The Pen Addict 359/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	359
Title:	Difficult Pickles
Release Date:	May 15th, 2019
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 359
Audio File:	Audio Episode 359
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 359
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Episode Introduction

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 359. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined as always by the one and only Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: That made me feel special, Mikey. Thank you. You are one and only. I just called you Mikey. Yeah, okay. We'll go with that today. I can deal with that. That was definitely an accident. I'm fine with Mikey. I'm good at trolling you on purpose. I don't know where that came from. Mikey works for me. All right, Mikey. Well, we got a big show today, Myke. I started taking notes almost immediately after last week's podcast on other things I wanted to cover on this week's podcast, which I'm not always ahead of schedule on the notes, right? Like, you know, sometimes I'm a little bit slow, but I usually keep a notes file going for future episodes. And this one quickly got compiled for episode 359 with stuff. Like, I want to talk about a lot of stuff. Like, I started writing the notes and I was like, I want to talk about this product and I want to talk about this product. So this is a product commentary filled show. And I like doing that because obviously I'm super into this. We're at episode 359 of a podcast about pens. I think everyone kind of knows our gig by now. It's not a surprise that we're going to talk about these things, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, it's kind of where we are 100% focused on.

Brad Dowdy: Surprise. Surprise.

Brad Dowdy: So this first one I want to hit up. I had it ready to roll last week, but we had enough other stuff to talk about. And I wanted to look at it a little bit more. And it's the Retro 51 Stan. Are you familiar with this pen, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I had not seen this pen. Or I had at least, I think I've seen the finial, but like it just knew it wasn't going to be for me because it was clearly a hockey pen. So like I never dug into it anymore. And now I kind of wish that I had because it's incredible.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So this is one of those things where if you've done this long enough and you're, you know, deep into the pen and pencil and stationary community, you know, you go through, you know, years and years of looking at things and buying things and figuring out what's your favorite. And you feel kind of settled. Like I feel pretty settled in Retro 51s, right? Like I'm pretty good with the ones that I have. And if something new pops up that's interesting or, you know, has some neat design that makes me want to buy it, I'll buy it. But I don't necessarily need another Retro 51. But when they do something like this, I just can't help but be impressed because for a company like them, it's pretty, you can get caught up in your own hype a little bit, right? Like as much as you and I love Retro 51, you know, you do have to understand that, okay, they can't just as a company, I would hope they wouldn't just rest on their laurels, keep pushing out, you know, same, you know, same pen, different colors, you know, branch out a little bit. And I think this is like a prime example. So if you aren't familiar with this, it's called Stan, but it's in relation to the National Hockey League Stanley Cup. So that's the championship cup from the National Hockey League. And they do sports ball pens all the time, right? You have a basketball one. I have two of their baseball ones. They've done plenty of football and other sports. I don't know exactly. And they've done football and football. I don't know that they've done like tennis or golf. You know, they may be out there. Not that I've seen. Yeah, not that I've seen. But this is what I want to see from Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: This pin barrel, if you haven't seen it, we'll put the link in the show notes. The pin barrel is made to look like the ice hockey rink. And when I say that, it's kind of hard to explain. So you really do need to look at it. It's almost like an ice cube effect, right? You know, the underlying hockey rink. So like the lines on a hockey rink are painted on the floor about three or four or five inches under the layer of ice. And that's kind of the effect they've gone through here. There's like skate marks in the ice. And it's all kinds of wild. And I don't know. I'm fascinated by this pin. At the same time, I'm not buying this pin, right? Because I don't need it. I'm not a huge hockey fan. If I was a huge hockey fan, this is an insta buy. But this is what I want from the companies that I'm a fan of, right? This is new and different and unique while staying true to the brand. What do you think just about the overall design of this pin in relation to the other things that they make?

Myke Hurley: I'm impressed with the level that they've gone to on this one. Like this is really kind of reaching out of their comfort zone, I think, from a concept standpoint and an execution standpoint. You know, like retro 51s have been all acrylic and then they started adding metals in and stuff like that. But by and large, it's like it's either something printed or something machined. But this is a different animal, right? Where it's like, well, now that we're looking at multiple planes here. So we're paying attention to what's underneath and then what goes on top, right? So we're going to make sure it's white underneath and we're going to have the paint on it, right? So it looks at the markings and then we're going to put the plastic on it. And not only are we going to put plastic on it, we're also going to scratch up the plastic. So it looks like it's been really beaten up by ice skates. Like I think that they went to a lot of trouble for this. And I think that it's probably going to – this one will sell out like if it hasn't already immediately. Because this is different and interesting enough that many people would want to buy it. It's a really, really cool design that they've got going on here.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I'm assuming it's the Stanley Cup, but it could be from the great Hall of Fame goaltender Stan Mikita with the goalie mask finial. You know, maybe it's something to that. I thought it was in relation to the Stanley Cup, but it could be. But the thing that impresses me, and you kind of alluded to it, they didn't have to do this. You did not have to go to this length to make this paint. It could have just been a white barrel with the markings on it. A hundred percent. Like they didn't have to do this. And that's what I appreciate. So it impresses me. And this is what I want from the stationary companies that I have in my life. Like the companies that I love, I want to continue to see them do things like this. So, you know, I'm just kind of fascinated by this pen, even though like I genuinely, I have no interest in owning this pen. Like it will not be added to my collection. But this is one of the best pens they've designed in years, in my opinion. And I want to see that from, you know, Retro 51 and from all these other companies that we talk about. So I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah. Related to that, I do have the fountain pen on the way, the Tornado fountain pen. And the discussion around this one has always been, well, let's get a better grip section that justifies, you know, the quality of the rest of the pen, which is pretty decent. And we've talked about this a million times, but I finally have one coming. It should land today. I won't have time to review it for next week, but I will have a review done on that pretty soon. And I know we've, we shared recently Anna's review at the well-appointed desk, or I forget who read it. It might've been Jesse, but there's a review on the well-appointed desk for the new pen. And I'm excited about it. And, um, I just, you know, want to see how different it is because the last one was so close. Like it was really close to being good, but I couldn't justify it. So we'll see how this one plays into that. So lands today.

Myke Hurley: All right. I cannot wait.

Brad Dowdy: Feel full of some of them. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm anxious. I'm anxious to get it. You know, I just won't have a time to do it for next week because I have a little trip this weekend, which we'll talk about later, which I don't think I put in the show notes, but we'll mention it as we get closer to wrapping up. Next product that I wanted to talk about is another product that pretty much made me fall out of my chair. And this one I did buy, and it's the right notepads, the deep limited edition. What were your initial thoughts when you saw this? Um, I mean, I read your notes as a non right notepads fan. Yeah. Do you hate it or is it average? I hate it, right?

Myke Hurley: Like it looks fine, but it's not for me. It's like a blue pocket notebook and it has like an octopus or squid on it. And I just, I, there is something about this, which you're going to tell me why it's amazing. But like, I don't, I mean, I've used their products now, right? I haven't picked some out of them in Atlanta and they are fantastic. But this, I'm not like running to get this one because the design doesn't, doesn't like super appeal to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. The way I positioned this in our little document is I said, this is a good follow up to talking about the stand from retro 51 because it's practically the opposite of everything that I just said about a brand innovating. They didn't write. Right. What Wright did with this one is they didn't innovate anything, but they took what they do and did it in a perfect way, right? This is a embodiment of the technical details and skills that they have when printing. And that's what I see this as, right? This is not innovative by any stretch, but they did what they do best in this edition. And that speaks to me as well, right? Like, okay, I just finished preaching about innovation and write notepads didn't do anything that they haven't done already here, except that they did this at a 10 out of 10 level. And it spoke to me just personally, just in that design and look and style, you know, the paper inside is blank. That's never my first choice. You know, I want dot or grid or something like that, but I don't care. Like what they did was they executed a product at a flawless level. And I just appreciate that about companies, right? You know, write notepads is different than someone like retro 51 where retro 51, the people we work with at retro are not physically making the pens. The people we work with at write notepads are physically making the books. So to do something like this and pull things off like this repeatedly, that's the other thing, right? This is, it's always consistently good and at a very high level. And when that's hard to keep as well, right? To continue to produce at that level is as hard as being crazy innovative like retro did with the stand, you know, that's equally as difficult and I appreciate it just as much. So I was fascinated by this book, like you were joking about what I said. I said, when I got the notification of this, I ordered my books before I tweeted them out publicly because not that they're going to sell out immediately, but it's just like, Hey, this is a limited edition. Let me go ahead. I know I'm getting this one. So I bought three packs of this one and I didn't do that too. I did that to keep one pack for me, give one pack away, and then I'll probably just break up the other pack and put them in these random envelopes that I do and send them out around the world. So I'm happy to be able to do that. Like I used to buy three packs of things like this and, you know, back in the day with the, when the field notes was, you know, full hype train, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't uncommon for me to buy three and five packs of things just for me. And I've stopped doing that. So, you know, I'm glad to be able to be able to buy a few extra to give to other people who didn't buy them or are not familiar with the brand that I can send them to and, and test these things out. But when I see a company that I love continuing to execute at just a high level, it just makes me happy. Like I get into this stuff a little bit. I'm not sure if you could tell, but like, I really get into, I get into this stuff and, you know, I have my own little internal commentary going on here. And, you know, sometimes I say it out loud on this podcast. So those are my thoughts on, on those products, but that's not all Myke. No. We got more products this week that I wanted to bring up.

New Pen Topic

Brad Dowdy: This one caught me off guard and it's the Y studio resin fountain pen. So I'm not sure who has seen this yet, but, um, this is a new product coming out. I'm on the cozy email list, which is where I bought my very first Y studio pen. When I saw them all those years ago from friend of the show, Patrick Ng tweeting or Instagramming this crazy pocket leather loop strap brassing fountain pen that I didn't know what it was at the time, but I knew I had to have it. And it turned out it was Y studio and for me to get a Y studio the first time the portable fountain pen, which is my first and still my favorite Y studio product. I had to go to the Netherlands to a store to get them there. We'll have a link in the show notes. And I loved it. Like I loved everything that Y studio does and they've continued to expand on their lineup a little bit different materials and finishes, but still this brassing theory. Right. Um, do you know what I'm, do you know what I mean? When I talk about the Y studio brassing idea?

Myke Hurley: Is that where the brass comes through?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So like it's supposed to be, you know, you get it in very new and pristine shape. And then over time it gets all these dings and dents and scratches and they even provide sandpaper to kind of knock off the finish on the top. So the underlying brass colors comes through. It's kind of, uh, you know, you can take it, take the, uh, the wabi sabi look of it, if you will, naturally as it comes, or you can advance that a little bit with, you know, the sandpaper that they, they do provide you. And I, I prefer to do it naturally. And that's why I've loved this Y studio portable fountain pen that I've had for years now, because it just bangs around and it looks better every time you use it. Right. Like the, the brass section is, you know, all patinaed and, you know, there's scratches all over it and it looks as good as it ever has. So what they've done now is taken the same general idea, general shape, general design of the pen and made a resin barrel for it. And I'm a little bit confused on this one. Like I, this is definitely a wait and see one for me because it kind of goes against what they've done in the past.

Myke Hurley: The design is nice, but yeah, it kind of is like, I don't get it. Because as well, it says that there's a brass tube on the inside to give it the weight. So it's kind of just like, well, why wouldn't you just expose it then? Like, what's the point?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know. That's the thing. I just don't know yet. I think that's it. It's, it's, what's the point here? And that's what I haven't quite sussed out. Like, who am I to tell them to, hey, you know, you should stick with what you do best. You know, that's not how companies get better and improve. And sometimes making a mistake is a way to get better and improve, right? And I'm not saying this is a mistake by any stretch. It doesn't feel right by the way that they've presented everything else they've ever done in the last several years. The brass tube underlying the plastic barrel says to me that our customers expect our pins to feel a certain way because this is what we've always done in the past and we make our pins a certain way. But now we're going to try this other thing and kind of fake it to make it, if you will. Not that it's bad. It's like, I don't want to say this is bad. And like, I'm going to try it and I'm sure it's going to be fine. It's a lower price point. These are not cheap pins. This one gives them a lower price point. Maybe that's one of the reasons. What I would like to see if this becomes a success and they're going to go down this route is if you're going to do resin, you can do different colors than what you've always done, which has always been black, red, and white, right? Those are their traditional colors that everything has always been made in. If it's not been a raw material like copper, they've done black coatings, white coatings, and red coatings. It's still in the brassing style pins that are made to be used and abused and worn out over the years. That's the other thing with this acrylic or resin. It's not going to have that same character that these other pins have. You know, the scratches and dings and dints on resin aren't going to look as good, you know, if they even show up at all. So I will get one of these because I'm curious. I don't know if this is going to be a thing for them. I don't know if it's going to work. But if they would have come out and launched this in a purple barrel, in an orange barrel, in a turquoise barrel, our conversation would be different, I think, from my perspective, right? That's different enough to say, I understand the reason why you're making this. With the way they presented it, I can't quite figure out the reason why they're making this other than a lower price point. And maybe, you know, maybe they need that gateway into the higher end pins. So, you know, we'll see. I found this one completely interesting just from a design and marketing perspective as it relates to everything they've ever released in the history of the brand. This one is a pretty big outlier and I'm anxious to see how it does for them. So to be determined. And I will get one when they come out. And they're still, I don't know, another month or so from being launched.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think you're right. I think you might have hit the nail on the head of it just being a price point thing, right? Because it's like half the price of their brass pens, their brassing pens. So it might just be a way to expand the product lineup a little bit. Because they're still like good looking professional pens. But you're right. They're missing that little thing that has made them so enticing to some people for a while.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, the reason why I bought this pen is because they told me I can buy this pen and I can break it. I'm like, damn, I love that idea, right? And now they're not telling me that anymore.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you buy this and make sure you keep it the same because it won't look good if you ding it. It's going to be a big chunk of house and plastic. So we'll see. We'll see.

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Brad Dowdy: So before we get on to this next topic, which is actually really fun and there's a fun story behind it, I want to do a quick review on my thoughts on these three companies whose products I all love and I just told each of them they should do something differently. That goes against what I told the other company to do, right? In my opinion, like, is that fair? It's like I told Retro 51 to keep innovating and do weird stuff. I told Write Notepads to not innovate, but to do what you do already and make it exceptional. And then Y Studio, I said, why are you doing what you're doing when you already have this thing? Is that fair? Like, I feel weird.

Myke Hurley: You can't treat all companies the same. You can't measure them all by the same yardstick. Like, these are three companies that are all very different stages of their product design life, right? Where Retro 51 has been around forever and is, like, fantastically successful and could, if they wanted to, slip into patterns of mediocrity, right? Like, they could just fall, but they could, like, kind of just, like, I don't know, coast, but they're not. Yes. It's like, great. When they show signs of the fact that they're still trying to innovate, like, applaud that, right? Because that is a company that, if they didn't try and innovate, like, over time, people could get bored of them, right? So, brilliant. Keep doing that. Write Notepads are a young company doing kind of, like, technical things. And you're like, right, double down on what you're doing. Make sure that you've got your basics, like, completely nailed before you go forward and try and do other stuff. And then Y Studio is, like, you're a stage, maybe, in your company life where every product that you launch, you need to have a consistent story around it. And right now, we don't know what that is.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. And, like, that's how I felt writing it down. Then I went back and looked at it as a group. And I was like, wow, I'm really, like, you know, talking around myself here between product to product to product. But, I mean, I think overall, it's fair because you just want to, you know, we're spending money with these companies, right? And you want to make the best decision possible. And then when you find a company you like, you want to continue to support them as long as, you know, they're continuing to do, like, the things that you kind of expect. And I don't know. It's like, sometimes I wonder, do I set unfair expectations for companies? You know, maybe I do. But is that so wrong, too? So, I don't know. This is how my brain works sometimes. So, we're going to fix that, Myke, right here, right now, with your pronunciation of the new J. Herban 1970, Inc. What do you got for me?

Myke Hurley: The J. Herban 1798, Kyanide du Nepal.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. I'm impressed. I think you got it. I don't know, man.

Brad Dowdy: Based on historical J. Herban pronunciations, I think you're onto it. But I had trouble with this one. And normally, I'm decent at pronunciations. But I think you did a wonderful job here. So, before we talk about how...

Myke Hurley: I want, like, the full-on Brad Dowdy, just reading it pronunciation of this.

Brad Dowdy: Do you want the southern version or the pretend French version? Kyanide du Nepal. J. Herban, 1978, Kyanide du Nepal.

Brad Dowdy: J. Urban. That's great. It's definitely J. Herban. Yeah. Or Urban. Urban. Yeah. You wouldn't get the H, but it wouldn't be done in the right way. No, no. Not at all. But no, I think it's, you know... I think you were on it. Kyanide du Nepal. So, what a beautiful ink. Like, this one... This caught me off guard for many reasons, which we will discuss. Primarily, because I might get fired by Execlair, the distributor of... Yeah. You done goofed up on this one, didn't you? Yeah. So, you know, I like my unboxing streams, Myke. And one of the things I do is if I receive a package from a company, I will just keep said package sealed up, stack it up over to the side of my desk, and then figure out a time where I can go stream my unboxing on Twitch. Just so happens I had had this package from Execlair, and I did not know what it was. Um, because they had mentioned sending me a new Clairefontaine product, like, about a month ago, and I'd never seen it. And I knew it wasn't that, because the package was too small. And I was like, oh, I don't know what this is, so we'll just save it. And I had a JetPens box to unbox, and I had some other things. So, I keep all these things sealed. And so, I go into my Twitch stream, and we start talking, and I open up the envelope. I'm like, oh, wow, it's the new Shimmer Ink from the 1798 series. The annual release of their super awesome Shimmer Ink series. It was 1670 for the initial three bottles, and now we're on the third bottle of 1798.

Brad Dowdy: And I start looking at it, I was like, oh, this is cool. Look how pretty this is. You know, it's a little 10-milliliter bottle. Like, if you've seen J. Herban's small bottles, they're teeny tiny. Like, smaller than a pen cap, right? So, I take it out, I'm playing it, and I'm sampling. And it's like, oh, let's look at the letter they included with this bag, with this in the envelope, with the ink. And I'm sitting there on the stream reading this letter, and it says, this product is under NDA until, you know, whatever it was. It's May 12th or whatever, and I'm like, uh-oh. I don't think it's that day yet. I had to look at my calendar, and I was a day ahead. And so, I just went, at that point, you know, what are you going to do? The cat's already out of the bag. It turns out I was a day early, Myke. But I felt a little solace.

NDA & Exoclair

Myke Hurley: I don't know what your relationship is with Exoclair, but NDAs should be communicated ahead of time and should be agreed upon, as opposed to just delivering something to someone and saying, you're not allowed to talk about this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I didn't know this was coming, right? There was no advance email.

Myke Hurley: I didn't know this was an agreement, not a non-disclosure putting this on you.

Brad Dowdy: So, I panicked for about a second, and then I realized I had just retweeted a picture of that ink this morning from Japan. So, Japan, the calendar had already flipped to the proper day. So, I was like, okay. I mean, it's out in the wild. I feel okay. I'm not going to go back and delete this from my feed. Plus, it's not going to get shared up. No one's seeing this anyway. There's like 40 people in the chat room, and I'm not going to put it on YouTube until the next day anyway. So, it was really hilarious. Like, I thoroughly enjoyed freaking myself out for a second, then going, oh, this is no big deal, and then just had fun with it. So, we'll have a link in the show notes to that video where you can see my eyes kind of bug out for a second.

Myke Hurley: I've put a link in the notes to the timestamp where this thing begins, but if for some reason it doesn't work, it's at 12 minutes and 15 seconds in the video. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That was all live and genuine freaking out. So, aside from me breaking the NDA that I didn't agree to, as Myke said, did not agree to this. This ink is fantastic, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah?

Brad Dowdy: I'm all in. All in. You know, I'm kind of enjoying my shimmer inks these days. I haven't used that many of them, but when I took this one out and sampled it and took my little pocket knife, I didn't have any way to fill it from that teeny bottle into any pen I had, and sampled it on the page. Boy, does it look good. It's a really bright blue. It's the shade of blue that I really enjoy. It's got silver sparkles, which will always be my favorite over the gold sparkles, and it looks great. It came out great on the page. I have not inked it up yet because it's not going to really be out for another month, and I'm never one to, like, I don't have to, like, do a review on the day the NDA lifts. Like, that's not how I, you know, schedule my product reviews. So I'll ink this up, start using it some, and then do a review here in the next couple weeks. But I'm, my initial thoughts are super, super positive. And all of their inks have been, you know, in this series have been really good, really well received. They generally sell out. So, you know, it's something to keep an eye on if you like the shimmer ink and want something that's bright and, you know, just pops off the page. And this looks like it's going to be one of them. So I'm a very big fan of this one, and I think we're probably at least a month out. I think the dates are in July for it to show up, but I could be wrong.

Myke Hurley: So we have some industry news, like, large-scale industry news now, which is we don't really cover a lot of this kind of stuff unless we feel like we want what we need to specifically. And this one is just, this was a big surprise to me. So Kokuyo, Kokuyo have taken a large stake in Pentel. So these are two, they're two Japanese brands, right? Right. The thing is, it's just the surprise of the money involved. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So that's why I wanted to put it in here. This is not something that would normally ever make a show note. But I follow this stuff, and I'll talk about this, like, in my newsletter, you know, where I can just kind of lay it out a little bit more. Because I find it interesting. I don't think it's a good podcast topic necessarily. But this one is so interesting to me because I didn't know how big of a company Kokuyo is. So just to put numbers on it, Kokuyo's 2018 sales revenue was 315 billion yen. That translates into 2.87 billion US dollars.

Brad Dowdy: Kokuyo is no joke of a company.

Myke Hurley: Kokuyo is not one of these, like, Japanese companies. It's actually 70 companies. They only do stationary and furniture.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So what I learned over the past year is that their office furniture business is massive.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, that must be where the big, like, surprise is. But it's not like they also make shipping containers. They're not like Samsung, right? They also make shipping containers and washing machines and fridge. You know, it's not like that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. And the funny thing is, if, you know, Kokuyo, from my perspective, is notebooks. Like, and then a few minor accessories, tape dispensers, scissors. You know, a few office supply type of things, but not office furniture type things. I didn't realize how little exposure they have in writing utensils. Like, I've used a few.

Japanese Stationery Business

Myke Hurley: The other part is then how big Pentel are. Yep. Because Kokuyo has taken a 37% stake in Pentel for $92 million. Right? So they're a multi-billion dollar company. Or like, you know, many, many hundreds of million dollar company as well. Like, it's wild. Pentel booked sales of 40.9 billion yen in March 2018. So it's nowhere near as big as Kokuyo. But it's still huge for the company that I think just makes the Anagel.

Brad Dowdy: Right? So that's why I wanted to put this out there about the Japanese stationary business. This is big money. This is big time. Like, Pilot and Uniball, you know, Mitsubishi and companies like this, I think of as just these behemoths. And then you read something about Kokuyo, who you don't realize really outside of the country, like, the size and scope of what they do. It boggles my mind. So I wanted to throw this out there just as kind of a... I converted it, by the way. Pentel sales were $370 million last year. And what is that? Pens and pencils? And inks and refills? I guess so. Right? They don't do paper. Like, this is the merger that needed to happen, right? If you're into this type of thing. They both do something really well that neither of the other company does. Hardly at all.

Myke Hurley: Right. Yeah, like Kokuyo make paper and paper-related products. Pentel make pens and pen-related products. Let's put some chocolate in the peanut butter and see what happens.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. So this isn't going to be a regular topic of conversation on this show. To be honest, it also doesn't happen that much. But, yeah, it's worth mentioning sometimes. There was just so much involved in this little short snippet of a Kokuyo Takes a Steak in Pentel article that I could not put it in here because I just found it, like, really fascinating. It's things I didn't realize, things I, you know, things I learned. And I'm just nodding my head like, yes, make it happen, Kokuyo. You go, Pentel. It's like, I'm cheering on these random Japanese stationary companies, like, you know, like they're, you know, the Apple of the technology market. I just, mentally, I found this hilarious. But it's good to, like, kind of show the scope of what some of these companies are that we hear about and read about and love so much. It's wild. Like, I find this stuff fascinating. Even though, like, okay, I'm done with that. And we're not going to be the stratectory of the stationary world. And we're going to move on from that and get back into the fun stuff, right?

Myke Hurley: Most definitely. Should we do some, have we got a bunch of Hashtag RSTPA?

Brad Dowdy: Do you want to do a big chunk of those today? Let's do a big chunk of these because I'm going to need some help on some of these, which is why I put them in. So a lot that I pulled out of the email with kind of long, elaborate, wonderful, amazing questions.

Myke Hurley: All right, before we do, let me thank our second sponsor, and that is Harry's. Harry's was founded on the idea of not having to pay for overpriced razors that are overdesigned with features and gimmicks that you don't need, like vibrating handles and heads, you know, that look like spaceships. Harry's was all about just having great products at great prices, and that's where they decided to put their focus. They combine a simple, clean design with quality, durable blades to sell to you at a fair price. They bought a factory of their own in Germany that's been making quality blades for over 95 years. This allows them to sell their cartridges at just $2 each, which is half the price of bigger brands. And all Harry's blades come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let them know, and they'll give you a refund. Brad, can you tell me something about why you love Harry's?

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I knew how much STPA I was going to have today, so I needed to be streamlined and efficient. So I made sure to shave this morning. So, you know, I rock a beard. I don't know if you know that. But Harry's keeps my neck and cheeks looking sleek and svelte and speedy, right? I need to be aerodynamic. So I am ready to plow through these STPA questions at a speed that we have never seen before. Thank you, Harry's.

Myke Hurley: Oh, boy. Harry's received over 20,000 five-star reviews at Trustpilot and Google. People love their products. And you can try them out for yourself as well. You can get a $13 value trial set that comes with everything you're going to need for a close, comfortable shave. This includes a weighted ergonomic handle, five-blade razor with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. Listeners of this show can redeem their trial set today by going to harrys.com slash penaddict. So go there right now to redeem your offer and let them know that we sent you to help support the show. That is harrys.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right, Brad. First question comes from Ralph for today's hashtag AskTPA. I had a question regarding fountain pen inks, and I don't know of anyone else to ask but the two of you. Well, I mean, Ralph is probably just going to be one of us, but we'll see how it goes. I have so many questions about Ralph's question.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to interrupt you right here. I'm going to let you finish this. This is the question of the year so far for AskTPA.

Myke Hurley: I am absolutely flabbergasted by this question. All right, so listen up, everyone. I work in fast food, and during the course of my job, I write several personalizations on the wrapper of the food. No lettuce, extra ketchup, easy pickles, etc. I don't know what easy pickles means.

Brad Dowdy: Go light on the pickles. Okay. One or two, not ten.

Myke Hurley: I don't like difficult pickles, just the easy ones. Uh-uh. So the correct food can then get handed to the correct customers because of the personalization. Naturally, this is the best possible word to start this sentence. Naturally. Naturally, I bring my own fountain pen to work. Usually a Twisby Eco. Is this a horror story? Are we actually doing a horror story right now? This is the best question of the year. And my own inkwell.

Myke Hurley: Keep going. I have a mount to keep the inkwell atop my shoulder as I'm not allowed to place it anywhere food is prepared. Naturally. Naturally, I do all of this. My only issue is the fast food wrappers. My only issue. My only issue is the fast food wrappers that are quite a poor surface to write on. Can you recommend any inks that might be able to overcome this? Ralph, I do not say this lightly. You are my hero.

Myke Hurley: What the hell is this? What is this?

Ask TPA Question

Brad Dowdy: This is unbelievable. This may not just be the question of the year. This might be the question of the history of the show.

Myke Hurley: This may be the best hashtag ask TAPA question we've ever had.

Brad Dowdy: And I'm not joking. I'm not making fun. This is exactly 100,000% the type of question that I want. And he's right.

Myke Hurley: It is absolutely bonkers, though, to do this. I love that you do it. But, like, about a third of the way through this question, I was just going to tell you to use a Sharpie. Right? Before we got to the fountain pen. Before we got to the inkwell.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's a grease. I mean, the answer is a grease pencil, but that's not what we're doing here.

Myke Hurley: Because I can't imagine that fast food wrapper paper does a great job of keeping the ink from getting on the food.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So that's why this is an important question, Myke. We need an answer. And I have to bring this to the listeners. Because this is not an easy question to answer. So let's break this down. So you are all familiar with fast food wrappers. They have some type of waxy coating to keep the innards, generally, from leaking outside the packaging. Right? I mean, that's the idea. Right? We want to keep whatever we're wrapping up inside this package and hand it to our customer and not have it make a mess either in the bag, on their clothes, in the car, on the table, wherever they're taking this. So, not only is Ralph packaging his food properly, he wants to make sure that the customers know what is inside of this food. So he's going the extra. This isn't an extra mile, Myke. This is like an extra marathon. Ralph is adding the additional notations on the exterior of the packaging. And he's attempting to do this with a fountain pen, which, number one, is not something that would have ever crossed my mind in a thousand years to use for this. But he's doing it. And he wants to do it better than he's doing it right now. He's got a TWSBI Eco and his own Inkwell. He doesn't say what ink he's trying to use right now. But I can't imagine that it's working well at all because I can't wrap my brain around any ink that would work for this application. You know, even the pigmented and iron gall inks, they're not going to get into the wrapper enough to do their job. Their job is to attach to the fibers of the paper and never come off. Well, they're going to get blocked by the coating on this paper.

Brad Dowdy: It might be that we need that fountain pen with the humidity tip and the shellac-based India ink for this because I think that would dry on the surface. That would be a surface coating. We need an ink that dries from that perspective. And I don't know what that is outside of a non-fountain pen friendly ink. Like, I would never tell you to put that type of ink into your TWSBI Eco because you're going to ruin it if you're not cleaning it out fully every day. And even then, you're still going to ruin it.

Myke Hurley: So... I still worry about toxicity.

Brad Dowdy: In writing on these papers?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and just like in a food environment. Especially with Noodler's Ink. I'm just so like... I don't know what they're putting in that stuff.

Fountain Pen Ink Discussion

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, this is... I mean, I'm stumped. And I kind of want to figure it out. The kicker is the fountain pen, right? We can do all kinds of things that aren't fountain pen related for this, right?

Brad Dowdy: So... What fountain pen ink? I don't know. What something like Sailor Storia is a pigmented ink that I've used before? Go on a waxed coated paper. The thing is, you don't have an answer for that. Would you want it by the food?

Myke Hurley: Like, you can't answer this question because how often have you written on wax coated paper? That's the problem with this.

Brad Dowdy: The problem is, is that, like you're alluding to, is you probably shouldn't, right? Fountain pen ink is at least water-based. And it's not going to get through the paper. Anything more extreme, I think you're going to start running into, like you said, you're going to start running into food preparation issues and those type of things. So, I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Gosh darn it, Ralph, if I don't love you.

Brad Dowdy: This is amazing. This is, I mean, this is all kinds of amazing.

Myke Hurley: And ink well on my shoulder, of course. Goes on the shoulder. Can't put it where the food is. Mm-mm. I don't fathom, I can't fathom that, by the way.

Brad Dowdy: What mount? We're going to need a picture, Ralph. Yeah. If you hear this. Like, I don't even know if, I'm guessing Ralph listens to the show. I got this in an email.

Brad Dowdy: And he says, you two, meaning me and you. So, I'm assuming he listens to the show. So, we're going to need some pictures, Ralph. I won't share them publicly unless you tell me to. Yeah, I need more. I just need more. I need an ink well mount.

Myke Hurley: For my own personal purposes at this point, I need to understand more about what you're doing. It's unbelievable.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But, I mean, I think the answer we're getting to is that you should not go down this path any further for health code related reasons.

Myke Hurley: It is quite possible you've already gone too far.

Topic Shift - New Listener Question

Myke Hurley: Actually, I'm pretty sure you have at this point. All right. Our next question comes from Tom. I work at a children's museum called Explorer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had to think about what NM was, Brad, for a minute. I'm not going to lie about that. Fair. Yeah. Reasonable. What kind of pen would you recommend for drawing on a pen? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I need to stop at this point. This is my email inbox, Myke. All right. I need to stop at this point. This is what we do.

Myke Hurley: Because I now remember this question. I read it this morning, Brad, and I don't understand it. Right. So I'm hoping you understand it because I've read it twice and I don't know what's being asked. All right. So here we go. This is a very special ask to you today. This is Brad's email inbox. These are the first couple. And this is bonkers. All right. I work at a children's museum called Explorer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. What kind of pen would you recommend for drawing on a pendulum-carried stage on a harmonograph? While the stage the paper moves on swings as a pendulum, the pressure on the pen varies as well as the angle at which the pen hits the paper. Friction is the enemy of the harmonograph drawings. Since the heavier the pen stroke, the greater the space between the lines, which is undesirable, and the faster the pendulum stops swinging is also undesirable. So we need a pen that maintains a consistent line with varying pressure and a light touch. We would like to have at least three colors available, but black is the most useful of the three for this application. Do you have any recommendations? Please keep in mind that we also need to keep the costs down due to the amount of use this device gets. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Brad Dowdy: I love my job.

Myke Hurley: Do you, though?

Brad Dowdy: I do. All right. Because you don't get this kind of detail. This is why I started the pen addict blog in the beginning, is because of the obsessiveness over the minutia.

Myke Hurley: A harmonograph, by the way. If anybody is familiar with stylograph, it produces drawings that look like that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, like, the pendulum is the key, right? To where it's going to swing in these natural motions.

Brad Dowdy: Frictionless, important to make these patterns, right? So, we're basically drawing in a frictionless manner based on, you know, different gravitational pulls, right? With this harmonograph. So, we need a pen that is going to be consistent for this application. And this is another one that's really, really hard to answer. But I at least had some idea of an answer. And the first thing I could think of was the Pentel Energel. Spirograph, not stylograph. Oh, I thought you said spirograph.

Myke Hurley: I didn't say that. I said something wrong, but now I need to correct myself. Spirograph.

Pen Comparisons

Brad Dowdy: But the spirograph is a handheld done by force, right? But you're pinned in, making the same general idea for pattern creation, right? But this one is a more natural, natural way. Right, right. So, I'm trying to think of a wide, smooth pen that is not going to put a lot of friction on the page. It's going to remain consistent. And the best I could think of was the Pentel Energel. I think the Jetstream would have a better line. But I think without being, you know, a scientist in a lab, I would guess that the friction is going to be higher for the Jetstream based on the type of ink that it uses. So, I went with the Energel and the Jetstream. I replied to him and he said he's going to go get those pens to test out. I said, but I don't have, like, a super confident answer. I said, those are my guesses to start with, right? And we want something, you know, relatively inexpensive that, you know, you can just go grab at the store that, you know, you don't want any type of felt tip pen or pencil that is going to continually be destroyed as it's writing because it will eventually stop writing. So, that's kind of my thoughts. And if anyone else has thoughts around this, let me know. But I just felt a wider gel ink pen is going to be the most consistent. But my confidence level in that answer is not at 100%. I still have some questions around that. So, if anyone has, I would wager that there's people that have experience with this. I don't know if they listen to the show. But there's, you know, there's lots of robotic uses that people have used, you know, pens for to, you know, set up in machinery to run lines and do drawings and things like that. So, I think hopefully we'll hear from someone if they have any ideas outside of the Energel and Jetstream. And hopefully I hear back from Tom after he tests these out and see how they work and what does and doesn't work out of these suggestions.

Myke Hurley: Cairo Black Kenobi says, I've recently rediscovered gel pens and I really like Pentel and Muji. I've heard a lot about Signal, yet it is not a pen I can easily find where I live. Are there any other alternatives that you'd recommend trying out?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so this is, I want to walk into a store and buy a really, really good pen. And one of my go-tos for that has always been the Pentel Energel, which I just discussed. It comes in a huge range of tip sizes. It comes in a huge range of colors and it's really good. And it's not the Pilot G2 because G2 is just not near as consistent as the Energel. And it's not as good looking. But, you know, that's my G2, anti-G2 bias showing. That's the best, I think. And you can get the Signo in the 307 model, which is an exceptional pen. It writes wonderfully. It has not as many color choices as the Energel. So you may like that. Another one you can try, which is shockingly good, is the Paper Mate Ink Joy. Anyway, it's very, very close to the Pentel Energel in performance. It comes in a huge array of colors. It just does not come in the tip size options that the Energel has. If you can get the stuff from Muji, they actually use Pentel, Zebra, and Uniball refills in their various gel ink pens. So find one you like and go for them. You might be surprised on what's on the inside of those.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, if you've used one Muji gel pen and you think they're all the same, they're not the same. Yeah. If they look different, if the outside bodies look different, what's inside them is probably different as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, that's the best way to put it. It's hard to do like a one-to-one, say, this Muji pen is this refill without doing it visually. Like, I can look at it and tell, and you can look at the refills, and some of them even say the other brand. But if the barrel style is different, assume that it's a different brand of refill on the inside, and they use really, really good ones.

Myke Hurley: Milkboat asks, I don't.

Brad Dowdy: This is a really strange paper. I never expected, just by feeling it and looking at it, that it would work so well for fountain pens, but it does. It's that kind of paper. You look at it and you go, boy, my liquid ink pens are just going to bleed through this thing, and they do not. I don't have another paper brand off the top of my head that would match the Sumkin paper. I'm sure it's out there. I'm sure there's other products, but off the top of my head, no. And this is something I'll keep looking for, because I find it interesting. I don't use any other Sumkin products other than the Agenda, but I want to try more, because the paper is so unique. And it's good across the board, even though my expectation just looking at it, or anyone's expectation looking at it, is that it would be very particular and fussy, and it's not. It's really good. It's an interesting paper, so I'll keep an eye out for something more.

Listener Question

Myke Hurley: This one comes from Eric. You had a question last week about A4 Notebooks. I'm currently studying like mad for the AWS Architect Professional Certification, and I've been using the A4 Midori Notebooks. I can buy them locally at, what is the name of the store? Menin? Meningers. Meningers, which is rapidly expanding their pen offerings. They've just got Sailor and Limey Crystal inks and the 100th Anniversary Pilot inks. But anyway, the paper is great for fountain pens, but their goatskin covers are horribly overpriced. And then Eric goes on to say about someone he found, an Etsy seller he found, that those wonderful leather covers, which I'll include links in the show notes. But I want to get your opinion on the Midori pads. There was a couple of people, including David Sparks, who wanted some help.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so we got a ton of feedback on this. I got a bunch of email. We got a bunch of tweets. And I learned about some products that I didn't know existed, including A4 Rodeo Webbies available in Europe. That was news to me. And A4 Midori notebooks, which is a really good option for David that it might actually be easier to get than the big Webbies. The only kicker with the Midori is they have a soft cover. So that's why. We'll put a link in the show notes to these leather covers that he found on Etsy that are good for A4 notebooks. But that's why I put it in here, because I got so many. I learned a lot from this question, like that I didn't know existed in the A4 size range. So I appreciate everyone reaching out. And they were tweeting right at David, those who who listen to this show and also cross pollinate with Mac Power users. There is a always impressive overlap between the analog and digital shows on Relay FM. So they were tagging David directly on Twitter with all the answers. It's like, hey, David, we heard the question and here's what I use. And I'm just in all these Mac Sparky tweets constantly. It was hilarious. So there are options out there, which I did not know existed. So thank you all for reaching out. And this Midori is very compelling.

Myke Hurley: I have a question from AP Carpen. Any suggestion for a nib grind which is suitable for daily office use? I tend to write pretty small on bad printer paper and I'm bored with my fine or bold nibs. I thought cursive italic could be one because it's not too aggressive.

Brad Dowdy: It is on the edge. With the cursive italic, you end up with a sharper edge that when you get into bad paper, you can start stabbing it into the page.

Myke Hurley: I was just thinking about like pretty universal grind, but I didn't think about the effect on paper. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the key is the bad printer paper. If you can get like pilot fine steel nibs would be really good. But if you want to put a grind on them, get like a pilot medium and you could stub it. And that would at least look interesting. It would be more rounded on the sides with, you know, a less lesser chance of sticking into the page. And you probably want to watch your ink with that as well. This is going to be very much a combination deal when you're writing on bad printer paper in the office. Not only do you need, would a fine nib work better? You need an ink that's going to work with that nib and with that paper. However, those tend to be your basic stock inks like pilot blue black, you know, any of, you know, your basic, you know, Lamy blue. Those are made as almost like a universal usage ink. So they're more likely to work on a wider range of paper quality. So, you know, definitely think of it as a combo deal when you're looking for this. But I would, if it was me and I had to do this, I'd get like a steel pilot medium nib and get a stub on it. So you'll have that character, but you also wouldn't, you know, really be sticking the nib into the page. Like maybe a cursive italic or just a standard extra fine or fine Japanese nib. So that's kind of where I would take it.

Myke Hurley: All right. And we have a question from the other colon. My pen budget recently expanded. That's a wonderful, just a wonderful phrase. Should I get one really, really nice pen or a few slightly less expensive pens that have been on my list for a while? I would say on this one, I would say on this one, if you do not already own a selection of nice pens that are less expensive, then go that route. Right. Like if you only have like some cheaper pens and maybe like one in this bracket, you know, like maybe you have like, I don't know, like a couple of pilot image of buttons. And maybe you've gone up to like a TWSBI 540 or whatever. Is that, is that a model number? 580 is the current one. 580, that's the one. Or maybe you've gone for like a Diamond Mini or something. So you've gone up a little bit. Then I would recommend that you buy a lot of slightly less expensive pens that you've been on your list. But if you do already have a bunch of those types of pens in like kind of the maybe 50 to 75 bracket or whatever, then go for something really, really nice. That would be my recommendation.

Brad Dowdy: I actually disagree with you. Although I think there's actually a lot of validity in what you're saying. So my opinion is you go for the one more expensive pen. But the problem is how do you know it's the right one? So you're putting all your eggs into one basket, if you will, right? So there's a validity to trying a Pilot Gold Nib, a Lamy Gold Nib. How does a Sailor feel? How does a Platinum feel? Before you say, I'm going to buy the Pilot 823 and be done with it. What if that pen doesn't work for you? And how would you know that ahead of time? It's not a straightforward answer. I would lean towards figuring out the one nice pen and put in the work ahead of time. Whether that's somehow figuring out a way to go to a pen show. I know not everyone can do that. Or finding a way you could borrow one or test one. If there was some way you could test a few things out, I would go to buy one pen pretty much every time. But there's a validity into figuring out what you like. And sometimes that might take two or three. So I don't know that you're going to get a clear answer from us as we disagree. But I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: It's something like we always preach is if you can try before you buy, that's going to be the best way. And if you're able to do that, I'm good with the one more expensive pen, really nice pen, than the three or whatever number, slightly less expensive pens. But it depends on what you're going for. Do you write in – is all your writing contained to one area? Like do you just write at work in this notebook? Or do you write in the work notebook? Do you write letters on the weekend? Do you keep a journal? Do you want these different pens for different tasks that you can use different inks in? So that's something you also need to look at too.

Myke Hurley: Final question today comes from Fibber. How do you feel about the Montegrappa Amaraglio? I used all of my pronunciation up earlier on this show. How do you feel about the Montegrappa Amaraglio being produced by Sailor?

Brad Dowdy: I had never heard of this pen before Fibber sent this in.

Myke Hurley: I googled it and it's stunning.

Brad Dowdy: It's awesome. So let me read just part of this description. It says, A first ever collaboration between Sailor Pen and Montegrappa Seas, Japan's most coveted nibs, united with Italy's most exhilarating pens.

Myke Hurley: Exhilarating, by a word. I'm surprised that this is how they are publicly selling the pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it doesn't seem like a partnership that would ever happen.

Myke Hurley: It's also, it's just, I can kind of imagine them like going to Sailor and be like, oh, can you make this for us? And then they're like, yeah, okay, no problem. And then it becomes like a white label good or whatever. But they're actually selling it as a collaboration between these two companies, which is more intriguing.

Brad Dowdy: But it's just the nib from Sailor the way I read this. Because this is 100% a Montegrappa pen. You look at this pen on the table, you go, that's a Montegrappa pen. It's everything that Montegrappa has ever made in their design. It's very traditional. Even the nib etchings are Montegrappa, right? But on a Sailor nib.

Myke Hurley: That makes it even more interesting to me. I will say, just FYI, it is 1,495 euro. So I'm not just going to get one of these, but I would like to try it.

Brad Dowdy: That was the next words out of my mouth. That's egregious. She's expensive, is this one. Yeah. So, I mean, I like Montegrappa pens.

Myke Hurley: I love the way they introduced this. More than a century of high craft and mutual admiration culminate in a pen of remarkable lineage. I'm like, yeah, Montegrappa, that's right. That's right. Yes. That's talent right there. Yeah, that's good copywriting, man. I'm like, yeah, I agree. That sounds good. So, they've sold me on this one.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I got to finish it now. We've read two of the three sentences. I'm going to go for the last one. Revisiting a classic 1939 Italian design, two grand pioneers of fine writing bring 215 years of experience in inimitable class to a pen worthy of the highest rank.

Myke Hurley: Inimitable. Inimitable. Basically means impossible to copy. I know the word.

Brad Dowdy: I just can't say it. Yeah, I know the word. It's a hard one to say, but yeah. I would use a different word there, I think. Yeah. 1500 euros is a big no for me, dog. Yeah. This pen doesn't look that special. But it's... I appreciate it.

Myke Hurley: But Brad, 250 years of experience in inimitable class.

Price Discussion

Brad Dowdy: It's a remarkable lineage, Myke. I like it a lot. I like it a lot, too, until I looked at the price. Yeah. No.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I like it at most half of this price.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I look at the Montegrappa Montegrappa is about 300, and it's a steel nib, but the Montegrappa is everything that this pen is without the nib, and you want me to spin.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it looks the same, right?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Because I thought I'd seen this design somewhere before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But I do like it, though. So... I'm not letting you get off with this being the last question, because I want to hit this one, Myke. Okay. This isn't really a question, though. Mm-hmm. This is a follow-up. So we had a question from Father Kyle last week, two weeks ago, about writing posture. Mm-hmm. And I said that, you know, I don't know what the answer is, but there has to be one. And someone, a few people in the chat and a few emails showed me that in the Spencerian handwriting book... What is that? There was a... It's an old, I don't know, late 1800s writing guide on how to make your letter forms, but there's a whole section on posture. And I wanted to, since we're reading snippets, I saved one, and we'll get out of here on this snippet. And there was pages worth of positioning, so I will link to the document in the show notes. It's beautiful. And you can go read this for your own.

Myke Hurley: PDF is beautiful.

Writing Position

Brad Dowdy: But I wanted to read a couple paragraphs from lesson one, position for writing, if you'll allow me, Myke. I would love it. Okay. In choosing a position for writing, three advantages should, if possible, be secured. Good light, healthfulness, and convenience. Light from above, over the left shoulder, is considered the most desirable. A front light, if not too low or too bright, is good. Cross lights tend to injure the eyes, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Brad Dowdy: Light from the right... Don't cross your light. That's ridiculous. Light from the right produces troublesome shadows. So, I'm going to stop right here and say how much left-handed bias is going on in just that paragraph. Well, you mean... You cannot write well if you write with your left hand, Myke, according to this book so far.

Myke Hurley: It's anti-left hand bias. Right. Not biased towards, it's biased against.

Brad Dowdy: It's biased against, yes.

Myke Hurley: It's fine. We live our lives in persecution.

Brad Dowdy: Healthfulness of position requires that there should be no disturbance of the full natural action of the lungs, heart, and digestive organs. Therefore, bending the back outward, throwing the shoulders forward, hollowing the chest, and compressing the abdomen should not be indulged in. I don't feel like I've learned anything. What you've learned is you're doing it wrong, Myke, and I'm going to continue. Convenience requires that the writing page be in front of the face, that the writer incline forward, the body bending only at the hips, just enough to focus the sight, that letters and words may be distinctly seen without straining the eyes. Convenience also requires that the right arm and hand be kept free for movement. Hence, throwing the weight of the body upon the arms, pressing them down upon the desk, and holding the pen with a hard grasp must be avoided. Myke, that is everything you need to know about the proper writing position.

Myke Hurley: If you'd like to find the show notes for this week's episode, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 359. Thanks to Squarespace and Harry's for their support. But most of all, thank you for listening. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com. Twitch.tv slash penaddict to see what embargoes Brad wants to break this week. It's always fun and risky viewing over there on twitch.tv slash penaddict. Knock.co as well, where you can buy Brad's wonderful products. Brad is penaddict on Instagram. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. And please, do not allow a disturbance over your digestive organs while writing this week. Thank you.