, it's just a box, like a box is not important. I just thought it was interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Boxes anyway.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, I thoroughly recommend the Squire. Seriously. I think it is a fantastic pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We just all find it weird when one person gets one, uh, package and another one gets another packaging. It's like, what happened? But in the end, it's no big deal. No.

Myke Hurley: It's just like reading the tea leaves, right? It's like, why did that happen? But like, I don't actually, I actually just don't care because it would have gone in trash anyway. Right. Because a box is a box and they just take up space. But yeah, I thoroughly recommend the Squire. I just want to make that perfectly clear.

Stationery Market

Brad Dowdy: Same here. Yeah. So my news, uh, is a link someone sent me this morning, which is just super positive for stationary as a whole. This is from a China daily and the article came out today. Um, and it's titled a $341 million fountain pen market set to be bigger. So in China, they're seeing, um, a growth of last year was 7% growth just in the fountain pen sales market, which is kind of crazy. Um, and even in China is actually having a little bit of a downturn, um, you know, finance economically, I guess. So it's kind of cool to see these little articles saying that, Hey, stationary business is happy and healthy and doing well worldwide. It's just kind of a, a very positive note, you know, when you're, when we're all into these things and we're wondering how everyone's doing in general, obviously it varies from company to company and how they run their business, but just in a general market, a market as big as China, um, it's doing really well. They mentioned park brands like Parker, um, you know, has increased and like some of the high end stuff like, uh, Mont Blanc has, uh, increased and you know, that's, uh, I think that's good news. I like hearing stuff like this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Nice work. Chinese pen addicts.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's what I say.

Brad Dowdy: You know, way to go, everybody.

Myke Hurley: Keep the dream alive, man.

Brad Dowdy: What's funny is, and this is a random aside, our, our good friend, uh, Pontus, um, I've followed him on, on Facebook and he was in Shanghai and he posted all the, he posted a picture on Facebook of all the knockoff pens that he bought. It's like pilot, Kakuno knockoffs and, uh, Mont Blanc, Star Walker, narc, knockoffs and all this stuff. It was just kind of funny, but, um, the legitimate fountain pen market in China is actually doing really well. So I'm sure that the knockoff market is booming.

Myke Hurley: I think that that market never ends.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take our first break? Let's. All right. Cool. This week's episode is brought to you by the awesome people over at Van S Pens. Van S Pens, uh, carry a fantastic selection of your favorite brands like Lamy and Pelican Platinum to Pilot, many, many more in between. But as well as all those beautiful fountain pen brands that we have, they also carry our beloved Retro 51 and stuff like that too. But I think these days, Van S is best known for their exclusive ranges of inks. I think this has really put them on the map even more recently, you know, stuff like, uh, KWZ out of Poland, Califoglio from France, and of course those bung box seasonal inks. Would you agree with me, Brad? Like that these inks have really kind of like just put Van S is like just a place you must go to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, totally. And I, what's funny is I really use all these inks all the time. Like most of my pens are inked right now with some type of sailor ink, which is probably a bung box ink, some type of Ackerman ink, which we're going to talk about the tactile turn just in a minute. I just, I just inked it up with the number 11 Trevis turquoise, um, which is an Ackerman ink. And the Califoglio inks, um, have this awesome color and shading. I'm a big fan of, uh, one called Andronopa, which is this hot pink that I matched with my hot pink sailor pin. So it's like, it seems like these are the inks that I'm using all the time these days. Um, and it's awesome to be able to get them from Van S.

Myke Hurley: Yep. It's the best place to find this sort of, uh, interesting and crazy stuff. And you can go and check out their new website over at vaness1938.com. That's V-A-N-N-E-S-S-1938.com. You can currently get free shipping in the U.S. of any purchase of over $40 or more. And they even have flat rate international shipping as well. Thank you so much to Van S. Pens for their support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I think they might, uh, come up here in another minute or two in, uh, this next, in a couple of topics down the list, don't you think? I bet I would not be surprised. So before we get to that, what you got for me?

Tactile Turn GIST

Myke Hurley: So I had a delivery this morning that I wasn't expecting, which, uh, is the tactile turn GIST. Is it GIST? It's GIST, right?

Brad Dowdy: I'm going with GIST.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So this is a pen that we backed on Kickstarter a while ago. Um, and we were kind of following the, the route of that. And the reason I didn't expect it, I have a few other pens, like retro 50 ones and the like that I'm expecting to come before this one did, but it's here and I'm pleased that it arrived this morning. So I, the version that I got was the, uh, all black. What is the material?

Brad Dowdy: Polycarbonate.

Myke Hurley: Yes. It's the polycarbonate with the brass finial and brass grip section. And we can thank, uh, the tactile GIST. It's Will, isn't it? Who makes tactile? Will. Will Hodges. For basically teaching us all a new word. Right? Finial? I, I don't think we had ever used that before. I've used it plenty. Well, I didn't. I don't, I don't remember you saying it. I'm blaming Will. I'm thanking Will. Um, the texture on this pen is unlike anything I've ever had before. Uh, and I, I struggle to try and explain this, but what it reminds me of is the grooves in an LP. Okay. Sure. Right. Like just how would you describe, I don't know how to describe the texture of this pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I think that's, I think that's accurate. I mean, it's just a fine groove all the way around the pen. I mean, it's not a single continuous groove.

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's, um, it's just all, uh, from, from head to toe basically of the pen and it looks and feels great.

Myke Hurley: And it feels incredible on the brass grip. My word. I've got to say flat out is one of the best grip sections I have ever used. I feel like the pen is not going anywhere. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Like this thing is, is, is held tight, but it doesn't get into your fingers at all though. Like you don't feel any of the ridges in your fingers, but you know, your grip is there.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And, and it's, that's, it's a really interesting design to have it be so grippy. And I like it a lot. And I actually quite like the feeling of moving my fingers across it. Like it's not a, it's not a nice feeling, but it's a pleasant feeling. Does that make sense? Like it is a, it is a resistance. Right. But I actually really think it feels kind of cool. It's a tactile feel. Oh, look at that. See what I did there? You just, you unlock the, you unlock the puzzle.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Um, one thing I find really interesting is there's no branding on this pen at all.

Brad Dowdy: So you had an option when you made the purchase. Ah, yes. To have the brand on the finial, right? The TT on the finial or not.

Myke Hurley: So I went without. And I actually like it though. I, I love this pen. I'm not a massive fan of the logo. Right. The tactile tone logo. So I like that I can choose.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So yeah, I did the same thing. So I got the polycarbonate with a Damascus steel section. It's that swirly fancy steel and Damascus steel finial because those need to match. And then what I think is the real winner of the bunch is awesome as that one is. I got full titanium. This is the ticket. I mean, this is a legit good pen. I just love the weight. Love the feel. This was the one. Remember when he sent me a bunch of review samples and I'd already backed the polycarbonate with Damascus steel. Yeah. And that's the one I thought I was going to go with. And then when I got the full titanium one in, I was like, this is different. Like, this is like a step up. Obviously. I mean, it's more expensive. A really good, good feel, really good design. It reminded me of a little bit larger Pilot Murex just being that full metal silver looking barrel and pen. And I love it. I really big fan of the titanium one. The polycarbonate, even with the Damascus, is still really light, which is good. I like it. But these pens are made to be like pocketed. Like I can see myself, I carry this in my pocket. You know, this is just a good workhorse of a pen. Feels great. The box nibs are great out the box. I just love the firmness. I'm a fan of these nibs. Plus, I have other ones I can swap in and out from other pens that I have laying around. So that's why I got the titanium, but I never get a titanium nib because I already have a couple. So I don't need to pay the extra. I'll just use the ones that I enjoy. Very happy with this pen. I do have one issue. So I got two pens. I open up the first one, open up the polycarbonate, and I was going to ink them. No converter. I was like, OK, maybe they didn't ship with converters. That's fine. I'll just get international. I open up this. So I go get two international converters, bring them to my desk, open up the second pen. It's got a converter in it. I was like, oh, OK, so I'm missing a converter. No big deal. I'll email Will. So I go to use one of my standard international converters, and it's about a quarter inch too long.

Brad Dowdy: Standard long international converter does not fit this pen. That's a problem because now I have to have a special converter for this pen. It's the same coupling, right? It's the same fit over the opening. I could use a short international cartridge, you know, to ink it with, you know, something like that. But the normal international converters that I have, that I probably have 20 of, you know, or 30 of, none of them fit because they're about a quarter inch longer than the one that Will provided. So he's built around this converter. So I've emailed him to ask him, what is this converter specifically?

Brad Dowdy: Because I don't have a second converter to fit in my other pen. When that kind of bothers me, like I want it to fit. Sorry, this is my titanium.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: The threads are good. I own these pens. So I don't have, my second one's not inked because I just like, I don't have another converter.

Myke Hurley: And that's a bummer. Mine came with one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So one of mine came with one. The second one didn't. So that's great if it comes with one, but now I'm kind of stuck.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And even though it's an international connector, I can't use an international. It's not a standard size. It's not a standard size. But I mean, it's got to be something that he's ordered from somewhere. I mean, it's a normal looking converter. I've seen the style before. It looks like a Kaweco type converter, like a full length one. So I just didn't have anything on hand. And I've got, you know, a bag with 50 different types of converters in it. And I could not find one that would fit. So I finally gave up and emailed him and said, who makes this converter that you use so I can get more of them? So, and send me the one from my other pen.

Brad Dowdy: So that was a little bit weird that it wasn't made to fit a full length international converter, which is what 99% of the people are going to have as opposed to the one that's actually included in the box. So keep a hand, keep it, keep your eyes on this one when you, when you take it out and know where it's at, if you want to fill it.

Myke Hurley: So question for you.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: I tried to fill this pen in the Ackerman bottle and I couldn't fill it through the nib. I had to remove the converter to fill it. What's going on there? Do you know?

Brad Dowdy: No. I mean, that's how I fill mine anyway.

Myke Hurley: So yeah. Oh, do you fill through the converter? I feel through the nib. I don't know if that's going to upset people. No. It might be because the box nibs are really large. So maybe with the Ackerman bottle, with the way that that's set up, it just couldn't feed in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think you just probably have to get it pretty full because it's a six size nib. So it gets down, touches the marble. You probably have to get it just right to get the proper fill. No, you fill it. You fill it the right way. I fill it the wrong way. People will be more mad at me than you. Oh, really? That's good. Oh, yeah. That's good to know. You fill it the right way.

Myke Hurley: I think that the cap could do with one less turn. Okay. It takes quite a few turns to get this thing off. And it's super squeaky. I mean, that's just a polycarbonate right there. Yeah. There you go.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And here's titanium. Let's do it. I see mine's pretty clean.

Myke Hurley: Titanium's less squeaky. It's less squeaky. I got a 1.1 box nib. It's pretty good. Pretty good. I think it needs to be worn in a little bit. It's skipping on me a little bit. But considering I just got it today, I don't really consider that a problem. There just is a good sized pen. It's nice in the hand. It's nice and small. It's way too big for me capped, but I never cap. Sure. But yeah, I agree with you. It's like a total pocket pen. And the clip feels like it's made out of some ungodly metal. Yeah, it's great. It is so strong. So that, I think, is a really good thing. This feels like a fountain pen that you could bang around a little bit and it would survive.

Brad Dowdy: I rarely complain about a clip that's too tight. You know, I would rather it just go ahead and be too tight and I'll deal with fastening it to a pocket if I have to, you know, open it a little bit with my finger to get it over because I know it's not coming off. So I'm good with as tight a clip as possible.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think it's always better to go that way than to have it be loose and you lose the pen, in all honesty. So yeah, I say, I'll go say, I give a thumbs up to this pen. I think, you know, I think with a lot of these Kickstarter pens, there are always things that can be improved upon, you know? But I think overall, like, this is a real good fountain pen here. Yeah. And I really like it. And I've got to say, it's a difficult thing to say to someone, like, trust me about how it feels, right? You can't actually feel it. But if you don't have any pens like this, and I've never seen one that's made with this kind of texture, you don't know what you're missing because it is a very special feel. And I like it a lot.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Very cool.

Myke Hurley: Talking about like it a lot. Yeah.

Retro 51

Myke Hurley: It's new Retro 51 time, everyone.

Brad Dowdy: I'm surprised this wasn't like the first thing on the topic list today.

Myke Hurley: I knew I need to give it some space to breathe. It needed to be a full on topic.

Brad Dowdy: Because I've been so busy. I didn't know about this until you were putting things in the show notes. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Then I looked and I was like, oh my God, look at all these pens.

Myke Hurley: Yep. It is that time of year. This happens about once a year. There is a new Retro 51 catalog. And in there are a bunch of really great looking pens. So I want to run through some of them, Brad. Okay. They've got a 0.925 sterling version of what's called the Slim Tornado. And along with that, they have three other regular versions, which is like a blue, a graphite and an ocean one, electron, graphite and ocean. This Slim Tornado, I believe, is the same Tornado that the Apple pens are.

Brad Dowdy: That makes sense. It looks like it. Yeah. It's a little bit narrower. Like we have these new ballpoints from the store, right?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: I bet you're right. That looks like it's it.

Myke Hurley: So it uses the Easy Flow ballpoint and not the rollerball that we're used to using.

Brad Dowdy: Correct.

Myke Hurley: Right. So they all use that. So this is a new version of the Tornado, which is slimmer and slightly smaller. And they have four versions of that, including a sterling silver one, which looks absolutely beautiful. It's called the Deco Tower. And I think I really want one of these, but I don't think I'd use it because it doesn't have the refill that I really love. But just as part of my collection, I think that might be one I would have to look into.

Brad Dowdy: So number one, I can totally see you with that pen. Number two, I think you would enjoy it so much that you would use it with that ballpoint refill.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think you're right.

Brad Dowdy: I think it would be that enjoyable to write with. It looks really, really nice. And it looks like something you would very much enjoy writing with. Now, they reached out to us. This was like, by the time I'm checking my email, Myke and I have had all these conversations and they wanted to send me one to review. I said, how about one of the new Slim Tornadoes? Those things are already backordered. So they're running a little bit late on the Slims because they're really cool. I was like, hey, can I get that ocean one? They're like, we're a little bit behind.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I had the same conversation. They just told me straight up, like the Slims are way out. They're sending me one of the new Tribute editions. And I've asked them to send me the Tiger Shark, which is reminiscent of a previous limited edition that they did. Do you remember the plane? I can't remember what it's called now off the top of my head.

Brad Dowdy: That was one of the fastest sellouts I've ever seen.

Myke Hurley: So they have now turned that and also the space-themed one into part of a new three-part series called Tribute. And there are two kind of plane, like World War II plane-themed ones. And then a new Apollo one, which actually, instead of it looking like a space rocket, is depicting the moon landing. Right. So this is now part of the Tribute series. And I think that these are awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I was saying, you know, that when we're talking about Van Ness, we would, they carry all these Retro 51s and they get them like really quickly because they're so close to Dallas where Retro is. And they're already up on their site. So if you're looking at some of these new ones, they already have them up. What other ones are you fancying? Because I'll tell you the one that I ended up going with when I couldn't get the Slim Tornado.

Myke Hurley: So I'm going for all of them. Right. So there's also some new vintage Metal Smiths.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have a problem with Retro's not quite as bad as you.

Myke Hurley: Oh, they are. It's a collection thing for me. Sure. You know, and I don't buy all of them. It's not that kind of collection. Right. But like, I like to just add all of the ones that I find interesting. So they've had a few of these for a while. The Betsy, the Roosevelt and the Lincoln. They are basically coming through into the new version of the Metal Smith edition. But now we have the Albert, which is an Einstein. And then we have the Dr. Grey, which I don't know what this is in reference to. It must be some sort of anatomy type thing because it's depicting a skeleton, which is badass. Like, this thing looks so cool. So that's totally the one I went with. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I'm not surprised. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I had to toss up between the Tiger Shark and the Dr. Grey. I'm just going to buy one of the Dr. Greys when it comes out. There's a bunch of new deluxes as well. So the bamboo has been off and on with Retro 51. But it now looks like it is part of a new lineup of the deluxe pens. It sometimes has been hard to get. But I flat out say that the bamboo is probably my favorite. That thing is so beautiful. And they have added a dog and a cat version. And I think that these are actually there's money going to charity for those. Yeah. There is with the bamboo, too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The dog and cat one are for rescue pets.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And there's also a new, I think it's called Calico, which is, I don't even know what that is. It is a golden, yellow, and black swirling acrylic, which is beautiful. And there is a stealth one there, which is an all black. So that's everything that's new, aside from some other funny little gift sets. And they have this new hand holder, which is kind of hilarious. They've always had at the end of the catalog something kind of crazy. It used to be like an Easter Island statue head tissue box.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Oh, my word. They have a pen tray. So if you want the hand, you can buy the hand. The hand is for sale.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah, yeah. You can buy it.

Brad Dowdy: It's not just a showpiece. You can buy it. So like Vanessa has them. The hand's $25.

Myke Hurley: This is something I didn't notice until just now is you can buy a display box. Nice. Now that's you. Oh, I might have to get myself one of those. I want to see who gets the display box and get one of those sent to me. So I am like all over all of this. Oh, by the way, the tribute series is something that's quite interesting. They are numbered, but not limited. Interesting. So the number will just continue to go up. Okay. Which I think is kind of a cool thing to do. They're just like, we're going to keep making this one and we're going to number it. But yeah. Oh, man. And Vanessa have the tray too. Oh, do they? Yeah. It's like 48 bucks, which is, I would love one of those. Yeah. I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to look into getting one of those at some point. I don't think I have space for it right now, but. What's your place over there? Pen Hut? Pen Shed. Pen Shed. Pen Shed, man. They're getting some. I already know they're getting some. But Retro have hooked both of us up. And guess what, everyone? They're going to hook you up too. So I've been talking with them. They were, because I was super excited about this. And I tweeted about it because it reminded me, basically, this reminded me of like what the tech world is like. There's a new product release and everyone goes crazy for it. And just seeing like a new kind of brochure come out and everyone goes crazy for it. I thought it was really funny. So I was talking to them and we've got a giveaway. So we're giving away three of the new ones and they let me choose which to give away. And basically we have one of the Dr. Grey Metal Smiths, one of the Apollo tribute and one of the Fortress tribute to give away. All you have to do is go to our show notes. They should be in your podcast app of choice or relay.fm slash penaddict slash 205. There is a survey there where you just put your name and your email address. And we will be picking three at random before next week's show. And we will announce on the show who the winners of those three pens are. We'll be giving away. We'll just be randomly assigning the styles to. Yep. So thank you so much to Retro51 for providing those. They really didn't have to because we're just going to talk about it anyway. I love all the people over there.

Brad Dowdy: They're super nice.

Myke Hurley: I was talking to them over DM and I was like, I'm effectively now your unofficial brand ambassador.

Brad Dowdy: I can totally see that. So we even have more Retro51 stuff to get into. We have something special coming to you, which is one of the old school titanium. I think it's almost like a big shot. It's a wider than the tornado, but it's a tornado. But a pen addict reader and listener named Harry sent me. He said he was going to send me one of these. He said, do you think. He said, I found these in my drawer. He said, do you think Myke would like it? I said, absolutely. Myke would love it. So he sent it to me. And then in the package, he's like, oh, by the way, I found another one. So you keep one and give one to Myke. And I found like a 20 year old mini tornado, which is really, really cool. So it's a mini size tornado. So he sent those. I'm going to send those to you. I'm going to keep one of the titanium for me. And I'm going to send you one of the titanium one and the mini one that Harry sent for you.

Myke Hurley: So thank you so much, Harry. That is awesome. I love the little inscriptions in the show notes. Recreational grade titanium with a little atomic symbol. This is so cool looking. Thank you so much, Harry, for sending those. I can't wait to give that one a try.

Brad Dowdy: It feels really good. You're going to be impressed with this pen. It's the same shape, but a different feel in a good way. So it's very cool. You'll like it.

Myke Hurley: It's kind of why I like the bamboo one. It's a completely different body. But it's the pen I know, but it feels different.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: All right. We still got some stuff I want to cover today, but let's take a moment to thank Harry's for sponsoring this week's episode. Look, it is time to stop compromising. Why are you compromising on your shave? It's so important to have that smooth feeling on your face. You want something comfortable. Don't pay too much for razor blades. Don't settle for a low quality razor. You should have everything because you can. You can have a great shave at a great price. This is what Harry's is all about. You can get the best of both worlds. Harry's know that they're going to give you good blades because they make them. They have their own factory for German engineered five blade cartridges. They will give you a close, comfortable shave and they guarantee their quality. You'll get a full refund if you're not happy. That's how much they believe in it. You can become one of the over one million people that have switched to Harry's. And they do this. All these people have switched and love Harry's because you're going to get a high quality shave at about half the price that you're used to playing with big brand blades. On average, an everyday shaver saves $150 each year on blades using Harry's. But it's not just about the cost. It's also about convenience. You don't have to go down to the drugstore anymore and try and convince somebody to unlock a cabinet to give you some razor blades. You'll be able to go to their website, find what you want and be checked out in 30 seconds and they'll be shipped to you for free. How easy is that? They also do subscription plans as well. So you can go there and you can just get them sent to you. You don't even need to worry about it anymore. I love Harry's products. They have a great style to them. They all smell great where they need to smell and they all look great where they need to look. They're absolutely fantastic. Their starter set is a great deal. It's called the Truman. For just $15, you'll get a razor, moisturizing shave cream and three razor blades. For that price, that is an incredible way to start and just jump in and get a feel for Harry's. But even more so, I can let you get that for $10. Just go to harrys.com right now and you can get $5 off your first order when you use the coupon code PENADDICT at checkout. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com and enter the coupon code PENADDICT. You'll get $5 off your first order over at Harry's. Thank you so much to Harry's for their continued support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. One of the biggest no brainers going is to get that starter set.

Myke Hurley: It's $10 if you've never used it before when you use that code. If you've been listening to us for some reason and haven't gone and done that yet, just go do it right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep.

Lihitlab Teffa Bag

Myke Hurley: All right. I saw something go by the blog, which was very interesting to me. It's called a really weird name, the Lihitlab Teffa Bag and Bag. Now, old school PENADDICT listeners might remember me and you talking about the Lihitlab Teffa case. Right. Right. Which was a pen case, which I actually found mine recently. And that was what we all used before this little company from Atlanta kind of kicked into gear and made some stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The original case, it's a good case. A lot of people use the case. But it's a, it's a, all the pens touch case and all the clips touch case and everything bangs together. That's fine if that's what you want to do. It's not for me. Like if I had a bunch of gel pens in there, that'd be fine. I'm not carrying my fountain pens in it.

Myke Hurley: Ain't nothing touch. No pens touching.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The pens do not touch. So good case, really well made. I thoroughly enjoy the quality of their cases and their prices are great. And then they do this thing called a bag and bag. It's not bag in a bag, which I keep saying. And I'll say that 10 times during talking about this, but it's bag and bag.

Lihitlab Bag

Myke Hurley: Yeah. When I was writing this up in the show notes, I called it bag in a bag.

Brad Dowdy: I probably have that in my review. You just can't, you can't help but do it. But, and it's Lihitlab. It's not labs. It's Lihitlab. It's a bag and bag.

Myke Hurley: Let's just call it the Lihitlabs bag in a bag and just be done with it.

Brad Dowdy: So anyway, they make two sizes of this pouch and one is an A5 size internals and one is a A4 size, the larger. So what it's designed to do is like a lot of us carry backpacks or briefcases or some kind of, you know, other carrying tote bag, purse, whatever it might be. And we carry certain things in it. And then you can have this literal bag in bag from Lihitlab. Just take it, load it with like your stationary items. It'll fit pens and notebooks and things like that. And that way everything's all contained. You put it in your larger bag. And when you need the stuff inside that, like all your sketching, drawing, writing stuff, you just take it out and you have it all right there, self-contained. You don't have to worry about different sections in your larger bag or things being in different places. It's kind of an all-in-one, kind of help you keep things organized. I had the A5 for a long time, but I never liked it for stationary. I didn't like putting pens in it. It was too small. I didn't like putting paper in it. It just wasn't the right size. I ended up using it for like cables and loose, you know, headphones and, you know, my square reader and things just like a USB drive, chapstick, gum, whatever. That kind of like a catch-all. But, and I never really thought to go for the bigger one, which is the A4 size. It's really large, but it's made. So the larger inside pocket will carry a full A4 size notebook, which is, you know, bigger than your eight and a half by 11 standard American size paper. The A4 is in that ballpark range. So it's pretty large. But what this does is it fits the pens I want to carry. It fits the notebooks I want to carry. I can fit an A5 NOC notebook on the outside. One of the small NOC pocket notebooks on the outside. And I put my Kindle in it. You know, I have the small, like the paper white, I think it's called the small Kindle. You can fit three pens. The pen slots could be a little bit deeper. That's a nitpick. And then in the big section, I can carry not just like an A4 pad. I can carry the iPad in there. I can carry my 13 inch MacBook Pro in there. Um, so it's, it's basically what was used to be like the, um, you know, the computer sleeves where you would have people would put, buy like a computer sleeve to put their laptop in to put it inside another bag. It's like this, but for stationary, but it's great at carrying technology stuff too. It's just the right size. It fits perfectly. Like in my Topo Designs Dome bag, it's just kind of a good piece of kit to have to carry like accessories. So they're not flying around everywhere. Um, and you can just pick it up out of your bag, take it to where you need to go. Like if I'm, if I've gone to knock, have my bag, my Dome bag with the Lid Lab bag in it, you know, and I decided to go to Starbucks for a little bit. Well, I can just, instead of taking my whole Dome bag, I just reach in, grab the bag and bag, take that with me. And it's got everything I need without me having to think about it in there. It's just kind of a cool setup and it's not very expensive. It's like 21 bucks. I'm not looking at it, but that sounds right for the A5 size. Um, it's kind of a no brainer type of thing. You could use it purely as your one bag. Um, if you were fine carrying it like a folio, um, it's, it's pretty cool. It's very, very useful. I don't find the A5 size very useful. Um, it's too loose to carry too many pins in it. Like if you open up the pouch and you're not careful, things will start flying out of it. With the A5, you don't have that problem because you're not carrying pins in the large section. So, uh, my eyes were opened, uh, at the Atlanta pin show, saw a couple of people carrying these and I was like, I got to try that. And it's actually kind of a perfect fit for what I need it for.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm looking at these like super cheap on Amazon. Yeah. It's like 10 pounds. I'm going to buy one. I mean, I tell you why I like it. Um, you use it with a dome, right. And you can kind of just fit everything in there.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It fits in there perfectly.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think this is kind of cool. Like, so do you just sometimes just grab this thing and it's just, everything is in there.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I'll just take that. Like if I'm going to go to Starbucks for a couple hours, I'll just take that and throw in my iPad. Um, you know, like if I'm going to do some reviews and want to research, research and stuff, but really I'll just have all the papers and pens that I need in it. And I can literally just go over to my dome bag, reach in, grab that out and walk out the door because I know everything's in it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Sweet, man.

Brad Dowdy: Instead of having to take a bunch of other stuff in my bag that I don't need. Right. It's just kind of got what you need for, for like me. I have it like a review kit essentially. Right. I have things in it, products I can review in that. So it's very useful.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. For that price. I mean, yeah, you know, it's kind of great. Yeah. This is a fun looking thing. I just figured it would be useful because the Don, the Don, well, the Topo mountain briefcase. Mountain briefcase. Yeah. One of my favorite things about it is that it has just this huge, like it basically just has a huge pocket. Right. Right. Right. Which is, is kind of awesome. And I like it for that. Um, but one of the problems is sometimes everything's just flying around in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. So like I have, so my laptop will go in the Don bag in the back. The, the hit lab bag and bag goes in the front big pocket. Then I have like, uh, my brass town and my Sinclair and that's pretty much it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's cool, man.

Brad Dowdy: Great. It's a good setup. I like it. Yep.

Myke Hurley: For sure. Uh, I did just realize that in, uh, when, when looking through this, uh, it was like 36 pound delivery. No. So I'm going to, I'm going to just take a look at some of the other sellers on Amazon before I go ahead and, uh, press, press that button. Goodness gracious.

Myke Hurley: Wow. It's because it would be a dispatch from Japan. Uh, gotcha. So I need someone who's going to dispatch it more locally. I think I would like it before my trip to San Francisco.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, cool. Well, you could probably get one out there. You could probably, if you made it to, you probably won't have extra time, but I bet Kino Kunea, you could check and see if they had it and just pick one up while you're there.

Myke Hurley: It's a good idea.

Brad Dowdy: Cause they carry, they, I think they carry lid lab, but I'm not positive.

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm going to keep looking around. There might be some seller that can do it in a different color to the one that I'm looking at.

Brad Dowdy: Or just order it from jet pens and deliver it to your hotel while you're there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Smart. Very smart. Yeah. I've won it for the, for the travel though, but I am. I'll keep looking around. I'm sure I'll find it. One route. That's funny though. Yeah. All right. One last thing I want to talk about today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Aaron Draplin Book

Myke Hurley: We have avoided talking about this until we got it right. Like this news came out months ago about Aaron Draplin having a book on the way called pretty much everything.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, we didn't avoid it on purpose.

Myke Hurley: We just, no, we just decided there's no point to like, we just figured like we'll wait now until it comes out. Cause we, you know, so we've, we've waited and now it's out. And we both got it yesterday.

Brad Dowdy: I think. Yeah. I think yesterday.

Myke Hurley: Boy.

Brad Dowdy: It's super cool. Isn't it?

Myke Hurley: It's amazing. If for some reason you're listening to this show and you haven't yet ordered or bought this book, you need to rectify that almost immediately.

Brad Dowdy: Let me tell you a funny story. So last night the book sitting on my desk, I'd been, I'd been flipping through it. I haven't read much of it yet. But you know, the cover's like super bright and it's got all the logos and it looks awesome. I mean, it's pretty much what you would expect from, from Draplin. It's, it's killer. And Tyler, my son walks over to it and he's like, what is this book, dad? And I was like, oh, it's a book about design. Like, you know, this guy, he makes stuff and he designs all these logos and things like that. And he starts flipping through it and he's just like, you know, flipping through the pages. He's like, then he starts screaming, oh my God, dad, you have this sticker. It's like, he's putting it together. He saw the space shuttle sticker, which he thinks is cool. And it was just a trip to see him. Like, you know, he doesn't understand like how all these things go together. You know, like there's just kind of this thing where, you know, it's all this stationary stuff's tied together. And like, he wouldn't know, he wouldn't know Aaron Draplin, you know, you know, at all, but he knows that sticker. And now he knows, okay, this guy that made this book made that sticker. And that's kind of cool. It just tripped him out so much last night. He was like screaming, like, you have that sticker. I'm like, that's not the only thing I have, buddy.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Just keep looking around. There's stuff everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. This, this book is superb. I think I've spent about 90 minutes just looking through it. I haven't read a word. Yeah. Like just looking. And one thing I kept finding myself doing was just like running my hands down the pages, like just looking at all of this stuff, you know, and the book is so well put together. The cover is awesome. It's like, is it debossed, right? Yeah. And there's like varying paper stock in the book as well, which is awesome. Uh, and I think if you never even read a word of this, you'd be fine.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, totally. It's, uh, it's great. I love it. Um, really well done. Congratulations to, to Aaron for, for his life, man. He's accomplished a lot in a short period of time. So this is really cool to see this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I'm really looking forward, especially to, to read the, the field notes section. Yeah. Uh, like he took one of my favorite things in the whole book is he laid out every field notes that he's ever used and took a picture of him. Nice. It was so awesome just to see like all of his stuff. Yeah. You know, and all of the customizations like put stickers on them and things, but there's one other thing. Did you catch the everything else enhancement kit?

Brad Dowdy: I did. As soon as I tweeted that out, um, at Brian and in the chat room, he, he posted on my Instagram. Did you see it? And Andy on my Twitter said, did you see it? And I did see it. What do you think about that?

Myke Hurley: It's, oh, I was like jumping at the bit to get, to get one. I ordered it before they even put an international shipping version. So I had to send them more money. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Everything Else Kit

Myke Hurley: So basically the everything else enhancement kit is just a bunch of stuff. It's like a really big, heavy duty slip case and it has, um, some bookmarks, a button, some prints of some of Aaron's favorite work, a certificate of authenticity, uh, a patch. It has two sets of a new field notes, a custom field notes, which looks like it has the orange color, the Pantone orange around the edge of the notebooks. Or maybe that's just the paper color. Do you see that? Let's see. Look at the picture.

Brad Dowdy: They look black, black and gray. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so it looks like, yeah, they're either. Yeah. You can't tell totally, but yeah, they're the edges are definitely orange.

Myke Hurley: The thing I was most excited about was the sticker set.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Those are cool.

Myke Hurley: So I got one of those on the way. I can't wait for that thing to arrive. This book is incredible. Like I am just going to spend so much time looking through this. I am in such awe at this man's work. When you see it all put together like this, he is just incredible. The stuff that he has produced, the style that Aaron has, it is completely unmatched. And I really, really hope that this does so well for him because he clearly deserves it. And I'm so happy that he was convinced, I assume, to write this book. Yeah. Because it is an absolute marvel to behold it. It's just fantastic. So I'm really, really happy that this arrived.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. It's wonderful. I love it. I'm trying not to buy the Everything Else enhancement kit. I'm trying. I'm probably not going to. I think I've convinced myself I don't need it. Oh, interesting. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. I have grown. I have grown.

Myke Hurley: I bought it immediately. I was refreshing his page until it went on sale.

Brad Dowdy: I really want the slip case more than anything. That's pretty sweet.

Myke Hurley: Well, see, I want, I mean, the field notes are great, right? But like, you know, I've got so many special editions now. I want the prints and stuff, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. They look cool. Everything looks cool.

Myke Hurley: They're like special versions of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah, it's all totally just made for this. But I am, I'm holding fast, Michael.

Myke Hurley: Well, we'll see how you do with that. Good luck to you. Thanks. If you want to find our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 205. Thanks again to Venice and Harry's for supporting this week's show. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, knock.co. And he is penaddict on Instagram at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. We have a guest next time, right? I don't think, I think you're keeping it a secret until now, but I think we have a guest next time.

Brad Dowdy: We do have a guest next time and we'll announce it ahead of time because I want to get some questions. But yeah, we will let you know via the Twitter machine.

Myke Hurley: Cool. So follow us there and you'll find out. And don't forget, you want to go to the show notes to enter our Retro 51 giveaway. And thank you to Retro 51 for providing those for us. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.