The Pen Addict 418/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 418 |
| Title: | Today I Hate Paper |
| Release Date: | July 8th, 2020 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 418 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 418 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 418 |
| Length: | 6767 min <br />1.117 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Brad Dowdy: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 418, and today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Ciao, Brad Dowdy. Ciao, Myke Hurley. Ciao, Bella.
Myke Hurley: Why are we chowing today? I have no idea. Did you just get off the phone with Federico? Nope, just came into my mind. Who could know why? Well, I mean, we're going to be talking about some Italian pens later, maybe. We are. Maybe that's why. Maybe it's just subliminal messaging to you, Myke, over a certain pen that we will be discussing later in this show. But first, we have a lot of updates and follow-up to do. We have our weekly sailor segment, where certain people will tune out.
Brad Dowdy: No one's tuning out.
Updates[edit]
Myke Hurley: No one's tuning out. I know, I know. We'll get to that. I have comments, as I always do. But first, let's update our Kickstarter progress. I have some movement in the Retro 51 world. The pens have been shipped back to Retro 51 as of yesterday because they reported to me that the number rings were en route to them. So now the rings need to meet the pens and be parts swapped out and stickered up on the boxes. So, you know, that's probably the biggest delay. That's, you know, 888 pens where they're going to have to manually intervene on every single pen. And so I don't expect them back any time. I expect them back in August, basically, at this point. And then we'll be able to start shipping from then. But the posters are all but done. I don't have them in hand yet. But Anna and Bob have been sending me pictures. They look fantastic. And so we'll get everything rolling for shipping, hopefully starting in August. But we'll just, we don't, I don't know. I can't confirm that date at all yet. But that's kind of at least what my mental math is telling me when I'll have things ready to go. So we'll just see. So maybe the bigger news, although I think the pen for everyone is really what they want. But we had a big rash of pen shows cancel this week. Finally made some updates on the pending San Francisco show in the end of August. The Chicago pen show in the middle of September. And the Dallas pen show at the end of September. All kind of got together, put out a joint update on FP Geek's website. Maybe in other places as well.
Brad Dowdy: I saw her on Instagram.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, they were canceling this year. Just like straight up canceling. Like San Francisco was holding out to see what everything looked like since they were one of the later shows, you know, at the end of August. Chicago was in May, but it moved twice trying to work around, you know, all the COVID-19 challenges we're having. And then Dallas was at the end of September, which we were planning on going to, which we're obviously not now. So, um...
Brad Dowdy: We weren't anyway. I mean, we'd already mentioned it on the show, but like... Yes. Even if Dallas would have gone ahead, we would not have been in attendance unless something miraculous had happened. Yeah. And, you know...
Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're running anti-Maracus right now.
Brad Dowdy: With so much of my heart and all my friends are there, but you're not getting me to America anytime soon. Yeah, and I don't blame you.
Myke Hurley: Nor would I ask... I wouldn't ask people to come. That's the thing is like we... When we were talking about Atlanta way back in the... In the... In the almost before times, but not quite the beginning times. In the Ides of March. Yeah, in the Ides of March, we're talking about Atlanta. It's like we cannot put people in a situation where they have to decide whether they're going to come hang out with us. That's like just improper and not the right thing to do. So, that was that decision back then. We knew this was going to be the decision for us in Dallas. And now it's actually just official official instead of just regular official. So, we'll see. There's still pin shows right now that I guess are waiting and seeing. Really? This year... We've said it a million times. I think this year's just kind of done, right? So, we have... You've got to write it off.
Brad Dowdy: Like, just... Yeah. It's, you know...
Myke Hurley: So, we have Colorado, Detroit, and Columbus in the U.S. We have Toronto. We have Japan later in the fall, beginning of winter. Beginning of winter, Japan could go.
Event Cancellations[edit]
Brad Dowdy: Toronto could even go. I mean, I don't know what it's like there, but I know the situation is different in Canada. Right. But I will be honest. I haven't been keeping track of what's happening in Toronto. Because I know, like, Quebec is suffering, but I know that Canada has had a better response. Yeah. Yeah. Japan, you know, it's a very different world. Yeah. Further east.
Myke Hurley: Right now, I know they're planning on going on. Yeah. And I want to say it's middle, end of October, something like that. Yeah. I don't have the date in front of me. But yeah, needless to say, you and I will not be in any pen shows until next year at a minimum. And I think that's kind of... That pretty much goes for everyone, which stinks, but that's the situation that we're in right now.
Brad Dowdy: So we'll have another video. We will put up another video for backers towards the end of summer. Yeah. We don't know what that's going to be yet, honestly. Yeah. But we'll work on that.
Myke Hurley: We'll work on that, figure out something to do. And then once we get everything shipped and finalized, like when I pay for all the shipping that I have to do and pay for all the packing supplies that I have for the campaign, once I have a dollar amount left over that would normally go to our travel budget, I'll let everyone know and we'll figure out, we'll be transparent with what we're going to do with that money. You know, probably just apply it to whatever we do next year, going to Tokyo in two years or something like that. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So that's the... Which is the thing that we've mentioned. My personal vote is to hold that money for the 2022 Tokyo Pansho budget. Right. But we'll work it out later on.
Myke Hurley: Yep. That's almost certainly what we're going to do. But I just want to be transparent with everyone what that dollar amount is by the time all of the shipping expenses are out, which is tens of thousands of dollars with shipping fees and supplies, which we're all accounted for in the budget. So, all right. So, yeah, you know, pretty bummed, but the writing was on the wall. And if you thought otherwise, I doubt anyone really in this community did think that this wasn't going to take place. So we'll just hope that everyone gets on the path the rest of this year so we can have pen shows again next year. But yeah, that's a coin flip at this point, unfortunately. So, let's reset the mood, Myke. Just like last week, we had to set the mood with the J. Herban candles. Or I guess I should say Jacques Herban. I keep typing J. Herban. I'm not used to their fancy lineup yet. These are scented candles, Myke, which we were a little bit confused and beating around the bush last week. It makes sense that they're scented. The bottle actually says Les Encre Parfumé. But they're not, I mean, that's scented ink, basically. But they don't explicitly say it in the marketing. Even though we kind of beat around the bush, it's like, these got to be scented, right? So, I got some emails on this, of course, and I appreciate everyone reaching out. So, a couple of things came out of the emails. Number one, that these inks were the scented inks that they launched earlier this year. And they are terrible, I think, is what everyone is saying. The ink on the smell? The ink. Okay. So, they're getting past, people are getting past the smell. Like, the scented ink is fine, but the performance of the ink is some of the worst performing ink that people are repeatedly said to me. Like, different people at different times saying just how poor the ink performs. So, I found that interesting. I still want to get one of the candles. Like, I'm totally getting one of the candles, but I will not, I'm not going to touch this ink at all.
Brad Dowdy: It doesn't surprise me. I mean, it just might not be the reason, but I feel like if you start messing with the chemistry, right? Which they've had to do to get the smells. You do run into a potential issue of imbalancing the typical properties for what a fountain pen ink can be.
Myke Hurley: Yep. Yep. Secondly, I had a French language emailer comment on our comment of, this isn't translated, this is just the English. And their response was, it's just as bad in French. So, I feel okay with that. Like, they weren't knocking anything that we said. They were saying, yeah, it's pretty bad in French too.
Brad Dowdy: I had someone contact me and say that barely cut could mean freshly cut.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, that was our discussion.
Brad Dowdy: Which I agree with, but still stand by the fact that they used the wrong word then. And also, they didn't need to use that word at all in the copy.
Myke Hurley: I have follow-up on that, Myke. I am on the Bleu Plentitude ink page. And it uses a different phrase in the marketing. So, it is the scent of newly cut hay in the ink bottle marketing. But they changed it to the barely cut hay in the candle. I went to go look and see if they had actually changed it or something like that. But no, it's still the same. It still says barely cut hay. But on the ink page, it says newly cut hay. Which goes into our conversation around, hey, this is freshly cut grass.
Brad Dowdy: I still don't think that it's needed. Like, you could just say hay. Yeah. I don't think that really that many people would be able to even tell you what hay smells like. Let alone whether it's newly or barely cut. But maybe that's just me, Brad.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I just wish the marketing would be more explicit that it is a scented ink. Like, you read it and you assume that it is scented. But they use the word. I mean, it says Le Ancre Parfumé on the bottle. Which, okay. Like, I understand that it's a scented ink. But, like, even the marketing doesn't say, like, this is a scented ink. It says it evokes aromas, right? That's a feeling, right? So, I don't know. I just found the whole thing interesting. Yeah, you feel the smell. So, anyway. I'm still going to get a candle, though. All right. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know if I have to order it from Jacques Harbin. I'll have to see if I can order it somewhere in the U.S. Who knows?
Brad Dowdy: So, some years ago, there was a company called 12 South, I think they're called. Sounds familiar. And they make Apple products. Yes. Like, accessories and stuff like that. They made a candle that smells like a new Mac.
Apple Products[edit]
Myke Hurley: Yeah. I kind of, this is ringing a bell.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. This is just something. I don't know why, but that just reminded me of it. I'll put a link in the show notes to friend and co-founder Stephen Hackett. He unboxed and smelled it on his YouTube channel.
Myke Hurley: Well, CW Pencils has the sharpened pencil perfume. Do they? Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: I didn't know that. That's so funny. But you see, the candle and the number two pencil perfume, which is hilarious. I'm assuming these things are done in jest a little. Like, I know that the candle was. And I'm assuming that, like, the pencil perfume was, like, you know, a little bit, like, this is a cute thing to do. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: No one's staking their business on that exact product. That's part of a bigger thing. Let's have this fun.
Brad Dowdy: Don't think that that's the aptitude that Jacques and Bon are going for with their scented candle inks.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. So what attitude is Sailor going for in these next three links I have listed in here, which is a lot to talk about. So safe with the first one. Yeah, totally. So we're talking about the Sailor Pro Gear King of Pen Midnight Sky, also called the Pillow Book Edition, which just came out. So go ahead with your initial thoughts. You've laid it out pretty simply right there.
Brad Dowdy: It's a very safe King of Pen, which always frustrates me. I want the King of Pens to be big and brash, but this is just a dark blue King of Pen with rhodium. Yeah, rhodium-plated nib and trim.
Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's fine, right?
Myke Hurley: This is a great first King of Pen. This is not a King of Pen I would be interested in buying.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you could be right that if I didn't already own a Pro Gear, which was awesome to begin with, and now is even more awesome because it's been a Rushi lacquered, I would, you know, maybe at a pen show consider this one. Right, but I wouldn't lay down the retail $1,020 for this pen.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, so that was actually my question. So, like, the street price on these is $816, like I'm looking at pen, shall I? And that's the consistent street price in the U.S. across the board. That's more than we have ever paid for a King of Pen, right? Is that a price increase? I don't feel like I've paid anything over, like, low $700 for, like, my 1911, my most recent one.
Brad Dowdy: I don't know. The $800 range feels, that feels right to me, but I don't remember what I paid for my 1911, which is the only one that I bought from a retailer. Yeah. Well, like, okay, so the 1911 on Nibsmith is $880.
King of Pen Discussion[edit]
Myke Hurley: Hmm.
Brad Dowdy: The Tangerine?
Myke Hurley: Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So, the 800 range feels, that's just, like, for me, that feels what I expect for a King of Pen.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, but man, that just makes them even worse. I still have them pictured, like, the Pro Gear 1911 models, like, in the 600 to 700 range, like, a little over 700.
Brad Dowdy: It's probably what you can get them for from the right person at a pen show, but not at retail.
Myke Hurley: Which, at that price, is just ridiculous, so even paying even more, it's a big ask. Like, this is, I'm on record saying I love the King of Pen. It's the most overpriced pen on the market. It just is for what it technically is. But that's not going to prevent me from buying one. If the Witch one came out, the Wicked Witch of the West had a King of Pen, I would have bought it. I promise you.
Brad Dowdy: Man, my Wicked Witch of the West is stuck somewhere right now.
Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. That's not good. Has it made it to the UK?
Brad Dowdy: It has been, like, in transit from America for, like, a week now. So, like, the most recent tracking information says dispatched. So, it was preparing for dispatch from June 24th, then got dispatched on July 1st to the UK. Not from Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet sent it out on June 22nd, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's been, like... I mean, I've had this as something else recently. I think... Well, one thing I know is that cargo flight is harder right now to get on. And the other thing I know is when things are arriving, they're being processed more slowly. So, I mean, I've already had this kind of thing happen, but it's just frustrating. Especially when I get the customs bill.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, for sure. So, King of Pen Midnight Sky looks great. I love the story behind it. You know, the story about a court lady in late 900s, early 1000s Japan in the, you know, the emperor's court or the empress's court. And the stories that she wrote and, you know, described... This was to describe the night sky and things like that. So, that's what it's based on, which is great. I think it's a cool story. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see how this one does. I would be much more compelled to buy one of the slim or the standard in this one than the King of Pen, this one. Whereas the Wicked Witch, I would be compelled to buy the King of Pen as opposed to the standard ones. I don't know why. I can't really explain that. But, yeah, that's just my thoughts on it. This next one, Myke, the new Sailor Cocktail Series. I didn't realize how long the Sailor Cocktail Series has been running. I put a link into the show notes that Pen Sachi did where they started at Cocktail Series number one. And I was curious, being the Sailor super fan that you are, how many Cocktail Series pens do you have? Because I have zero.
Brad Dowdy: I have zero.
Myke Hurley: You do? I thought you had the... What's the orange one that I like so much? Tequila Sunrise? Tequila Sunrise?
Brad Dowdy: No, I don't. The Tequila Sunrise has some similarities. You bought the chocolate one. With... No, yeah. Did you buy the orange jet? Yeah, I bought the orange jet, which is not in this, but it has similarities, right? The orange jet was a bong box.
Myke Hurley: Gotcha.
Brad Dowdy: What? Who...
Myke Hurley: And they came out around the same time. The Cocktail Series. It's got to be Sailor directly, I guess. But the way... Okay. I don't know the way I'm reading this page on Pensachi, which is great, because I didn't see... So the first one was called The Asian Way, and it's saying it just came from Sailor directly, and the second one was Mojito. The first one was in 2011. The second one, Mojito, in 2012. It looks like these are just being released by Sailor, and on and on and on. So the first one I recall seeing was Piccadilly Night, and then Tequila Sunrise was super popular, than Angel's Delight last year. Where's the White Russian? Is the White Russian not in part of this series as well? Anyway, I don't know. But the new one is called Curie Azur, and I wanted to know what you thought about it.
Brad Dowdy: So one, I tend to actually quite like the Cocktail Series, but I just have never been in a position to get one when I've seen them. So I really like Tequila Sunrise. I like Apreski. I like Piccadilly Night and Blue Lagoon. They're the ones that I really like from this series, but I've just never, for whatever reason, have never seen them when they've been on sale. The new one that's coming, which is Curie Azur, is also, that's a really nice one, but it doesn't excite me enough that I'm going to hunt it down. Because this series I know is quite coveted by people. Mm-hmm. Like, people that I know that are even more heavy collectors than me, which, believe it or not, those people exist for Sailor Pens. Oh, absolutely. They really, this is like a series that everybody really tries to get their hands on. Like, because it's a limited run thing, they tend to do peculiar styling, especially like, which is becoming stranger and stranger or harder for Sailor is to like, get a piece which you've not seen on another pen. And they do seem to do that a little bit.
Myke Hurley: This is going to get to the meta question after the next topic, right? There's so many questions. It's like, yeah, I love the pen. Like, it's great. I probably won't buy it. But just like, the Tequila Sunrise was the most perfect pen ever for me. But it's just like, you can't buy everything, right? So you just got to wait. And because, you know, there are some things you just need to skip because there's going to be other things later. And that's the thing about FOMO, which we're going to talk about that later.
Brad Dowdy: I will probably, even given the opportunity, not buy the Tequila Sunrise because I have that pen in different pieces, basically. Right. I could make my own if I wanted to. Right. You know? Right. Which is something that I was thinking about recently that I have yet to do, but could do, which is, I know you did it a little bit, to start mixing and matching some of my Sailor pen parts. Yeah. But there's just something about that that makes me uncomfortable and I can't really explain what it is.
Myke Hurley: No, I agree with that because I think the idea is that it's not, it's no longer as intended, right? It was intended to be this piece.
Brad Dowdy: I kind of can't help but respect the artist's decision.
Myke Hurley: Especially on the limited editions. Like on stock editions, if you have five colors released and you buy two pens with the intention of mixing and matching, that's a more comfortable situation to me than taking like these limited editions made by different companies and just kind of swapping the section to the barrel. Of them. It's just kind of, it's, it's more of an oddity than, than like a comfortable fit for me. That's just how I think about it. But some people will just go ahead and, and, and do all that, which I think it's cool. Like, you know, when I wrote about it, I was doing it with like Kaweco sports because they're all just so similar and they have all these bright colors and you just swap the sections and barrels and caps and you can make fun little things. It doesn't work for me with something like the, the sailor pens for reasons like, like you mentioned. I had, I bought the 4am knowing that I had a black ion nib because that was the argument with that pen is like, why didn't they make, they ionize the exterior hardware?
Brad Dowdy: That doesn't feel so much to me. Like changing the nib feels kind of a bit more par for the course, but changing part of the coloring of the external body seems a little bit like a, like, I don't know, like something I just don't feel like I want to do.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about this last little topic, which I just find hilarious and it's kind of the subscript to what's been going on with sailor these past few years, business wise. And this is that the sailor gentle ink series is discontinued. And you have to say again, because they already discontinued this once sailors tracking sailors ink machinations probably line up with the unevenness in their business at the time. Right. So I think the ink business for sailor, it seems like it's like a, it's a good money. It's gotta be a good minute moneymaker for them. Um, and the way they have manipulated their ink lineup to go from small to gigantic to somewhat reined in, but not really to, I don't know what they're doing these days. Um, it's just funny to me. Like now that the sailor gentle inks, and these are, I didn't realize they were North American exclusive, but they've been worldwide before, uh, the standard colors, grenade, Epernard, apricot, sky high, ultra Marine and Pesh. So these are the classic sailor gentle inks from like a decade ago. And they went away five or six years ago. Then they came back like two years ago. And it's just a whole nightmare of what sailor has made out of this. But I am not, I don't really care about this because they released series two of their manual ink lineup, which is the complete replacement for the sailor gentle ink. Um, I know you really don't care about this as much as I do, but I just find it funny and odd and strange business. The way sailor does their inks. Like we had a real problem with them two years ago. I want to say when they really upped the price on their inks without having with, this is when the gentle inks were not available and you couldn't buy your base level sailor inks, which is what the gentle is. And now the manual lineup, hopefully that's the base level ink. And I'm happy with that. Like that's, it's a really good ink. It's a good quantity for a fair price. And I, that's fine if that's the replacement of the gentle inks. So early next year, they'll probably just cancel the manual ink lineup. And then we'll have to put a topic in the show notes again. And then I'll yell about it.
Product Cannibalization[edit]
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, it's kind of moving around. I was going to say something I didn't mean to say, which is like moving around the deck chairs, but that's not what I meant to say. Cause that makes it seem like that they're going down. Cause it's referenced to the Titanic, but, um, which it really kind of seems like it might be the opposite for sailor now, depending on what we were talking about last week. But I think this is just a change in product offering, change in branding. Clearly the gentle was not selling. Otherwise you wouldn't get rid of it.
Myke Hurley: Well, yeah, they cannibalize their own products constantly.
Brad Dowdy: Well, sometimes you need to do that. Like, you know, like sometimes that's it, right? Like if things stop, you got to keep developing and there's only so many types of products sailor can make. Eventually they, if they want to change what they're doing along ink, well, they're going to end up just making more ink and then that's not going to, but it, but then something that they are doing alongside is I assume this is their new ink cartridge technology that we've been talking about. Right. For the four seasons Shikiori ink, um, which seems, I don't know, like the sailor of North America's saying that this seems to be a big deal that I, maybe I'm not aware of, but what's going on here with this?
Myke Hurley: I mean, they're basically taking their awesome ink colors, the mainline ink color lineup that contains like Yamadori and Ken Makuse and some of these other inks that are super popular and turning them into a cartridge product, which, you know, the cartridge products are, I love cartridges, but they're the most inefficient way to ink your pens, right? Price per milliliter wise, right? They're outrageously expensive for what they are, which tells me that they're probably a good, a decent profit center.
Brad Dowdy: If you buy cans of soda instead of large bottles of soda. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. But, you know, if you look on the store shelves, what do you see more of? Generally cans, but although I guess it's, it's even, but most people buy cans. I mean, I love the, I love ink cartridges. They're just inefficient and expensive for what they are, but I like that sailors doing this. What's funny is, is they marketed this as, I guess, limited edition. Like this isn't going to stay, but I would like to just see them stay and make this part of the product lineup. I would use them. Yeah. Maybe they will. Just for ease of use.
Brad Dowdy: Like a real great way to see if people are interested in something is to release it in a small batch first.
Myke Hurley: I was just going to say the Shikiori lineup is the same color lineup that they did in those brush pens that I love, right? That I ordered from Japan. I like that they're leaning into this as different products for all of these different ink colors. Like this is like one, I like this more than like the cocktail series and the new King of Pen, to be perfectly honest, right? That just goes into like what you were saying about, we were talking about, you know, cannibalizing your own products. Like how many new things can you come up with? And I think that's, I think Sailor, I don't want to say they had their directionless. It's just like they're shotgunning it, right? They're just, it's just, they're doing everything at once and it could use a little bit of a refinement. So maybe we're seeing that in the gentle ink discontinuation. That's fine. That's, that's low hanging fruit, but maybe they're going to start to refine some of the other things in the next year or two. So we'll see.
Brad Dowdy: I'm particularly interested in seeing what these cartridges are like. I think the packaging on them is kind of fascinating and maybe overkill. Um, I want to see what these things are all about.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh, I will definitely get some. I will definitely get some. And just to put a bow on this whole discussion, we talk about Sailor so much because no one else is doing this. This is in the span of the last week. Essentially the cartridges I had lined up to talk about last week. We, they just didn't fit in, but like no one else puts out content like Sailor does in our industry and that's why we find them so fascinating because number one, we really like the style and the aesthetic and the quality and they're, they're very good pens to recommend and they're just excellent writers. But then again, like every few days there seems like they're launching some product and it's like, we can't help but talk about it. And I don't know. I'm wondering how this affected them the last few years with all the things. And if we're going to see some change in the coming years, so I'm sure we'll talk about it. I'm pretty sure that Sailor will be mentioned in future podcast episodes.
Brad Dowdy: I don't know.
Myke Hurley: Well, I, I didn't buy any of this Sailor stuff because I spent all my money on something else, Myke.
Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. But first, let's talk about our good friends at ExpressVPN.
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Myke Hurley: All right. So we had a pen release that we have been waiting for since we saw the materials from our friend Jonathan Brooks. And that's the Leonardo Memento Zero Grande fountain pen in primary manipulation.
Myke Hurley: I don't even know where to begin with this one other than when I saw the pictures of the Stromboli, which is one of the colors and the Vesuvio, which is the second color, which we'll dig into both of those here in a minute. I like my jaw dropped, right? I'm already a huge Leonardo fan. I'm a huge Carolina pen company fan. I'm a huge primary manipulation fan. And my jaw just hit the deck. And then I looked at the price and then I just calmly stepped away from the browser for a minute and had to think. So tell me about your thoughts when you saw this fountain pen drop in our feeds. What? This was two days ago, Monday, maybe? Did this happen?
Brad Dowdy: I saw these some few days ago, I think. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: So Leonardo teased them first and then all the retailers started.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I've been trying to get my hands on one. Now, I don't really know the situation here, but I contacted Leonardo via Instagram and they sent me via an email address. And the last I heard, I'm waiting on a price. I don't know if I have entered into some magical realm here, but I feel like I didn't. I have not tried to throw my weight around. I just asked. So, look, I want one of these big time. The Vesuvio is the one for me, which is the dark, the one which has more red than green because I already have a green primary manipulation.
Brad Dowdy: And a different one that is a Newton pen. Yep. They look absolutely fantastic. And I mentioned this before, I'm intrigued about Leonardo because you talk so highly of them. And this has an interesting piston mechanism, which apparently can hold all the ink in the world inside of it. So, I'm trying to get one of these.
Myke Hurley: So, my path on this was exactly what I said. It's like, holy cow, this is amazing. And then I saw the prices and let's not beat around the bush here. So, in the U.S., $649.
Myke Hurley: Oh, let me be clear up front. There's only 50 of each pen, right? I don't think I said that in the beginning. So, there's 50 green Stromboli and 50 red. Not numbered. Not numbered. Yeah. But just 50 were made. They got 140 rods from Brooks. We're able to make 100 pens and 50 of each of the main two colors. So, the Stromboli and Vesuvius of Vesuvio. And I was like, I can't do that. Like, that's a lot. That's a lot. And, you know, I was looking on the European sites and they're less expensive, but they're still like 480 euros, 500 euros, something like that. And I was like, okay. I need to, like, I'm okay not getting this because of the price. And then I thought about it. Some more. I let it sit for, like, a day. And I was like, well, I'm going to buy one of their new piston fillers, right? One of the new piston filler mechanisms that they're going to drop this year. Or maybe have just dropped around the time of this. And I think they may come in steel nibs and gold nibs. I don't know, but the piston fillers are still going to be, like, 400, 500 dollars with gold nibs. And both of these models, the primary manipulation models, have gold nibs. So, I said, I think I'm going to regret not trying to buy one of these. And I wasn't sure I can get one. So, I started poking around all the different sites that had this up for sale and out of stock, out of stock, out of stock. And I found it at Fanta Plumo, which has sponsored the blog, the Pen Addict blog in the past.
Brad Dowdy: How many websites can carry a pen where there's only 50 of them?
Leonardo Pens[edit]
Myke Hurley: Exactly. So, when I decided to buy it, I was like, well, I'll just... I wanted the green one. So, I wanted Stromboli, surprisingly. I thought that Vesuvio might be my jam. But I think I'm going to be happy in the long run with Stromboli. These names are so funny.
Myke Hurley: And so, I found it. And I've put in a pre-order. And I'm going to pay like $125 less than on the U.S. market. Now, I'm sure my sponsors and advertisers will not like me saying that. But that's just the situation that we deal with with these different international pricing schemes. That's the wrong word. I don't mean it in a derogatory manner. But that's what Pelican does, right? So, if you're interested in a Pelican pen, there's places where you can save a not insignificant amount of money. And Fanta Plumo had the Stromboli in an extra fine nib. They had no Vesuvios. And they had no other nibs in the Stromboli. And I was like, well, I guess that's my sign. So, I have a pre-order. I still don't know that that means that I for sure get it. I guess it does. Like, I've paid my money, right? Where you haven't paid your money. Like, you're waiting on an answer. I think if you want one of these, you're going to have to put it. You need to hang up after this call and put in the work to see if anyone has one of the 50 red ones available for you to buy. Like, I'm not even convinced I'm going to get one.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I'm talking to Leonardo.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, good. They're not selling the pen.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know what's happening. But I have been talking to a person. And I'm waiting for them to send me a price. Like, I don't know what's going on. But, like, I'm not going to push it. I want one. But, like, I'm not going to go wild on it. Like, it is what it is. Like, I've been conversing with someone who has given me an email address. And I've been talking to whoever it is on the other side of this email address. And if I get one, I get one. If I don't, I don't. I'll be disappointed if I don't get one. But I'm not now going to go and start shaking down trees.
Myke Hurley: Right. Right. So, that was how I was. Like, my initial reaction was, like, I need to wait. And then I waited a day and thought about it more. And at that point, when I made that first decision, I knew that the odds of me getting one were super low. At that point. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't have been surprised if I didn't get one. And I would have been totally fine with that. But, like I said, what pushed me over to just go ahead and try to find one was that I was going to buy one of their piston filler, other piston fillers. Regardless of whether, you know, if this didn't come out, I was buying one of their piston fillers. Well, I'll pay a little bit more to get this really, really special one. You know, probably like $100 more than I would have. And then I still, you know. So, my final price was $526 shipped. So, I felt, you know, it is what it is. Like, it's obviously crazy expensive. But the standard piston fillers are probably like around $400 with the gold nib. So, that's how I justified it to myself. And we'll see. I'm excited. I'm excited to get it. God, it is so pretty. It is beautiful. And, yeah. But I really didn't know what I was going to do about buying one. And I just kind of went for it. So, that's why I don't buy all the things all the time. So, when you can have something like this pop up and you want it, you just kind of go for it. And now I probably need to go sell some pens. Maybe some other Leonardo's. Like, this one's going to usurp.
Brad Dowdy: Everyone that I follow in the pen world on Instagram in the last 48 hours has been freaking out about Tomorrow River Paper.
Myke Hurley: I got a lot of emails, a lot of tweets. Yeah, for sure.
Brad Dowdy: What's going on with Tomorrow River Paper?
Myke Hurley: Well, let's start with this. So, my good friend Daryl, who runs Musubi. I like Daryl so much because he is a really smart business person. I love what he's built. And just in talking to him, you know, just offline at a pen show, you know, in Slack, he takes the tack of being just like completely open, honest, and direct on business things. Right? Which I feel that I'm that way too. So, I appreciate someone who just lays it out there in no uncertain terms that this is the deal. And I trust Daryl, you know, implicitly with like business and questions. And with Musubi, if people aren't familiar with Musubi, they should be. They're a notebook maker. And we've talked about the story of Musubi. And you should go read why Musubi exists and what their story is. And then you'll understand more about why Daryl is so passionate about what he does. But over the past couple of years, Daryl's essentially become all of our paper guru. Right? Because he deals with printing. And he's over in Asia. I believe he's in Singapore. And he deals with a lot of the print shops and paper makers and manufacturers. So, he's kind of on the front lines of making notebooks over there. And his Musubi journals began with the standard Tomoe River paper. So, what Daryl has come to find out over the past year or so, Tomoe, the overarching company that makes Tomoe River paper, is toning down or lowering the priority of making paper for personal use, which is kind of where Tomoe River falls, if I'm reading this correctly. So, we'll link to the article. Daryl put out a whole article that you should go read. You should, you know, I'm probably going to butcher part of this because I didn't take separate notes. So, I'm just going off memory from what I read. But, basically, Daryl is saying the paper's changing and you should know this going forward because we're going to continue to use Tomoe River paper. And I'm not in a position to tell you is this better or is this worse. But I am in a position to tell you this is different and here's how. So, let me just give a quick recap of the Tomoe River paper and what changes it's going to make. It's a real quick, real short list of what Daryl listed. It says, is the paper any different? In short, yes. The new Tomoe River exhibits the following changes. It's a few microns thicker than the previous version. As a result, it's stiffer and less crinkly than the old version. The writing experience is different. There's no good way to describe it, but the paper feels a little drier and has more drag. Some inks show up on the new version as a slightly different color from what you might be used to in the old version. So, those are what has changed. What hasn't changed, he says, the new version still shows sheen and other properties of ink well. The dry time is still the same. That's to say, the ink dries slowly on Tomoe River as it always has. So, that's the kind of change that's going. It sounds pretty big. Like a big change to me. I'm anxious to try out the new one. And the thing that Daryl made clear is they don't know. Daryl, the end receivers of the product, don't know when the cutover took place. But it was so long ago that they can't get the old stuff anymore. Right? They have whatever inventory they have of, air quote, the old stuff. And the new stuff was implemented basically just, I won't want to say without telling people, but just kind of blindly by suppliers and manufacturers. So, I find this whole thing very interesting because of the altar that Tomoe River has been placed upon in our community. Right? It's a beloved product. And so many companies have made their living off of a paper product that is so good for fountain pen use. And I just wonder, you know, we'll see in the end, you know, once the new Tomoe River has made its way through the manufacturing cycle and it's completely taken over from the old version of the paper, if it's still as popular as it is. But it kind of stinks that Daryl has to make this post, right? It stinks because everyone knows what they had now and now they don't know what they have. So, and it's just a weird place to be for manufacturers like Daryl or makers like Daryl to have a, you know, couple tiers above, you know, big company just kind of implementing these decisions without like all of the detail. Basically, the big company is saying, yeah, this doesn't really rank in what we're trying to do anymore. So, we'll just, we're going to make what we make and that's what you're going to get. So, you have any thoughts on this?
Brad Dowdy: Who makes it?
Myke Hurley: I'd have to look up the company. It's a large paper company. I forget the name. But it's, yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge, huge print company. Right. And I've looked it up before and I just don't have it on the top of my head.
Brad Dowdy: Yes, it's weird. I mean, it could still be good. Totally. Totally. But might not be what people are expecting or used to. It might just become, this is a very good fountain pen and paper rather than like, this is the holy grail of fountain pen and paper.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. And Daryl, I implore y'all to go read this post by Daryl. He did a great job. He's one of the questions he wrote to himself in the article. Is there any way to tell the two versions apart from the packaging or product codes? And the answer is no. Right. It's just like a feel thing. Like from someone who's very experienced, like Daryl handling this stuff all the time. And then he even goes into the different weights at Tomoe River Paper and how that's just complicated. And it's just, it's crazy. It's just such a, this is why like we love doing shows like The Pen Attic because we can get into this minutia. And it's just, it's really, really cool. So he's, he's on top of things and you should follow Misubi and you should follow Daryl and, and all of his insight because he is really, really good at what he does. And I would be remiss to say that I didn't go and order a couple of notebooks from him right after reading the article. I don't even know what paper I'm getting. So, but it doesn't matter. It's I've, I've bought his notebooks in the past and I've always given them away. They're great, great high end, high quality notebooks. You know, they're very expensive. So I've used them for giveaways and prizes and things like that. And I've never kept one for myself. So I finally ordered me one. So we'll talk about that when I get it in.
Brad Dowdy: What a strange story.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. And right now all of his inventories, he had, he is stockpiled on the old Tomoe River, but like at some point he'll be cutting over. So if you want some old Tomoe River, he's got it.
Brad Dowdy: For me with stuff like that, I would make the decision not to buy it. So like when something like this happens, I kind of just want to cut myself off because it's going to go. I don't want to like, I guess this is something for me personally. Like I wouldn't buy, not that I'm saying not to buy Daryl's notebooks. Oh shit. But for me personally, like I wouldn't want any more notebooks or Tomoe River paper in them in the way that I know it because I just feel like I'm delaying the inevitable. And I'm personally more in the habit of like, get the new thing and try it. If I don't like it, try and find something that can replace it rather than just like keep dragging my feet with the old thing.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. And Daryl makes a point is like, people should be aware of like going all FOMO on something like this. And I try to practice what I preach, you know, like I bought them the primary manipulation pen, but it would be okay if I didn't, didn't get it. Like it's not the end of the world. There's always going to be something next. You know, I learned that years ago with appropriately enough, the sailor, the original sailor apricot gentle ink that we just talked about, which is why I always find that the, the recreation of those inks so funny because I bought like two or three bottles of apricot because, oh no, it's my favorite. It's going away. But you know what? Not only did sailor bring it back a couple of years, there's other inks that are just as good. So will we find a Tomoe River replacement? That's just as good. Well, I don't know. That might be a little tougher. That's why this paper is so beloved for fountain pen users, but maybe we will.
Brad Dowdy: And maybe it opens the door for somebody else to come in and do it.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, totally. And from my personal use case perspective, I almost never use Tomoe River. None of my active notebooks are Tomoe River. None of my side notebooks are Tomoe River. I just rarely use it because I use, I only like it for fountain pens and I use so many non fountain pens that it's just not super functional for me. But for fountain pen users, I do think it's the best.
Brad Dowdy: Should we do some hashtag ask TPA questions before we finish today? Yeah, let's hit a couple. All right. We have a long one from Todd. I think there's a few questions in here. Yes. I was watching one of Brad's Twitch streams recently on YouTube. Brad does post his Twitch streams on YouTube. So you can, there's another place if you miss the streams, you can get them there. Specifically, the CW pencil unboxing for the local themed box. When Brad pulled out what I believe was a general stenographer pencil that was sharpened on both ends. So I sharpened both ends of one of my Mitsubishi 9000 HP pencils to try it out. I think this is a pretty, I think this is pretty efficient as no matter which way I pick up the pencil, I can write immediately. And I can write for twice as long without having to stop the sharpening. I was curious what your thoughts on this would be. And if you know of anyone else who does it.
Myke Hurley: So I loved this idea when I saw it. And the chat in the stream at the time mentioned that it's, or the copy on the CW pencils. They always do a little note about what each pencil is. And that people would sharpen both ends for this exact reason. Like if they're heavy writers, it would, you know, lengthen the time they could write without having to stop to sharpen. And I forget who it is. I learned it from the Erasable podcast. I don't know if it was Thoreau or Hemingway or one of the famous writers that they all very much enjoy. At the start of a writing session.
Brad Dowdy: Aren't they the guys who use Moleskine notebooks? No. No.
Myke Hurley: No, they use the other brand that shall not go named on this show.
Myke Hurley: Oh, it's Steinbeck. So it's Steinbeck. Steinbeck would, at the start of a writing session, would sharpen like two dozen pencils. So he didn't have to use one pencil, write it dull, stop, sharpen. It would just get dull, go to the next sharpened pencil. And then when all the dozen pencils was dulled out, he knew that how many, approximately how many words he had written. And how many, you know, how much time that took and what, and that he was accomplished that day because he used all two dozen pencils or whatever. And this is the same kind of thing is, is you just have more writing time dedicated to writing as opposed to stopping and sharpening every few minutes. So yeah, I think it's a super efficient, super good idea. And that's why I don't really do this with my pencils, but I, I'm such a fan of the non eraser pencils as it is. I should probably do it more.
Brad Dowdy: The next question from Todd is about two weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our third daughter. Congratulations to you both and to you all. So I commemorated the event of a new pen with my two other daughters. I purchased a Lamy Safari limited edition color for 2015 and 2017, but I didn't really care for this year's colors. So I opted for the Sailor Pro Gear Slim Blue Dwarf. I know Myke has commemorated important events of a new pen, but I was wondering if Brad ever does this.
Myke Hurley: I do not, I don't think I ever have. And I probably should, like, I'm totally, I'm pro this idea, right? Like we've talked about it with you. Todd just did it to commemorate, commemorate a birth. I was on the Focus podcast with David Sparks and Myke Schmitz. Myke does this when he finishes kind of like you, Myke. When a big work project gets completed, you celebrate. And therefore you have this kind of memento of that time and that accomplishment. And I love that so much. Maybe I'm just not as accomplished as you.
Brad Dowdy: I don't know. I will also say just kind of like to put all my cards on the table. Sometimes it's nice to retroactively apply a pen purchase to an event as a justification for spending the money you've spent.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, and I'll give you the real reason why I don't celebrate the events because I buy so many pens anyway.
Brad Dowdy: I have breakfast today. Let's be true.
Myke Hurley: Let's be true in what's really happening with me. It's because I already have the pen because I've bought it regardless of. But it's a day that ends in why. Yes, I will have the primary manipulation, Leonardo Memento Zero. So there you go. A final question from Todd.
Brad Dowdy: Will a pen sleeve or a pocket carry prevent a pen of a threaded cap or barrel from unscrewing? Or does it just prevent scratches and dings from occurring on the pen body?
Myke Hurley: It'll mostly prevent it from unscrewing, right? Because there's not as much play in if it's in a sleeve than it would be in a pocket or a bag or a backpack. Right. So, and you're going to find that to be more of an issue with metal barrel pens. That's the ones you find unscrewing. I tend to have some of my Kaweco's. Like my Kaweco's steel lily put ballpoint tends to unscrew all the time. And you can, you know, you can apply something to it. I don't know. I don't know that you want to be putting silicone on there. But you just got to kind of break it in, wear it out a little bit, and it'll stick a little bit better. But the pen sleeve will prevent the unthreading or the unscrewing of the threads in the barrel just because it doesn't have that much wiggle room.
Brad Dowdy: It's interesting that that happens. Is it like friction that's doing it? Like what is it that's unscrewing it?
Myke Hurley: It's, I only find it on metal pens. I rarely find this on plastic pens. But it's just the vibration with the metal being, I guess, just a harder material. It doesn't attach that well to itself. So just the vibration of just walking around with the pen in your pocket just might take, you know, like a one-eighth twist off of that pen. And once it starts going, that's the problem. Like when it comes unseated the first time. Right. Right. And then it just starts, it can just start spinning. But, you know, it's not an outrageous problem. It's something you see from time to time with metal pens. It's nothing I really ever concerned myself with, to put it that way.
Brad Dowdy: Well, you're not an EDC person either. True. At Boss Baker asks, should I be concerned with the warning that came with my new Sailor Wicked Witch of the West to only use Sailor inks because of the coating on the nib?
Myke Hurley: Love this question. Absolutely love this question.
Brad Dowdy: Because it's a question designed to scare you. Yeah. Right? Not a question, but like a statement.
Myke Hurley: It is. It's completely self-protected warranty issues from the companies who do this. You will find every company generally, every OEM pen and ink manufacturer will have this statement somewhere on their paperwork that you're going to void their warranty.
Brad Dowdy: Now, what I will say on this note is that you can look at it in multiple ways. You can look at it as a company trying to get more money out of you by asking that you only use their ink. But if it is in the case of a warranty, meaning that they will fix your pen if it breaks, if it is something that an ink could have caused, it is not fair to, in my opinion, for somebody to, or for a company to be able to predict and protect themselves against literally anything you could be putting in that pen. Like, because we know that there are inks that can damage pens. And if you use one of those, the damage is in some instances almost inevitable. And I feel like it can't be a thing that a company can protect itself from persistently forever. What they can do is say, we know our inks work. Does that make sense what I'm trying to say?
Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, the company's saying, we built these things to work together. If you choose to use something else, all bets are off. Yeah. When, you know, anything else is fine. So I think the real answer you're getting to, or want, Boss Baker, is what's going to affect the plating on your black ion nib? And I have found that I have not had any inks cause a problem with any of my black ion nibs. But as I clean them repeatedly, I will knock some of the luster off, right? They're not as shiny as before. And that's just something I deal with because I want a clean pen. So the ink does work well. But is the plating as pristine as the day when I bought the pen? The answer is no. But that comes from cleaning of the pen.
Brad Dowdy: It's abrasion, right? Mm-hmm. That's doing it.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yep.
Brad Dowdy: So, you know, just don't go wild. Use inks from brands that you know and can trust.
Brad Dowdy: Don't use Bay State Blue. You know?
Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, Sailor could come out with an ink, like one of their colors could damage their ion nibs, like just randomly. So use what you want in the pen. Yeah, but then they're going to cover you though, right? Like if that's the case. But yeah. Well, then you just say that's the ink you used. Mm-hmm. But yeah. I don't put it this way. I don't ever worry about using any ink in any pen, you know, as long as I have good pen hygiene. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Again, the paper discussion is so deep and nuanced. And I hate paper today. Today I hate paper. You're having paper issues. I'm dealing with paper problems and I hate paper. Paper sucks and should dare go away.
Myke Hurley: Daryl's having paper issues. Yeah, paper is so difficult, but it's so important for a good writing experience. So let me tell you this. The best paper that's available in loose sheets for letter writing is Clairefontaine Triumph. Even though I think it just comes in a pad, but the top edge of the pad, the glue bound pad, when you remove it, you can't tell it looks like a loose sheet. And that way you don't have to deal with loose, actual loose sheets, you know, being loose.
Brad Dowdy: I would just like to say this paper is actually called Triumph.
Myke Hurley: Triumph, that is. I say that wrong all the time.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Triumph is not going to get you what you're looking for. This is a very French word here. Yeah. Well, it's the same word, but it's just in French and English.
Myke Hurley: Agree. And I always say Triumph, but I tend to write that word more than I say it out loud. Right. So then I just, I get lost sometimes. But yes, Kruger, I, if you just want a simple, direct answer for fountain pens, you're going to win with Clairefontaine Triumph. And outside of that, like the rabbit hole is infinitely deep. Yeah. Right. We can, once you decide that you like something like that, then we can decide if you want something different and then we can explore. But that's, that's going to be the one you start with because it's so, so good.
Brad Dowdy: And finally today from Malbonagenio, we'll go with that. Bonagenio. Bonagenio. What would you guys like to see innovation-wise in the fountain pen and stationary sectors?
Myke Hurley: This is always the greatest question that's so hard to answer. And a lot of it is, for me, and we've said this before when we've answered this question even years ago, is seeing more small makers involved in larger scale projects. Which we just saw with Brooks and the primary manipulation. We saw Gina at Custom Nibs Studio making nibs for Estabrook. I want to see that community outreach into, or the bigger companies reach into the community for collaborations. Now, that's not an innovation necessarily. I don't think that's the answer you're looking for from a technical perspective, which I think is how the question's asked. But that's what I see and what I like to see because that leads to innovation. You know, with Jonathan and materials and Gina with access to nib work that people didn't have access before, which leads into more usage and more popularity. Now, pure innovation-wise, I have no idea. Like, I love seeing things like the Curie Doss. Like, I love that we saw the Curie Doss come out, right? We raved about the existence of that pen. At least I raved that I am so happy that this pen exists, whether it's good or bad. It needs to exist. It's new. So, yeah. It's new. It's different. They're trying. Like, Platinum tried. Like, whether they succeed is to be determined, but they tried. So, what do you like to see?
Brad Dowdy: I'm maybe going to go a little bit out there with this one. But I would like to see some advancements in just-in-time manufacture to allow for consumers to have more customization in products. So, let's look at our friends over at Sailor.
Brad Dowdy: We all have the idea of what we would like our own Sailor Limited Edition to be. Like, could there be something that could allow you to go to a website and say, I want this body, this cap, this grip, this nib, and have that made? Like, that would take a lot. Like, a lot has to be done to make that a sustainable business model. But that would be innovation, right? And a lot of that would have to be done by robotics, which, funnily enough, could work in Sailor's favor if they wanted to go down that route. But, like, I know that you do this already at Spoke. Yeah. In a limited sense, right? If I'm right, you can choose a body and cap combo, right?
Myke Hurley: Well, with the pencils, you can choose a body and grip style. The pens, you can choose what we've pre-built. So, you can't actually go pick and choose the full setup. But we mix and match the setups enough to give you more choice, if that makes sense. So, but I agree with you completely. And you know who can do this? Who should do this?
Brad Dowdy: Who?
Myke Hurley: Hire me, Lamy.
Brad Dowdy: Ah. Yeah. Okay. But you see what I'm saying, though, right?
Myke Hurley: Because you have to start this at the entry-level price point. You have to say, this pen is $50, not $250, right? I'm going to let you build this Safari or this All-Star, and it's going to cost you $55, $75. But you get to pick all the parts. Mm-hmm. And it's all, you know, plastic-molded machine parts. It's, yeah, it's right there. It's right there.
Myke Hurley: That's why I love them so much. Like, it's, man, it is right there in front of them.
Brad Dowdy: You know, Nike has done this for so many years.
Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have a pair.
Brad Dowdy: With Nike ID. Yeah. This could be a thing that a reasonable-sized pen manufacturer could get into. And if it was done right, could be done with profit in mind. But it's not easy, right?
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Again, it's marketing, right? If Lamy does this, and they get that new customer that can custom build their pen, the next thing they go is, oh, look at that Lamy 2000. Yeah. And now you have a Lamy customer. Yeah. It's customer acquisition and marketing.
Brad Dowdy: Right, that's it for this week's episode. You can find links and show notes in your app of choice. So you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 418. If you want to find Brad online, you can find him on Twitch. He's at 10 a.m. Eastern time, Tuesdays and Thursdays at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can also find Brad on social media. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. And also, of course, you can find Brad's writing, along with many other very talented pen reviewers at penaddict.com. You can also go to knock.co and spoke design.com. Yeah, calm, calm, calm. I hadn't finished. I hadn't finished. I was just saying it slowly. Just so people could really understand that once you could buy some of Brad's products there as well. I am YKE. Thank you so much to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this show. And to you, the penaddict listener, for making it possible. And if you're a penaddict member, RelayFM member supporting penaddict, thank you especially for helping make this show possible every single week. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.
Myke Hurley: Goodbye, Brad.