The Pen Addict 215/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	215
Title:	Maximum Peak Weirdness
Release Date:	July 27th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 215
Audio File:	Audio Episode 215
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 215
Length:	6767 min <br />1.117 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 215. Today is brought to you by our good friends over at Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools we love so dearly. And I am joined, as always, by Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What a beautiful intro phrase that we don't often drop in. That used to be like a religious thing. It was like, we couldn't do it unless we dropped that in. But we kind of got out of that habit, right? I guess it came out, it went along the wayside with the nickname stuff, kind of.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and I can't believe that I still remember it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's like, it's part of your, it's muscle memory now. It's just like you start talking and then it all comes out.

Myke Hurley: It's like with song lyrics, like, I just begin singing a song and it turns out that my brain was hiding the lyrics in there the whole time. Like, really, I was just, I don't know why I said it this week, it just popped into my brain and it just poured out of me the beautiful prose that it was. And it is.

Brad Dowdy: It was beautiful. And our first topic is beautiful this morning, so I want you to handle it so I can sit back and bask in the glow of vindication.

Montegrappa Q1

Myke Hurley: Paul wrote in to let us know that we have discussed the Montegrappa Q1 before, the multiple cartridge monstrosity Montegrappa have created. On episode 147, at around five minutes in, we made reference to it. And again, it wasn't a very long discussion, which might be why it didn't stick in my brain. But Brad's brain is better than my brain, hence why he knew we'd spoken about it. And I, and many others, many others were sure that we hadn't. I wasn't the only one in this. So we will say for this one that Myke was not right.

Myke Hurley: I mean, getting a lot of that this week.

Myke Hurley: Have you been wrong a lot this week, mate? Not wrong. Just not right? Just not right. Fair enough. I don't like Myke was wrong, but I'm happy with Myke was not right. I can get behind that because I'm the same way. Technically, I wasn't wrong.

Myke Hurley: It's my own problem because I'm the one who walks around saying I'm right all the time. But I have a real aversion to people saying you're wrong. I don't know why, but I just do. So when people say Myke was wrong, it like fires something up inside of me. So now I'm sticking with Myke was right and Myke was not right.

Myke Hurley: That is the consistency of the brand here, everyone. I'll allow it.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah, we, I knew we talked about that Q1 and it was so long ago. The, the weird thing is why this was so difficult is for some reason it did not make it into the show notes as a link.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's what made it difficult and impossible for me. I have no idea how Paul found it so quickly.

Brad Dowdy: I don't either. It was like right after. And thank you, Paul. I will see Paul in DC. Paul writes gorgeous.inc. He does a wonderful job on his blog. I'm going to see him in DC. You're already killing me with this. Yeah. Just wait till next week's podcast. You're going to, it's going to be death.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm really sad that I can't make it, but yeah, it's, I'm about to be going on a bunch of trips in a row again. August, September, October.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So you're like next six months are just kind of stupid. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And I just got engaged and yay. And we're about to begin buying a house. Um, don't do it by halves around here. All right.

Brad Dowdy: It's all or nothing. Oh Lord. Yeah. So, uh, I'd tell you to settle down, but, uh, that's not going to happen for, uh, until the, I think the calendar flips it at the earliest.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm, I tell you what, I'm already looking forward to 2017. It's just like that one will be easier. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You've, uh, you've definitely, uh, front loaded here. You got it all going at once, but that's okay. We have, we have pens to talk about. Um, that'll, uh, get your mind off of things for a minute.

Myke Hurley: But even more than that, we have calming images to look at.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, this is crazy. Right. So I remember, um, um, I think it was Mikey, uh, uh, who sent me this like sometime last year. And we never, he said kind of like this project's going on and, you know, I'll let you know when it's done. Well, he finished it and it's a project called pin shooter. And he put up this, um, he did it on Tumblr where he was going to shoot, uh, pictures of all these different pins and catalog them. And, um, you know, just post them out on, on, on the web for everyone to see. So it was like a project he took on for himself. And looking at the index and we'll have all these links in the show notes, which you can find it. Pen addict. Oh, relay.fm slash pen addict slash 215. And, um, he put an index of 278 pins and a handful of pencils. And it's not just one image per pin. You know, there's image sets of each pin, which is crazy. So it's like, you know, five and six images of each pin. And, um, it's just something really cool to look at. Did you have time to flip through any of these, any of these images?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah, I did. And there's just some stunning stuff. And what I really like is as well as the photography being so beautiful, there are just pens in here that I've never seen before. Like, I don't know what this stuff, some of this stuff is even.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So he was his email to me. And I don't know if this is clarified, like in his, uh, project index, but he basically bought all these pins himself or had them around. So he was just getting things like he could find at the local convenience store or party store or office supply store, random things around the desk. So it's mostly like, you know, 50 cent pens, promo pens, you know, $2 pens. He has a few expensive pens that, you know, he has, but it's really, um, it's really cool. And there's a ton that I haven't seen in here before. And, um, you know, since the project took him, you know, quite a bit of time, you know, there's different seasons, right? You can see like the, the fall, uh, everything with snow in them. All the snow ones are great. So we put a few favorites in here. Um, my favorite is, is actually the, uh, the Faber-Castell Scribe Barrow gel, which I've never seen this pen. And this pen looks like the way he shot the photograph. It looks like it's like a miniature Jurassic Park scene. Like this doesn't look like a pen. It looks like a creature, but like the framing and the composition of the photos with the leaves looks like it's this dinosaur kind of thing. Coming out of the woods.

Myke Hurley: It's really weird because the, the images make it look like it's like 150 feet tall.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a very lifelike looking image. It's kind of crazy.

Lamy Safari

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's, it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's really, really interesting looking. One of the ones that you picked out as well is a pen called the Lamy Balloon. Uh, I haven't, I've never heard of or seen the Lamy Balloon before. Well, what is this?

Brad Dowdy: So here's where you'll be proven wrong again. We have absolutely talked about this on the podcast. And, and the reason I put this in here is very specific. This is one of the best pens Lamy ever did, except the refill they did was absolute garbage. And there was a lot of talk about this at the time. This is pens. This is probably like three years ago. Um, when I reviewed this pen and it was like a proprietary refill, you couldn't fit anything else into this barrel. It is such a great pen. I don't even know if they sell it anymore because the refill is really bad. And everyone who bought one and reviewed one kind of had the same problems. Like you were desperate to use this pen because it's so cool. It's built well. It's Lamy. You know what the styles look like. Um, you just couldn't write with it. And it was one of the, it was just a huge disappointment of a pen. Um, and then the other one, the Safari ballpoint, that's one of the snow ones that you talked about. Um, it's just a really cool, really cool look. Um, yeah. So Mikey did a great job on this. So y'all check out the, this, you'll, you'll lose a, you'll definitely lose some time, uh, scrolling through all these images, but he did a really great job. And, um, yeah, there's just hundreds and hundreds of images on here. So it was a really cool project. And thanks for sharing that with us.

Myke Hurley: Definitely. Definitely. Go check it out. It's in the show notes. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So I got a big, uh, I placed a big order with CW pencils this week or last week. It came in yesterday or two days ago. It's been sitting in the box and I was around yesterday morning and I thought, yeah, I'll periscope this. So I periscoped, uh, my CW pencils haul and it turns out there was a big surprise in it. So I was kind of glad that I did that because I didn't know what was in the box other than the stuff that I ordered. So what the reason for my order was I wanted, I decided to go for one more box of the Blackwing 56s. I was hemming and hawing. Do I need it? Well, of course I don't need it, but do I want it? And I was like, I kind of want it. So that was the impetus for, for buying it. They had the 56s in. So I was like, well, if I'm there and I'm ordering this, I might as well see what other stuff they have. Right. So I scrolled through every pencil page, picked out a few things that looked interesting. And then I bought a very expensive pencil, um, a very expensive clutch pencil that we'll get to. But I thought I'd go over some of these pencils real quick. Um, kind of give you my first thoughts on it since we don't talk about pencils too much because there's some interesting stuff in here. Um, that cool with you?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I guess.

Brad Dowdy: You might like this fixed pencil. Wait till I, till I talk about this. But I really want to talk about, about two of the products the most.

Myke Hurley: The thing is though, like this is the, this is the same thing that happened to me when I went to CW. Whilst I don't really use them, the stuff is so enchanting and it's presented so well that it's difficult to not spend a ton of money on really interesting looking, amazing things that they, they produce.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. So you spent, when you were in the store, you spent like over a hundred dollars, didn't you?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I think this order of mine was like $108. It's easy to do. It just happens. Um, but what's really cool is, okay. If I committed to spending, you know, 50 bucks on this big pencil, I can still get some other pencils for like 50 cents or $1.50. That's what, that's what gets you in trouble. You know, you, you, you do that. And the next thing you know, you're spending a hundred dollars at CW pencils, which is great because everyone should. But anyway, this first pencil is one I'm probably going to look into getting more. I've seen it on a few of the blogs. It's called, uh, the brand is called camel and it's made in Japan. And it's a very simple looking pencil. But what caught my eye was I thought the end cap was dipped, but it's actually this weird eraser that goes over the back of the pencil. Like if you, like if you pulled down like a rubber glove, if you will, like over your hand, you just, it kind of goes over the barrel a little bit, but I don't know if it comes off. And the whole thing is like an eraser. It was very, very weird. And I like this pencil a lot. It's got this cool, um, like paint job. It's like this camel color, little, little bit of tan. You can see like the red and the cedar wood. It brings out the color of it. It writes really well for an HB pencil. It's a dollar 50. So it's not like dirt cheap, but, um, it's like cheaper than black wings who like run around $2 or something like that. Um, it's really cool. I'm going to look and see, you know, what other options they have for this camel pencil, but I'm going to definitely be reviewing this one. I like it a lot. The ones, the Aspara absolute extra strong pencil caught my eye just because of the name, uh, extra dark and extra strong. Sounds just like you. Yeah. It's totally like me. You have to watch this video that they did for this pencil. Um, feel free to watch it now if you want. It's only like a 30 second, uh, thing while I talk, but they, uh, it's an Indian pencil company, uh, Hinduistan pencil company out of India. And it's really like a school pencil, you know, for the students over there in India. And the durability is like legit. Like it, the, the video shows the kids essentially playing drums with the pencils. It's just a great, super cute video. They did a really good job. And, uh, it is extra dark. It's actually a little bit soft. I thought it would be, uh, extra strong, extra dark, extra firm. Um, the, the graphite is actually a little bit softer than I thought, but that's kind of what you kind of, the give and take with the, uh, darkness. The Tombow Mono Professional HB is just kind of a plain stock pencil. Um, the Tombow Mono 100 is a little bit better looking, feels a little bit better. It's, it's kind of average. I wouldn't necessarily recommend, um, recommended over other pencils. The Kohenor Blue Highlighter Pencil is actually the dud of the bunch, which you kind of know going into it that a colored pencil is not going to be great. But I expected a little more from this one. There has to be a term for this, Myke. When I sharpened the pencil, it never stopped sharpening it. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, if you sharpen a pencil in a handheld sharpener, when it's very sharp, you're essentially sharpening air. It's done sharpening, right? Yeah, it just spins. Yeah, it just spins. This one never, it's never stopped. So I chewed up like a quarter of the pencil before realizing what I was doing. It just kept going. Um, but it's a, it's a wood pencil. It's not like the Wopex with that weird material. Um, it's like a plasticky pencil. It's not. But, um, in the, uh, the blue clay, um, highlight, uh, the actual, the business end of the pencil, it's kind of, you expect it to be light. It's even lighter than I, I thought it would be. You have to get it, um, right on the edge to get a dark line, but it's made to be a highlighter. So it's not meant to be used all the time. Aside from the, the 56s that I ordered this one, I didn't know they had this pencil in stock. And I had written about it like a month or so ago in the, in refill, which is the pen addict members newsletter that I saw this pencil. And I was kind of fascinated by it. Well, they happened to have it in stock. I was like, well, I kind of got to buy it now. It's expensive for a lead holder. Um, basically, you know, a clutch pencil, like an engineering pencil. It was $53. Um, but it's beautiful. It's cron dash. So, you know, you pay in a premium for that, but so far, this is my favorite of the bunch, uh, regardless of price, because the, the lead is really nice. The graphite is nice. It's a very good color. Um, HB, you know, graphite, it writes dark. It also comes with other colors, red, blue, green, and yellow. So you can swap those in. And in the cap of the pencil is the sharpener. So you just uncap it and you twist it in there and then you tap it out. Um, it's like your little cocaine vial where you tap out the little, tap out the little, uh, everyone totally can relate to that. But it's weird when you empty it out, it's just this little pile of sand, uh, from your graphite there. It looks, that's the first thing I thought is.

Myke Hurley: So this is a mechanical lead holder, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's just like any other lead holder. You have the click, um, mechanism at the end that, that, um, expands like the, the teeth that grab that the clutch part that clutches onto the, to the graphite.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So you need the, you know, like the, like the pen show except, uh, with more mechanics in it. Um, and it's, it's just really cool. I'm going to carry this a lot. This is going like straight into my like everyday carry stuff for pencils because I'm enjoying writing with pencils and this one will, it's kind of all self-contained, you know, with the sharpener. I don't have to carry an extra sharpener and the firmness and darkness of the lead is good enough to where it's not too soft. I can just like keep writing with it, things like that. Um, it's expensive, you know, it's hard to recommend like a clutch pencil. That's this expensive when you can get them for like $10. And, uh, I don't know. I'm just kind of fascinated with it. I was when I stumbled across it, um, you know, a month or two ago. And then once I saw it in here, I was like a foregone conclusion that I was going to end up with it. The other thing that I'm super impressed with are these right notepads, notebooks. I haven't used the three pack that I bought, but they make a special one for CW pencil enterprise called the ledger notepad. It is killer. Like I wrote my show notes for that today. Um, in that little notepad, when you open it up, it's like a little, um, the format of the page is like, uh, an old library card. If you will, it's got, uh, several columns for your ledger items. So, um, I'll take a picture of that, uh, when I'm done with the, with the show notes and put that in the, uh, put that in the Instagram when I'm done with the show. So, um, everyone has said how good right notepads are for pencil. And you can tell just the way the paper is like, it's not a fountain pen friendly paper necessarily, but for pencil, it has just that enough tooth to where, you know, your pencils writing. Well, the lead, the graphite is going to stay there. It's not really going to smudge. It's just kind of, it's the right tactile feel if you will, for a pencil. So they're really cool. So I plan on using that a bunch and getting into the, the notepads. Um, you've never used one of the notepads. I don't think, right? No. They're really cool looking. They do an awesome job with packaging. Um, I put an extra link in the show notes to one of our listeners, uh, Mark Dunham, who sent me a link to check out his new blog. And he has some great pictures of one of their additions that they just did, um, where they actually use the butcher orange, uh, French paper company, butcher orange for their covers. Huh? Which is really, really pretty. They just, they spend a lot on the aesthetic part of it, which can sometimes go either way. If you spend that much time on the aesthetic, sometimes you wonder if the product's going to live up to how good it looks. And in this case, they, they do live up to how good they look. So it's kind of a, uh, a double whammy of goodness there. So it's really, really cool. So if you couldn't tell, I was pretty excited about this order. So that's what I ordered. And then I'm opening this package live on Periscope and I get to the bottom of it and I pull out. So CW enterprises, they, um, I guess you could call it gift wrap. Like everything that's in the box has is wrapped in like little stacks and like yellow paper and this blue and white thread. It's wonderful. So I get to the bottom and at the bottom of this box is this square thing. I was like, Hmm, I don't remember ordering a notebook this size with my order. And I'm sitting there confused. And they, they had written me a letter that was on top. And since I was doing it live, I just put the letter to the side and, uh, just started going through the unboxing. And then I get to the bottom. I start unwrapping this thing and I see it's the entire set of the high uni Mitsubishi high uni pencils with 22 degrees of graphite hardness in there from 10 B all the way to 10 H the full range of pencils. And then I was like, number one, this shocked me because I knew I didn't order it. And number two, I said, well, I should probably read the letter that came with this to see why this is in here. And the, the girls at CW pencil, um, were nice enough to include this, um, to further my pencil knowledge. They wanted to give me something that I could base like the graphite hardness.

Myke Hurley: This is the high, high uni 22 pencil art set. I'm assuming. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: And it's basically one of everything. It's one of everything. So they gave this to me so I could now have a sample of what every grade of graphite should be. And we'll have something to compare. Oh, it's how good is that? That is super, super thoughtful. It was like, you know, since you're a recent convert, here's a way to have a baseline for everything that's made out there on the market. And I just thought that was so thoughtful and so wonderful. So thank you, uh, everyone at CW pencils. Um, that was quite a surprise in my order to say the least. So yeah, I'm, I'm a burgeoning pencilaholic, man. It's, it's going to be a problem. I'm on board of it. You can go, go for it. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoy, I enjoy writing with pencils at my desk. The thing is, you know, the pen is, is the tool I use when I leave the house. Right. It's, there's different, different uses for different things, which is what we talk about all the time. So anyway, I wanted to, uh, talk about all that stuff. Cause you're going to be seeing and hearing more of this stuff, uh, from me as we go through, as we go through, uh, episode 1000 of the pen addict podcast. It's going to happen. It's totally going to happen.

Myke Hurley: Can you imagine that? Can you imagine if we got there? I can, I can imagine that. Should we just go daily?

Myke Hurley: So I don't think so. So we can move it up a bit.

Myke Hurley: You don't want to do a daily show.

Brad Dowdy: I don't want to do a daily show. I'm sorry, mate. I love you. Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't want to go daily.

Myke Hurley: Okay. You know, I just want to say something real quick. Cause you were saying about how lovely it is to use pencils and I agree. And this is a completely different thought, but I'm using my pilot M90 today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Just out there in the world. If you ever see one of these buy it.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so we're going to have a little conversation about this in one of our ask TPA questions.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Um, in, in relation to that.

Myke Hurley: Um, I've got to say this is, it's just an absolute treat to use. It is. It's a great pen. Makes me feel so happy. Thomas Hall. I love you so much.

Brad Dowdy: Since we were talking about our episode 1000 that we hope to get to one day, I wanted to point out our good friends at Anderson pens cracked number 200 last night.

Myke Hurley: How did they do that?

Brad Dowdy: Cause they're awesome. That's how they did it.

Myke Hurley: I feel like that they started way after us.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, well they go, they, I think they started before us to be perfectly honest. Really? Huh. Look at that. Yeah. But they have, they have, um, you know, gaps in there, you know, cause they travel so much they can't always do it weekly. But I, I'm pretty sure that they started before we did, but I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

Myke Hurley: The first episode, I'm struggling here. No, I'm, I'm seeing if I can find it. I'm seeing if I can find it.

Handwritten Followup

Brad Dowdy: Well, you work on that because this next topic, I'm going to do something a little bit different here. We got not only followup, we got a handwritten letter in my mailbox followup.

Myke Hurley: That is some interesting followup to receive.

Brad Dowdy: So I would like to read this to you. It's a three page letter. It's about two and a half pages of don't worry. It's a, just a five one sided. So it's not, uh, it's not super long, but I thought this was wonderful. And this is from Corey who sent us this thoughtful letter and I'm going to read it to you. And it's addressed dear Ed, Myke and Brad. So you know where the followup's coming from, right? Yep. Yep. So he says, I listened to both shows on the topic of burnout and enjoyed them very much after listening and thinking about your conversation. I came to the conclusion that the podcast blog podcast slash blog isn't really about pens. It's about people. Your audience appreciates the community that you forged. It is gratifying to know that I'm not the only one who thinks about pens, ink, and paper every day. May I suggest that when you feel in a rut that you turn to your audience for inspiration, they will be thrilled to help as a way of thanking you for what you provide for them. Their enthusiasm hopefully will be contagious and bring you back to the reason you started the podcast in the first place. With that said, I'd like to offer my ideas on things that would spark your creativity when you need a boost. So he goes through these five things and I'm going to read them real quick because I think, I mean, it's beautiful so far and I just want to keep going here and give him full credit for all this stuff. So number one is take the show on the road, not just for a pen show. I imagine if you did a show from Japan, how cool would that be? So I need you to work on that, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Yeah, I'm all for that. I will work on that.

Brad Dowdy: Number two, do a show from a college or university.

Brad Dowdy: University of Penn. Get it? Or Penn State. Oh, well. Burn the letter. Burn it.

Brad Dowdy: You ruined it there, Corey. Too many Penn puns. No, I'm just kidding. I thought that was hilarious. I got to giggle out of that. It says, I bet you have plenty of fans in higher education. Number three, which this may be my favorite and I'm going to have to work on this for the future. Hand out pens and notebooks to soldiers in the Bethesda Naval Hospital. When you're in D.C. Says, I have a neighbor who may be able to help make it happen. I think not just there, but like anywhere we can get stationary in people's hands, I think is just a wonderful thing. And I thought that was a great idea. Number four, which is actually something I'm working on, invite regular people on the show, not just the experts. Regular people who have a good story to share. And I get that one. I get emailed a lot. Like you should just have listeners on and talk about stuff, which I think we're going to do. And I know I already have one lined up. I just got to finalize a date. But I think that could be a good thing for us to do. And number five, Myke, for a good laugh, do a review of the handmade bamboo dip pen I'm sending you. There is one for Myke and Ed too. Thanks for making great content, Corey.

Myke Hurley: Wow.

Brad Dowdy: So right before this podcast, I hopped on the Instagrams and took a picture of what he sent us. Let me get the link for you here. These are literal bamboo pens cut from stalks of bamboo. Hopefully he got them legally in his yard. Oh, wow. Look at these. Yeah. So you got that?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I got it.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, he cut those out and sent those along with the letter. How insane is that? How does that even work? It's just like a dip pen. You know, you just make do. Wow.

Myke Hurley: All right. Yeah, I want to try this thing.

Brad Dowdy: So I have one for you, one for me, and one for Ed. So I thought that was super cool.

Brad Dowdy: Real life follow-up, not just email, digital, Twitter follow-up. And he sent us some bamboo pens to play with. But great ideas. Great letter, Corey. Totally, 100% agree with you about the people. That's absolutely why I do this. The people in the community are outstanding. It's wonderful. So I thought that was a great letter and I wanted to share.

Myke Hurley: I have frequently thought about what it would take for me and you to do shows in different places.

Myke Hurley: Japan would be really good for me and you to go and record a show. But I'm just going to hazard a guess that we wouldn't be able to amass a live show audience in Japan very easily. I don't know how many people from Japan listen to the show. Yeah. But I don't think it's as many people as there are in some states of America, for example. But, you know, I think that that would be a lot of fun. And when I think about what we've been able to achieve over the last couple of years, I don't see any reason why one day we couldn't just do it. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's on the dream list, right? Yep. Yeah. We have the reality, let's do this list. And then there's always the list you can dream on. And hopefully you can scratch a couple of those things off in the future.

Myke Hurley: So I'm actually able to get rough calculations of how many people in Japan listen to the show. Mm-hmm. And I think it's 50.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So we get little to, what's funny is we get little to no feedback from Japan and same with the Pen Attic blog.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Lots of, lots of other Asian countries, but not Japan, which is, I don't, it's not, I don't find out what I was going to say. It's funny or odd, but it's really not. It's just not.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We have no traction in Japan.

Myke Hurley: I think it's a different community of pen stuff, right? Like, which is why it would be so interesting for us to go to Japan because we would find things that we don't have.

Brad Dowdy: Oh my gosh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: You know, maybe if we spoke about washi tape more, then we might get more Japanese listeners.

Brad Dowdy: That's true.

Myke Hurley: Now, I want to provide some follow-up, which I said I was going to do, about when Anderson Pen's podcast number one was. Mm-hmm. Their episode number one was on May 26th, 2012. Mm-hmm. The Pen Addict episode one was February 9th, 2012. Ah, so right around the same time. I mean, I was convinced that we were first because I remember it starting, and I've worked out how they caught up to us. They didn't take a break like we did. That's how they caught up. Because that's, that's what's like, it just surprised me that they got to 200 and we've only just crossed it. And that explains it because they kept going and we didn't.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, and on the Japan thing, Tony pretty much nailed it, and I didn't think of it this way. In Japan, they have all the stuff. They don't need a blog or a podcast to tell them about stuff. That's perfect, isn't it?

Myke Hurley: It's just the pens in the store.

Brad Dowdy: They don't need you. They just go to the store. It's like, hey, it's Monday. You know? They just have the stuff.

Myke Hurley: That is an excellent, excellent point.

Harry's Advertisement

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, all right. Speaking of excellence, let's hear about our good friends at Harry's.

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Brad Dowdy: And you might go to jail.

Myke Hurley: Exactly.

Myke Hurley: Harry's blades are German engineered five blade cartridges. They give you a close, comfortable shave without cuts or razor burn. They have a great starter set. It's called the Truman. And just for $15, you'll get a razor, moisturizing shave cream, and three razor blades. Join the over 1 million people that have switched to Harry's. Go to harrys.com right now. And you'll get $5 off if you use my code, which is penaddict. P-E-N-A-D-D-I-C-T with your first purchase. It's H-A-R-R-Y-S.com. Coupon code penaddict. It will get you $5 off your first purchase. You'll be able to look good, smell good, and feel good doing it with Harry's. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show. I'm Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: One of these days, I'm just going to go full hype man on one of your ad reads. And just like repeat and yell everything.

Myke Hurley: I say bring it. I just want to see what happens to both of us if you do this.

Brad Dowdy: We wouldn't get through because we'd be crying from laughing so hard.

Myke Hurley: I don't think it's a bad idea. Maybe we'll surprise Ron next week.

Myke Hurley: Pelican. Legit.

Myke Hurley: Nagaya. No, he doesn't say that. Anyway, ask TPA time.

Myke Hurley: You've been collecting some questions for us.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we got a bunch. And I've already saved some off for next week too. But I want to get through quite a bit of these today because we had some good stuff. And I love this first one. This one came in via email from Dave. And I think this is something we all think about. And I've thought about it before. He says, when am I a jerk for using my own pen? Signing my daughter in for camp today. The staff handed me the paperwork on a clipboard and a generic ballpoint pen that had some random dentist name printed on the side. I then reached into my pocket, pulled out my vanishing point, and immediately felt like a pompous tool for using it instead of the ballpoint they handed me. So, there's very few cases where you're a jerk for using your own pen. This is not one of them. You're totally in the right for using your own pen on this. There's some awkwardness around it. But you're embracing your inner pen addict when you do this. And you're showing the world, you know, even though they don't get it at the time because they're using random dentist promo pen. That, hey, there's some really good writing instruments out there. And yours is crap. And let me show you what I'm going to use. So, don't feel like a jerk for using your own pen. And I'm trying to think, can you think of a situation where you would be a jerk in using it?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I think you just, as you say, you kind of got to embrace it, like, and be happy with the fact that you're going to be the one that gets to use the good pen. Because people are always going to think that you're weird when you do it. But I think the times when it's hardest, it's not necessarily, I can't think of anywhere, like, specifically location-wise, that it would be awkward. What is awkward or weird is when somebody holds a pen out for you and then you just reach into your pocket. But, like, whatever, man. Just embrace it.

Brad Dowdy: Just embrace it. And don't be showy. You know, just go for your own pen. Say, I got this. And, you know, write it down and move on. And they'll go, wow, that guy is weird. But that's okay. We're weird. You listen to a podcast about pens and you just send an email to be answered on the show. So, you're already weird. You're not going to be more weird by doing this.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you've already reached maximum peak weirdness. So, at this point, you're a lost cause, I'm sorry to say. Pan addict podcast.

Brad Dowdy: So, just own it. Yep. Yeah, I do that. I do that not all the time, but, you know, most of the time.

Myke Hurley: I've got to say, you know, we have, like, the little subheading on the artwork. And it says, R1 says, there are worse addictions, right? I think it would be. I think one day I might have to change it to, it's already too late for you or something like that. You've already, you're at the end now. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Once you've downloaded this, you're, it's over.

Journal Disposal

Myke Hurley: There's no weirder for you, my friend. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, this next one is from World Traveling Robo Jim in the Slack channel. It says, what do you do with a journal or notebook that's been slightly damaged some way specifically, like water? Do you throw it away, keep using it, repurpose it for scratch? So, what do you say, Michael?

Myke Hurley: If there's nothing, like, super important in it, which I would need to then move out of the book, I'm going to throw it away. Like, I'm going to toss it.

Brad Dowdy: I'm pretty mental about this, and I would absolutely toss it. I couldn't use it. I just. No, I wouldn't use it. I definitely wouldn't use it.

Myke Hurley: No way. Like, I might, there might be some information that means I'll keep it around for a little bit longer, but it would have to be like, I don't know, like a butcher orange or something for me to actually keep using the thing.

Brad Dowdy: I would actually transfer, like you said, I'd transfer the contents, either I'd scan them or rewrite them somewhere else, and then I'd pitch it. I just can't, I can't do it. And, you know, us addicts that, you know, listen to this show probably have stacks of other stuff, so I wouldn't be able to kind of go through and complete this book. It would bother me too much every time I used it. So.

Myke Hurley: Because it's going to lose so much of all the good qualities about the notebook at that point. Yeah. Like, most of the things that you love about it are gone. They're gone. They're gone, Jim. Just let it go, man.

Brad Dowdy: Just let it go. So related to that, Phil in the Slack channel said, have you ever hated a notebook so much you couldn't finish it? We're in super, super total agreement on this one.

Ogami Stone Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: The Ogami stone notebook. Yeah. Oh my God. Do you remember that thing? It's creepy. It's literally creepy to use a stone paper notebook. I thought this was a great idea when it happened. And then the more it became a thing and the more I was testing them out and reviewing them, the more it kind of gives me like the shivers when I use it. It's that creepy. I have never come close to. I. Those are ones that I reviewed and they're filed away like in the closet.

Myke Hurley: It gives me shivers to think about that notebook. So. It does. This is in episode 89. I've put it in the show notes. We tried out this notebook and it's made of stone. The paper is made of stone. And for a reason I will never understand. When I used it, it made me feel ill.

Brad Dowdy: It's like a queasy feeling. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I don't know why, but it made me feel unwell.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We just talked about this. Like I mentioned it last week or the week before in like products that we hated and that was mine. It's it's creepy. It's a creepy, creepy product.

Myke Hurley: So I love this. This is from your review. Stone paper has become all the rage across the blogosphere, even spawning a Kickstarter project. It's a great idea in principle. A paper made from a natural byproduct of water and limestone that is tear resistant, waterproof and fully recyclable. It is the ultimate paper, right? Wrong.

Myke Hurley: A wrong is just its own paragraph. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It is so wrong. That's terrible. That's pretty much the full review of any stone notebook paper. It's just wrong. It's it's. I was going to say it's unnatural, but it's actually very natural.

Myke Hurley: They sent them to us, didn't they? Like they found them in a store. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: And I think I'd already had some at the time, too. And I got some more.

Brad Dowdy: They're so cool looking. I just I had to like warn people off of it because it's not good. All right. This is from Flipper says, I'm sure it's been done and it has. But I want to reiterate a couple of things. Worst experience with a relatively expensive pen.

Brad Dowdy: So you go with yours. I actually didn't think about this and mine's a little bit different.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, mine is. I think if you listen to the show recently, you've heard it, which was when I tried the Montblanc M at the Atlanta Pen Show. And it was just so meh, which was so disappointing because it's one of the most beautiful pen designs I've ever seen. But it was just so underwhelming. There wasn't really anything wrong with it, but there was absolutely nothing right with it. So, yeah, I think that that probably that probably cinches it for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I don't think that would go down for me as like a worst ever thing.

Myke Hurley: It was the one that jumped to mind immediately for me, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Once you put it down, I could totally see that. Mine is actually not even a relatively expensive pen. It's a flat out expensive pen. Then the Pelican M1000. Fortunately, thankfully, I didn't have to pay my own money for it because I would have like had to do something to recoup that and like sell it. It's it was a really, really bad experience. And it's all because the nib is so large and so soft. I can't write how I would normally write with that pen. I actually hated that pen. And that's a very expensive pen. And I gave it away like the next week on the blog or maybe even the next day after the review.

Myke Hurley: What about the largeness of the nib makes it a problem? Because aren't you don't you have that exact thing with your king of pen monster?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So it's the softness of the gold and how Pelican manufactures their nibs. So when you have something that size with a material that soft, there's going to be a lot of flex and a lot of movement in it. And the way Pelican that's how Pelican manufactures their nibs. Even on when I bought my 405, the extra fine nib was like that, but it was workable to where I could get it made into something else. This nib was so big and flexy, like I would feel uncomfortable having it modified into something that I wouldn't enjoy writing with it because I don't think it would work because of the softness properties.

Myke Hurley: I just picked up my M200 and it's got like a medium gold nib and it's effectively a broad. It is super, super flexy, which is why I like it. But this is much smaller in profile. So considering I have had a penchant for broad pens in the past, I actually quite like, I know that's pretty cool, right? I actually quite like this pen, but I can imagine if it was two times the size, it might feel like I'm writing with a piece of elastic.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and you were relating it to my king of pens. So the way Sailor manufactures their nibs, they're much firmer just by default. And I don't know if it's the coating or the plating on the nib itself or just the complete finishing. Like there's, when I write with the Pelican, there's almost no tine spread and it's a medium. And the Pelican I had was a medium as well. And the tines just like goes wide apart. Like when you write with it and it's just a gusher and I don't like it. But so that was a really, really bad experience from a very, very expensive pen that I would never recommend to anyone.

Myke Hurley: What sort of money would that set you back? 7, 800. That's very expensive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I think you can get them for like around five if you're like really watching the market because they do come up and down sometimes. You can, there's some deals to be had.

Brad Dowdy: It's just a pen I wouldn't recommend to purchase blindly. It may be perfect. It's perfect for a lot of people, right? It's just one of those that you have to try ahead of time. Just like I would never recommend a vanishing point unless someone tries it first, right? There's just things about certain pens you need to try before you buy. And that's one of them. And it really, really did not work for me. So this next question is interesting. And I actually didn't put an answer down or I still don't have an answer for it because I almost want to dedicate like a whole segment on the podcast for it. So I need to think about it. Michael asks, what are your favorite new releases in the first half of 2016? You came up with a good answer. That's probably going to be your answer for every half of every year from now until the future. Has always been. And has always been. And it's the new Retro 51 designs. I can't argue with that. So what do you like so much? What's been your favorite? If you had to pick one, you've probably, how many of you bought this year? Probably three or four, if not more than that.

Myke Hurley: No, I only have one of them so far. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So what's your favorite this year so far?

Retro 51 Tribute Series

Myke Hurley: My favorite is on the Tribute series. So they have like the two planes and the Apollo. And I have the tiger shark. And I freaking love this pen. One of my favorite details. I mean, you can see the images of it, right? And it's got like the tiger shark. And then it has like a kind of a grill on the side, right? Like a plane grill. But that is in metal. It's not painted on. Interesting. So they've put like these little metal pieces on there to create the grills on either side. And also all of the rivets and the lines in the pen, they're all kind of carved out. So it's textured with the rivets and the plates that you see in the images.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Do you see what I mean?

Myke Hurley: Like if you click into the large images of it on their website. Yeah. You can see that they kind of have lines in between the like panels as it would be if these were made out of steel. But they're all dug in and you can feel them. So the detail on this pen is amazing. And I don't know if I ever mentioned this. So this one was sent to me by Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay.

Myke Hurley: I think you did mention that. Yeah. And do you remember I got number two of the Retro Surf? Oh, yeah. Just by accident. Well, they purposely sent me number two of the Tiger Shook.

Brad Dowdy: That's hilarious. Wow. That's cool. You didn't tell me that part.

Myke Hurley: No, they keep all the number ones for themselves. Nobody gets the number ones. So I now have two pens from Retro 51 that were the first out the door. Man, I hope they keep doing that. I would like to petition to Retro 51 to please continue this grand tradition.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I love their stuff. And whilst they're not for me because I don't like the refill, the slim tornadoes. If you like a ballpoint, then I would go for these because every single one of those is stunning.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I've been recommending a couple of these here recently. Yep. I haven't used one yet, but they're pretty cool. So that Retro 51, the Flying Tiger, that ended up being the hottest one of the release probably of this year. Like as soon as it came out, it sold out with like in a couple of days. Then I had nonstop questions asking where I can get it. Like people missed it and were all over that one, unlike any other one so far this year. So that's a really good call by you.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Because I mean, this was one. I mean, the reason that it exists is because they sold one that was very much like this. Right. As a completely limited one. And then they ended up going with this as a stock item. They're numbered, but they will keep making them. And obviously for a very good reason.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So I've made myself a note to work on this for myself. So in a future podcast, I'll do, you know, maybe whatever four or five products of the first half of 2016. I thought did really well because I like that as a topic.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So this next question also from the Slack from DS Malsy. I forget her name. She wanted to know the tips for using ultrasonic do's and don'ts. I'm just going to go with don't as an overall overarching thing. Top tip is don't do it. But it's not the magic that it's purported to be, at least in my experience.

Myke Hurley: So this is ultrasonic cleaning of fountain pens to get the ink outside, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. If you had a lot of old fountain pens that you had to clean that had been sitting for decades, there's a use for this. It's going to help you get some of that stuff off. If you have generally good fountain pen maintenance and fountain pen hygiene, you're not going to gain a lot from an ultrasonic. At least I haven't. So the nibs that I found to be harder to clean, I'll put them in there harder to get all the ink out. But I can do just as well on my own with aspirators and flushing water through them. It just doesn't.

Brad Dowdy: Fortunately, it wasn't an expensive experiment. It's like $25 for an ultrasonic cleaner. So there's no huge benefit. I do a better job myself, and I'll break it out only on occasion if there's something really stuck. But it's kind of not worth it in my experience unless you're dealing with vintage pens that have had ink in them for years. So that's a don't for me. That was a fail product. But good in theory, bad in reality. Especially if you don't have all those old gunky pens.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So Phil had another question I meant to put with his first one. And this was a good one because I think about this a lot. Do you keep your inks in the box or toss the boxes? So I used to toss the boxes. And then once I got more than like five inks, I realized, hey, if you toss the boxes, these ink bottles don't really stack on each other well, genius.

Myke Hurley: Bingo! That's why I keep them.

Brad Dowdy: So like my Iroshizuku Shinkai bottle, which is getting pretty low, has no box because it was the first one I bought. I was like, I don't need this stupid box. I just need to get access to this ink bottle. Oh, wait a minute. I can't stack another bottle on top of this one without a big pyramid falling down and crashing ink all over the floor. So yeah, inks in the box. It may not be what you want, but it's what you need.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, like I don't keep pen boxes because I have other ways of storing pens. But at least I don't have another way of storing ink. I'm not interested in getting one because I only have so few bottles anyway. So I just keep them all stacked up in the cupboard.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So got to keep the box even if you don't want to.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Jonathan Mooney asked a question. And we have a couple that we have been asked a bunch in here that I still want to hit. And this is one of them. What do you use your pocket notebooks for trying to find ways to burn through my stash? We've done episodes on this exact topic. And the simple answer is you use them for everything. There's nothing you don't use them for. That's how you burn through your stash. Right?

Myke Hurley: So you have to kind of... Okay, this sounds real bad. You have to kind of waste them a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No, that's not bad. That's accurate.

Myke Hurley: It sounds bad, right? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: You have to kind of just... You know, if you... Like I had a call today with a real estate agent. Naturally. This is my life now. In the latter half of 2016. And he just gave me a telephone number and a name and a time. And I wrote them down on a piece of paper. Like in one of my field notes. I wrote them down on a page. And it's like fills up a third of the page. But I'm not going to use that page anymore. Like that's gone now. Yep. Just use them for stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like this... Like don't be too precious. Just use them. It's... This isn't even a thing. You just use them. You're overthinking it. Which we're all prone to doing. I don't want to use this because... Or I don't have a great idea to fill this whole thing up. Doesn't matter. Use it. It doesn't matter. If you end up with four of them half filled. You end up with four of them half filled. Then maybe you'll find something for the back half of those notebooks. You just gotta... You just gotta do it.

Brad Dowdy: Alright. And Jonathan also asked, What's your favorite XF nib grind? One of the best...

Franklin Kristoff

Brad Dowdy: I've... I always enjoy when I break it out is my Franklin Kristoff needlepoint. It's a steel nib that Myke Masayama did for the stock Franklin Kristoff pins. It's an upgrade to their regular nib. I love that stinking nib. Um... It's... A little bit finer than an extra fine. Obviously the needlepoint. It's... But it's not so crazy that it's unusable. Like a Pilot Hi-Tech C .25. It's not like that. So... I like the needlepoint. Steel needlepoint. That Franklin Kristoff sells. That's an awesome one. And plus it's... It's easy to acquire for everybody. Alright. So you talked about your... Your M90 earlier. So I'm gonna do something and get... Get someone in trouble here. Let's see if I got the link. Yeah. Cause this is still going. Alright. So we got sent a link. And it is for... The... The... I guess this is... This is one of the early Pilot Vanishing Points. This is like the most famous... Like... This is the gotta catch them all. Number one. Pilot Vanishing Point. It's the Black Stripe. Um... It looks brand new. I got sent an eBay auction. We want to know how much it will go for. I had the opportunity to buy one in Chicago for $650. That was probably... Close to this good of shape. And I couldn't pull the trigger on that. That was too much. Um... This one's at $427 right now. It's got 15 hours to go. So it's probably gonna go higher for that from the people watching it. There's already been 8 bits on it. So you know people are watching it and buying it. I don't know how much it's gonna go for. It'll probably stay under $600. But it's... It's an amazing pen. I hope to own one of these one day. I don't know... If I'll be able to pull the trigger on it. Because...

Brad Dowdy: I'll have to use it. I don't... The reason why I didn't buy the... Buy... Spend $650 on that one. Is because I wasn't convinced I was gonna use it. And I don't buy pens that I'm not gonna use. Right? So... This is one of those... This is like the grail pen of all grail pens for me. But I am... It's like an undecided thing too. It's like... It's like... I don't buy pens that I'm not gonna use. So would I be comfortable carrying this out of the house? Carrying it to the shop? Whatever. So... Once I get to that point like I did with my Nikai. That's why it took me two years to buy it. Once you get past that mental hurdle... Maybe I'll end up owning one of these. But... Right now... I'd say that's a pretty good price. $427. I won't say it's a steal. But that's a really good price. If this is... Looks as good... In real life as it does in the pictures. Because it looks brand new. $650.

Myke Hurley: So you said no to $600. $650. $650. What would you pay?

Myke Hurley: $500 seems like a good number. So you're gonna put a bid on... On this eBay auction?

Brad Dowdy: Probably.

Myke Hurley: Oh! I wasn't expecting that answer. I'm going for $550. I'm blowing you out of the water. That's fine. I couldn't... I don't... I don't... I have none.

Brad Dowdy: I may or may not be the current high bidder.

Myke Hurley: Oh!

Myke Hurley: Okay. Now see... See everyone? This is... This is like my next... My next foray here... Is into investigative journalism. Because... Uh-huh. Now I have exposed... I've exposed Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But, you know, it's... I'm not going any higher. Right? You're not gonna go any higher? At all? No. Because... It's still eBay. You know? I still don't have this in my hands like I did at a pin show.

Myke Hurley: So $427 is your maximum bid?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: That's a weird maximum bid. I can't remember what I put in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Oh, because they do this... I don't use eBay much now. And they do this thing is... They do this thing where you can just click a button. And it's like, we recommend this. And it already has like the number filled out. So I just clicked it. Yeah. I know I'm doing this. I know I'm doing this wrong, Cindy. Because I'm convinced that it's gonna go for much higher. So I'm not gonna... I'm not planning on winning it. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This is potentially the worst eBay strategy of all time is what you're employing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'll take it for this. But it's not gonna go for this. So I'm not worried about it. I don't need to... I told everyone I'm not spending money before the DC pin show. And like, I've put money in there now. So it'll be gone like in the next... You know, before tonight, someone will have outbetted for sure. So maybe it's just my way of exposing myself just to not purchase it. So... It looks pretty sweet, though. It's pretty sweet. So one of my good friends bought one recently for $4.50. So that would be a nice... That's a good price. Good price. All right. So let's talk about this DC pin show, which we'll dedicate most of next week to talking about it. But this question from Ann Splat on the Twitter bot says, Any recommendations about what to do at the DC pin show when you can only attend one day? This is my first pin show. So you want to go first?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's difficult. If it's one day and it's your first... My feeling would be... You want to make sure that you are going to get everything that you might want to get. So what I mean is, you may have a list of stuff that you're interested in. But my experience of pen shows is you will find something you didn't know you wanted, right? Something you've never seen before. Something that really catches your eye. It fits your style. That kind of thing.

Brad Dowdy: That almost always happens.

Myke Hurley: So you only have one day. Usually people have multiple days, right? So they see something and then they might get it another day. What you don't want to do is walk away from the pen show and regret not buying something the next day. So I don't know if I'm giving good advice here. I think it's a mix between good advice and bad advice. But my feeling would be make sure that you go and look at everything and then buy everything you might want. Within the budget that you've set, of course. But if you think you might want something and it's within the budget that you've set for yourself, I recommend buying it to avoid disappointment. And I've just become the best friend of all pen vendors at the DC Pen Show. I know, right? But you know what I mean? Like, I know it's kind of a ridiculous thing to say. And obviously, money is not unlimited. But, you know, that's why I say, like, if you have a budget for yourself, just go and enjoy yourself and buy a bunch of stuff. Because it's very unlikely that you're going to regret it. And it's also very likely that if you buy something and you don't like it and you've treated it well, you can probably sell it on and not lose much money.

Brad Dowdy: So I want to add one DC specific thing. If you can, go Friday instead of Saturday. You're going to pay four times as much to go Friday. You're going to deal with four times less the crowd. It's worth the $45 or whatever for the weekend pass to not have to wait in a line around the block on Saturday and not have to deal with the crowds. If you can do that and you can only attend one day, paying the extra money just for Friday is worth it. So, there you go.

Pen Hobby

Brad Dowdy: So what do you find fascinating about our relatively strange hobby, Myke? Why pens? This is from Frosty on Twitter.

Myke Hurley: So, like, why do we like this stuff? Why do people like this stuff? Yeah. I think that there are multiple reasons. And I think it's different for everyone. I also think it's probably quite hard to pin down which one of these is your thing. Because I think we, you know, like, as in talking to everyone out there. Because I think that we all like elements of this. Collecting, using, and hoarding. I think they are, that is the trifecta of being a pen addict. You have to have all of these traits when it comes to pens. And if you have all of them, then you're deep into this thing. But I think that everybody has a dominant trait. So, the collecting, using, and hoarding. I'm a collector, I think, mostly. I like to just own things that I like. Like, I like to own notebooks that I like. I like to own pens that I like. But I don't necessarily use them all. So, I think I'm more of a collector than a user. And especially with something like Field Notes. Where I have, I have, I already own. I'm very confident in saying this. More Field Notes notebooks than I will use in my lifetime. I already own them. But I'm going to keep buying them. But the thing is, and I think a lot of people that listen to the show will feel this way. Like, I work hard for my money. So, I spend it on things that I like. And one of the things that I like is pens and paper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, mine isn't that direct. But it kind of ties into that. But the word I would use is escape. Like, it's totally an escape for me. It has been since I was a kid. Right? You find that pen and pencil. You dive into a notebook. And you're in your head. Like, you're escaping from other things. I think that's why so many pen people are introverts as well. Right? It's like you can do your own thing with things that make you happy and put a smile on your face. And it is a strange hobby when, you know, look at it from external things. But it's such a normal thing to do that we don't get the chance to do as much these days as we did when we were kids. And, you know, I miss that. And I think a lot of us miss that. And, you know, getting a 50-cent pencil made in India gives me enjoyment. Right? I mean, I like, I just totally love doing that. And it gives me a little bit of an escape, you know, using that pen just to write out a few things. Even to write, like, the show notes for this. You know, I can escape reality for a minute and put my pencil to paper and just write an escape. And even, like you were talking about the collecting and using and hoarding part of it, that gives me an escape too. Because I'll sit around my desk and I'll have a pen sitting there that's not inked. But I'll still pick it up and just enjoy the heck out of it. Just, you know, it gives me good thoughts. Right? Because, you know, maybe it has a story behind it. Or, you know, maybe it's got something special tied into it. Or I got it somewhere cool. Or got a good deal on it. Whatever. It just gives you that escape from all these other things that are pulling at you all day long. And I think that's just what analog tools are best at. It's giving you a little bit of escape. Giving you that enjoyment. And to use these things, it's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah. I would say on my Myke Hurley trifecta of pen addictism, that falls into the majority using cons. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: That's agreed. Last question, Michael. And I'm sorry if I didn't get to all the Ask TPA today. But we will have plenty of room next week as I'm heading to D.C. And we'll talk about it. But this is a super, super important question with your recent engagement in our discussion on the pens and ink used in the U.K. When signing these official marriage certificates. Are you going to get a special pen to sign your marriage certificate with?

Myke Hurley: So, I will look into the ability of this in the lead up to it. So, looking into one, can I use a registrar that will let me use my own pen? And then two, trying to confirm the ink that I will need. If those things work and they will let me use my own, which I'm sure is not a completely weird request. I'm sure that people must ask to do this every now and then. Right. If that is all possible, then I will be definitely doing that. Nice. 100%, 100%. If I can get it, then I will do it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, this will be a long-term follow-up for the show. We will revisit this as the days and dates get closer on how this is progressing. So, this will be a recurring theme. And do you want to go ahead and state up front that the pen is definitely going to be the visionary or no?

Myke Hurley: Birth certificates, not marriage certificates.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, man. We have to wait. You're chickening out.

Myke Hurley: Honestly, I don't know what I would use. It will be something that I will want to buy and use for that one thing only.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. And it has to be in conjunction with Adina, too. She's got to have some say in this. So, it will not be the visionary. As awesome as that would be. Maybe there's some secondary document that you can sign with the visionary just to say you did it. That would be amazing.

Myke Hurley: Chuck's asking how long we have to wait for this follow-up.

Myke Hurley: We have no idea of a date, but we're targeting mentally early 2018. Cool. We've got a house to buy and move into first. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You kind of got a lot going on right now. So, that will pass quicker than you can even imagine.

Myke Hurley: Yep. I've already got notes set up in my Apple Notes. One that is called House Stuff and one that is called Wedding Stuff. Yeah. And they have both been added within the last 48 hours, which is kind of a horrific thing to think about.

Brad Dowdy: So, just make sure pen and ink goes into the wedding stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It will be. Yep. All right. Well, let's wrap it up on that. I've got things to pack for this week. I've got things to pack for next week. So, we've got some busyness going on around here.

DC Pen Show

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, just a little programming note, if it's important for you to know. So, next week, we're going to be recording talking about the DC Pen Show. Then we're going to actually be pre-recording an episode in advance, which we do every now and then. Because I'm going to be away the week afterwards. So, what will be really great for that second episode is a bunch of Ask TPA stuff. Because we don't know what's going to be happening in that week. There could be some amazing news that we won't get to cover. So, if you have any questions for us, like you've heard on this episode, like you've heard on many more, we love getting to them. You can tweet with the hashtag Ask TPA. So, A-S-K-T-P-A. You'll get them. You can email. Where can they email, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Email. What are we even using? ThePenAddict at gmail.com?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that was basically how is email going to you is the question. Yeah, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: There's a form. You have it set up on the relay site to go to wherever it goes. So, we never usually give it out. I think you usually say hit the contact over there and it comes to me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it goes to hello at PenAddict.com.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, so there's that. That's an email address you didn't know you had. So, that's the newer one. Okay, so that's good.

Myke Hurley: So, that's where the email goes or you can hit us up in the Slack.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and one thing I wanted to make a note of since I got a letter this week, I do publish a snail mail address for you to send correspondence to. It's on the contact page of the PenAddict website, PenAddict.com slash contact. You can see the snail mail address for me and this show. If you want to send out some letters, postcards, bamboo pins.

Myke Hurley: So, that's where you can send in all of your Ask TPA questions if you want, no matter what form it is that you wish to send them in.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, and we did have a few extras I didn't get to this week that I'm saving for next week and the following week. Just because, yeah, that double episode, we need all the content we can get with.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. If you want to find our show notes, head on over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 215. If you'd like to find Brad online, he is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, on Twitter, and he is penaddict on Instagram. You can find him over at thepenaddict.com and knock.co as well. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thanks to Harry's for sponsoring this week's show, and we'll be back next time. Until then, Mr. Brad Dowdy, say goodbye, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Mr. Brad Dowdy.