The Pen Addict 328/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	328
Title:	The Longest Relationship I've Ever Had
Release Date:	October 3rd, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 328
Audio File:	Audio Episode 328
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 328
Length:	6161 min <br />1.017 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Podcast Introduction

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 328. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and RxBomb. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Yeehaw Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: I got a pretty decent amount of grief for my roping some cowpokes comments last week, and rightfully so. It was a very enjoyable event in Dallas that I just came back from. I actually even had someone come up to me with their phone, and they had it typed out, and they stood there and read it to me around all their friends and mocked me, so it was wonderful. Thank you, Dallas. The end. I'm never coming back. I'm just kidding.

Myke Hurley: Damn, you got roasted.

Brad Dowdy: I did, and it, hey, totally deserved, right? That was a bad moment in pen addict history.

Myke Hurley: I don't understand what's going on. Like, I don't know. Maybe I've missed a lot of context here. I don't get it. But we don't need to go into that today. I think that might be best for everyone. If you just tell me how Dallas went instead.

Brad Dowdy: It was a blast. So we had, we talked last week about how this was going to be my first time there, and it was going to be a new setup. The end of Pen Show for me being that it was just a two-day show, so Friday and Saturday instead of a three-day show all the way through Sunday, like the shows that you've been to and most of the shows that I go to around the U.S. tend to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday shows. And I was curious how that was going to play out. And before I made the trip, I had come around to the fact that, hey, I think this setup is going to be good. It'll be good for sales. It'll be really busy, just all kind of crammed into two days, and then I'll get home Sunday. And that's kind of nice instead of racing home Monday and getting back to the house and no one's here, things like that. And I have to say, it completely worked. So it was crazy busy, about as busy as I've been at any Pen Show before. Because of the consolidated two-day timeframe, people were lined up at the door Friday morning. Like, I don't know how many people, but not hundreds, but like, you know, 50, 60 people were probably waiting to get in. First thing Friday morning, so we started setting up. Friday morning, 8 o'clock, doors opened at 10 o'clock. I was ready to go. And up until about 3 o'clock, it was just constantly busy. We kind of had a little bit of a lull. And then after like 5 o'clock, you know, we cranked all the way up until, you know, I was selling things right until they shut the doors at 8 o'clock. So it was fantastic. It was long. It was exhausting. It was tiring. Sold a lot. Talked to a lot of people. Met a lot of people. Had a good time. I had a good table of location. So I was right next to Franklin Kristoff and right near Van Espen's end in the same room as Myke Masayama. So that's a pretty good trifecta right there of people you want to be around at a Pen Show.

Myke Hurley: It's good for football.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, that day was crazy. And then the outside of the hotel, really the only restaurant within walking distance is directly across the street. It's a steakhouse that I ate there three nights in a row. So that which was fine. It was good food. But, you know, we closed at 8. We had a dinner reservation at 8.15. And then I was back to the bar at like 10 o'clock. So, you know, people wanting to hang out and mix and mingle and, you know, share pens and tell stories. You know, we were there pretty late and we'd had a long day. So we didn't have much bar time, even though I still didn't go to bed till like 12.30, 1 o'clock, something like that. So there wasn't as much after hours socializing because there's no time. It just isn't. And since the show ends on Saturday, so it ran 9 to 5 on Saturday. Oh, sorry, 10 to 5, I think. I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, it ended at 5 o'clock. And normally Saturday nights at the three-day shows are pretty busy just for socializing and stuff. Well, everyone's gone then, right? This is when people go home. A lot of the vendors stayed, you know, weren't leaving until the next day. But a lot of the just attendees, you know, they were driving home or flying home or heading back to their house locally. And I did find it to be like a very heavily locals show, which is good. Lots of people from all over Texas made the trip, you know, four, five, six hours in the car. I actually did a little bit of a video recap where I said a lot of these things for Lisa Van Ness. You know, after the show closed down and after we got dinner Saturday night, we went and shot a little recap video and explored that. We'll put the link in the show notes to that. So that was fun.

Myke Hurley: Where is that? Is that on YouTube? It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. All right, great. That'll be on YouTube. Perfect.

Brad Dowdy: So it was nice to go to the show because I got to meet a lot of people that I haven't met at other pin shows. You know, lots of big time new crowd. And the show promoters felt that it was a really good crowd. It definitely skewed younger than the past. They said it was noticeable. So I always like to hear that. And I know every vendor I talked to like had a good show. Knock had a good show.

Brad Dowdy: Sales wise. And it was just, you know, I was pretty much every waking hour I was on. Like there was not much chill time until Saturday evening. And then by then most everyone was gone. So, you know, but that was fine. But, you know, if you're going for like the big social event show, I will say that's the one downside. You know, it doesn't have the social time like Atlanta or D.C. or Chicago or any of the three day shows. It's just really tough to do that on a two day show, especially when you go to eight o'clock. So like I couldn't do we couldn't do like a pen mixer or a pen attic meetup or anything because I'm pretty much not available Friday night until 10 o'clock. And Lisa's not available until 10 o'clock. And then Saturday, everyone's kind of gone. You don't want to do an event Saturday night. So I don't think that's a big deal. Like a lot of us get a lot of those opportunities elsewhere, myself included. So I do like this format. I do want to come back to the show. I thought it was awesome. The people there were fantastic. I mean, people are always fantastic. But man, that that Texas hospitality was in full force there. And it was really good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I wonder about the the socializing aspect of it, though, because my instinct is that that's what makes people return.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But I think the crowd of this show was so regional like this is their show for Texas and Oklahoma and Arizona and even Arkansas, even though there's a little rock show. A bunch of people from there came in Louisiana where they're they're not going necessarily going to D.C. or San Francisco or Chicago. This is the one. So we had so many people driving in from San Antonio and Austin and, you know, everywhere, you know, Oklahoma City that made the show their only show of the year and made it special for them. And it was special for us to to be there for them and hang out and meet all these people that came from all over. Like it was it's not that a crowd that you normally see it like like I'm used to seeing the people I see in Atlanta. And there's always new people in Atlanta because we do special things there like the podcast and people travel from all over the world there. Yeah. But I'm not seeing I didn't see many of the Atlanta people in Texas, you know, which is a good thing. San Francisco people in Texas. It's a great thing.

Myke Hurley: Because you want to see new people at different shows because it means that the overall kind of maybe industry is the wrong word, but like the whole thing is increasing. You know, like the overall people that are there to care about this stuff increases if you start to see new people. If it's just the same people moving around, you're just saturating it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I think the promoters and the vendors would agree that they saw that change and have been seeing that change recently. So, I mean, I don't have enough good things to say about it. And I already told them I'll be back next year. So we'll have to figure that out.

Show Attendance Discussion Shift

Brad Dowdy: I might need to bring you there, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people asked about you, especially people who were Retro 51 fans, because, you know, that's pretty much their home, right? They're 30 minutes from there.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I got to meet everyone at Retro 51, all the people we've talked to over the years. You know, the owner even stopped by to just come say hi and thanks for all the support over the years. And I was like, you know, I've got a little tear in my eye. I was like, thank you. You guys are great. But it's just super nice, super nice people. Yeah. And I got to meet the people that I build the pins with on the back end. You know, like some of the people that you don't necessarily hear from or deal with. But all the people when I'm putting it, working on Pin Addict pins or other concepts or marketing stuff, you know, they were all there. And they had a table there.

Brad Dowdy: And that table had some pretty fancy special editions and prototypes that you don't get to see any anywhere else. And they were for sale, Myke. And I couldn't help myself but send you some pictures and taunt you a little bit, even though I didn't buy any. And I keep looking back at the pictures that I took. I was like, well, that was dumb. I should have bought that one and that one at least, you know.

Myke Hurley: I was a little jealous of this because I was kind of just like looking through the pictures. So there's a picture in the show notes that you put on the website. But there were also more pictures in Refill, which is your membership newsletter that people should always sign up for because it's awesome. So I definitely saw some of these prototypes. And I guess that these are just ones that are quite literally prototypes, not in like the Franklin Kristoff sense where it's like we're going to make new ones to sell at every show. Or they were going to have extras like that kind of made in mind of being sold. My expectation is these were ones that they were thinking about turning into products that weren't. And that's just I guess that's just because that's the difference in scale. I think like Retro 51 sells at a larger scale. So their prototypes are probably typically more actual prototypes than like here's a fun thing we were tooling around with. It didn't work. We're going to sell it as opposed to like we had a plan. We made the thing. The thing didn't work. Right. And they looked some of them. There is one is that I think it's actually in the picture that I'm putting in in our show notes, which is all pink. Everything's pink. And yeah, that is so different for them. Like all of the furniture is pink. Everything is pink. And I saw it and I was like, oh, damn.

Brad Dowdy: Like, yeah, that one, you know, that one stood out to me. And I almost just went ahead and bought the purple one with gold trim for you to match your sailor. And I didn't. So I was kind of kicking myself on that one. So I did. So that was the thing about the show is I didn't buy a thing like I had a nib ground. And I came home with some retro 51 display trays. And I got a pen from Heinz pen that we've been talking about, you know, handing off to me for review. And that's all the stuff I came home with. Like I had no time to get around from the table to even go talk to people or see the other vendors.

Brad Dowdy: You know, just and I'm OK with that. Like, I'm totally fine with that. But like I didn't get to take enough pictures, I didn't think necessarily for the members newsletter. And I didn't share any to Instagram because I just didn't have time to like pull up my phone and snap a few shots. Once you get that busy, you know, it's like I'm just, you know, going to the water cooler and go into the restroom. And that's about it, you know, for two entire days. So I didn't get to shop around. There was a bunch of people I didn't get to talk to. I didn't get to hang out with some of my vendor friends that I see at all these shows and talk to online all the time. So, you know, like that's a good thing. Like that's not a complaint. It's just kind of a fact, right? It's I had a good show, so I didn't get around as much, right? So that kind of goes hand in hand. And, you know, I think that's the way I'd want it, right? If I was there selling. If I was there selling stuff, you know, I want as big a crowd as possible for as long as possible, you know. And then hopefully the sales happen. But I don't want to be standing around twiddling my thumbs or going to talk to other vendors saying, hey, you bored yet? You know, we were not bored at all this show.

Myke Hurley: That's excellent. I'm really pleased that it went so well because, I mean, these are always a gamble every time. And, you know, if they work out for you and for everybody else, it's only good for our community, right? Totally. What else did you see when you were there, though? Any other products?

Brad Dowdy: I didn't expect to see the new Sailor 1911 Key Lime. I didn't think they were going to show up in time, but Dromgools got theirs. So they brought them to the show. And I'm hesitant to say what I think about it.

Pen Preference Transition

Brad Dowdy: But I'm going to anyway. I don't like it.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, in the big picture, it's really nice, right? It's perfectly fine. When I say I don't like it, I say that for me. If I had the Stormy Sea, which I don't think either of us have. You don't have that one, Myke, right? It's the blue limited edition with the Chatoiants, right? It's like sparkle, but not like sparkles in it. But it's like, you know what I'm talking about, that kind of effect that's over the pen. The pictures don't show that for the Key Lime. I thought it was going to be more flat like the, I was hoping it would be more flat like the Tangerine, but it's more shiny like the Stormy Seas. So if I had the Stormy Seas, I'd be more intent on jumping on the Key Lime. But the Key Lime, not that it has to match anything, but I feel like it should go with my Tangerine. I just do. It's kind of like the perfect match. And it really doesn't look like it at all. It's interesting. And it's good. And they're going to sell out. It's going to be great. Once I saw it, it was immediately scratched off the list. Like I saw it and I was like, oh, okay. Like I don't need this. And that was it. Like there was no, not much hemming and hawing over this one. Like I saw it, it didn't speak to me and I'll pass. But overall, I mean, it's a Sailor 1911 in a really hot color. Like it's going to do well, right? There's nothing wrong with the pen whatsoever. But like for me, this one's like marked off the list. So, and that's okay. Like I'm kind of glad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: This does sound kind of the way that I expected it to be. Like this is a nice one, but it's not like I must have it. Like we kind of felt for the, uh, uh, the tangerine.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Like I tried not to buy the tangerine just because I didn't need another pen, but I could never stop looking at it. And that's, that's when you kind of know like, okay, it's okay to finally pull the trigger on that pen when you can't stop thinking about it. And I got it and I love it. You know, that's how purchases should be. At least for me, that's how I try to think about them. You know, I try not to jump right into it and then have regret. I'll try to, you know, play it slow and see if it, it's got some stickiness in me wanting it and then go for it. That's when I know it's good. So I saw that and then I got to meet really one of my stationary heroes, George Fox, who runs my supply room. Um, it's a blog I've talked about on here many times. I've linked to it many times. He's the guy who has pretty much every bit of stationary ever from the sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties, um, outside, pretty much outside of fountain pens. He has some fountain pens, but he's really into like the office supplies, school supply stuff. And I've talked about him before because he supplies a lot of the stationary props to film companies and TV shows, right? So the biggest one that he's done and one I've mentioned before and when he's, he's mentioned it on his blog. So I'm not like talking out of school here. He supplied all the stationary for Mad Men. So all of the era, you know, sixties office stationary from, you know, pens and paper and pencils and stapler staplers and tape dispensers and all of this stuff. He, he supplied the stationary for the show and he gave me one of the Parker jotters they used in the show as a gift. And that's, that was like the highlight of my show. That's like super special. It was really, really special to meet George, um, in the first place, because I know how much he loves that stuff and how much he cares about, you know, keeping the history of stationary and how good a friend he has been over the years. So getting to meet him in person the first time was great. And then he dropped that on me. I was like, well, that I just carried it. I carried that in my shirt pocket the entire weekend and told everyone about it every time I got a chance. So it's really cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it was really cool.

Brad Dowdy: He's, he's a good guy. And, uh, so now I'm gonna, I'm gonna treasure that pen and, uh, I've been using it. I've been using it a bunch. So now, um, we were talking at the bar one night, we're on a mission to go see if we can find that one in any show and like, see if we can see it on a desk or who used it or anything like that. So, you know, any of you Mad Men hardcore fans, you know, we're looking for a, we're looking for a timestamp. That's a lot of, that's a lot of seasons to go through to find a single Parker Jotter. Cause there's probably a lot of them in the show.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. You gotta hope that it was a, that it was a Draper special though, right? That's what you want.

Brad Dowdy: Hopefully.

Myke Hurley: That's what you want.

Dallas Show Wrap-Up

Brad Dowdy: But thank you, George. It was great to meet you. And thank you to everyone at the Dallas show. All the people that stopped by to say hi and hang out and tell me stories. You know, we had some people who'd emailed me recently and they thanked, thank me and you for like answering their questions and things like that. So it was just an all around good time, good show. Can't wait to get back and highly recommend it. It was a blast.

Myke Hurley: That's really great. All right. Should we take a break? We should. All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by RX bar. RX bar are whole food protein bars with simple real ingredients. They believe in being totally transparent, which is why all of the core ingredients that you'll find in an RX bar are listed right on the front of the packet. Whether you like sweet or savory chocolate or fruit flavors, there is an RX bar for you. The adult bars come in 14 delicious flavors like chocolate, hazelnut, blueberry, maple, sea salt, mint chocolate, and so many more. And RX bar also have a kid's line as well. They're made from the same whole food ingredients as RX bar, just smaller and in more kid-friendly flavors. The texture is also a little softer and the nuts are chopped up into more smaller pieces. And the kids bars come in six flavors. There's delicious ones like chocolate chip, peanut butter and jelly, or PB and J. I feel like I can't get away with saying that so easily, Brad. So I have to do it with the full thing. Double chocolate chip and peanut butter chocolate. Both the adult and kids bars are gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free. I think Brad's having a snack as we're talking right now. And with none of that bad stuff like artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives, or fillers inside. They're perfect for parents for breakfast on the go or a snack at the office. And the kids bars are great for lunch boxes and after-school snacks. So what's going on over there in the Dowdy household?

Brad Dowdy: So let me let everyone start behind the scenes a little bit.

Myke Hurley: Okay, you're doing the worst. This is like, it will allow it now, but one of the worst things you can do on a podcast is eat during it, but this is the perfect time.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm eating the coconut chocolate adult RX bar. So behind the scenes, Myke and I discuss the ads that we're going to have on the show. So he'll reach out to me and say, hey, these people are interested. What do you think? You know, we're very open about that. You know, Myke's not just cramming something down my throat without me having input. When he said RX bar, I said, I'm in. Like me and my family are huge protein bar fans. Like when you have a family and kids and you're running around as much as we are, then you want to have something good on the go either for breakfast or snacks in the afternoon or, you know, after a kid's baseball game or soccer practice or something like that. So then I told Tyler, who's actually the protein bar guru, me and him are mostly into them. And then my wife and daughter a little bit, but not as much as us. I told him we were getting them. He was like, yeah, that's cool. And I was like, they have kid sides. So we got PB and J and chocolate chip. He loves them. I've got the sampler box with peanut butter and blueberry, mixed berry and coconut chocolate. And you're right. They're really cool. They say like right on the front label, like this chocolate coconut says three egg whites, six almonds, four cashews, two dates, no BS. It's pretty cool. And they taste good. And I've eaten, I think I've eaten through about all the stash that they said so far. But like I said, we're protein bar people at our household. And these are fantastic. And I will continue to get some of these because they're really good.

Myke Hurley: That is awesome to hear. But how about this? I've got a great deal for you. RX Bar is offering an exclusive pack for listeners of the show, which includes six adult bars and four kids bars. So it's something for the whole family to enjoy. For 25% off your first order, go to rxbar.com slash penaddict. And enter the promo code penaddict to check out. That's rxbar.com slash penaddict and the promo code penaddict to check out to get your hands on that exclusive deal. Our thanks to RX Bar for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: I might have to take a bite out of this next pen you're going to talk about.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. This is kind of perfect. It's food-based, Myke. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it arrived. My, what? This is my fourth. I think. Sailor that was in the whole thing that I was buying, right? Was it the fourth? It's day 28.

Brad Dowdy: And I've been lost at sea without communication to the mainland. I've manned the helm of the ship until the ship's wheel fell off. And I no longer have contact.

Myke Hurley: What is this? I see an island in the distance. That I've lost it? I've just lost the plot or something? What's going on here? No. No.

Brad Dowdy: No. It's just the sailors. I did get, we did get a lot of feedback on the helm of the ship in the past couple weeks. So I wanted to make sure to point that out. But please tell me about your Orancello because this pen is all good, right? Like... Oh, boy.

Myke Hurley: Yes. It's very, I'm very excited about this. So this was the one of the more recent bong box limited editions. So it has a few different things going on here. It is a orange body of the pen, but the end cap, what is that called? It's not the finials on the top, right? What is the one on the back? Is it also called a finial? Probably not, right?

Brad Dowdy: The very end, if there's something attached to it, yeah. If it's a piston, it's called a blind cap. But just the end of the pen on a standard barrel pen, I don't know that it has a real name.

Myke Hurley: We'll go with the end. The end of the barrel of the pen is brown and it has like a gold ring around it. Yeah. It's the helm of the pen. The helm. The helm. Yeah. Perfect. That makes sense. The grip is also a nice chocolate brown. The cap is translucent orange. And then the finial is chocolate brown and it has a little thing stamped in it, which looks like a kind of like a, it looks like a, it's like, it's like shiny like rotten, right? So I don't know what it's made out of, but it's shaped like an orange, but the tip of it is just colored brown because that it's mimicking this candy. The, um, the orange yet, uh, orangeella. We're still not completely sure which one it's like these chocolate pieces. I think that are dried and dipped in orange pieces that are dried and dipped in chocolate. Um, I got a zoom nib on this. Oh, nice. This is another pen that says ink tells more on the nib. So I have a couple of these now, which seems to be something that bong box is doing with the nibs that they're getting for these. And look, I, of course I love it. And I have a special ink that I've been holding onto and I wish I remember who it was, but somebody gave me a pen show at some point over the last year, a Tesla vial of Mont Blanc Lucky Orange. And that's what I've put in this pen and I love it. It's a great ink. That's a great match. And, uh, it's allowed me to have a, a different orange, you know, cause I have a lot of orange pens now and a lot of orange inks, but they're kind of matching up. So this is now a third orange ink in the rotation.

Sailor Pen Discussion Begins

Brad Dowdy: So I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit. I'm not going to make you pick your favorite sailor fountain pen, but I'm going to make you pick between pink love and orange yellow.

Myke Hurley: All right. So here's the thing. The pink love was a long term thing for me, right? Like I was trying to find that thing for a long, long time and I do absolutely love it. Right. It is a great pen.

Myke Hurley: The nib is a hard medium, which I like, but I don't love. It causes me some issues sometimes. It's not perfect nib for me, but it was like, I wanted this pen and it was all they had. The zoom nib on the other hand, on the orange, orange jet, orange yellow. I'm not, this is like sky at night all over again. I've been calling this the orange yellow for the last couple of weeks, but I think, but whatever.

Brad Dowdy: Well, it has a real name. We're just not doing our job well.

Myke Hurley: No, the Mandarin orange jet is how it is translated on the Mongbox website in Google Chrome here, but I don't think that's right. But anyway, you know, everyone knows what I'm talking about by now. I'll put it, I'm going to call it the orange jet for now. We've seen the show notes. It's fine. And the zoom nib on this is much more to my taste. Plus it's orange, right? So, you know, and it's a really interesting orange. I think right now, and it might be a recency bias thing, but I'm going to go with the orange jet over the pink glove. I love, I love the pink glove, but the orange jet is like, it's more in my general wee house anyway, you know? Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I can see that. Like, I don't own the orange jet probably won't unless I, you know, pick one up on the secondary market or something like that, but I can see why that's such a great pen. And yeah, so very cool. It's not the only thing orange we're going to talk about this week, Myke. Did you see the new Pelican M600 vibrant orange?

Myke Hurley: The fire pen. The fire pen.

Brad Dowdy: This is pretty rad. I want to see this in person. This came out pretty much over the weekend that, you know, I was at the pen show, so no one had these yet. And so something about this pen that I guess Sailor does sometimes and doesn't do sometimes, which this is the first one that really made me think about it. But the barrel and cap are the materials that they're putting forth as vibrant orange. So like the Ocean Swirl did that, right? Where the barrel and the cap was. But then they'll do additions where just the barrel are the special material or something like that. I don't think this one would have worked as well if they didn't do the entirety of the barrel because you do get some of that old Delta Dolce Vita orange thing going on here which was a very popular color. And that orange material has been made into a lot of pens and, you know, with black sections and black end caps or black caps. So doing a mostly orange, like everything but the grip section, I mean, Sailor's knocks it off the park constantly. And this is just, this is another one. It seems like this time of year, I guess right before the holidays, they really go gangbusters because they just released that new one, what, a week or two ago. What was the name of that one? The Stone Garden. And that's an example of where they just did the barrel of, you know, the special, the stone garden where the cap was navy blue. And the cap is just blue.

Myke Hurley: Personally, I prefer the stone garden to the vibrant orange. It's too much for me. I mean, just from the images, right? Like, that's too much orange for me, I think.

Myke Hurley: It's also kind of like, there's something about that style that I've seen on a bunch of pens. And I don't like it. It reminds me of like antique furniture in a way that, if it's the whole, like, I like it to be like an element of the pen, not the entire pen. So it's like, that's why I like the stone garden more because it's just the body, but the grip and the cap are just like plain navy blue. So it makes that element stand out more as opposed to it just like completely overwhelming.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. So I'm with you. And we actually have a question about both of these pens we're talking about, including another one later in Ask TPA. So we'll hold the rest of our thoughts for that. But I really want to see this in person. I prefer the 800 size barrels. This one might actually tempt me in the 600. We'll just see. I want to see how it looks in person. And I'm not, you know, completely going gaga over it to own it, but I am enjoying looking at it and going, wow, I want to check this out in person and see what that material really looks like. See what kind of depth it has in that color, because it does look like it's on fire from here, you know, from the, through the computer screen. So yeah, I'll be interested to see. It's obviously going to do really well. I'm sure. This next link, Myke, I cannot wait to talk about this. And I had no intention of putting this in the show notes until, Myke, I watched the video of the Inky Pen. And then I lost my freaking mind.

Myke Hurley: This is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. Again.

Brad Dowdy: So let me, let me put it, let me put in a little disclaimer. So this is a PR email I got, right? Right. Just general basic email. I wonder how it came to you. I'm sure lots of people got this email. And generally these, I'll read them, I'll glance at the thing, and then I'll just archive them. Like, unless I'm totally through the roof about something really amazing, I almost never reply back to just the generic PR email. So that's how I got this. So go ahead.

Myke Hurley: Like, I urge everyone listening to this to open their podcast app or like as soon as they can when they're finishing their drive or whatever. I would even say to you to pause the show and wait until you've seen this video. It will be in our show notes, which should be in your podcast app, or it will be at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 328. This is a very surprising thing. So the video starts and they're visioneering the whole thing, right? Like, oh, this is the pen like that will change your life and everyone should be able to use it. And there's this woman and she's like, look, she's had some kind of revelation, even though she obviously ordered the pen. Like the pen didn't just arrive for her. All right. And then they're like, oh, this is the pen for all people. Right. So she twists it. And the I think what's going to happen is like, oh, they're going to switch from a ball point to like a mechanical pencil or some nonsense like that. And then like the tip of the pen just starts like retracting like super quickly, like a tattoo needle. It's like it's going in and out. And I thought to myself, oh, I know what's going on here. They're like making some kind of effect to make it look like, oh, this is like a three pen. Like it's the pen for everyone. Right. Like, oh, it's like a multi pen. But no, like this is what the pen does for some reason. Or OK, this is what they say the pen does. For some reason, this is a ballpoint that you can use normally or you can turn it on. It has this little motor inside and it just starts like I can't even think of the right word, but firing the ballpoint.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's fair.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Right. And you can turn up the speed of it. So the idea is that it can help you draw patterns. So I have a couple of questions about this. Right. First, why? Like why? No one no one needs this. Second, the noise this pen would make. Right. Would be atrocious. Right. As you're just like hurling this like ballpoint backwards and forwards to you would destroy the you destroy. Any refill will be destroyed by this. And I don't believe anyone will be able to hold on to this pen. If I mean, I also I don't believe it's real. Right. We should have said that to start with like this mechanism. I just don't believe works. Right. Because this isn't a Kickstarter. This is just, hey, come to our website and give us money and you'll get one in one in December. So that just tells me like they are launching a Kickstarter. They are launching a Kickstarter. They are launching a Kickstarter because right now you can just pay them.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? No, I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be a Kickstarter, but I'm not sure. Right. So.

Myke Hurley: Oh, OK. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. It may. I thought that you could pay them because it looked in their FAQ. Like it says, oh, how can I get one? It says, oh, you can pay us by PayPal or cards. So I was like, oh, here we go. But when you then when you click on another area, it says give us your email address and we'll tell you when we're launching on Kickstarter. Yeah. So what do you think?

Pen Purchase Disinterest

Brad Dowdy: So I have no interest in backing this pen.

Myke Hurley: Oh, no, Brad, you can buy it. Sorry. I'm sorry. You can buy it. You can buy it on their website right now.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I have no interest in buying it, but I would like to support the writer and marketing department who shot this video. This is onion level quality pen video. This is the most sensual, erotic pen video I've ever seen in my life. It is freaking amazing. Like what? I mean, it's it's on purpose, right? I mean, they've taken like every pen pun and innuendo, roll it all up into one video. And I was fascinated by it. I was dying. It was like this needs to be on the onion. Like that's what it seems like to me. It's so good. I couldn't not put it in the show notes once I saw this video. There's something else that exists that does this.

Myke Hurley: Doug just put it in the chat room. It's called the Catalola electric dots pen. Gotcha. And it's much bigger. It's significantly bigger.

Myke Hurley: Lord. We need a video for that one, too. Yeah. It's a lot bigger than than this thing here. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So this is like the the sharper image. Tricky, you know, gifty pen kind of joke thing almost. I mean, they they clearly take it seriously.

Myke Hurley: And it moves so quickly. Like, I don't understand how anyone could use it. Like it moves. It moves so fast.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's very strange. She got that drawing done in like two minutes flat. I know. And it was hung on the wall. Very impressive.

Myke Hurley: She likes her own art, huh?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I wasn't going to put this in there. And then I hit that video link. I was like, I'm going to check this out. Like, I just held the email and I was like, OK, I'm going to go click on this link.

Myke Hurley: My favorite shot of this video is one of the final shots, right? She picks up her keys to leave the house and it just picks up the pen, loosen her hand. What is that for? Where's she going with it? Where's she going with it? This is very weird. I really hope that this thing exists. I really do. Apparently it already does. No, but like and it's real and it works like this specific thing because this is so silly.

Inktober Discussion Shift

Brad Dowdy: It's so ridiculous. It's a Saturday Night Live commercial. Yeah. Like an in-show commercial. It's brilliant. Like this is, like I couldn't even comment in our show notes. I just put like a bad word in there. It's like, you got to be kidding me with this. But it's amazing. So let's get on to real stuff, Myke, before we get to our Ask TPA. I wanted to point out a few things that I've listened to and I need to listen to all on the podcast feeds. So the nib section has had our good friend David from Fig Boot on pens on the big YouTube channel that David puts on. He's a good guy. I see him at all the pen shows in the area. So I have not listened to that one yet, but it's queued up. So the nib section team does a fantastic job with their podcast and interviews. And then I was on the Fountain Pen Companion special episode number one. So they have a regular episode. And then Anna from Fountain Pen Companion interviewed me at the DC Pen Show. And we had a great conversation just about that show and community and just general fun stuff that we wanted to talk about. So I listened back to that one yesterday and that was really, really fun to do. And then just today, actually right as we recorded this podcast on Wednesday, the Make Do Pod dropped their Inktober episode. And we'd be remiss, even though we're not participants in Inktober, Myke, it's one of my favorite times of the year to kind of troll stationery and Twitter, Instagram.

Myke Hurley: So good to be on Instagram right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So it's wonderful. You know, if you're not familiar with Inktober, we'll put a link into the show notes. But basically, you have a daily drawing prompt. You do with it as you will. Yeah. And it's just a good way to, you know, explore your artistic side and go through some little process and have fun and go see what everyone else does. So I'll be checking that out today. So, man, constantly good content coming out. It's not just me and you, huh? No, no. Thank goodness, man. People would get tired of us. I'd get tired of us.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we need all these people so people keep listening to us.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right?

Myke Hurley: If there isn't more stuff, they're just going to get bored of us. You spread it out a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. They'll take a break from us. Go subscribe to all these other awesome podcasts. You know, binge them, listen to them all. Don't take like a break. Break. Like, make sure you still come back at the time. No, no, no. You got to come back. You got to come back. Because, you know, we always want to try to keep it fresh, you know, and new. So you got to come back and see what we're doing. So, but yeah, go subscribe to all these podcasts. They're great.

Myke Hurley: My God, we're approaching seven years. Crazy. Yeah, I think, Brad, I think this is like the longest relationship I've ever had with another human being.

Myke Hurley: It's me and you. Interesting. That's interesting. Yeah. I'm going to go back and watch the Inky video now. Yeah, you do that. You do that.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. They will let you easily create a website for your next idea or project. With the ability to grab a unique domain name, take advantage of award-winning templates and more. If you've just heard us talking about people in the community that are doing awesome things, awesome blogs, awesome podcasts, awesome projects, Squarespace could be the place for you to start yours so you could become a part of this wonderful community as well. Because Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that will let you build just about any type of website you want to make. Whether you want to make a blog or a portfolio, maybe you want to make a website to show off your Inktober work, you can do that with Squarespace. And hey, if you have something to sell, they have an online store functionality too. With Squarespace, there is nothing to install, patch, or upgrade. They take care of all of this stuff for you and back everything up with award-winning 24-7 customer support. They'll let you easily grab a unique domain name if it's something that you need. And all of their templates are wonderfully customizable so you can make sure that your website will look and feel the way that you want it to. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can start a trial today with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict. Then when you decide to sign up, use the offer code penaddict. This is going to get you 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. Once again, that is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for their continued support of this show and RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

Brad Dowdy: So after last week's episode, there was some conversation in the Slack channel about, you know, what other things we could do on the show, what other segments we could have, you know, what other new topics we could discuss. And one of the topics came up, it really grabbed me for a new segment is for listeners to send in their pen horror stories. You know, what, you know, has gone wrong during the time that you've been a pen addict or a big fountain pen fan or, you know, just a user of all things analog. You know, did you lose something? Did you break something? Did you have a terrible spill? And I would thought it would be fun to collect those from time to time, read them on the air, you know, just have a little fun with it. And then, you know, if we felt so inclined that the story knocked our socks off, Myke, we could begin the pen addict horror story hall of fame. So what do you think about this idea?

Myke Hurley: I think this is a genius idea. I love it very much.

Brad Dowdy: This was Andrew in the chat room. And as soon as he said it, I was like, yes, we're going to do this. This is very good. Yeah. And like, I think I even want to give away something for like the ones we'll be strict on the entrance into the hall of fame. Like we'll have, we'll have to judge, judge these stories, Myke. So we'll have lots of stories. They won't all make it into the hall of fame, but like the best of the best, you know, and I can give away things like a pen addict t-shirt or some notebooks or things like that to anyone who makes it into the hall of fame. I think we'll do that, you know, for sure, because, you know, it's not like we're going to be inducting four in every episode, you know, maybe one a month we'll have like a hall of fame story entrance. So if you have a pen horror story to share, email it to me. Hello at pen addict.com. Put pen addict horror story or something in the title. So I know what it is. And I don't ignore it completely because I get a lot of email. So this got me thinking, Myke, do you have a pen horror story to share?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I think the thing that always jumps to my mind is like my Mont Blanc that I got for my 18th birthday that I was very proud of. And, you know, this was kind of, listeners will remember this was during the pen addict time. And this was something that my mom bought me because she knew that I loved pens and it was a great gift, you know, and it was fancy. It was a great pen too. Really nice. And I dropped it on the nib and it was never the same again.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And this was kind of the worst. This was in the early days and like before you, you know, really didn't know anything about it and it just got set to the side and forgotten. I don't, I was trying to think of this. I think my biggest horror story is every time I have to move one of Lisa Van Ness's ink tower shelves. That's a horror story. Anytime we lift one of those up because ink shelves have gone flying, they've landed on my foot and they've cut me. They've banged people in the head. I broke a bottle of deatrimandous fuchsia on my shoes. These things are just dangerous. So it's like a, it's a horror story. Anytime I have to get near those things and I had to take them out of the van at this show and put them back and lift them up onto the table and then take them off the table and get them back into the van. And, you know, that's just a horror story. Every time I get near those things, they make me cringe. So thanks for that, Lisa. I appreciate it. I have nightmares now about picking up those ink shelves.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So we'll take your horror stories. You know, I want to, I want to see where this goes, see if this works. So hello at penaddict.com, send them to me, penaddict horror story in the title, and we will read them out on the air along with our Ask TPA mic, which we got a good batch. Yes. This week. So let's hammer some of these out. You ready?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let's go for it.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Our friend Joe Casabona says, I never fill my bullet journal when I use the Leuchtturm 1917 and always start a new one in January. I love the notebook, but it's so much wasted space. Looking for alternatives. The new Field Notes Endpapers Edition might work, but open to suggestions. Hashtag Ask TPA.

Myke Hurley: Mine can, by the way.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah.

Myke Hurley: What do you think?

Myke Hurley: I think how I expected I would feel.

Myke Hurley: That's about what I thought you would think.

Myke Hurley: They're really nice. I just don't know what I would really use them for. But again, it's like, am I pleased I have this? Yes, because this is a very specific notebook that at some point I'm going to be like, I need something. And then this is the perfect one for that. You know what I mean? But I just don't know what to use it for.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So to answer Joe's question, I'm kind of in the same boat and going into next year, and I've alluded to this a bunch. I'm going to skip any type of large format planner, and I'm going to skip any type of planner, period. And I'm just going to use pocket notebooks.

Brad Dowdy: That's at least my goal. It could be a pipe dream. I need to implement this now. So I'm ready. You know, I need to carry a pocket notebook with me in my pocket with a pen at all times, even when I'm at the house. You know, it just needs to be there for when I have to write the thing down. And that's what I get lost a lot. And that's where planners fail me because I don't, or more, maybe I fail planners. You know, I don't use them like super in a super hardcore fashion. It's more passively. Um, so I'm going to go full pocket notebook route for next year. You know, I'll have, of course, like probably an A5 notebook on my desk or something like that. And if, um, you know, for using reviews and just maybe some larger format writing. But I think for my day to day planning, note taking, task list to do's, I'm going to stick with pocket notebooks. Plus I have more pocket notebooks than any other notebook and I need to use some of them. And I want to use some of them. You know, I don't open all these things because, you know, I have other things in use right now. I think if I can commit to the pocket notebook on a daily basis, I will burn through them. I'm just sticking with one notebook. So I'm going to try. Um, I still got to kind of work this all out mentally, you know, figure out how I'm going to commit to it. But, uh, I think that's what I want to do for next year. If you're not looking for that, um, look at the majority traveler setup. You don't even have to buy the leather cover, but their notebooks are tall and skinny. I like the format and they're not too big. So you don't get overwhelmed. And they do have date books where you can fill in the dates and days of the week yourself. So we'll see. All right. Papa courage wants to know is the new Esther book release done by the same company that reissued the Esther book two to three years ago. No, it is done by Kenro industries who bought out the company and actually bought out and hired the old owner of the new Esther brook, but it's a completely different pen redesigned by the folks at Kenro. And it's really nice. Like I haven't gotten to use one yet, but they were all over the Dallas pen show. They sold really well. The really good thing that they did is they made a section that allows you to use the old Esther brook nibs and the new pens, which is flat out genius. So they did a good job there.

Myke Hurley: Where is that being sold? I haven't even seen it.

Brad Dowdy: Through any of Kenro's retailers, which would be all your big players. So it just started. That's why we're getting the questions because they just got released. Like, you know, seeing it in gold spot emails and pinch LA emails and Goulet emails. So all the big players have them as of kind of like right now. So that's why the questions are popping up. So the old owner is still affiliated with Kenro. And, you know, I had some problems with him in the past. So until he's no longer there, I won't be reviewing one, but I can say they're very nice. And they did a good job with them and good job by the guys at Kenro doing something cool with the nibs.

Myke Hurley: Is that what it's called?

Brad Dowdy: I don't even know. It's the only option right now. Okay. So if you see it, that's what it is.

Fountain Pen Recommendation

Brad Dowdy: Der Kommissioner wants to know if there's any recommendations for a starter fountain pen for an 11-year-old. My niece has a birthday soon and she likes to draw and write. I was thinking a simple cartridge pen like Pilot Kakuno, Pelican Pelicano, or Kaweco Sport. So I would scratch the Sport off the list first and go with either the Kakuno, the Pelicano, and I'd add in the Pilot Metropolitan. If you think she's really going to get into it, I would look at one of the TWSBI Ecos because those are just super fun to use and look at. But that takes a little bit more. Are you going to trust an 11-year-old with a bottle of ink and not making a mess? Things like that. That's why you're thinking cartridge pen here.

Myke Hurley: I want to suggest a Lamy ABC in that too.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yeah, that's a cool pen. I've always liked that wooden barrel. I like that style. But if I had to pick just from the list, I'm a hardcore Pilot Kakuno fan. Love those pens. Kakuno's great. But the Pelicano gets a lot of love too. So pick one of those two. You can't go wrong.

Brad Dowdy: SideRose says, My friend and fellow penatic Austin has gotten me into Destiny 2. And I think you need to start a Destiny 2 notebook. And I think I need to start a Destiny 2 notebook to keep track of everything. I popped in on Twitch and saw you playing. And wanted to know if Stationery plays a role in your D2 experience. So yes, I play Destiny when I'm not streaming about Stationery. I'm streaming Destiny 2 most of the time. And that takes up most of the hours of content, honestly, when I do stream. So I'm going to try to stream tomorrow, by the way. Thursday, October the 4th. And I haven't been using a notebook for Destiny because they do a pretty good job at allowing you to see what you have going in the screen. But it is getting a little bit overwhelming. And I should because all the other games I play, I've always used notebooks. Which it's funny. That's why I put this question in here. Because I actually do use notebooks. Like when I played World of Warcraft, I probably played it heavily for five or six years. I'd write down all the formula recipes that I needed to make different potions. And what materials I needed to collect. And I would write all this stuff down. Or if I needed to build some piece of gear or things like that. I'd write all these things down that I need to collect.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I do that when we play Study Valley. Absolutely. Because we kind of lose track of what our objectives are. So I have to start writing down in a notebook. So then I can remember later on where to go back to.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. So it's kind of like you don't think those things go hand in hand. But I know a lot of video gamers log things in notebooks. And I've actually shared some links like in Missville. Like I remember this link just a few weeks ago where I shared this guy's notebooks from the 80s. Where he like wrote down all these maps and mazes and puzzles and was solving everything. So it kind of helps to have a notebook and a piece of paper. And I keep one by my console in case I do want to write anything down. But I haven't written them for Destiny 2. But I do find myself going back to the director a lot to find out what I need to do. So I need to implement that.

Brad Dowdy: Sith and Sense says, Would it be weird if I gave a professor a better red pen to grade my work? I wasn't impressed by the waxy, globby red mark in my homework. Yes, you should give your professor a better pen. And you don't even have to. I mean, you could do it completely on the stealth, right? They wouldn't even have to know. I'd start with something like the Pilot Sign Pen. Or the Paper Mate Flare. Which are the more marker style pens. You know, with like the felt tips. You know, they're very good for like marking up papers. Or I would use like a Pentel Inner Gel red gel ink pen. And I just like buy one or two of each of those. And just leave them on their desk. And see if they, you know, they may not get the hint. They may just go, oh, new pen I can grade with. And then later on you can drop the bomb on them. Say, hey, thanks for the F, buddy. At least you're using a better pen now.

Myke Hurley: And I guess if you give them the pen, you could buy a second one. And if you need to change the grade.

Brad Dowdy: Ah, true. Right? True.

Myke Hurley: You've got the right ink. You can just, I don't know if that's how it works. But, you know, go for it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yep. So here's the question I was referring to earlier, Myke. So Crane RXN realizes there are price differences. But if you can only buy one, which do you go for? The Pelican M600 Vibrant Orange. The Pelican M800 Stone Garden. Or the Sailor 1911 Key Lime. Assume they all look as good as you could hope. Asking for a friend. Winky face. We kind of, you probably know our answers by now. But do you want to take a stab at this? What are you going to do out of this list? Even though there's a huge price range between these three pens. If you could just pick one of the three, which one are you going with?

Myke Hurley: Right. But there's a spanner in the works with this question. Uh-oh. Which is assume they all look as good as you could hope. Now. I think they do. Well, but then I would want the Key Lime. But I don't think it's as bright and vivid as I want it to be. So, you know, if it was as bright and vivid. Like, if it was to green that the tangerine was to orange, then I would want it. But I don't think that's what it is. Right? So, I mean, if it was as good as I wanted them to be, that's what I would go for. But considering everything that I think that I know, I would go for the M800 Stone Garden.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. And myself, I'd go for the Vibrant Orange. The Stone Garden doesn't speak to me, even though I think it's a really, really pretty pen. Like, they did a good job with that. But not all of the Pelican Limited Editions, like the marble one they did last year. Like, that one didn't speak to me. But they do such a good job. They sell them really well. I would pick the orange out of this list. I'm interested to see what you think about the Key Lime now that you've said this. You might like it more than I like it. But I'm interested to see, you know, now that our vision's been a little bit skewed. So, I'm picking Vibrant Orange. Myke's picking Stone Garden. And he's holding out hope that the Key Lime might be something that it's probably not. But, yeah. So, we helped you none there, Todd. We helped you zero. Jagen wants to know, what is a good pen, not a mechanical pencil, as it's on Tomoe River, that is good for use with thin stencils? That is one that is thin enough to work with a stencil that doesn't allow for a huge pen tip. So, the first one that came to mind is the Oto Graphic Liner. So, it is a needle tip arc pen, if you will. It goes down to 0.3 millimeters. There's the line. It's a liquid ink pen. So, it might smear a little bit now that I think about it on the Tomoe. Because it won't dry immediately. Outside of that, Rotring does make a drawing pen that has a metal lining under the felt tip. The plastic tip, I should say. So, that's good to use against rulers. I'll have to put that link in the show notes. One of the Rotring drafting pens. They're kind of expensive for what they are. They're like $4 or $5 each for what's essentially a disposable pen. But, if you're looking for a very specific use case, that might fit. Those are the first two that I thought of. And I love the Graphic Liner. It's a pen I don't use enough. But, it's really, really good quality. And it will hold up to that stencil. And, surprisingly, that Rotring will too.

iPad Folio Setup

Brad Dowdy: All right. Benham says, last one for the week, Myke. All right. We plowed through these. If you had to fill a black leather folio with an iPad, a notepad, and three pens, what would you choose? Extra points for matching colors and consideration of tight pen loops. Hashtag Ask TPA. Okay. What you got?

Myke Hurley: All right. So, I'm going to start. We're going to do this whole thing. So, I'm going to go with a 10.5-inch iPad Pro. It's the best one for a folio. Provided it fits. I don't know what our dimensions are here. The Crossfield 7Cs notebook. Because it's just a great notebook with Tomori paper in it. If it doesn't fit, the notebook that I think would fit, one that I would like in the size to kind of match with the iPad, would be the Field Notes Arts and Sciences. It's kind of like a similar size, right? And then if I have three pen loops, I would want three different types of thing. Whenever I have a limit like that, I want to make sure I'm covering my bases. So, I would go with either a Retro 51 or Rotaring 600 mechanical pencil and Sailor Pro Gear Slim of some kind. Or I would replace the mechanical pencil with a Sharpie depending on where I'm going. Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I like that. That's a good setup. So, my questions revolve around the folio layout as well. And what notebook can fit. You know, does this hold a top flap notebook? Which is kind of my preferred thing for a folio. So, I picked the Notco A5 Spiral Bound. If it's bigger, you can get the A4 Rhodia dot pads with the black cover. So, that'll match your leather folio. Or even the A5 Rhodia pads. So, I was looking at top bound pads for a folio. And then, I went with kind of the one of each theme as well. The Carondash Fixed Pencil that I love so much. I use that on my flights to and from Dallas to take notes and sketch up some drawings and things while I was in the airplane. I love that thing. So, that's like my portable pencil that I take. I would choose a drawing pen. In this case, the Copic Multiliner SP 0.35. It's got a great aluminum barrel. The Carondash Fixed Pencil. Mine's black and white. It was a limited edition. But you can get all black or all white ones now, I believe. So, that would match in there. Then, I would go off the board a little bit and go with the Y Studio Brassing Fountain Pen. I think that's kind of a good professional looking pen that's going to match the folio well. It's slim enough. And it's just kind of cool. It's like a pen I like having around even though if I'm not necessarily using it that very second. But that pen is always cool to me to have around. And I think in a kit like this, I could have picked... I had a hard time picking what fountain pen would I use. Would I pick a sailor or a pilot? Or I was going like form and function there with the Y Studio and style. And that's what that pen brings. So, I think it's a really good setup. I'd be happy with those three things. And then, you know, your favorite top bound pad from probably Rodea. I use the Knockpad, of course, a lot. Disclosure, I own the company. So, I make the things I want to use. It's funny how that works. It's like, I want to use this. So, I'm going to make it. So, yeah. But I am definitely a top bound fan. So, I'd be looking at that. So, that's it, Myke. Gangbuster show today. Gangbuster. And you know what? I didn't have much coffee before the show today. And I hung in there pretty well. I was a little bit worried. You know, I have a lack of caffeine headache. But, man, once we get talking about pens, it just flows.

Myke Hurley: That's all the energy you need, baby. It's right there.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I need some energy, more energy from the Inky Pen, though. So, let's wrap this up so I can go pull up that video again.

Myke Hurley: Relay.fm slash penaddict slash 328 is where you can find our show notes for this week's episode. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com and knock.co. He streams at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. I am imike. I am YKE. Come along and follow me on Instagram. I'd really appreciate that. Thank you to Squarespace and RxBar for their support of this show. But most of all, as always, thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.