The Pen Addict 408/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	408
Title:	You Gotta Let Me Live My Life
Release Date:	April 29th, 2020
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 408
Audio File:	Audio Episode 408
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 408
Length:	7070 min <br />1.167 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 408. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and the Canalea Penco. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Mr. Myke Hurley. How are you today? Hey, big turnip boy. Hey, big turnip boy. Big turnip Brad over here. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, a little behind the scenes. I haven't taken a shower yet today because I've been busy playing Animal Crossing. Yep. So it kind of cuts into your, you know, your personal hygiene time. So we're not gonna, we're glad this isn't a vodcast, your favourite word. This is not a vodcast.

Brad Dowdy: What is a vodcast?

Myke Hurley: It's a video podcast. Do people call them vodcasts? No, I think I just made it up.

Brad Dowdy: I think the term is just video podcast.

Myke Hurley: It sounds accurate. I'm gonna go with vodcast.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: Although I will say this, headphone, headbands, you know, the part that goes over the top, they make good hair bands as well. So you have to like push the hair back. You're in a hair situation? It's, you know, it's quarantine, quarantine hair time. So yeah, we're pulling it back. We're gonna have a man bun before all this is over.

Brad Dowdy: This won't be for everyone. I'll send you my current beard situation.

Myke Hurley: Oh, Lord. Yeah, I don't know what my current hair situation is like, but you know, I should probably look at the camera. Let's see what this looks like. Yeah, y'all are missing out on this. This is, yeah, be glad we don't have the vodcast. Yeah, so I'm gonna send this to Myke.

Brad Dowdy: My beard is significant right now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's good. That's good. I like it. So yeah. Yeah. So like, what are you gonna do? Like, honey, you have a beard guy, like it's, you know, but...

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah, but I can't see him. Yeah, exactly. So what are you gonna do?

Brad Dowdy: I'm gonna, eventually, I'm gonna try and tackle some of it on my own. Mm-hmm. We are monitoring clippers on Amazon, and Adino's gonna cut my hair. But the beard, I mean, I have scissors. I will just go for the scissors, you know. I've already used, oh, you're wearing a Relay FM shirt today. Nice. Yeah, your hair's okay. Yeah, it's just pulled back. Yeah, my hair length is less concerning to me. My beard length is more concerning. Yeah. But I have these little scissors. I've already used the scissors to trim up my mustache, so my mustache doesn't go in my mouth, which is gross. And so maybe I'll just use those on the whole beard. Welcome to the Pen Addict. Brad, can you get us back on course, please?

Myke Hurley: I got my Platinum Curie Doss mic, and I have questions.

Brad Dowdy: Okay, I want to hear them.

Platinum Curie Doss Review

Myke Hurley: I have, well, okay, I don't have questions. I don't think they're for me. Well, I do have questions. I have commentary. How about that? The Platinum Curie Doss is a very interesting pen on a lot of levels. And now that I've gotten to hold one and use one, like at pen shows, John from Lemur Inks, he had one at Baltimore. I got to test this out. I'm like, okay, cool. It's way bigger than I thought. And so I had my head wrapped around the overall size of this pen is very large. When we talked about this before with yours, when the pictures had me, you know, kind of a belief that it was going to be not a small pen, but no more than your average size pen, let's say, whatever that means. But you know it when you feel it. If you're a pen addict and use a lot of different pens, you know what a normal size pen feels like. This is a bigger pen. The mechanics are impressive. So I opened this up on stream yesterday and I was trying to figure out how to fill it. And it has all of these, you know, little notches and buttons that you have to twist and turn.

Brad Dowdy: I think I made this analogy previously, but the thing is like Fort Knox or like one of those puzzle boxes or something. Like trying to actually get a cartridge into the thing is wild.

Myke Hurley: Right. But once you do it once, I think it's logical, right? It's not normal for a fountain pen, right? There's no way normal what you have to do to actually put ink into this pen. But the mechanics are logical after you do it. So I inked it up. I was sure that this was a Curie Doss in the box that I was opening. So I, of course, grabbed the Mount Fuji ink cartridge as one does for the Curie Doss and inked it up. And I was able to get, so I got a red Curie Doss and I got an extra fine nib. So I pulled some strings, got the extra fine nib, which I don't know if it's ready yet on the market, but it's coming soon. It was just a little bit further behind. And I deployed the nib and there was ink all over the nib. Do you see this when you engage the pen, like a lot of ink coming out the breather hole of the nib?

Brad Dowdy: A little every now and then, but nothing has ever made me feel like something weird was going on.

Myke Hurley: No, this covers, you know, like, I don't know, a tenth or 20th percent of the nib. Like it's a large blob of ink when you deploy the nib. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. Maybe I'll just wipe it off. Maybe it's just, you know, when I first inserted the ink cartridge and, you know, the air pressure and all that makes it blob out. So I cleaned it up and it just comes back. So there's something going on on the inside there. That doesn't bother me that much. Like it just looks weird. It's like, oh, that's a weird thing. The extra fine nib is awesome. I love, love writing with this nib. The big red flag that I had before getting this in hand was what are we calling the protrusion near the nib? Does that have a name? So it's where the, where the fin hole, the fin hole. So that protrusion, it's a little bit in the way, but I can get around it, right? Like my grip is.

Brad Dowdy: That one's not the problem for me.

Myke Hurley: That, that, that, that, the, the, the, the, the back side, the backside nubbin is not a problem for you. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The way the little fin comes out at the bottom of the pen, right? That's not the issue. The issue for me is the little, is the clip or the plastic part of the clip.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So the clip is zero issue for me. Like I couldn't, I don't even notice it, which, which is why I'm a vanishing point user, right? That works for the way I grip a pin. The backside nubbin, I hit it every now and then. You have to get pretty low to get to that point. Like it's not as much of a disaster.

Brad Dowdy: I'll say they're both issues. Now I'm holding it, but I find, you know what? They're both issues. I always forget this until I actually pick up and use the pen. Those two, like, so the, the, the, the fin hole and the clip nubbin, these are terrible. This is just terrible. They.

Myke Hurley: These are official. Like they are both in the documentation.

Brad Dowdy: For me placed in the exact worst areas for both of them. Like being exactly where they are means I have nowhere comfortable to hold this pen.

Myke Hurley: Right. And from my perspective, I have a super traditional textbook grip, which is what these protrusions are made around. They're not generally a problem for me. A little bit at the bottom on the backside, but I can see that if you have a non-standard grip, which is why, again, you're not a vanishing point fan, right? It's a problem for you. But the real problem I have with this pen is the diameter of the barrel. It's big, right? It's a big boy. It's, it's too wide and it causes instant hand fatigue.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: That's going to be the downfall. I think of this pen, not all of these other little things, not the size, not the mechanics of it. And, but, and I'm saying this, it's a perfectly fine pen. It's going to sell well. I will recommend it, but there will be a thousand caveats with it. Right.

Brad Dowdy: I have become an increasing fan of a quick release fountain pen.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Like being able to pick up a fountain pen, hit the knock and it just be ready is great. Like, and I know that the vanishing point exists and that's fine. But like this pen I've just left on my desk and I love being able to reach out and grab it, you know? Like, so I've become a fan, like a renewed fan of this mechanism, like this idea. But it just frustrates me so much that everyone that makes this pen decides that they must adorn the grip area. Like you could put a clip on this pen somewhere else if you have to have a clip. Right. Like it just drives me bananas. Like they just, they ruin them by, by like sticking extra pieces on them. Just, just nothing will be better, please.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. So I've had this pen for a day. I'm going to use it for a couple of weeks and maybe my, you know, maybe my thoughts change, you know, like the, the Y studio resin pen. I was a little bit concerned that I was like, boy, this is a weird pen. I'm not sure I'm going to like it. And now I can't put it down. I'm kind of in that same spot with this one, but it's different because it's actually making my hand tired when I write with it because my fingers are now further apart, which causes strain in the upper part of my hand, which makes it uncomfortable to write with for a long period of time. That's not going to change on this pen. Right. I, and I'm going to use other pens that are thinner, that are more, uh, and more standard diameter barrel, but especially with an extra fine nib where my strokes aren't large. Right. Like I would almost start like, again, the caveat, the list of caveats is would be, okay. You probably want to start with like a medium nib on this because you're going to need bigger movements to not stress out your hands so much when you're writing with a wide diameter barrel. So we looked this up on stream and Tony looked it up for me. So it's 11.3 millimeters wide or diameter and the Lamy dialogue, which has the same problem. It's Lamy's attempt at their retractable pen. It has a twist mechanism to, uh, get the nib out. And my main complaint about it is that it's too wide. It's 11.6 millimeters. So it's right there in that same, uh, same category. Um, chat rooms mentioning that the large diameter does help some people like who have arthritic hands and, and need larger grips. That's absolutely true. So in that case, that's a way to, you know, look at it as well. But whereas something like the pilot, Dr. Grip is made to be wide and made to have that comfort level for a wider grip. I don't know that this is necessarily made for that. Dr. Grip.

Brad Dowdy: Now that's a weird name for a pen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. He's on the, uh, coronavirus science team. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. He's a super good guy. Dr. Grip. Mm hmm. Yeah. So it's, um, it's interesting. I'm going to spend some time with this before I come to my final conclusion. Those are my initial thoughts. Right. And I'm going to use it consistently for probably two weeks or so before I even consider writing it up. And, um, I don't know if it'll change. We'll see. I look like you said, the best part about this pen is to have it laying on the desk, pick it up, click it, start writing, write your thing and then put it down. Right. I don't want to write page after page with this is where I'm at right now. And that's different from a lot of other fountain pens that I recommend without the whole list of caveats. Like this is going to be a thing. Right. So, um, we'll see. And, you know, I want to see what they do with it. I like it as a platform. What can be next? Right. You always start somewhere. Right. And, you know, we've seen changes in the vanishing point over the years. The vanishing points have actually gotten wider. Right. But they're still in a reasonable, reasonable diameter. They were like 10 point something millimeters when we looked it up. So they're definitely thinner. And, um, they've gone to a wider barrel. Maybe platinum can, you know, make this more compact if this is a success for them and they keep working on it. I'd like to see them keep working on it because I think they have something here. Right. The price point's right. The mechanism is right. We'll see what the durability is right. Yeah. It looks cool. I like it a lot. So.

Brad Dowdy: I would really love, honestly, for me, like I would just love to see them find a way to make it more comfortable to hold. Um, the barrel size is larger, but it's not my initial issue. Maybe if like I didn't have a problem with the protrusions, then I would find the barrel size to be a problem. But in general, that pen is fatiguing to use in a way that like pens aren't always, you know?

Myke Hurley: Right. Right. Which is, I'm glad that it's plastic. Like I imagine the, if they do a metal barrel version, we're going to get close to Lamy dialogue type of issues, which is very heavy and very wide. Maybe why they made it out of plastic. It's very uncomfortable. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It may have just been the best thing for it. Because it's, it's definitely a more expensive price point. And if they would have made it out of metal, even charged just a tad more, I don't think there would have been as much conversation about the price of this pen as there have been.

Myke Hurley: Agree. So they've done a lot right. Like I very much respect what they did here. And this is what I want to see. Like I'm not knocking it as a product. Like I, this is as a pen addict, I want to see this out of companies, right? Like I want this to be a success. Yeah. Please innovate on things and make modern pens. Like this is great. I love it. But, you know, if you're asking me about the writing experience, I'm going to hem and haw a lot because there's, there's things you have to consider if you're going to purchase this pen.

Transition to Personal Incident

Myke Hurley: Michael.

Brad Dowdy: So you had an accident, didn't you?

Myke Hurley: So we had to get those Kuridas thoughts out because I'm just going to cry now. Like I had to talk about that and now I'm just going to get very emotional. Can I just say? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, okay. I have one. I will start by saying I feel very bad for you, but I just want you to know that what has happened to you makes me feel better about myself. If like you can take anything away from this. So we've spoken about the Bung Box 5th Anniversary Sailor Pro Gear a bunch of times. This is the gold sparkly pen with the imperial black like metal grip and nib. Brad posted a picture on Instagram of a horribly bent nib a couple of days ago. Do you want to tell the story?

Myke Hurley: It was in my light box. I was taking pictures of it in the 4 a.m. And I had so you know how when you making fancy pictures, you put the cap down, you unscrew it, you lay the cap down, then you lay the pen across the cap, you know, because you got to show all the things. Right. So I took the picture in the light box, unplugged the light box and left the pens just sitting there and went away to edit the pictures and do other things. Never once did I consider what would happen next, which is I came back into my room and I notice there's only a cap of that pen there and the barrel's not. And then I'm like, that's weird. And then I see it on the floor. And I'm like, okay, please, please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. I pick it up. Well, it is not okay whatsoever. It is not okay at all. And I figured out so this could happen to any nib if you drop it from a large height or even a short height and it hits the floor. But I think this pen is worse when it falls because it's weighted towards the nib. So it's basically like a dart, like falling down to the floor with that heavy metal section. It just went straight down, bloonk, and the nib is now pointy like my hair, as everyone pointed out.

Brad Dowdy: If you would have dropped any other sailor, it may have just survived fine.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So here's the bad part. As I was picking up this pen and going, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, the 4 a.m. rolled off.

Myke Hurley: Because I didn't bother to cap it because I was too panicked about this. But luckily, it just landed on the side barrel and it was fine. Like there was no problem with the 4 a.m. It just went bang on the floor. I picked it up. I was like, you have to be kidding me. And then I looked at the nib and the nib was fine because it just landed on the barrel. This one is weighted to dagger your pen straight into the floor. So I'm going to send it off this afternoon. I had some pens I was going to send off to Mark Backus. And I know he will make this as good as new, which is fine. Like I'm not worried about that. But it's just like this is the first time this has happened to me. And I've seen lots of mangled pictures. I've been around pens that have taken a fall and came up worse for wear. But this is my initiation into the I dropped my pen club. And I'll be paying the price for it. That's for sure.

Brad Dowdy: So you think then that like this can just be like Mark can just repair that nib? Without question. Really? Yeah. Because like it's super bent. Like it's doing a 90 degree.

Myke Hurley: All right. Well, here we go. This will be a recurring theme on here because I guarantee it will be back and better than ever.

Brad Dowdy: Huh.

Myke Hurley: I've seen him do it.

Brad Dowdy: But this is not me doubting Mark's skills specifically. I just didn't think anyone would be able to like fix that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. No, it is not broken. Right. The tines are not snapped. And maybe there's a crack in them that I can't see. And Mark sees it. And he says, oh, there's a crack in it. There's nothing we can do about that. That's fine.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay. So as long as the like surface is unbroken, it can be repaired. It can be bent back into shape. Yes. And then tuned and then you're off to the races. Okay. Yep.

Myke Hurley: So now here's the interesting part. I'm looking at this nib. And he's going to be manipulating this nib very much to get it back into shape. I'm wondering if I should get him to like bend the nib on purpose to make it like a pilot PO nib. That's kind of fun. I'm like, we could do something fun with this. It's an extra fine nib as it is. So I can't really do a lot with it. But maybe I could bend it down. Like he's already going to be in there. I don't know. I'm going to talk to him about it. So we'll see. But yeah, he can. If I just wanted this back to normal.

Myke Hurley: Guarantee it'll be just fine. As long as it's not like materially broken. Right. That I can't see.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Any type of bending like him and Myke Masayama and these guys have shown pictures in their feeds of fixing nibs that have been way worse than this. Like I've seen pictures with tines crossed. Right. One tine going left. One tine going right. And they fix them up back to normal. So. But yeah, that was a rough moment.

Myke Hurley: Rough moment for me when I saw that. I was like, damn it. Why? Why? But I'm glad I hadn't. I had some other nibs he was going to work on anyway. And I hadn't sent them yet. So they'll go out today. And we will follow up on this as Brad goes through this pen repair.

Brad Dowdy: Mm. Definitely.

Myke Hurley: What I don't know is what it's going to cost me. I imagine it's rather expensive to fix something like this.

Myke Hurley: It's a time of labor type of thing. Right? Yeah. Where you can knock out a grind in, you know, like 15 minutes or whatever. This is a little bit more labor intensive.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Definitely.

Myke Hurley: Which is fine. Like I just want the pen fixed at this point.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Shift to Hank Green Marker Video Discussion

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So it's cool. It's cool. All right. I got this link a bunch over the past few days. I don't know if you got it or not. It was Hank Green on markers. And I don't know if anyone knows of Hank Green. But he's, would you call him a science writer or YouTuber? How do you describe what Hank Green does? Hank Green is like the OG YouTuber.

Brad Dowdy: Like the Green Brothers, like Hank and John, were like the OGs. Like of like sitting in front of a camera talking about interesting stuff. Then they have like branched out into lots and lots and lots of other YouTube projects. They are education focused YouTubers primarily. But now are both successful writers. Hank has followed on after John. But John Green has written books that have become movies now. Yeah. He's the main book writer.

Myke Hurley: Yes. Yes.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. But Hank is now getting ready to publish his second novel. But John's books like took off quicker. I mean, he started first. And now like, you know, Hank has seen good success. I've really, I've been meaning to read Hank's first book for a very long time. Maybe I should make that a quarantine project. But I very much enjoy it. They are the Vlog Brothers. Like that's their channel. That's what they were known for. And they're great. Like they have a very unique style. And the way that they speak, like the cadence of their voices has informed so many other YouTubers. And of course, Hank was responsible for creating PodCon. So I've had the great pleasure of meeting and speaking with Hank on a number of occasions now.

Myke Hurley: Good, good. So yeah, I figured, I don't know if you watched this video, but with Hank's second book coming out, he was signing, I don't know how many copies. It looked like thousands. With the amount of papers in this test that he was doing. So he said, well, if I'm going to sign all these books, I'm going to order all the permanent markers on Amazon. And that's the gist of this video that we're going to link in there.

Brad Dowdy: It's fantastic. Well, the video we will link is the longer version.

Myke Hurley: So there's like. Which is only nine minutes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but the Vlog Brother videos are about three, four minutes long. But then Hank had a longer cut on his channel.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this one's nine minutes long. And it seemed like it lasted about two minutes. Like that's how good he is. And he just blasts through this and he reviews probably like 20 markers.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Should I spoil the ending or should we let people watch it?

Brad Dowdy: I think we should let people watch it.

Myke Hurley: Okay. I enjoyed the ending thoroughly. I was like, I'll be damned. I was like, huh. There's a reason for things, right? Yeah. So, yeah. It was good. I enjoyed it. But he went through a lot of pens. The couple of ones that are really terrible. He really enjoys going in on those pens that are just awful. So, I appreciated that very much. But yeah, the winner. The winner was a good one.

Brad Dowdy: I just assume. Isn't it John involved in Wolverhampton Wanderers? Is it Wolverhampton or is it a different football club?

Myke Hurley: I think I would have run across that by now. It must be a different football club.

Brad Dowdy: There's like, so there's, it's like this wonderful long running thing with him and a football team. Wimbledon. Maybe it's a fan. Thank you, Kate. It's Wimbledon. Okay. That's just like this fascinating, like, love affair. Yeah, it's like with Wimbledon AFC. I wished I could point to something which could indicate his involvement, like, in some kind of succinct way.

Myke Hurley: That's pretty cool. I haven't found, like, a super fan of Wolverhampton yet. I mean, I know that's like a celebrity or famous internet person or something like that. But yeah, that's pretty cool. That's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: I'll put, I'll find, like, something. I'll put, like, a link in the show notes to try and give you an idea of it. Nice. Nice. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I would love to see that. I miss, I miss my football, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: Mm. I'm sure you do. I do.

Myke Hurley: I really do. Genuinely.

Brad Dowdy: I don't doubt that.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Football and baseball are just, like, I just super miss. Just, like, it's wonderful comfort background noise that I can have on all day while I'm working. It's great.

Football to Pens

Myke Hurley: You know what else is wonderful, Myke?

Brad Dowdy: Our first sponsor, the Canalea Pan Company. Yeah, buddy. Canalea Pen Co. make wonderful pens inspired by stunning images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and help us connect with nature. And while the story behind these pens is wonderful, the execution is truly what is incredible. This is where Canalea pens truly shine. Every single one is handmade in a process that means that no two pens will ever look alike. And every single nib is tuned before it ships to their customers to make sure that it is perfect for you. Canalea have a wide variety of styles of material as well as shapes of pen, and they're all stunning. I personally, I think I said this last week, but I'll say it again. I do not believe that you will find a better offering of pens from anywhere else. Like, Canalea is number one, in my opinion. We both own multiple Canalea pens at this point. Every new release is full of so much excitement, and we want to remind you of their latest. The Kona Cherry is inspired by the world-renowned Kona coffee bean. The fruit that these beans are encased in features a rich red color that has been encapsulated perfectly in this design. The material that the pens are made from features wonderful deep complexity with transparent areas found in the bodies of the pens as well, making it truly a sight to behold. Canalea pens feature Joao's number six nibs, and you can buy steel or 18-karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They also offer rose gold too, which is a favorite of mine. Canalea offers sizes from extra fine to 1.1mm stub, and every single Canalea pen ships in a beautifully packaged keepsake box. Canalea Pen Co. is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite pen companies, and I'm sure that Brad would say exactly the same. It is run by wonderful and caring people who have a story that they want to share with the world, and they do it by making these truly inspired products of the highest quality. You can check out their range of pens right now at CanaleaPenCo.com. That's K-A-N-I-L-E-A-P-E-N-C-O dot com. And right now, you can participate in their Choose Your Aloha launch celebration for the Kona Cherry. Canalea has a limited supply of the Classic Flush profile that are shipping right now. Once these are gone, you'll only have to wait three to four weeks for your pen to be shipped. Just three to four week wait is the same for all of the other pen profiles as well. Canalea usually have a 12 to 16 week waiting list, so now is an excellent time to order this pen. And Canalea Pen Co. will also be donating a portion of the profits to the Food Basket, which is Hawaii's Island's Food Bank, I should say, and the West Hawaii Community Health Center. So once again, go to CanaleaPenCo.com and choose your aloha today. Our thanks to Canalea Pen Co. for their support of this show.

Myke Hurley: So apparently, I have a red thing going on now. The Canalea Kona Cherry, I purchased this pen, full disclosure. I paid full price for the pen and was given the gold nib for free. So there's your disclosure for that. And I bought it because the color, it does something to me, Myke. It's fun and happy and bright. And I love the translucency in the red. I don't know. It just really, really worked for me. And apparently, with my ordering of the Curie Doss in red, which is not the color I would have chose, apparently, I'm more of a red fan than I've led on to in the past. Because now that's two within the past couple of weeks that are now on my desk. And I'm a big, big fan of the red.

Brad Dowdy: What else are you a big fan of?

Myke Hurley: I'm a big fan of buying things, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But I wanted to bring this one little tidbit that was sent to me on Twitter that I missed. It happened on Instagram, on Blackwing's Instagram feed. And I wanted to bring this up, number one, because it would make you mad because you don't care about this. And number two, I think our... It just made me apathetic, really.

Pen Releases Discussion

Myke Hurley: Apathetic.

Myke Hurley: So we won't spend too much time on it. But Blackwing did a bracket of all of their pen releases. So I think it was a 32 pencil. I said pen releases. Pencil releases. So they did... They made a bracket, you know, like a Final Four basketball, sports, or any type of event type of bracket. And so the Final Four... I'm not going to go through the entire bracket. But the Final Four are the 155, which is the Bauhaus edition, versus the 811, which is the library edition. I don't know if that's the official names of these or not. But... And then that was one competition. And then the second competition was the Natural, which is the recently released wooden natural barrel of the... I don't know if that was 602 or Extra Firm. I think it had an Extra Firm in the core. And the 16.2, which is the Ada Lovelace edition, the black and white. Or I should say white and black edition. So out of those two brackets, the 811 beat the 155. So the library beat the Bauhaus. And then the 16.2 beat the Natural. So it was 16.2 Ada Lovelace versus 811. Myke in the final. And guess who won? 811 won. Hooray! I was kind of... Yay! Myke is apathetic! Woo! Woo!

Myke Hurley: Woo! But I'm shocked. I am very surprised that 811 won. As great of an edition as it is, I'm glad it won, though. Because it's a spectacular edition. It's a tribute to libraries. And it's this cool green kind of gradient. It glows in the dark. It's got the firm core. It's a great pencil. I didn't think in no estimation if I would have put my own bracket together would have 811 even been in the final four. Although it deserves to be there. And I'm glad that it won. I would have picked probably 16.2 all the way. Which I'm glad that that made it into the final match. And that's probably one of my all-time favorites. Although I probably would have had a different final four with only 16.2 in it. But I wanted to throw that out there. We'll have a link in the show notes to the bracket. If you're a pencil fan or a Blackwing fan, you can check this out and see how some of your favorites did. For example, the traditional 602 got knocked out early. Which was a shock for me. I don't know if it would have made my final four, but it was a first-round loser. So there you have it. There's your Blackwing bracket for all of y'all to go inspect and Myke to ignore and delete this from his feed.

Brad Dowdy: Bloop.

Myke Hurley: Bloop. You probably have an 811 there, Myke, somewhere in the stash that I've sent you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I don't doubt it. It glows in the dark. You should at least go glow it in the dark. Okay. Have a rave. Bust out the glow sticks. Have a rave. Use your 811. You can do this. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: I have faith in you. I'll make it happen.

Economy Reopening Through Purchases

Myke Hurley: All right. I made the economy happen this past week, Myke. You reopened the economy. That's what I mean. I reopened the economy all on my own. I don't know what got into me. But it started with an order I placed about a month ago with Van S pens. I was like, I need to get some new things to review. There's some inks that are interesting to me. And oh, this pen is nice. So I picked up about sometime in March, I picked up the Montegrappa Elmo, which was also the impetus for that whole $150 to $200 pen conversation. That one's going to be reviewed soon, probably before the Curie Doss. So that pen helped me write that article. Then I also picked up the Aurora orange ink, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, which is a very nice but expensive orange. And then I picked up the standard Bindery Stargaze, which I use for my Y Studio resin fountain pen review. And then I reviewed the ink itself this past week because I found it so interesting in a surprising kind of way. Like, why am I latched onto this black ink so much? So I had a really good purchase experience. And I've kind of gone through those things. The Montegrappa Elmo is kind of the last thing out of that batch I have to review. There's some other inks in that order. Another standard Bindery ink. I think Sarah is going to review. I can't remember if I sent it to Sarah or Susan. But anyway, so I need things for review. And then I need things to just satiate my stationary addiction. So last week, like Thursday or Friday, I just got a bug. I was like, all right, I ordered from Vaness. I'm going to take the rest of my sponsors on my sidebar, which are JetPens, Goldspot, and Penchelet. I'm going to go to their sites and I'm going to find things that I need. You know, need, right? Air quote, need. But, you know, we can use them for the blog, use them for personal use, use them for giveaways. So I wrote in this document, it says, I loaded up on things I wanted for myself to give away and want to review. That Venn diagram is full overlap. Naturally. So that Venn diagram is just like one solid circle of things I want, things I want to give away, and things I want to review. So here we go, Myke. I went off a little bit. I went to Penchelet. I used the code, Myke, Addict10 at checkout for an additional 10.

Brad Dowdy: Is that our code? Yeah. Good. Well, because the code changes, though. So what you really should do is hit the podcast link at the top of the website and then turn the password PenAddict to get your hands on the code that you need.

Myke Hurley: Well, that was the code when I went to the page and then it worked at checkout. So I got an additional 10% off my order. Amazing. And I ordered one of the items on the list from last week, which is the Leonardo Messenger. So that was one that was a really crazy good price on the PenAddict page. And I ordered, the color is called Water, which is a very good name. That's a shockingly weird name for a pen. Which one did you get? I got Leonardo Messenger Water. Like the other ones are like orange and red. This one's just called Water.

Brad Dowdy: Which color is the water?

Myke Hurley: The bright green, like turquoise-y one. Okay. Not the green green. There's green and then there's water.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you see, any other, like ocean, sea. Yes. And, you know, like not just water, just element.

Myke Hurley: Hell, turquoise. Yeah. Fire, wind. But it's caramel, green, orange, red, and water. It's like, okay. What? Yeah. What is going on with that naming? So those are the five in the series. So, but anyway, it was at a ridiculous price. I bought that one in a fine nib. So that water is on its way to me, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: The reason I went over there to Pen Chalet in the first place was they have these Leonardo Memento Zeros in Pen Chalet exclusive colors. And I bought the turquoise green one with the matte black cap and grip section. Yeah, that one's pretty nice. That one's going to be for me. We'll see what the messenger is, if it's a giveaway or I've already given away one messenger to Pen Addict members, give away the orange one. I don't know what I'll do with the other one. Maybe I'll just review it because it's a different model. That'll at least be my excuse. You're going to hear a lot of my reasoning, you know, the thing, the way I talk myself into all these things. Oh, I can just use it for review or, oh, I can give that away. So yeah, that was my Pen Chalet order. Doubled down on the Leonardo's, but hey, it's hard to beat those prices. So next up, I went over to JetPens, Myke. I just went through the new products feed, which is kind of the thing I do. Like I get advanced look at products and then I get to pick out what I want from JetPens. That's a danger zone right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get that. I get those ahead of schedule. And then once products release, I go back and look through and see what I skipped the first time, right? I don't get everything. I don't say, oh, send me everything. And then sometimes I need to restock things and sometimes I learn new things. So that's what this was all about. So I ordered the Zebra Blend ballpoint. If you remember, Myke, that was number two in that Japanese survey that we shared. I forget the name because it's a weird name, like OWC 48 or something like that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, would this be the first time you've used this pen then?

Myke Hurley: No, a kind listener sent me one and I really enjoyed it. So I wanted to try this gray body and 0.5 millimeter one. So a wonderful leader sent it to me. And it's, oh, leader, reader sent it to me. It's really, really great. Um, the second thing I added was the Kunisawa Fine Smart Note Notebook, which I didn't know about until Joe from the Gentleman Station or posted about it last week. It's kind of like the Kokuyo Sketch Note. Maybe a little bit bigger, a little bit thicker pages. Definitely more expensive, but it's a format that I like. So I wanted to try that. I bought one, two, three, four, five secure picker Micron 05s. That's normally bigger in tip size than I go. I usually like the, the three or the three, five. I forget what they call it. I think it's the O3. But I've been doing this notebook project just kind of on my own off to the side. And I like using the Microns for it. So I ordered black, orange, rose, sepia, and purple. We're going through all the things I bought. This is everything I bought like on last Friday. It's stupid. I'm not a smart person. And then lastly, I ordered Diamine Indigo and Diamine Havasau Turquoise. And I have Kelly at Mountain to Ink to blame for those. These are two classic Diamine colors that I do not have, right? These are like in the pantheon of like the OG Diamine colors. And they're really, really good colors that I just want to have.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, the turquoise is really bright. And the Indigo has that blue, black, gray kind of color that I like. So how are we doing so far? Have we bought everything yet? Don't think so. Okay, good, good. Because, yeah, we didn't. We then went on to Goldspot.

Myke Hurley: See, I just went down the line of my sponsors. I don't know why. I'm sure they're lining up to sponsor me because I just give them their money right back when I buy stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So gold. Yeah. So like, oh, yeah, we'll sponsor Brad. Wink, wink. So the Edison worked with Goldspot to create a new shape of a pen. It's called the Newark. And a couple of new colors. And this high voltage green just popped off the screen. I was like, I'm totally ordering that. And I ordered that to give it away. So I ended up giving that away to Pen Addict members last week or this past weekend. And along with the Colorverse, they have a Goldspot collaboration. I like to buy the collaborations, right, that all these companies do with all of our friends that run all these companies. So the Colorverse Goldspot, SolarWind, and Magnetosphere ink set. So I gave those away already. So those will pass through my hands onto their final destination. I bought a pen that I didn't think I would ever buy. And that's why I bought it. Again, this is one of those justification things. Like, this is why I'm like into red pens all of a sudden, because I didn't think I would ever like red. I started buying red pens, and it turns out that I really like red. The Kaweco Supra, Myke, is an interesting pen. Have you seen this, not this particular one, but they did the brass one about a year ago, maybe two years ago. Do you recall seeing this pen? It's a sectional pen that can go from full size. It's basically got three intersecting parts that can screw together, where I can make it a two-section short pen or a three-section long pen.

Brad Dowdy: But one of the sections, would you just leave it at home?

Myke Hurley: Yes, you would have to just stash it somewhere.

Brad Dowdy: All right, so you choose whether you want a pocket pen or a full-size pen.

Myke Hurley: Right. And the difference between this and the AL Sports that I like is it takes a number six nib. So it's got the big nib in it, and this is a wider barrel. Why does it step like that?

Myke Hurley: Because those are the inserts into the other sections, I guess is the best way to put it. Right? So there's not really that much of a step in the middle. And normally, you're not going to write with this cap on the back, because that just makes it like a baton.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I just... It would be... I don't like that it doesn't sit flush, though. Like, if you're not keeping these things together in some kind of telescoping, it frustrates me.

Myke Hurley: Look at the real photo, like the gray background photo. Okay, that doesn't look as much. It's great. It's not as offset as you think that those pictures show. Like, it definitely has some offset in it for the way it screws together. But when I tried the brass one, I didn't think it was outrageous. I just thought, I don't really think I would use this. But now they have a stainless steel, and I'm fascinated with stainless steel pens. I have all the other Kaweco stainless steel, so I ordered the Supra.

Myke Hurley: The Lamy special editions, the Lamy candy editions, I ordered the mango and violet pens, and then I ordered the mango ink cartridges. So the mango has the ink for this section, for this release. I don't think the ink bottle was worth it for me. It seemed a little too light, even though I like those orange-yellows. But I bought cartridges to use with the mango pen, and I'll do that for a giveaway. Then I'm going to keep the violet one for myself. So that's my plan going into that.

Myke Hurley: I also bought a Tasha ink, which I have zero of. So I wanted to change that for review. So I bought a bright blue. It's called Hokusai Fucandina. I don't know how to say that, but it's like a turquoise-y, bright blue type of thing. And the thing I might be the most excited about in this whole list.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, no, it's the next one. Carry on. Carry on, sorry. It's the next one.

Myke Hurley: Carry on. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Myke has something mad coming up to me. I bought a pack of J'erban blotter paper.

Brad Dowdy: Blotter paper.

Myke Hurley: Blotter paper. So when I'm writing on my desk, I always use some type of paper, usually like a folded over A4 sheet or just a regular A5 sheet to rest my hand on when I'm writing just for oils, for humidity, sweat, anything like that. Any dirty thing when I'm handwriting on my page. It's just a personal habit.

Brad Dowdy: Is that for everything or just for reviews?

Myke Hurley: Depends. It's for a lot of everything. Right. Not all the time, but definitely for reviews, right? I want it to be clean. So I have this orange blotter paper that I don't know if it came out of one of the Nanami books or came out of the Yoseka book or came out of the Clairefontaine book. But I have this one sheet of this pink blotter paper that I use that I got out of some book. I was like, oh, I can order these sheets and don't have to use these torn up rhodia sheets that I just end up throwing away and they end up laying all over my desk. Now I have these pink ones and I'm pretty happy about that, Myke. This is, I'm very, very happy about that. Last one. I did not. This is not a sponsor, Myke. But, you know, maybe after this episode and seeing how much money I spent with them, I got my neon inks on the way, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: This is what I'm mad at you about.

Myke Hurley: Why are you mad?

Brad Dowdy: I didn't know that these were even available anywhere to buy. You didn't tell me nothing.

Myke Hurley: Matterals sold out. Yep. Yep. And since I've bought them, they have all sold out. Yes. Except for yellow. Except for yellow is available. So here's the deal. From Shiger Inks, I bought the Kala Neon Inks. I knew they were coming there. I did not tell Myke. I might hook you up or something. You know, I'm a nice guy sometimes. Okay. Let's see. So here's the deal. I went into it. Oh, if there's an eight pack set, I'll buy them. I'll just click and make the eight pack set happen, right? Because there's eight colors of the neon ink. This is what we went through. Like how hard would it be to pick just one ink out of this whole set? And it really is hard. So I picked four. If there was an option to buy all eight with one click, I would have just done that. But there wasn't. So now I had to choose. I could have chose all eight, but I don't roll that way. So I picked four.

Myke Hurley: Do we want to play a guessing game or it's really not worth it? Probably.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Just tell me. I don't think I'm going to guess. Especially if it's half.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's half of them. So I bought Groovy, which is the violet.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: I bought Boogie, which is the, they call it neon purple, but it's the magenta kind of pink one. It's not the light pink. It's the dark pink one. I bought neon joy, which is the orange, the joy ink. Then I bought dude, which is the neon blue ink. So I have the purple, magenta, orange, and blue. I think that's a good setup. So I skipped on pink, green, red, and yellow.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I bought those inks. And then I also, well, you know, since I was there, since I was there, Myke, they have other ink brands that I've read about online, but I haven't tested myself. Like a bunch of people have tried brands called Tono and Limbs, Lennon Toolbar, iPaper, and Color Traveler. Shiger carries all those. So I ordered a bottle or two of each.

Brad Dowdy: That is a quactic selection of brand names. Tono and Limbs, Lennon Toolbar, iPaper, and Color Traveler.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, iPaper is a terrible name. I'm sorry to the iPaper estate, but that's an awful name for an ink brand. But whatever, do your thing. Tono and Limbs makes me think of Pimm's Cup. So I'm pretty happy about that. Lennon Toolbar is the most confusing, but it might be the best name out of all of them. Like there's something there if you think about it a lot. Like put some depth into that. I was like, damn, that's a really good name. And then Color Traveler.

Brad Dowdy: But like I don't understand how like it's translated, right? Like it's translated to Lennon Toolbar.

Myke Hurley: Are you sure? That's the brand name. I don't know that that's translated.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I guess.

Myke Hurley: Lennon Toolbar was founded in 2014 at Tamasui, Taiwan. I think Lennon Toolbar is the for real non-translated name.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know what you're saying. I think I'm struggling to like get across what I'm trying to get across here. But like Lennon Toolbar, fine. Like it's written in...

Myke Hurley: The best way possible.

Brad Dowdy: No, they have it written in English on the bottles.

Brad Dowdy: This is very confusing to me. Because like it must then be translated back into...

Myke Hurley: I think you're trying too hard. It literally says on their manufactured bottles, Lennon Toolbar.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right, right, right. I'm just checking. I built, you know, so maybe these are in Mandarin. I don't know. But my point is that above Lennon Toolbar are characters, right? Which I'm assuming, I don't know. I'm assuming a Mandarin. So it's been translated back into something. And I'm just wondering if... But by Lennon Toolbar. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. But what I'm wondering is like in Taiwan, like what does it translate to? Does it translate literally to Lennon Toolbar? That's my thing, right? Because like it's just... It's such a weird name.

Myke Hurley: He's imike on Twitter. At I-M-Y-K-E.

Brad Dowdy: I want to know. I do want to know. Does it say Lennon Toolbar? Like exactly. Like is that the translation?

Myke Hurley: Or is it something else? You know what I mean? So go pull up their real site and get out your Google Translate and see if it... It was probably going to say Lennon Toolbar because that's defeating the purpose of what you're trying to prove here. But like...

Brad Dowdy: I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just like...

Myke Hurley: I'm just like... Like can we talk about iPaper? Like that's a way more egregiously terrible name.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no. But like I know how you got to that. It was just a bad decision based on the iPod, right? Like that doesn't take... That's not difficult to get your head around. Like maybe they were started in the early 2000s and it like just seemed like the cool thing to do. But Lennon Toolbar is like...

Brad Dowdy: I don't even know where that came from. Like I can't get my head around that one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I can't wait till I get these inks and we can talk about them more.

Brad Dowdy: I also can't find like what would be an official website. That's the challenge. Yeah. I did look at that too. Lennon Toolbar. Toolbar.

Brad Dowdy: Lennon Toolbar.

Myke Hurley: And for those of you playing at home and don't have the show notes pulled up, it's Lennon like John Lennon.

Brad Dowdy: That's what makes it even more like...

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's not Lennon or like Lennon like the fabric. It's Lennon like John Lennon.

Brad Dowdy: John Lennon's Toolbar.

Myke Hurley: I can't believe out of all the things we've talked about, this is the thing you're stuck on. Oh yeah, it's also not like The Dictator. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That one too. Well anyway, Lennon Toolbar is just quite a brand name and I'm very intrigued by it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I love everything about it. That's what I want in my Asian brands, right? This is my expectation. My expectation is Lennon Toolbar, not eye paper. Like some kid with like Dreamweaver from 2000 can come up with the eye paper, right? Yes. I need the depth of thinking that Lennon Toolbar comes out of it.

Brad Dowdy: You see, because like Tono and Limbs, right?

Myke Hurley: Right. That's like, cool, I'm on board with this. That's traditional, hey, let's make a cool hip name. Yeah. It's going to be something and something.

Brad Dowdy: Color Inks, right? Like K-L-A-A. Like I'm on, like Color Traveler. Like all of these things, they're like, I can see how you got there. But Lennon Toolbar, I don't understand it. It doesn't, like it's not like just somebody's name or like words that sound like cool for the thing, like descriptive, like Color Traveler, right? Like you make ink, Color Traveler make ink. Even eye paper, it's like, I see how you got there. Lennon Toolbar, I don't know how that was achieved. Like, I don't know how, like, what is a Toolbar? You know?

Myke Hurley: I don't know if I love you or hate you right now.

Brad Dowdy: Why?

Myke Hurley: Because this is an amazing conversation. This is not at all my expectation of where we would have gone here. This is like something I would do.

Brad Dowdy: They camel case Toolbar as one word.

Myke Hurley: Yes, they do. That is, right? Yes, but I took the name off of the rewriting of the sales page, but the bottle has camel case Toolbar in it. Toolbar, one word. Yes, that makes it actually technically worse.

Brad Dowdy: And more confusing.

Myke Hurley: That does not help their situation at all.

Brad Dowdy: Lennon Toolbar. Oh my God.

Myke Hurley: This, yeah. Email Myke. Tweet at him. I don't want to hear your Toolbar dissertations.

Brad Dowdy: I wonder if, like, they have a brand name, but when you say it, it's close enough in English that it sounds like Lennon Toolbar.

Brad Dowdy: God. Now, wouldn't that be interesting?

Myke Hurley: Right? Jacob's going to be emailing me, like, in no time. After this drops, he's going to have all the answers. Jacob and CY will have all the answers for us.

Brad Dowdy: Give me the answers, because this one is just fascinating to me.

CW Pencil Enterprise Shipping Update

Myke Hurley: All right. Can I get to the last? There's still one more thing. There's still one more thing. We don't have to question all these names, but I wanted to point out that CW Pencil Enterprise is back to shipping. And I bought their Viking Collectors box set last month, probably around when I had that Vaness order. So I guess, like, once a month, I'm having, like, a binge. Like, last month, it was Vaness and CW Pencil. This month, it's been all these other things. And I bought this Viking Collectors box set. It's sold out on their site right now, but I'm going to review it soon, because I think it's a pretty neat and well-put-together set of pencils. And I just love Viking's branding so much. So I just wanted to point out that CW Pencils is now shipping. I think they're only shipping, like, a couple times a week, whenever they can get in there. Yes, pencilized. But they've coordinated with the post office that everything is, you know, they've done a great job. This is exactly what I want to see out of businesses. Like, they've worked with their local, you know, post office and shipping platforms to make sure that they're not putting any unnecessary burden on people that they don't have to. And when that came to pass, that's when they decided to open back up for shipping. And I love that. So definitely go support them.

Brad Dowdy: That's nice. Yep. All right. This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace because they will let you create the website that you want for your next project or idea. They can give you the ability to register and assign a unique domain name to that site so it will have a wonderful brand attached. They have beautiful, award-winning, wonderfully customizable templates for you to customize yourself and give your website the look and feel that you want it to have. And they have all of the functionality that you may want to integrate. If you want to put an online store on your website, Squarespace can give you those tools. If you want to make a blog, Squarespace will give you those tools. If you want portfolios, galleries, you want to integrate with other platforms, you want to create mailing lists, campaigns, email campaigns even. Squarespace can give you all of the tools that you need. They are truly the all-in-one platform to help you get your project online. There is nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They do all of that stuff so you don't have to. Maybe you have a friend. Maybe you have a family member. Maybe you're part of a community team or like a social club that has a website and the person that runs the website has lots of questions for you and you don't want to have to answer those questions anymore. If you get them to switch to Squarespace, you can direct those questions to Squarespace's award-winning 24-7 customer support team. This is a great resource for Squarespace. Just in general, if you know someone who has a website but they're not very sure on how to run it, Squarespace can help them do it. It's really, really awesome. You can sign up for a trial today. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. You can build your entire website there and see what Squarespace has to offer. Then when you're ready to launch it to the world, you just sign up for one of their plans. But you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain by using the offer code penaddict at checkout and you'll also be supporting the show. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. Brad, can I take a brief interlude in today's episode because I mentioned the word support and it reminded me of something. Sure. So I don't need to tell everyone about the fact that lots of businesses are struggling at the moment and RelayFM is a business. We are not struggling right now, but I see a time in maybe the not too distant future where belts will need to be tightened around here because we are an advertising supported business at the moment and primarily. And that is a thing where there's a lot of uncertainty around marketing and advertising right now, understandably, as lots of businesses are going through various struggles. If you would like to support RelayFM, we have a membership program where you can do that and you get tons of great content. And we're working on some new wonderful things for that, including something that we just launched this week called Backstage. Backstage is a new members podcast for RelayFM where me and Stephen, my co-founder, we give you a behind the scenes of RelayFM and also help you create your own podcast. It's a monthly show where we're giving all of our tips and knowledge so you can go out and make the show that you've always wanted to make. We're starting with... So on every episode, we are breaking down just one specific thing. So on the first episode, we talk about how to come up with the idea, how to focus on the topic for the show that you want to make and what the right idea could be. If you want to get a taste of what this show will be like, we've published it, the first episode, for free. I'll put a link in the show notes where you can do that. And if you want to get it, become a RelayFM member. And if you become a member to support Backstage, that money goes directly to helping us run the day-to-day of RelayFM. But you can choose to support any show and the money will go to the hosts of the show. So if you want to support the Pan Addict podcast, you can. There's a link in the show notes for that as well. So if you enjoy our content and you have some dollars to spare, we would very much appreciate those dollars. Thank you for your time.

Myke Hurley: I thought the first episode was excellent. Thank you. I can't wait for more. I might have to submit my own questions. There's so much conversation that can happen. Like every single question that you took like spawns off like five more questions.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, we have enough topic ideas and questions to, I'm not kidding, run this thing. If we're doing it every month, like two years already. Yeah, yeah. Because there's so much you can go into depth with and we're really going to do that.

Myke Hurley: So the one thing that I've realized really only in the past, like in the past month, that running a membership service. So the Pan Addict membership is, we're into the fifth year now, I think. Is that right? It's been over four years. Over four years. So I guess, yeah. So we're technically in the fifth year. But people love to support makers, but the thing that they get, I think that they enjoy the most is the inside baseball stuff. Like when I talk about business in refill, which is pretty infrequently, but if I break down like a business decision that I've made, I will get more feedback on that saying, give me more of that, as opposed to like some of the other topics.

Behind-the-Scenes of Membership Service

Brad Dowdy: I think if you are invested in a thing, it is interesting to see like how the sausage is made, like what goes on behind the scenes. And that's why, like that's one component of this show, is we're just, and that will differ depending on what's going on. But I think like the, so it's like a mix of those two things, of like here's some behind the scenes, but here's also like our knowledge, right? If you, you know, as I say on the show, combined me and Stephen have 19 years of podcasting experience. So by this point, we definitely know a thing or two or three, and maybe we can share that for people that want to give us money.

Myke Hurley: Right. And the thing about the inside baseball stuff is not everyone's willing to share information with other people. And I am, I've said it a thousand times and I'm an open book. Like I will tell you everything except maybe like the dollar figure in my bank, right? Like I've broken down like costs and expenses and all these things. Like I'm, I'm just want to be helpful to other people either to like understand how businesses like this run or how to start their own business, how to set things up in the, in the beginning and like what expectations are. So like, it's super important to have that type of communication with your members. I think like I, those are the type of memberships that I support where I can like learn something as well as support someone that I want to support. So yeah, I think it's a great thing. I love it. All right.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you.

Myke Hurley: We added a topic in the intro before we went live today. Myke and I were talking and Myke makes this random comment. We weren't even talking about this. And Myke goes, God, all my pens are out of ink. And that one little statement, um, set my mind to work. So we ended up putting a topic in here. I said, let's end this conversation. Now I want to talk about this. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because I've seen what your pen setup looks like. How many pens are in front of you right now? Ballpark.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know, like 35, 40.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Fountain pens, essentially. I mean, and your retros and other things like that. But yeah, we're talking fountain pens. Mostly fountain pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And you go, Ooh, so many pens are out of ink. Were all of those, or were most of them inked up?

Brad Dowdy: Um, no, I would, so like all is hyperbolic. Sure. You know, uh, but yeah, most, they're all linked up and the, the vast majority of the sailors are out of ink now.

Fountain Pen Ink Management

Myke Hurley: Okay. So when you choose a pen and you say, Oh, I want to use this pen today. And, or for what I'm doing right now. And you start writing with, and you go, Oh, it's out of ink. What do you do with that pen?

Myke Hurley: I put it back. Okay. It just goes back in the, in the, in the, it's, you have like a big dudek block, right? They're all like standing there.

Brad Dowdy: It's not a dudek block,

Myke Hurley: but, but yeah, someone, something made it to. Yes. And then you'll go, Oh, I should choose another one. Like then how do you choose like the next pen? You're like, you're just like, Oh, this is all by feel. Like,

Brad Dowdy: what do I feel like I want to, what pen do I feel like I want to use right now? That's what I grabbed for. Right. And then when one's empty, it's like, Oh, so what one am I feeling now?

Myke Hurley: And then we've reached a point now where they're mostly empty.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: How are you going to handle this situation? As someone who historically, and I'm not saying this in a negative way, you're like not a big fountain pen maintenance guy, right? Like I'm saying this because we have listeners that will do that, that do the same thing. Like there's no right or wrong here. I'm just trying to, as someone who's like diligently a fountain pen maintenance guy, this type of situation is beyond my reasoning scope. So I want to know, how are you going to handle this? Are you going to take three pens, clean them up and reink them? Are you going to take 20 pens and just jam in the ink that was in there before without cleaning them? What's the next step? This is what I wanted to ask you and how are you going to rectify? Oh, I have so many pens that are out of ink. How does Myke fix that?

Brad Dowdy: So what I will do is I can get into like the thin end of the wedge of this problem, which is like, so I keep going through this. It gets to a certain point and then I will be like, all right, today's the day I got to fill my pens. So I will go and get every ink. It's an annual tradition. Well, I see, you know, it happened. I'll go and get all my inks and I'll put them on the desk. I'll get all my pens. I'll see what needs to be refilled and then I'll refill. And if, you know, I'll clean out pens where I'm changing the inks. I'm going to be completely honest here. The orange ink is like, who knows what orange ink was in this pen. So I'll just pick one because, you know, Oh my God, it's, it's, you know, it's much for much, right? Like, it's just like, well, this one feels like it's going to be fire on fire. This one feels like it's going to be Hiroshizuku for Yugaki. And then I'll just fill it up again. Right. It's like, it's all good. It's all liquid.

Brad Dowdy: But by and large, I have a lot of pen pairings, but the orange ones, it's kind of just like, let's just see. I'll pick one, put it in there.

Myke Hurley: I think half our listenership just fainted.

Brad Dowdy: You've got to let me live my life.

Myke Hurley: I am not. I am not telling you to do it another way. This is not directed at you. I know. I, I'm a little bit flummoxed on the orange situation.

Brad Dowdy: I have like five pens that orange ink goes into, and I have like four orange inks.

Myke Hurley: So like, according to me, with your theory, you have one orange ink.

Myke Hurley: Is what you just explained to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do not have four. Yes.

Myke Hurley: You have a singular orange ink.

Brad Dowdy: There is, there are two pens where I know which oranges go in them. Okay. The other two, it's like a roll of the dice. We're not so sure.

Myke Hurley: That's awesome. Whatever one. I love you right now. This is great. Do you though? Okay. I do. I do. I do. Because this is not out of the realm of possibility for, you know, people in this situation. I mean, it's, it's definitely on, on the far end of the scale, but okay, let's not, let's, let's move past the oranges. What if we're not using oranges? Are we cleaning? If we're going from purple to blue, we're cleaning, right? 100%.

Brad Dowdy: If I, if like the ink color is changing, I will clean them. And, or if I know I'm changing ink, then I will clean them. But like, if I don't know, then I just won't.

Myke Hurley: Do you have any sort of tracking situation? And the answer has to be no, right?

Brad Dowdy: No,

Myke Hurley: I think I would like that though. Okay. We're going to talk about that. I know.

Brad Dowdy: I think it would, I think so like, you know, the way I am is the way I am. It's not the way I want to be. Fair. That's totally fair. Like I get that. What I am.

Myke Hurley: I'm not trying to change you. I'm not trying to change your habits.

Brad Dowdy: the reason I don't do this stuff frequently is because I just feel like I don't have the time to handle the, the, the maintenance.

Myke Hurley: Well, you have 35 pens inked up at once. That would last some people a year. Like you don't have time because you don't have time. You don't need the time. If they're all inked at some point, they'll run out. But like I said, it's an annual tradition.

Brad Dowdy: I also refuse to not have them all linked up.

Myke Hurley: Okay. That's a statement. That's a statement. Yeah. That's a, that's an interesting statement. There's a lot to take. I want them all.

Brad Dowdy: I want them all here.

Myke Hurley: There's a reason you own the pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I want to use them all. Right. Like, you know, I will use them every week. Every pen will get used at least once. I believe that. Yeah. Right. And like, sometimes if I'm doing like a long recording, so like if I'm recording like Cortex, right, I get like 15 pens and put them next to me. And I just like cycle through them as I'm recording. And I just do these little doodles and stuff and write little notes for myself. But like, not, not like the notes I do here where they're for editing, but like, I might write like a little quote down or like whatever, but I'm just picking up and cycling through the pens as I'm going and just like doodling and coloring stuff in and like whatever. So like, you know, I use them that way. But every, uh, every show that I record, I use two pens. Every time I write in my journal, I use two pens. It's like I use them all, right? That's why they're empty.

Myke Hurley: There's no doubt in my mind that you get a lot of use out of the pens that you own. There's no doubt in my mind. it's just when it's time for when they run out of ink, there's, there's lots of questions that I'm a little bit concerned about.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I will, you know, I will clean a pen if like it visibly seems like it needs it. It has, you know,

Myke Hurley: it has orange ink in it. So yeah, no, I get it.

Brad Dowdy: Unless it has orange ink in it. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I'm regretting writing this down maybe a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. But like, you know, I just feel like I know that the gold ink goes in those two pens. So like, I just put the gold ink back in those two pens.

Myke Hurley: I will say this to you. I don't, I'm not saying it to totally defend you. You don't need any defense. You do not have a lot of different inks. I mean, you have plenty of inks. You do not have stupid numbers of inks like a lot of us do, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I maybe have total like 25 inks, but we'll only use, I only ever use like 10, right? Like I don't use all my ink, right? Cause I have a lot of colors. Like I don't really like that much. Sure. So, you know, like I bought one and it's like, yeah, I got bought it. Say like, I buy like a green. Then I buy like a better green. I just use the best green whenever I want to use green. I don't use both greens. Maybe you do. No. Cause I know, I know what color. Right. So like at the moment, what I'm saying is you fill them up.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, Oh, why did I do this?

Myke Hurley: You threw me for a loop on that one, on that orange talk. So I, I, we should probably put a bow in this. We should put a bow in this for, this could go on for a half an hour.

Brad Dowdy: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the pen addict. If you want to support the show, you can support us directly or support our sponsors, Squarespace and the Canalea Penco. Thank you so much to them for our support of this episode. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, knock.co. You can find Brad at twitch.tv slash penaddict at 10 a.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Eastern time, baby. You can go to Twitter is dowdyism or penaddict on Instagram. I am I Myke. I am Y K E. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next time. Please don't be mean. Bye bye. Everybody say goodbye, Brad.

Myke Hurley: Goodbye, Brad.