The Pen Addict 32/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	32
Title:	Truly Disappointed
Release Date:	December 4th, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 32
Audio File:	Audio Episode 32
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 32
Length:	3333 min <br />0.55 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 32 of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined, as always, by a man who is never a disappointment, a man who is always coming down from the heavens of pen loveliness, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Mr. Hurley. How are you today?

Myke Hurley: I'm very well. Do you mind being described as a pen deity? Are you happy with this?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no, no. That works for me. You know, that's what my wife calls me in the bedroom.

Myke Hurley: Here we go again. Are you just trying to win an award every episode now?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's my thing. So, no. Hey, like you, it's what pops into my head first. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's cringeworthy.

Recording Process

Brad Dowdy: So, how are you, Brad? I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. Just, you know, I don't know if a lot of people know that when we record these podcasts, you are late at night getting ready to go to bed and me being the third shift worker that I am, I am just fresh out of the sack. So, yeah, I'm trying to get my wits about me. But I'm doing pretty good. Doing pretty good.

Myke Hurley: I must mention as well, like, so I mentioned that I said at the start that you are never a disappointment. That's because we're going to be talking about disappointing purchases today.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. This ought to be a, I'm, I'm actually looking forward to this episode because I have some interesting thoughts on this topic. So, you know, if you're ready, I'm willing to, to get right into it. I know we're going to, we're going to see what you had on the ledger for some disappointing pens, you know, then I'm interested to see what you have to say.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I'll talk about a handful of purchases that, um, these are interesting because I will have any longtime listener, the pen addict, I will have spoken about all of these purchases on the show. And that might not necessarily be the same for you because in, you know, in the segment where every week we talk about the things that we bought, these are all pens that I have bought and have been unhappy with. So one of them was a pen that I mentioned actually probably not too long ago. Um, and it was the Oto Rook.

Brad Dowdy: That almost made my list. I think that was the first, uh, the first one I left off my list. That's when I cut my list short. That was the next one going on. And I can, I can fully understand that.

Myke Hurley: So the Oto Rook is a tiny, uh, fountain pen and it was, I saw it on jet pens and it was relatively inexpensive. It was $16, but it looked amazing. Like it looked like this really beautifully made pen, um, with great, you know, a great aluminium body. And it looked really great. And they have it next to like a quarter, um, on, on the, on the jet pens page. So you can see just how small it is and it arrives. And like, there is not one redeeming feature about this pen. Like all of the edges are sharp on the aluminium. The way that Rook is written on it is like in the cheapest, like standard Microsoft Word typeface ever. There's absolutely no weight to the pen in any way. And it's just a scratchy fountain pen, like a substandard fountain pen where it just feels like they've just taken any sort of point off the shelf and put it in. And it's just, you can, I don't know if you can hear, I'm like, now it's like, so scratchy. Yeah. And it's just not in any way a nice experience. The click is just uncomfortable. Um, I really, really disappointed.

Brad Dowdy: You have to really force it to get it open.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Really disappointed with this actually. I thought it was going to be one of those ones where you'd never mention it for finally. I have an interesting find that, that Brad doesn't know, but as is always with these things, Mr. Dowdy is always right.

Brad Dowdy: And, uh, no, I've, I've actually reviewed that one on the blog probably a couple of years ago by now or a year and a half or so ago. And now I gave it a pretty, pretty poor review. So I'm, I'm right there with you on that one.

Pen Purchases

Myke Hurley: So there you go. Yeah. This is, this is number one for me. Yes. Agree wholeheartedly. Rook. Now the next one, um, this one I know that we will both share, um, as an, as an issue, the Paper Mate Replay Max. I don't know that one. Now this is.

Brad Dowdy: I think we've talked about it, haven't we?

Myke Hurley: We have everything that me and you hate about the pilot friction, but worse.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. It's one of those, it's one of those deals. Okay. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So the Paper Mate Replay is a, it's a ballpoint, um, or rollable, sorry, that has an eraser on the top. But the issue with this one, so I'm drawing a line now, right? So I've drawn a line with the, with the rollable and I'm now trying to erase it. Not only does it not erase it, it leaves a visible blue eraser mark.

Brad Dowdy: It smears it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And, but then because the, the eraser's blue too. So instead of it just smearing it, it just leaves a color residue behind. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: That's brutal.

Myke Hurley: I feel like we're just going to be, I think people are going to really enjoy this episode. We're just going to be grumpy.

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of which, we should get, we should, at the end, we should remind people to tweet us what their biggest disappointments are.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah, definitely. Do you know how I can tell that the Paper Mate Replay is bad? Why? I can't find it to link in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: That's always, that's always a sign.

Myke Hurley: Like I've looked on Amazon, it's not there. And I've looked on JetPens, obviously, and it's not there. It might be a UK product.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they, they definitely make, it used to, the original Paper Mate erasable pen back in the 80s was called the Eraser Mate. And, you know, we've talked about the naming and the branding of pens and how they make the same pen and call it something different, you know, across the world, which, you know, it's a regional thing, which I won't profess to understand. But I have definitely used that pen in some way, shape or form. I just can't remember exactly what they called it. And I think I, I'll have to look on my, on penaddict.com. There was a post called Erasable Pen Olympics or something like that, that I did like in 2009 and 2008. And it, that, that might've been one of the pens. So we'll have to go double check and see what that's called. But it, it's very, very bad.

Erasable Pen Olympics

Myke Hurley: Erasable Pen Olympics. Here we go. Got that for the show notes.

Myke Hurley: Oh, this is, it's taken me to your blog spot page.

Brad Dowdy: That's not good. Wow. Oh, you just must've Googled it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I did.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah. That's probably why. So should that have pulled it over? If you do just do the search box on penaddict.com, it'll come up.

Myke Hurley: Because that, that's two sites ago, isn't it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Uh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Erasable Pen Olympics. Strange that Google wouldn't find it though, but yep, here it is. The Erasable Pen Olympics. So that'll be in the show notes. My next choice for today is a pen called the Stabilo Smart Ball. Which is a, um, it's just a standard, um, rollable. But it has a stylus on the end. Now this was quite expensive. This was like 15 pounds. But I thought I would try it out because, you know, it's a stylus pen and such. Um, it's a very standard rollable. Like there's nothing amazing about it. It's like just any cheap Stabilo rollable that you would get. The problem with this is that the stylus is just not good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's a problem. What is that pen made out of for it to cost so much? Plastic. Really?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But it's because it has a stylus. So it's cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I guess they were just trying to get over on you. That's, that's pretty expensive. I hadn't seen a, uh, I haven't used or seen a Stabilo product like, uh, like that before.

Myke Hurley: I wonder if it's still this price. Probably isn't. It was like on an end cap display. In a, um, in, in a station. Yeah. It's like, it was, it's now like, um, six pounds 50 down from 10 49 on Amazon.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's, that's a pretty good sign that a pen is not any good that they've marked it down already. I have one of those on my list where it's been marked down, but that's, that's kind of a hint by the, uh, by the vendors or the manufacturers that, Hey, this, the, this one's not going so well, you know, maybe there's a reason.

Myke Hurley: And, uh, it looks like it's sold directly from, from Amazon. So it's, you know, it's not like it's somebody's just got a bunch of cheap ones or whatever. Right. Right. But yeah, it's just cause really, I mean, it's expensive and the, the stylus part sometimes you just tap and it just doesn't register any tap. I mean, and that's, what's the point of it then?

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. I, yeah, I, I can't remember. I, I've tried a mini pen. I can't remember the name of it right now with a stylus on it and the stylus just didn't work. It'd take me five taps or three or four swipes to get anything done. And I was like, yeah, I, I kind of ripped it, ripped it in my, um, review. I'll have, I'll have to think of the name of it.

Myke Hurley: Do you know how I can tell that these pens are bad?

Ink Problems

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: My hands are now covered in ink and I don't know what one it's come from.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's another bad, that's another bad sign. I would say.

Mini Tornado Pen

Myke Hurley: Do you want to know my last one? This would be, this will potentially be a shocker for people. It is the, uh, mini retro tornado.

Brad Dowdy: Ah, okay. I don't, you know what? I knew you ordered it and I think I knew you got it in. I don't know that we've ever spoken about it. No, maybe we did for a minute. I do remember, but yeah, let's, let's hear it.

Myke Hurley: The build quality of this pen is absolutely everything that I would want from this pen. So it's a, just a tiny tornado, right? And I thought this is going to be the most amazing thing ever, but it just uses a very standard, um, refill. Like it's just a scratchy, not high quality rollable refill, um, or ballpoint. I can't, I still struggle to remember the difference, but it's because the, the, the, the great Schmidt refills that are in the tornadoes don't come in the size. So they have to use something else, which I'm just opening it up now. There it has, it just says made in Japan on the, on the thing. Like it's just, I assume it's probably difficult to find quality refills of this size.

Brad Dowdy: Um, or you have to take a, you have to take a picture of that, of that for me because, um, I don't have that pen, but one of my disappointing pens is a lot, is along the same lines. Um, and, uh, a change of refill would, will, will do wonders if you can find something that'll fit it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, of course. Of course. That's the problem there, right? Because it's just this time and it's got to have the right mechanism as well, right? Cause it's got the twist mechanism, which is, which is different. Cause it's, it's basically, it is just a mini retro tornado. Like it's just a mini one.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so the build's exactly the same, essentially same, like same material, same feel like you, that feels like really solid and nice, but it just, it doesn't write anywhere near what the other ones do.

Myke Hurley: Exactly. Looking at, um, the, I have a, a site that I use the site that I bought it from, um, retro 51.co.uk. Okay. Just having a look on there. They actually have some Schmidt mini refills, but I don't know if they're the same refill as the, as the ones that we usually use. So maybe it's worth me actually trying one of those in the, in the near future. They didn't have these when I first looked.

Brad Dowdy: Gotcha. Yeah. I'd like to take a look at that. Cause that's, that's a pin I've always wanted to purchase for myself. And if I can, you know, if I can't swap out the refill, I mean, that's kind of a deal breaker or, you know, not, if it's not something readily available.

Myke Hurley: Here's the, here's an interesting point, right? So the pen itself was 15, 15 pounds. The refill is five pounds.

Brad Dowdy: Whoa.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. That, yeah, that's really steep, especially for a minute. Is it not like a two pack for the mini refills? A lot of those minis just come in two packs.

Myke Hurley: Uh, there's five of them. Sorry. I should have seen that, but still a pound. A refill is expensive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. That, now that, unfortunately that's, that's about accurate. That seems to be about the going rate.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That makes me think that it would be a good refill, but I don't know if I'm willing to try it out. Maybe I'll, I'll just put that on the list and I'll pick it up at some point in the near future and, uh, and I'll try it out.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Yeah. I'd like to, I'd like to know the results of that.

Squarespace Sponsorship

Myke Hurley: Cool. Well, that is my contributions to disappointing pens. So should I talk about Squarespace, uh, very quickly? Before we, we get into the, to the main event.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely.

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Brad Dowdy: Thank you, Squarespace. So, hit me. All right. You ready to get into it? I'm ready. All right. So, I have a bit of a disclaimer at first. And not so much of a disclaimer, but just how I want to make a general comment that, you know, all the years I've reviewed pens, you know, I call it like I see it, you know, I try to be very honest in my reviews. But the funny thing is that, you know, before I started the blog, I was a fan of pens, you know, while I've been writing the blog, I'm a fan of pens, you know, just in general, you know, I'm biased towards pens. I'm going to generally find the good in a pen. So, when I say it's bad, it's usually epically bad because I think I have a lot more positive reviews, you know, than negative reviews.

Myke Hurley: I think as well because there's an element, you know what you're looking for, right? So, you're only going to part with your own cash if you think that it's going to be good to an extent, I guess.

Brad Dowdy: That's exactly right. And, you know, a lot of my disappointments, you know, are more that I didn't, it's not so much as it's a bad pen, is that I don't think I got the value out of the money that I decided to spend on the pen. You know, like I didn't include in my list any pens that are just flat out horrible because a lot of times I knew going into it, they weren't going to be any good, right? My expectation level was set. Does that make sense? A lot of times, I'll review any pen, but some pens, before I even take them out of the package or even order them online, I know that it's not going to live up to, you know, its peers in whatever category it's in. It's just, it's flat out not. So, those aren't disappointing pens to me because I expected it. That's why I didn't put like any Stabilo products in there because their roller balls are horrible, right? But I knew it ever since the first one I used, they've all been the same, you know? So, that's not a disappointment to me. It's just a bad pen. So, that's kind of the way I went at my list that might be a little different from you. And I'm going to bring out the big guns first. And I really want to get some feedback from the readers on this pen because I'm having some issues. And it's been a disappointment so far. And I really didn't want it to be. And that's the Lamy 2000.

Myke Hurley: When I saw this on your list, I gave a massive sigh of relief because this is on my pens to buy list.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I keep trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. And I probably break it out, you know, once a week, once every other week, just saying, you know, all right, this time it's going to be better. This time it's going to be better. When I first got it, I think we kind of glossed over it in one of our older episodes that I just purchased it. And for full disclosure, I think, and I don't recall the details exactly. I don't think I paid, I'm pretty sure I didn't pay full price for this pen. I think I paid, I think I was still affiliated with JetPens at the time. I think I maybe paid like 50% of it or something like that. So I want that to be aware that, you know, this is an expensive pen. Right now it's $162 on JetPens. I think I just wanted to let everyone know I didn't pay that full amount. I think I paid about half of it. I can't recall exactly.

Myke Hurley: I don't think you need to disclose for something if you didn't enjoy it. I don't think people might.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, hey, like I said, I like to be honest and upfront. You know, I don't want, you know, people to think, you know, that, oh, he's complaining about a pen he got for free, you know, things like that. So anyway, I just wanted to make that aware. But everything about this pen is awesome. The way it feels, the way it looks, you know, the nib is really nice. I like the hooded nib design. What I'm having a problem with is consistency in writing on the nib. And I mean, and that's, that's the whole package really. You know, I don't, it boils down to it. Doesn't matter how good it looks or feels if it doesn't write well. And the issue I'm having is, how do I explain this? It's like some of, some of my strokes are skipping, but there never feels like there's any pull or scratch in the nib. The nib is really smooth. There's no scratchiness at all. But it's like, it's almost like the nib is so soft that it just kind of sticks to the page a little bit. And I don't know how to explain that fully. And I, and believe me, I don't, I don't write with a heavy pressure on a fountain pen at all. Um, but it's almost like there's some, there's not that there's something on the nib, but it's like that the nib is soft enough. Because it's a, it is, it is a 14 karat gold nib. Um, it kind of grabs the page a little bit as you're writing, especially on certain strokes. And it skips and it's frustrating and it makes me want to put it away. And that, so that's, that's been my biggest disappointment. So I'd actually like some feedback, um, from anyone that can, can email me or tweet me. We'll put our, we'll give our contact information at the end. But I'm, I'm very disappointed in this pen because it is a really, really cool pen. And, and I carry it with me, you know, in my, in my, uh, pen case every day and try to use it once a week or twice a week or every other week. And, um, the results are always the same. I've usually put it away within about 10 minutes just because it's not consistent enough. So that's, that's been a big disappointment to me. And honestly, you know, I haven't, I need to do a review for it on the pen attic. I kind of got it right when I was kind of having a downtime and not reviewing as much. And, um, I just, I need to give it a proper review. I have not done that yet on the, uh, on the blog, but that, that's what it's going to say. I mean, there's definitely some, some issues when I'm writing with this pen.

Brad Dowdy: So it's, uh, definitely a disappointment.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it sounds it.

Kaweco Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Now another one that I was really excited about when I ordered it and there, there's multiple reasons for disappointment in this one. It's the, uh, Kaweco AL sport ballpoint pen. Um, you know, I love my Kaweco AL, um, AL sport fountain pens. They're some of my favorites. So I wanted to, I wanted to get, um, one of the ballpoints. I thought this would be a good, you know, mini pen or pocket carry type pen, something like that. Um, you know, it's kind of expensive. It's around 60, $61. Um, so, you know, it's, it's not the most cost effective option for something like that. And a couple of things made this a disappointment for me. One, like your, your retro 51 mini, the, the ink cartridge is extremely poor. Um, it's just a basic blue ink ballpoint, but it's, it skips a lot. Um, you know, it's not very consistent. Um, it doesn't get messy or anything, but it's not a very good refill on, on the plus size plus side. It's a standard D one refill, which I'm interested to see what's in that retro 51. So what that means these D one size refills are super common. Um, so, you know, I swapped it out with, um, a zebra Charbo X gel ink refill. So that kind of fixed that writing problem. But the other thing is it ended up, the barrel ended up being just a fraction of an inch too short to write, to write with comfortably. Um, I know that getting in, getting to mini pens a lot. Um, there's a fine line of where a pen that small is comfortable to write with or very difficult to write with. And this one is just, I mean, maybe a quarter of an inch too short to where it's kind of digging into the, like the, the cusp of my hand in between my index finger and thumb, you know, where we all kind of rest the pen. And it's a little short in that area. Usually you want it to rise up a little bit above that area to, to be a more comfortable and balanced writer. This one falls just beneath that. And the other thing that disappointed me about this is when I ordered it, I think the next week, Kaweco or JetPen stocked the same pen, the AL Sport Touch ballpoint pen, but it has one with a stylus on the end of it. And not that I wanted the stylus so much, but it's essentially the same pen build. And it looks like it has that extra fraction of an inch that would have made this a lot better. Yeah. The, the one that I purchased is 4.1 inches long. The one with the stylus is 4.5 inches long. And that would be every bit of length I would need to make that a more comfortable writing pen.

Myke Hurley: I think like I kind of, in a way, like I find it less forgivable or like more unforgivable of Kaweco to ship a poor refill because they, they make small pens, small pens that are bread and butter.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: So they should, they should really be sourcing better refills, especially for $60.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And, and put it this way. I mean, you know, JetPens knows it too, because they make sure they say right there in their description, hey, you can swap this refill and you can swap it to something good. I mean, they, they, they, they know it's bad right out the gate. And that, that's, that's kind of a hint when, you know, when you're purchasing a product and in that product description, they recommend you go ahead and swap out one of the parts of that product for something better. That's, that's kind of a tip.

Myke Hurley: From the JetPens description, JetPens recommends substituting the included refill of a higher quality D1 size refill from Japan, such as that for the Sharbo X. And then right at the bottom, customers who bought this item also bought the first two D1 Sharbo X refills. That's true.

Brad Dowdy: I see that. Yeah. So I, I knew that going into it, right? I mean, I can read, I knew that. I was, I was, that was, that was actually, for me, that's a selling point, right? Because that Sharbo X refills great. I was like, oh, this is great. I'll get a mini pen and I can put a nice, you know, 0.4 gel ink cartridge in there. Well, that was fine, but it ended up being not long enough for me to write with comfortably. So, I mean, this pen just sits and collects dust, honestly, which I hate because it's a beautiful pen. And the other thing is it's a, it's a real, I do have a review coming for this one. I finished this review. I just haven't posted it yet. Maybe next week. It's a real, it's like a, it's, it's a noisy writer, right? It does the kind of click, clack, click, clack when you're writing, you know, cause it's a, it's aluminum on aluminum and that knock is, it's not dead on tight. So, which, you know, happens with a lot of retractables when you, you know, extend the pen. Cartridge to write with, you know, the, the knock piece is a little loose. So when you write, it's like, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it makes that, that rattling. I hate that.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So this was just, uh, I was, I was sad because that's, I mean, man, that's a beautiful pen. But, uh, that was number two. And I got, I've got one more and this is a, this is an older pen. And when I get asked about from time to time and one, uh, I have a, I have a funny anecdote. I, I should probably not relate, but I'm going to relate anyway. I don't want to get, I don't want to get in trouble, but it's, it's kind of funny. And it kind of solidified my feelings on this pen, but it's the, the Pentel Slissies, uh, or Sleachies, the three, the, the multi, the Sleach, the Pentel Sleachie. Oh, that's a hard thing to say. I'm going to call it the Sleasy or the Sleachie or the Sleachie.

Myke Hurley: Slicky. Yeah. Just carry on.

Pentel Sleachie

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But it's the, uh, the multi-pen, uh, barrels for the Pentel, uh, Sleachie. Um, it's a, it was an awesome, this is one of those pens that I was super excited for because I'd used the, uh, the Pilot Hi-Tech C Colito for a while. That's easily the, the best, um, micro tip gel ink multi-pen. And when the, the Sleachies came out, I was like, oh, this is awesome because, you know, I love the regular, the, the single cartridge Sleachie. And, um, you know, I, I couldn't wait for this to come out. But what happened when this was, this came out, especially in the three cartridge barrel, there's a two cartridge barrel. Um, I don't know if they have a four, but they have, they have a two, a car, a barrel that holds two cartridges. That's reasonable. The three cartridge barrel is really bad and they failed in design on this pen. Um, because if it's not designed properly on the inside of the pen, when you eject one of the three cartridges in, out to write with, the tip will come out at an angle, right? If it's not designed properly on the inside, like with the Coleto, even, you know, the four cartridge, you click it out and that pen is, the pen tip is vertical. When you write, you don't notice it at any angle. With the Sleachie, when you eject that, eject that cartridge, it's visibly crooked. Um, and there's no way around it. So it comes out, you know, almost like at a hooked type angle. Um, and it's really, really poor design. Now they've come up with a new body that I haven't tried just because I, I'm not even going to go there. I can't imagine it's that it's any better, but I was really disappointed with this pen. And like we were talking about earlier, when you see them getting marked down, that's kind of a hint. Well, if you look on jet pens, all the original barrels are marked down, um, just because they're, they're just not that good. Um, the other thing is the ink refills that come for the Sleachies multi-pen, they're different than the regular single cartridge Sleachie. Um, the single cartridge ones are very sharp and very fine. And that's what makes them so popular. You know, they're real consistent, um, and really good writers. But the multi-pen version, the tip has changed. No one, I haven't, I didn't email Pentel on it or anything, but it, it's absolutely different. It's a more rounded tip. Um, so it's not, you don't get as sharp or as fine of a line with it. And, um, it was just an, an all around, all around disappointment. Um, what happened, my, uh, my anecdote when, when I had just started working at jet pens, and, um, you know, at the time, you know, I was just kind of getting my feet wet and, you know, I was manning the Twitter feed, the, the Twitter account and Facebook accounts and all that. And I think I was doing like a, all questions asked type of type of thing on, on Twitter. And, um, you know, someone asked me a very similar question along to what this topic is on the podcast today. What's, you know, what I think they, they point, they flat out said, what pen do you hate the most? You know, and I, I knew better than to answer that. Um, but you know, I said, you know, there's not many pens I hate, but there's some pens, you know, that didn't live up to expectations or, you know, just, you know, didn't really, didn't really work for me personally. And I wrote, you know, Pentel Sleechy's multi-pen. And well, like a day later, Pentel had written into JetPens asking them, asking them, what are they doing? You know, what, what is, what is this tweet about on your Twitter feed about our products? And I ended up having to take it down. So that was a, that was a lesson learned for me, uh, in, in the pen business that, uh, I

Myke Hurley: got my hand slapped real quick. Well, I know from the official company feed, I'll say this pen's rubbish. Oh dear, we live and learn, don't we?

Brad Dowdy: So, Hey, you know, you know, I'm, I'm honest to a fault and you know what? Someone asked me and I, I gave an honest answer and you know, I didn't, you know, and I, and I sugarcoated it. I said, you know, I don't hate the pen, but then, you know, it just didn't live up to my expectations. And yeah, I got, I got my hand slapped for that one pretty quick.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You might as well have said you hated the pen.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. So that, that didn't work out for me too well, but no, that was a, that was a beginner mistake and I, I learned from that, learned that lesson there. But, uh, anyway, I thought that was pretty funny. That was, I was all worried about it at the time, but it turned out to be pretty funny. You know, heaven forbid you tell the truth, right?

Myke Hurley: Indeed. I think this has been a fun excursion and, um, next week's episode, we're going to talk about the field notes stuff that you mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, for sure. So talk, we're going to sort of have a little field notes, um, dedicated episode. So you're going to be talking about some of the fascination, as you call it, um, that people have with field notes. I'm really looking forward to that one. It's going to be a good one.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I'm, I'm looking forward to it as well.

Myke Hurley: So Brad, you can be found online at the penaddict.com. You can also be found on Twitter. You're at dowdyism, D-O-W-Y, sorry, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And you're also dowdy, D-O-W-D-Y, on app.net. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And until next time, thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. I'm Myke, and he's Brad. Until next time, bye-bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye-bye. Bye-bye.