The Pen Addict 225/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	225
Title:	Field Notes Kremlinology
Release Date:	October 5th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 225
Audio File:	Audio Episode 225
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 225
Length:	6363 min <br />1.05 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 225. Today's show is brought to you ever so kindly by Squarespace and Casper. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined as always by the one and only, the master, the man with the plan, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I'm not going to lie, Myke, I did have a pretty good plan for this show. You know, were you surprised to see the notes in the document early, like an entire day early? I didn't look, but I'm surprised to know that that was the case. I looked this morning. Yeah, when you logged in, there was actually stuff in it. So you expanded on the stuff, and we're ready to roll, and yeah, this should be a good show. I'm pretty excited for it, because we have a lot to talk about, actually.

Myke Hurley: This is like a classic. This is a classic. You know, like looking at the stuff that we have to talk about, pen shows and field notes, and a bunch of follow-up, like that is, you know, it's as pen addict as a pen addict show can be.

Brad Dowdy: That's how we roll.

London Pen Show

Myke Hurley: All right, so I went to the London Pen Show. I mentioned on last week's episode that I was going to go, and I did, or as it should be more accurately named, the London Writing Equipment Show.

Brad Dowdy: Should we change the name of our podcast to The Writing Equipment Show?

Myke Hurley: The Writing Equipment Addict.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's what we're going to go with. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So how was The Writing Equipment Show? You went on Sunday? You went on Sunday. It was one day. Okay, okay.

Myke Hurley: So it's Sunday. Okay. I was, as I mentioned on the show last week, not expecting a lot, and I think this was based on my previous experience of going a couple of years ago. But I think a couple of things are different. One of the things is that I hadn't been to a pen show, I don't think, at that point, so I didn't really know what to expect at all. And also just my general knowledge of all of this stuff was lower at that point. One of the things I found interesting walking around the show is I could teach Adina what everything was. Yeah. Oh, this is a Parker 51, and this is a, you know, there's going to be 100,000 million of them in this room, you know? They're going to be on every single table everywhere. And, you know, here is a Visconti Wall Street, and I just knew a little, like, a lot more than I did when I went last time.

Myke Hurley: The actual kind of setup of the show was very similar to what I expected. Lots of vintage stuff, lots of individuals selling stuff in, you know, leather cases, basically, that had been opened up. There were a couple of companies. The Bureau Direct was there. Okay, cool. And, you know, there are a couple of other companies that were kind of online sellers that a couple that I hadn't heard of before, but could see that they were, you know, they're pretty legit. And then there were a couple of people selling stuff that they made themselves. But one of the big things that jumped out to me compared to Atlanta and some of the other shows that I know is there was basically, like, one table that had any acrylic pens.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Like, someone making pens from acrylic blanks, essentially. Either in small scale or large scale. Like, Edison would be a large scale and, you know, some smaller scale individual pen makers, say, Sean Newton, you know, things like Brooks, things like that.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. So, that was one of the big things to me. It was like, oh, this is still very much rooted in the old school of this type of stuff. Like, there weren't any, you know, there was, like, a couple of, like, independent people there that were making and selling their own stuff. Not even just, like, the acrylics. Like, you know, companies that make the stuff out of aluminum and they sell them, right? There was like, it was like that. It had a very, very different feel. So, and maybe I'm spoiled a little bit because the Atlanta show I know has changed a lot from being that to what it is now. Right. With a little bit more young activity in, like, young companies and stuff like that. But, yeah, it would be interesting to me to see what a London pen show could be. Conant were there, which was surprising. Oh, nice. I took a look at some of their stuff. Their stuff is nice. Very crazy things. It was difficult to, even, I got there, like, two hours before it closed, but it was difficult to get to look at the Conant stuff. There were people, like, around that table constantly.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Did they bring that orange one that they've been teasing that they made?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: I think.

Myke Hurley: Everything was black. They didn't actually have a lot of stuff. I don't know if it was actual Conant or it was, like, a company that had been given the ability to dress their table as if they were such.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I mean, they're in Belgium, so.

Myke Hurley: It wouldn't be surprising if it was them, but, you know, it was just, it wasn't really clear and they didn't have a lot of product, which I found peculiar. But, again, that might have all been sold.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. And they generally, you know, when you purchase a pen from them, it's usually not straight from inventory. There's a wait, right? Oh, right, yeah. So, I think they just have a constant, I don't think they have necessarily a huge stock waiting there. So, I'm sure they have plenty, but, you know, it's not like, you know, just.

Myke Hurley: It would be strange, though, to come to a pen show and not have stuff to sell. Like, even if that is your bag, it's like making. I don't know. I feel like it would be nice to give stuff for people to walk away with.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it's a marketing expense, too, right? I mean, Conant was there, so now we get to talk about Conant, right? Because they make cool stuff. And, oh, I saw this cool thing from Conant. And, you know, maybe it's not, you know, a profitable venture from physical sales, but, you know, I'm sure they enjoyed being there and exposure and all that stuff.

Myke Hurley: All right, but do you want to know the real reason that I enjoy myself? Yeah. I didn't even make it through the door before two people came up to talk to me.

Brad Dowdy: It was the shirt, I'm telling you. It wasn't you.

Myke Hurley: So, I was, everybody was saying they heard me by voice and they would, like, just turn around and be like, hey, I was wearing my Knock Co t-shirt. Yeah. Because I figured it would just indicate to people without, like, overselling it. Like, if I would have worn one of my Pen Addict t-shirts, I feel like I would have, it would have been too much. You know, it's like a billboard.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, a little hey, look at me. Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But I thought I'll wear my Knock t-shirt because if somebody hears me, what I wanted to do is if, this is my thinking, on the random chance that there is a Pen Addict listener at the London Pen Show at two o'clock in the afternoon when it closes at four. Right? This is my thinking. I will wear my Knock shirt so that if they hear me and they think it's me but they're embarrassed to come up to me because they might get it wrong, they'll see the Knock shirt and they'll instantly know. So, I hadn't even made it through the door. So, it's like a little hallway which has a couple of vendors and then the door to the big room. Before I met Jenny from Final Point, which was awesome. I'm so happy that I met Jenny. She's cool. And we were chatting for a bit. And then a listener by the name of Jane. I believe her name was Jane. And her daughter was there too, which was awesome because her daughter basically knew as much as I did about pens. It was incredible. She must have been maybe like 11 or 12, this girl, maybe a little bit younger than that. And she was like, she super knew what she liked. Like, she didn't like any of the training found in pens. She liked like real stuff. She was like reeling off all her favorite inks. It was amazing.

Brad Dowdy: That is cool.

Myke Hurley: Then a listener by the name of Jonathan, who's studying in England now. I think he said he was from Hong Kong. And he's studying in England. And he came up to say hi. And there's a picture of us that I'll put in the show notes, which he took of me, him, and Adina, which was awesome. And he showed me, he owned and showed me, he has the Star Wars Darth Vader fountain pen, the cross one.

Brad Dowdy: Ooh, like the big daddy one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I took a look at it. And it's really good looking. But we were laughing about it a lot. Because he was like, I'm even kind of embarrassed to show you.

Brad Dowdy: No, I think they're cool.

Myke Hurley: No, but because we were bagging on it. Not really. Real bad. We were. That's the prices of them.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the prices, yeah, a little egregious. But I mean, I still think they're pretty cool. I don't want.

Myke Hurley: This was what we were talking about. And he remembered it. Like, you know, we were. We thought they looked really good because it had like the little red jewel in it and stuff. But they were super expensive, like way more expensive than they should be for what they are. But it was really cool to see it and to kind of to handle it. And he had a great collection. He had all his stuff in a knot case. I'll let you know. Oh, nice. It was in a brass town.

Brad Dowdy: Thanks, Jonathan.

Myke Hurley: So he rolled out his brass town. And then I got the name right. Yeah. The brass town. The rolling one. Yeah. See, that's embedded in me from Atlanta now.

Brad Dowdy: You've been trained.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, he had a real cool collection with him there, which was nice to see. Then I bumped into a couple of listeners by the name of Daniel and Knack. And we were chatting for a bit. And they were showing off the stuff that they bought from the show as well. I was on a bit of a high there, I've got to say.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, like you didn't even need to do any shopping. You just had your ego stroked for a while.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. That's pretty good. And I wasn't planning on buying any pens, right? And then I saw this new Visconti.

Visconti Pens

Myke Hurley: Now, I cannot remember the name of this pen. So I'm going to their website. It was a cross between the Wall Street and another pen that they do.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: I'm trying to find it now. And it was really, really peculiar. But in a very, very beautiful way. Right. Now, their website, oh my God, it's the worst thing in the world. How do you find... Where can I get a list of their pens?

Brad Dowdy: Chatterly Luxuries.

Brad Dowdy: Just go there. They're all listed.

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, okay. So I've found it, but I can't click on it.

Brad Dowdy: What's it called?

Myke Hurley: No, but it's just a picture of it.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, that's worthless.

Myke Hurley: You're killing me. You're killing me, Visconti. So what's the best place to go to?

Brad Dowdy: Chatterly Luxuries.

Myke Hurley: All right. Come on, Chatterly. You can save me right now. This is...

Brad Dowdy: Was it a demonstrator? Did it... Was it see-through at all? Nope. Okay, so it was solid. Yeah, it was solid. But it had the Wall Street stripes?

Myke Hurley: Yep, but they were twisted around the barrel.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay, sure. And then... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes. And I'd never seen it before.

Myke Hurley: And I was just completely taken by it.

Brad Dowdy: So they do that style with the swirl pattern from top to bottom in a few different lines. And I think the Wall Street is one of the newer ones. Oh, man. They did a blue one last year, I believe.

Myke Hurley: Even the Chatterly Luxuries page is not helping me. Oh, the Divina. Yeah, there you go. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. They had the one in blue. Yeah. And I was very, very close to buying it.

Brad Dowdy: Mm. But... But Idina was there. Say again? But Idina was there, so...

Myke Hurley: No, she was... I think she was fine with it. She didn't... She didn't... Well, I guess she knows. I wanted it. She didn't... She wasn't like, oh, okay, you know... I'm not going to get that. She was just kind of like, all right.

Brad Dowdy: Well, she knew she would get something equally as nice if you did that.

Myke Hurley: There was... I put that on the table. I was like, if you want a pen today, we can buy you a pen today. We were looking for some ink for her, and we couldn't find anything that we were looking for, so we bought some online. She wanted a purple ink, and we couldn't find a purple ink that we liked. But we're looking around, and we're probably going to get her something. So I saw that, and I was like, right, this is like the first pen I've seen today. I'm going to put this in my back pocket for now. The guy offered me it for like 300 pounds. I was like, that's pretty expensive still. So I decided I would kind of like, I would hold it out. Like, just go take a look around. Like, he had like three of them in different colors. I was pretty confident that if I wanted one, I would be able to get one. Right? Like, I could just come back later on and get it.

Brad Dowdy: It seemed like a good price, too.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah, I think it was a good price. So I was thinking about it, because it was cheaper than the actual price, you know, if you know what I mean. Sure. I'll give it to you for whatever, because I think he could tell I liked it. And it was getting late in the day, right, at this point. Ah, true. So I think he was willing to do a deal with me. And I was thinking, okay, I'm going to leave it a little bit later and see if I can get him down a bit on the price. That was my thinking. Right? Because he's clearly looking to get some stock. But then I started looking around and I saw the Twist pens table. Now, I know of Twist, John Twist, like I know what he does and he makes the kind of pens that I like, but I'd never really looked at them before. And he had a table that I just absolutely fell in love with. His stuff was incredible. And there were about four pens on his table that I wanted to buy. Like, no joke. Like, I was like, I need to buy all of these. And I did buy one of them. And some people may know this already, because I have published a YouTube video as part of my new YouTube vlog, which I'm working on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we're going to talk about that.

Myke Hurley: So you can go and I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the episode that has my experience at the pen show in it. But I bought a pen from John Twist, who is a great guy. We had a nice little chat for a bit. And I don't know the name of this pen.

Mother of Pearl Pen

Myke Hurley: Again. So I will now be probably referring to this as the Mother of Pearl, I think is what I'm going to give the name of this pen.

Brad Dowdy: Well, the last acrylic turn pen you bought, you got the name.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. So I think that I should always be able to do that.

Brad Dowdy: We'll email John and see what he says. But just to paint the picture, you're saying there's one person in the room that's making hand-turn acrylic pens. It's John Twist.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think there was one other guy who John buys the stuff from, but his stuff wasn't as nice, really.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think. Good. Yeah. Yeah, the Twist pens look great. I've seen Ian from Pen Papers Pencils review his. He may have more than one, actually. And they always look really, really nice.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I am absolutely in love with my Mother of Pearl, as I will call it. I'm going to try and take a good picture of it that I'll put on Instagram, and I'll put it in the show notes. But yeah, I think I really loved it. And I had a good time at the pen show. I had a better time than I thought I was going to have. I think that the show is an interesting thing to go to. I think that there's a lot about it that could be a lot better. But it was fun. I had a good time. But I think my time was kind of made better because of everything surrounding it, right? Like meeting people and stuff like that.

Brad Dowdy: So that's what we say all the time, right? That's the best part of the pen show is the people. And even if you didn't necessarily meet people who knew you from the podcast or anything like that, even just the people you get to talk to at the tables, like you got to meet Sarge, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I did. That's what I was going to mention. So Sarge was there and he had Nakaya's. Oh, yeah. He has everything. But I couldn't believe that I found Nakaya's in London.

Brad Dowdy: They don't call him the one-man pen show for without good reason.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And we were talking and he's a real nice guy and we had a good chat. So that was real nice to meet him, actually. And I said, I'll see him at DC. Nice. Yeah, he's a nice guy. We're having a chat for a bit. I did what you told me to do, to go up and tell him I said hi. That you said hi. And then he knew who I was then. Cool. Which was awesome. Good. Good. So I've put a picture in the chat room and in the show notes of the Mother of Pearl to kind of show off a little bit more of the effect of it than you can see on the YouTube video.

Myke Hurley: Thing is no joke, man. It's beautiful, right?

Brad Dowdy: Well, good for you. I'm glad you bought something. That's pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: And I did something I've never done before.

Brad Dowdy: Uh-oh. What's that?

Myke Hurley: I've purchased some pairing ink. Ah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You're turning into a full-fledged pen addict after 225 episodes.

Myke Hurley: What is this? That's not fair. So I couldn't find any ink at the show that I wanted.

Myke Hurley: So I have some green Hiroshisuku ink in it right now. But can you guess what ink I have bought to put in this pen? Can you guess? I think you could. What do you think of what I bought to put?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know that I could. I mean, I've seen the pen.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, and it's got a little bit of the orange stuff in it. And I know you would have just considered putting Fuyugaki in it.

Myke Hurley: The colors on this thing are predominantly pinks.

Brad Dowdy: I honestly, I don't have a guess.

Califolio Andrenopole Ink

Myke Hurley: I went to Van Ness and bought the Califolio Andrenopole. Ah, nice. Because I fell in love with that color. It's a great color. When I saw you get it. And I decided that I needed it. And so here we go. I've got it.

Brad Dowdy: So looking at our Google Doc, it's like the pink of your cursor. Because we're both in it. So we each have a little color shared to it. It's that good looking. So yeah, okay. That's going to be nice then. That's going to be perfect. Such a good color.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm very excited for it.

Myke Hurley: Very excited. So that's on its way. That's on its way. And I also bought, I'm in the deep end now. When we were there, there was, KWZ were at the Bureau Direct table.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: And they had the KWZ Standard Raspberry. Mm-hmm. I bought that too.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, cool. Those are good inks. I like the colors on there. And that's a good color.

Myke Hurley: I'm going all pink, baby.

Brad Dowdy: I'm telling you. It's a real thing. It's good stuff.

Myke Hurley: So I really like this pen. It's got a 1.1 stub in it. Yeah. I'm going to be very pink.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you did good. It sounds like a good fit for you. I like it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and the pen itself is like 175 pounds, which is amazing.

Brad Dowdy: I've always seen John's work. And when I look at the prices, I always comment into myself like, wow, that's a really fair price for what he does. So absolutely agree.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, he does great work. He's a great guy. I bought the last bottle of Andronople from Venice. So ha ha. Ha ha.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they always sell that at shows now. And they just finished the Dallas show. So they probably sold some there. And they're getting ready for the Colorado show, which we'll talk about in just a second.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, I'm deep within it all now. Good.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you're deep within something else that we're going to need to spend some time on. But I think you might need to sleep on a little something first. That's a really good idea. Look at you.

Myke Hurley: See, I'm now a real pen addict. You're now a real podcaster.

Brad Dowdy: It's setting up those segues. Please. This is not working out well for me.

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Brad Dowdy: It's fantastic. It's cool. It's cool to sleep on. We actually put it in our guest bedroom, because that's the size of the mattress I have. But I have spent some nights in there just to test it out, and I kind of miss not sleeping on it. It's like I want to sneak off.

Myke Hurley: You just need to get in trouble more, Brad, so you just sent to the guest room.

Brad Dowdy: I know, right? You know, I need to crank up the snoring or just get in a fight, and so I can go enjoy sleeping on the Casper, because I kind of like it better. I'm not going to lie. It's very cool. It's just got this different feel to it. And it just kind of, you just kind of sink into it, but you're still like fully supported. I don't know. It's an interesting feeling. I've never felt that before. And it's- You know what that is, Brad?

Myke Hurley: Completely comfortable. That's just the right sink, just the right bounce. That's what that is.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Is that the deal? So, okay. Well, it is just the right sink and just the right bounce. And yeah, I'm not going to lie. I enjoy sleeping on that better than my regular mattress.

Myke Hurley: You can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by going to casper.com slash penaddict and using the code penaddict. Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Casper for their support of this show. Go get a Casper mattress.

Brad Dowdy: All right. And everyone else needs to go to YouTube, because you blew my mind the other day. I'm just going to say that. So, I'll just let you go with this, because I pretty much didn't believe you when you started talking. I thought you were just joking with me. So, go ahead. I'll let you have the floor.

YouTube Videos

Myke Hurley: Well, I told you about this before I was doing it. It's because I said I was going to shoot some stuff at the pen show, and here's the thing. And Brad just started laughing at me. And I was like, oh, no. Have I made some kind of mistake here? He just thought I was just straight up joking.

Brad Dowdy: I said, you're drunk. I think that's what I said.

Myke Hurley: But it's dead serious. I am getting into YouTube. Now, I've gone into a bit of depth about this with Gray on Cortex. So, I recommend people go and check that out. If they haven't, there'll be a link in our show notes for that. I am just very aware of how big of a deal YouTube really is. This isn't something that's new to me. I mean, everybody knows how huge YouTube is. And as I just start thinking about what my future could be, I think I need to understand video more. And I need to understand YouTube as a platform and also what the YouTube algorithm can do. You know, there is no strong algorithm in podcasting that suggests people to go and listen to this show or that show, right? Because there are so many like little islands that people listen in. You know, your app of choice on whatever platform. But YouTube is where all the video is, right? There isn't a place like the one place where all the audio is. But basically, if it's not on YouTube, you're probably not going to find it. Someone will have to send the link to you, right? That's how podcasting is. There isn't a YouTube. Now, I don't want there to be a YouTuber podcasting. But because I am not that fussed about video as a platform, I don't care that there's a YouTube for video, right? That's kind of my way that I felt about it. But now, I've been watching a lot more YouTube videos. I've been getting into them more. And as I've been watching them, I'm like, you know what? I could do this. Like, I can see a way that I could make something like this. Like, I have my own ideas about how something like this could be done. So, I've decided to just throw caution to the wind. And I've started a vlog. And I'm calling it a vlog. A vlog goes by many different names, right? Like, a vlog means different things to different people. But basically, what my kind of explanation of my vlog is frequent videos. Not daily. Not necessarily weekly. But frequent. And they will just be about the things that I'm doing in my life and the things that I like. You know, I'm not just going to be sitting in front of a table talking to a camera all the time. I'm not going to be out and about on the town all the time. It's going to be a mix of everything. And it will probably feature a lot of stuff that I like. So, featuring stuff about technology. Featuring stuff about games. And featuring stuff about podcasting. And featuring stuff about pens. I have a couple of episodes planned for some point in the future. Where I will do a deep dive into my pen collection and my field notes collection. Because the best kind of medium for me to show those things are video. So, I'm going to do it. And this is the kind of thing that I want to do. I want to play around with this medium. I want to understand video. As well as I understand audio. So, I am now a YouTuber. And I have been blown away by the support and kind words that people have shown already for the channel. I am at youtube.com slash mikehurley. I would really appreciate it if you would subscribe and check out my videos. As I try and work through this whole thing.

Brad Dowdy: So, the quality. That you've laid out from the beginning. Is beyond my comprehension.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you. You've killed this like straight up right out the gate. Like. So, for a five minute video. How much time did you put into it? Because these are ridiculously good, Myke. I mean, I'm not just blowing smoke. I got so much enjoyment out of watching these. I've watched them multiple times. I've brought the kids over. I was like, come watch this. Because. I'm going to say. Like you have. You're in a good place to do different things. Because you can go outside your house. And it's awesome. Like there's awesomeness all around. You can show people like me. You know. Like I'm watching the city go by while you're doing this. You know. If I walked out my front door. We'd walk into the woods. And I don't know that I'd have much to talk about. Right? So, you've got this kind of built in area that's so cool. And allows for so much expression. Like. Like how much time. So, these run about five minutes. And you have all kinds of overlays. And wonderful emojis. And wonderful music. All I could think of. Okay. This is a five minute video. How much time did you put into one of these?

YouTube Videos

Myke Hurley: So, this is the problem. Is it has varied wildly for each of the videos that I've done. I put one of them together. The one where I'm just at home. Where I'm making coffee and stuff. Because basically there are four videos. Three of them are test videos. The audio is terrible on them. Like they were just purely tests. There's some balance issues. But I decided to put them out anyway. The one that starts at 001. That's like the first real video. Where I've improved a lot of stuff. I've still got some way to go. But like things are a lot better. But all of the 000 videos. They were just like tests. But I ended up being happy enough with them. That I wanted to share them with the world.

Myke Hurley: So, the one where I'm just at home. That took me like shooting and editing. And putting on YouTube like two to three hours. Which I was really impressed with.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's not bad actually.

Myke Hurley: But that one. The big one. I don't even know. Eight, nine, ten hours.

Brad Dowdy: I would say that's probably fair. It shows. It's like the time you put into it. Shows up in the quality of it. And you guys have to go. Go subscribe to this channel. And watch all the videos. They're fantastic. I mean really, really good. The thing that surprised me the most. And I've heard about this. Is the quantity of comments. You have. Like I didn't read them all. But they're incessant.

Myke Hurley: There is a lot of comments.

Brad Dowdy: Hundreds of comments. I'm like what is going on? But I think that's what you always hear about YouTube. Right? Like the comments section. And you know. Also you hear about trolls in the comments. And I don't think there's any of that. But I was just.

Myke Hurley: No, I've been very nice so far.

Brad Dowdy: But like looking at the number of views so far. And looking at the number of comments so far. It's an enormous percentage of comments. I thought that was very. That was an interesting takeaway. I don't know that I have anything to say other than that. But I was like look at this. It just keeps going.

Myke Hurley: So there are a couple of things about this. Which I can go into. So one of the reasons that there are so many comments. Is like the majority of these people. Have come to this channel. Because they've heard me talk about it on Cortex. Right. And they are. As it stands currently. The people that are watching these videos. Are people that enjoy my work. So they are sharing their opinions. And their thoughts with me directly. So I think the amount of comments per view. Is probably skewed for someone who's just starting out. Because I have an inbuilt audience of people. That I'm bringing with me. Right. And they're sharing their thoughts. And I ask people as well. To leave me comments. You know. Constructive comments. Sure. Things they like. Things they didn't like. That kind of stuff. So I've invited it. There's another thing though. Which is YouTube's statistics. All kinds of crazy. So the views that you're seeing. On the videos right now. Are not accurate. They're higher than that. Most likely. So the balance is all wrong. And it just looks weird. Because the comments are accurate. But the views aren't necessarily accurate. A lot of it's like estimated. Which I'm trying to get my head around. A lot of this stuff. So. I'm going to be talking a lot about this. Because it's a new thing for me. I've been talking about it on every show I've done this week. So I apologize if people keep hearing this stuff over and over again. But this is something that's really interesting. And is kind of important to me right now.

Myke Hurley: So yeah. I'm going to be talking about milestone cortex though. To be honest.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you man. Keep it up. Thank you. Because it's like. It's one of those things. Like I don't hardly watch any YouTube. Like I watch Matt's from The Pin Habit. And I think that's about it. So I would like. This would one. And I'd be anxious to see like an alert for that. Oh Myke's got a new video. I would watch it immediately. Because it was so fun. So fun.

Myke Hurley: Thank you mate. I'm planning to have a video up this weekend. Yep. Cool. Because I want to capitalize on the fact that people are subscribing. And I don't want to leave them hanging. So I want to do a video where I kind of explain a little bit more about what's going to be on the channel. And then also I've got some. I'm going to be out a couple of days this weekend. So. Cool. Yeah. And I've already got some videos planned for next week. Like I've got some stuff bubbling. I'm really excited about it. I'm really excited about it. I can tell. I can tell.

Brad Dowdy: And you can tell in the videos that you are. I enjoyed the Alexa bits I think the most out of all your show. And she's going to.

Myke Hurley: I think she's going to be a running character. She has some funny stuff to say. That woman in that little tube.

Brad Dowdy: So one of the things you did a lot in your videos. You use a lot of emojis in very proper places. And, you know, we're both iOS users. And we both enjoy our emojis. And we enjoy sharing them back and forth. And with this update, you know, we got the wonderful edition of iMessage stickers. Right? So, you know, I thoroughly enjoy and have a real problem with using the stickers. And one of our good friends, Le Reyes, has these sticker packs. And I know you've seen it and I've seen it. But I want to make sure everyone who's listening to this has seen it. She does these. She has two sticker packs out. One's called Feel Blots, which is her first one.

Myke Hurley: They're basically blobs of ink with faces drawn on them. Yeah. Like to show emotions, which is a really nice touch.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So all the different ink colors and like different washes and then faces within them. And then she went and topped herself with one called Extra Finer. Yeah. That is the ticket. If you're on iOS and use stickers in iMessage, you got to get and you're listening to this show, you have to go get the Extra Finer sticker pack. It is so cool. She's done.

Myke Hurley: It is drawings in like pen and ink drawings of fountain pens, bottles, writing equipment, and then a bunch of beautifully lettered like emotives like OMG and yay and LOL and stuff in fantastic handwriting with beautiful colors. All. Yeah. This is the one right. Like Feel Blots is like a fun little thing. But Extra Finer, that's the moneymaker right there. This is just stunning. Leia's done an incredible job as always with everything she does. Yeah. So you got to just go and check these things out. They are amazing.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So get those. And I'm a big fan, big fan of the stickers. And I kind of can't get enough of them right now. So, yeah. I'm usually buying like one or two packs a week.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I'm more like one or two packs a day.

Brad Dowdy: Part of it is because my wife likes to use them and I like to see how she figures them out and how she uses them. And it just cracks me up. So I find a lot of hilarity in that.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to send you something here.

Brad Dowdy: Something secret that you haven't seen yet. Oh, yeah. I know what it is. I hope I know what it is. Y'all are going to be jealous.

Myke Hurley: It's coming is what I'm saying. Yes. But I want to send you something. Cool. That you haven't seen. So that's sent to you via iMessage right now. Awesome. So I have everything turned off on my phone.

Brad Dowdy: I should probably send it to you twice so you can get the full effect. Yes, I have two.

Myke Hurley: That's the sticker.

Brad Dowdy: Nice. That's great.

RelayFM App

Myke Hurley: So we are working on a RelayFM pack. That's not a secret. It's coming soon. It's going to be as an update to our app. And there is at least one sticker for every show in it. And I just sent Brad the pen addict sticker.

Brad Dowdy: Pretty cool, right? Very cool. Very cool.

Myke Hurley: Because it's taken us a little bit longer because we've done a couple of things. And so this is giving you a bit of the behind the scenes. A lot of behind the scenes today. We are not releasing a pack on its own. It's going to be part of our application. And we aren't just releasing stickers of the show artwork. We've been working with our amazing designer to come up with some new things. And maybe to reuse some artwork that we've used in the past in other places. To really kind of make this something fun and different. As opposed to just like, oh, here's 25 stickers that are just a show artwork.

Brad Dowdy: It might keep sending them to me while he's talking. Pretty good, right? Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Can I make one suggestion? Because I'm not in this. And I don't want to ruin anything. But I'm going to do it anyway. I need a volcano sticker.

Myke Hurley: Oh, you need a volcano sticker, do you? Yeah. Why don't you just check your messages?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, man. I put my phone down.

Brad Dowdy: So we've got some stuff going. It's right on top. Nice. Okay, good. I'm happy then. I'm happy then.

Myke Hurley: Very soon. Very soon. We're in the final stages of testing it now.

Brad Dowdy: Good, good, good. All right. So that's exciting. Exciting news. I'm ready for that. I'll be sending those to my wife and she will have no clue what's going on. But that's part of the fun about these stickers. That is part of the fun. All right. So I want to knock out. We have some follow-up that I kind of want. I don't want to blow through it. But I want to get through some of these things because it's important stuff that we've kind of talked about and I want to follow up on. One of them is the fountain pen friendly copy paper. I got a lot of responses on this. And I had no idea that Claire Fontaine makes copy paper. And that's what I got sent the most. There's one called Claire Mail. There's one called Claire Alpha. There's all different, you know, styles of Claire Fontaine paper. I've never seen it available in the US. The links I have are in Germany and in France, as you would expect. But they have Claire Fontaine copier paper that you can use. So if you're looking for that, look up Claire Mail. The 60G Claire Mail is the one I got sent the most. So if you have access to that and are looking for fountain pen friendly copy paper to just use for yourself or sneak it into the office copy machine, that's where you want to go. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'm sure it's a little bit more expensive than your standard copier paper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but not, I mean, it's outrageous. Right. It's a premium and, you know, a 50% premium on a ream of copy paper. You're talking like $4 to $6. Right. That's a 50% premium. And that's kind of what these are looking like, which in a, for someone who enjoys it, that's going to be totally worth it. And you can use this copier paper for Inktober. So I wanted to be a, make sure to mention that because I know a lot of our listeners are participating in Inktober for this month of October, which was created by Jake Parker, who I talk to from time to time. He's a fantastic artist. He has, he just put a new book out called, I think it's called Little Bot and Sparrow. He does great stuff. So we have the link in the show notes if you're interested in participating in October. Inktober. I keep saying that. He has all the drawing prompts out there. And you, you probably already know this if you're into it. You probably started. The drawing prompts are a nice touch. Yeah. Right on cue on October 1st. So you probably know about this, but I wanted to throw that out there. Anyway, in case you, you haven't thought about participating, there's 31 drawings for 31 days, but you can jump right in on number five today, which is sad.

Myke Hurley: Or you have five to draw.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Or you have five to catch up with. So it's really cool. And the best thing I like to do is I follow the Inktober hashtag on Instagram and see what everyone else is doing. And I really enjoy that. And if you're an ArtSnacks member, you maybe subscribe to the cool Inktober ArtSnacks box that Jake and Lee and Sarah at ArtSnacks did. So it's really, really cool. And I love Jake's work. I'm a big fan of him. And he's just a cool guy.

Brad Dowdy: The, we mentioned earlier, you had the London Pen Show. The Dallas Pen Show was a week ago. And now the Colorado Pen Show is coming up for all of those out west that are heading out there. Our friend Kerry from Fountain Pen Day is going to be out there. So that's this weekend, the Colorado Pen Show. We'll have the link in the show notes to Kerry's post of all the events and everything going on. And he's having a Fountain Pen Day meet up there on Friday night from seven to nine. And you can get all the info and details. If you don't follow him on Instagram or Twitter, you can follow him and see all the things that are going on out there. So it looks like it's going to be a fun time. Kerry's got some cool pen addicts. Geez. Fountain Pen Day swag. If it ain't pen addict, you just don't care. No, I do care. I love Kerry. I know. And his, the green Colorado badges and shirts are going to be pretty sweet. So get in on that action. And I might have to hit him up for a couple of t-shirts for this event. So I also released a Fountain Kristoff pen in the pen addict shop over the weekend. Um, I worked with Franklin Kristoff for several months in getting this pen to where I want it to be. And as a matter of fact, I showed it to you at the Atlanta Pen Show, Myke, one of the first early samples, right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure.

Myke Hurley: If I remember rightly, I helped push you towards this colorway. You did. Because there were a few that you were thinking about.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that was the longest process. Like it took me only a minute or two to decide the model that I wanted. Then it took me forever to decide the color that I wanted. And what I settled on was this gray, gray barrel, orange finial and section that I think turned out amazing. If I do say so myself, the first batch sold out on the site, they will be back. Um, as soon as they make more, it's not a limited edition, but it's a special edition that you can just get at the pen addict. Um, so the first 25 I sold out over the weekend.

Myke Hurley: I didn't even know that they were going on sale in advance and I hadn't read refill fast enough. And now I don't have one.

Brad Dowdy: I try to take care of those members, Myke. I know. Well, I am one of them though. Hey, I don't have one either. I don't have one either. Aren't I member number one? Actually, I think you are.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You know, member number one, they should know about it first and then you just go down the list, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. So I'll send out emails one at a time next time. Okay. Thank you. And until you order, I won't send out email number two. Is that how it should work? Perfect. Yes. Okay.

Myke Hurley: I think everyone will agree with that. I think that's fine.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So anyway, more of those are coming and, um, and I don't know exactly when, but it'll be a few weeks, but I will let everyone know and I will let Myke know first. So we also have the linear going on Kickstarter, which it's pretty much flatlined right now until we get closer to the end. So we're exactly halfway. Um, I think we've got a review coming out today. You'll see me posting about the linear today. I'm just ready to put those notebooks up there. So I can start getting those, getting the backers behind that. But everyone who's added to their pledge already, I appreciate it. That's really, really awesome because, uh, that's going to happen. Um, no doubt about that. So we'll be talking about that, you know, hopefully, gosh, I guess in two weeks, you know, we may not have a show. Uh, we might be, it might be right, right after we wrap. So we'll, uh, we'll see where we end up there on the linear, but thank you to everyone who supported that. And if you're interested, you got 14 days left and we're going to launch a new notebook alongside the, uh, the briefcase. So it's going to be pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: You did an update of the olive lime colorway, which is clearly the way to go.

Brad Dowdy: I think so. And I've been carrying the black and aqua one, which I absolutely adore. I love it. Love, love, love everything about it. The olive lime is better. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And I'm happy that I'm back now as well, because I'm going to get the, the olive and lime, uh, because that is, that lime is, is straight fire.

Brad Dowdy: That was the first, that was the color we decided to make this project to go with. And then the black one was secondary. I was like, well, we need a black case. We're going on Kickstarter and asking, you know, people who, you know, are not into this type of thing. You know, I'd like to see a black case out there, but let's add our little pop with the blue and the blue threads. And it came out just really, really good. Um, but I, I prefer the olive, but that's like, you know, picking my favorite child too. So they're both good. Um, finally, before we get to like our main topic, which I know we're going to have a lot to say about this new field notes edition. Um, I did get the book from Ann Truebeck, um, the, the handwriting book, uh, the history and uncertain future of handwriting. So I'm going to read that, uh, over the next couple of weeks. Um, it's not a very long book. I've already, you know, about five chapters into it last night. So, um, I'll be reading that and then we'll see if we can get, uh, Ms. Truebeck on the podcast to talk about the book and talk about handwriting and some of the things she believes in and, um, things like that. So lots going on in the, the world of, uh, the pen addict right now.

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Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. All right. So, I think we're all aware and all of our listeners are probably aware that the new Field Notes edition launched.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: This week. Ain't no joke. It actually launched early. Usually it's a Today is Wednesday thing, right? That's usually their thing, but launched on a Monday.

Myke Hurley: Well, because this kind of got out, which I've never seen before. And it's funny that this happened, but somebody got them early.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. We're going to talk about this. But what I want to know is your very first impression of this edition. Like, I put it in the show notes. Let's do like a Twitter style, you know, limit it to 140 characters or less. What's your first impression when you saw the link I sent you early of the Field Notes lunacy edition?

Myke Hurley: So, I don't know if this will be 140 characters, but it will be brief. Not sure how the cover will be with the cutout. Oh, my God. Reticle Grid.

Edition Cover

Brad Dowdy: So, my Twitter first reaction, Twitter link first reaction is this has the makings of a top five all-time edition. Yep. But to be determined, right? I don't have them in hand yet. Yeah. I checked. My tracking popped on Monday for Thursday delivery, which stinks. So, you know, day after. Day after the show.

Myke Hurley: Because we're recording a couple of shows back to back, you know, peering behind the curtain. We're not going to be able to talk about these for a couple of weeks. But then I'll have them at least, would be the hope. Yes. So, we can talk about it together in a couple of weeks' time.

Brad Dowdy: We will talk about it together in a couple of weeks' time. There's a lot to talk about in this edition, actually. But first of all is the style, which the die-cut covers with the moon backgrounds are killer. I mean, it's straight-up killer. It's very similar in stylings to the night sky, which is Myke's favorite, being mostly black with some gray. But it has the cutouts that are different, the reticle grid. And the gray paper is what I'm – I think that's going to be the determining factor for me. Because the exteriors and look and style are like 10 out of 10, right? But let's see how this thing works when we get it, right? Because it's a little bit different paper. I always wonder how colored paper is going to work. And it's probably going to work fine because gray is actually a pretty common paper. So, hopefully, it's going to work well. It's not dark. No, it's not. And I like that look. Like, I think the look's great. I love the gray paper. So, I just want to get it in hand before I say, this is the best edition ever, you know, kind of thing. So, you know, the jury's still out on that to me.

Myke Hurley: There are a few curious things about this edition. Very. There's like a double cover, right? Right, right. It's got like the cover and then the cover that goes around the outside that's got the hole cut out of it. So, in case you don't know, again, another weird thing about it. So, there's a hole cut in the middle of a moon on the inside. And the three pack has like a full moon, a half moon, and a crescent moon, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, they cut a hole in the front of the cover, so the black front, that will then show like it makes that moon shape. Right. And you see it. And the moon is printed on the next page on the inside. I hope I'm explaining this well. There are pictures, right? So, you can see it. Mm-hmm. But curious thing number one, subscribers get a four pack, which has, what is the fourth?

Brad Dowdy: It's the new moon, which is a no cut out notebook. So, there'll be no die cut on the front page. It'll just be pitch black, essentially. So, to show the new moon face, which is zero moon.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: So, that's curious thing number one. So, are we getting two four packs or one four pack?

Myke Hurley: I think it's two fours.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's what I think, too. Okay. Go ahead.

Myke Hurley: Price is up. Yes. $12.95 for a three pack. What are they usually, like nine? Yeah, $9.95. Doesn't surprise me that this one is more expensive. There's more stuff going on here. Like, the covers have also got embossing on them, as well as there being two covers. And they're obviously doing some weird paper stuff as well. So, there is, I can see there being additional cost for these.

Brad Dowdy: So, we've talked about it for a long time that we don't know how they continue to have the same price. Right. And the subscription price is the same. It's $97. Subscriber's price did not go up. Individual pack price did go up. And if there's any addition to institute that price point, this would be the one. Right. You can tell this had to cost a lot.

Myke Hurley: Also, it might just be time to put the price up. They sell them out, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Right. That's kind of my point from the conversations we've had for a while is I don't know how they continue to do the – to spend the time and money that they put into some of these additions to continue to sell them at that price. It just does – it defied logic for me like a year or two ago. So, this has been something I've mentioned. So, I don't even blink at $12.95 because I know how much goes into this stuff. And that's a deal still at this price.

Myke Hurley: Good friend of the show, Glenn, is mentioning Expedition was $12.95.

Brad Dowdy: Ah, okay.

Myke Hurley: And Expedition is crazy pants. It's my least favorite edition because it – but it's amazing in its own way. Yeah. You know, the weird paper inside of that thing, which is fun just to play with, like, to try and rip it. But it's not good for fountain pens. Really not good for – it's like writing on glass. Yeah. No belly band.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I missed that. But I guess that makes sense to show off the die cut.

Myke Hurley: But it's just a weird thing. It is. You know? No belly band.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't even notice that until you said that.

Myke Hurley: Which is just – you know, this is the thing. It's like, I think – I think this is the weirdest edition for a bunch of reasons. Like, if you are a Field Notes Kremlinologist, as we are, right? Like, you know, we look into these things. You know, me and you look into what happens at Field Notes in the same way that I look into Apple stuff. Right. Trying to understand what the company's doing. We look at how quickly they sell out. We analyze the products. We analyze the releases. We try and guess them. We try and guess times. Like, we're obsessed with this company in that way. You know? I think that anybody that's listened to this show should know that about us by now. So whenever they do something that's out of the ordinary, we can't help but talk about it. And this is definitely one of them. I'm very excited for this pack. Like, obviously, I bought two more packs. Yeah, me too. That's the first time I'm – Like, as for you, it has the makings of a favorite pack for me because it's so close to probably my favorite of all time or, like, one that's in my top three. You know? Right. We should maybe readdress this again at some point as to what my favorites are and our favorites are. Maybe I'll make that part of the YouTube video that I do about them. Right. So, you know, because Byline – I love Byline. I love Arts and Sciences. I love Night Sky. You know, they kind of sit up the top for me, I think. Right. So, yeah. I'm very, very, very intrigued.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, speaking of Byline, it just sold out, like, right before this edition launched. That's pretty crazy. I think that's impressive.

Myke Hurley: I have quite a lot of those.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, that's what happened is people – it's such a different format. Like, our friend Anthony, he ended up buying, like, 15 more packs. Just because it's, like, really, really useful format for him.

Myke Hurley: I'm just going to say again one more time because I have to keep doing this. Okay. Field Notes. You know why I've asked you for so long for Arts and Sciences to become a standard edition? Let's just forget about that now. Stop the press. Focus on making Byline a standard edition. That's not going to happen. If you want to make Arts and Sciences 2, I will also be happy. But if you can make just one of them, I would like a Byline format, at least. You know? Yeah. The long field notes with the spiral on the top, you guys nailed it with this one. They really did. And I use it every single day. And I love, love, love, love it.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I'm using for my show notes right now.

Myke Hurley: That's what I use for my show notes as well. It is perfect for that. I can still put my hands on the desk. I can still put stuff on the desk. It doesn't take up the whole desk. I can stand it up really nicely in front of my monitor so I can see where my edit notes are. Like, please, please. Just make more of it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you're not alone on that. Like, I really want it. I just kind of don't think it's going to happen. I mean, but I hope I'm wrong. That's one of those ones that I would be super happy to be wrong about, right? Like, I really want that.

Myke Hurley: On a related note, Glenn has asked in the chat room if I'm going to be going to see Draplin on the London leg of his tour. As soon as he releases tickets or any kind of information about where I can get them, I will be trying to get them. But right now, it's just on his webpage. It just says, November the 24th, London event to be announced. His Instagram page said he was doing two events in London over two different days. So I don't really know what the deal is. I definitely want to see him, but I have no idea how I can right now. Yeah. As soon as I find out, I will get it. If anybody sees these tickets go up, please, please, please, please let me know. I would be gutted if I missed this. Yeah. If anything, just to try and get some sweet merch from him. Yeah. I will buy all of it.

Edition Spoilers

Brad Dowdy: So let's talk about this last thing, which we've never seen happen before in what edition is this? 32, I believe. In 32 editions, I've never seen... I don't want to call it a leak because I don't think that's accurate, but I've never seen... Pre-release. Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen the product before Field Notes released it. And I think... And so when did I send this to you? Saturday or Sunday? I just happened to be scrolling through my Instagram. And the first picture that I saw, I honest to goodness thought it was fake. I thought someone did it themselves. But as I went to the Instagram feed, which is Yippee-ki-yay, which I know Andy is, I think, a listener of this show. And at least I've talked to him at some point.

Brad Dowdy: He had... I knew pretty quickly once I went to the full feed, he had the entire edition posted up. And this was, yeah, three days ago. So that was Sunday. So I think this is their new shipping thing. Like, they want to try to match up. They shipped shipping services, what, like a year ago? So it's always been a little bit off-kilter. You know, they're trying to match up the subscribers' notebooks landing approximately on release date, right? Or the day after. Like, they announce them, and then, like, the subscribers usually get them, like, really, really soon. And I don't know how this one got so far ahead. But I found that to be interesting. Like, we saw the full Field Notes pack for this release days before Field Notes announced it. Well, days before they normally announce it. I wonder if that's why they pushed it up to Monday. I think they did. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think it was out there. In the community of people who truly care, at that point, you'd just own it and put them out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, just push the button. There's no need. Yeah, because usually, like, you know, on Tuesday we get tomorrow is Wednesday. And then on Wednesday we get today is Wednesday. And it's always been that way, right? So, because that's traditionally when the releases happen, and usually right after we end the podcast. Right? So, I found that to be super interesting because my first reaction was, wow, this is cool how someone modified their pitch black Field Notes. And I was like, nope, it's the real thing. So, very cool. So, oh, but I don't know if it's very cool, but I thought it was interesting. So, yeah, Glenn HK. I feel like for you and Myke, people who aren't in the U.S., y'all get it spoiled, definitely, for sure. Like, I got the black wings before they announced it. But I didn't post them this time. Like, I did the baseball one. I was so jacked about, I just immediately took a picture, sent it out there. And, you know, people are like, ah, you're spoiling it. And I was like, okay. So, I didn't post them this time. And then it was like a day or two later that they released it. I guess it was a day later. So, anyway. Interesting. It's impossible to hide that stuff these days. But this one was way ahead of time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. Much, much, much farther than normal. I'm really excited to get these, though. Yeah. I hope it's going to be soon.

Brad Dowdy: Certainly, Field Notes doesn't care because these are killer. These are going to sell out. Like, I was looking, they still have Shenandoah and Sweet Tooth. These are going to sell out before the next release. I'm pretty sure.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Wouldn't you say? I think that's a fair bet.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah. These are going to go quick, quick. Because this is posted in the Relay FM Slack. And, like, a bunch of people bought them, like, immediately. Yeah. This is one of their editions where they'll sell out quick. It is funny to me. If they're in black, they sell quick. So, Raven's Wing, Night Sky. Like, make them in black and they go quickly. It's interesting. Yep. Oh, man. I'm looking at their page. Raven's Wing. Yeah. What a beautiful, beautiful edition of the Orange Band. So, just do something else in black and orange. Like, put the orange on the cover, man. Come on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm really excited to see this. Oh, Yippee-Ki-Yayi is in the chat room. Yeah, there he is. Lives close to Field Notes. There you go. So, yeah. There you go.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting. Interesting. Well, thanks, Andy, for teasing us with those pictures. They were super, super interesting. I love seeing that. You made it first. So, I'm not one that freaks out. I don't do the, I don't freak out the OMG spoilers kind of thing. That doesn't faze me. It was actually kind of helpful. We got a head start on this over the weekend.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Because we knew that we wanted to make sure that we could talk about them during these two episodes that we're recording. So, you actually helped us a lot. And for me, like, I don't care about the spoilers because they're always spoiled for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: The only time that it could have not been spoiled, I was in Atlanta. When they sent out those two-pack, I would have got it before anybody. They arrived at my home, like, day and date, right? Like, I would have found, I would have got them in the morning and I would have been able to show them off to everybody else. That's right.

Brad Dowdy: Because all the Europeans started texting us and DMing us saying, look what I got. Did you get it? And we're like, we're at a pin show. So, we're not checking in the mail.

Myke Hurley: I'm the only time. So, again, if anybody fulfilled no listening, send me in first, you know?

Brad Dowdy: They do listen because they tweeted us out after the byline talk. I remember that. So, hi, Brian. Hi, Jim.

Myke Hurley: I feel like they tune in when they have a new edition go out. Yeah. As always, guys, if you are listening, nailed it. I don't know how you keep doing what you do. Congratulations.

Brad Dowdy: That's the truth. I don't know that. And the video, I watched that thing over and over.

Myke Hurley: Oh, how have we not spoken about this yet?

Brad Dowdy: Best video ever? I don't know. We say this. Like, we're very hyperbolic. At least I am very hyperbolic. But I feel pretty comfortable saying it.

Myke Hurley: This is the best video they've ever done easy. Like, because it was completely needless.

Brad Dowdy: The amount of, obviously, time, money, and work that went into it. Yeah, once I saw the panel of different rocks that they had, there must have been a hundred of them. And I was like, oh, my God. Y'all went insane on this.

Myke Hurley: Let me just flat out say, like, this is what I would do if I could do it. Right? Like, if I'm field notes and, like, we're doing fine and the editions are selling out, right? Then we're okay for money. Of course we're going to spend, like, an entire day with a 10,000 frame a second high-speed camera throwing rocks at sand in black and white. Like, that's what I would do. So, yeah. Hells yeah. Do that.

Brad Dowdy: I can see the smile on Jim's face while they're doing that, just going, hey, hey, hey.

Myke Hurley: What a great day in the office that is. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, anyway, congrats, guys. Killer edition. It'll sell out immediately. And, yeah, have fun using them, right?

Myke Hurley: Like, yeah, use away. Don't hoard them, guys. Break them open. Put some stuff in them. When you're done with them, save them or recycle them.

Brad Dowdy: And break up in another.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, break up in another. Like, I finished my first byline yesterday because, like, I write on both sides of them. And it's just nothing notes. It's, like, every episode I just take little notes of the timestamps I need to edit. And I finished it and I was like, put it in the trash. Like, what am I going to do with this now? Right. You know, I could save it forever, but there's nothing in here to save. Yep. I was like, get over yourself. Just start throwing them away. Recycle them. All right. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for listening, as always. Thank you to Squarespace and Casper for supporting this week's show. And thank you to all of our members and all of Brad's members over at the Pen Addict for helping support what we do as well. We really appreciate it. If you want to find Brad online, he's over at penaddict.com and knock.co. He is on Twitter. He is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And he is penaddict on Instagram. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, on Twitter and Instagram. And you can find me at youtube.com slash Myke Hurley. We will be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.