The Pen Addict 440/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	440
Title:	Upgraded Vision
Release Date:	December 9th, 2020
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 440
Audio File:	Audio Episode 440
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 440
Length:	5959 min <br />0.983 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 440. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by my friend, my compadre, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello.

Brad Dowdy: Brad the Broken.

Myke Hurley: I decided to take the energy down as I introduced you today and come and meet you on this level.

Wrist Update

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a clown show over here, Myke, and I am the ringleader. So, how's it going with you? I'm done.

Myke Hurley: I'm fine. I'm fine. Do you want to give an update to all of us? Yeah. I know you've been a one-armed boy for a bit.

Brad Dowdy: This has turned into the worst recurring podcast segment in the history of podcasting, where Brad talks about his broken wrists. They want to know how you are. I know. I really appreciate that. A lot of people have been reaching out. And so, I had my cast cut off on Monday to do the review. It had been four weeks. So, they want to x-ray it, see how it's healing, and then decide the path to take. And they decided it's not healing well enough or fast enough or I'm overdoing it. So, I didn't have to get another cast, but I got this really tricked out molded brace. So, I can actually remove it to take a shower, but otherwise it's on 24-7. Very firm like a cast. It's kind of sick looking. I like it. But still, it just means that I'm like looking at three months to get my wrist back to normal instead of what we were hoping for two months. So, it's just been... That was a bit of a disappointment, I'm not going to lie. I was a little bit down about that whole thing.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I can take a guess as to which one of the three things is the reason why it's not healing.

Brad Dowdy: You know, the doctor was... I think it was a little bit of a backhanded statement, you know, when he was saying, you know, which one of those things. And he said, you know, when he said the overworking it or overdoing it, which I'm assuming is what you're referring to. He said, well, he goes to the effect of, well, looking at you, I don't think you're out there taking down a 12-point buck and dressing it out in the woods. And I didn't know whether to take offense to that or...

Myke Hurley: And also, what a weird... I mean, maybe this is a thing that happens in the South of America, but what a very strange comparison to make.

Brad Dowdy: I was like, am I offended right now? I'm not sure how to take this.

Myke Hurley: Maybe I was, buddy. I feel like you, you know, if you wanted to, if that was your bag, you could do that. I don't really understand what... Did he look like he could shoot a 12-pound buck and do whatever it was he said?

Brad Dowdy: It was kind of funny. So, yeah. That was a whole deal. But anyway, yeah, we're not healing fast. Fast enough for me, so we're just going to suck it up buttercup. We're going to ride this brace for a month, and then we'll go back again, get it x-rayed again, see how we're healing then. And then maybe ramp down to an even smaller brace. But it's going to be longer than initially anticipated.

Myke Hurley: Then, no matter what this guide says, one thing, stop hunting is important. Second, you've just got to... You just have to look after it now. Like, you have to baby that thing over the next two months. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. No more testing out fountain pens, right? Like, none of it. You've got to, you've just got to, like... It's a bad thing now. It's a bad, like, break in time. Couldn't think of a better word, I'm sorry. For you at the moment. But this is the time you take now to ensure a better future for it. And if you don't do that, you're going to end up with a longer-term problem.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. Like, he's still, like, completely convinced it's going to heal fine. And in the end, we're going to be good. It's just going to be longer to get there than I had anticipated and they had anticipated.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but don't forget, it's still not the surgery route, which was one of the two routes before, so...

Brad Dowdy: Yes, so that's good. But, like, I knew as soon as they cut the cast off how bad it hurt. I was like, oh, this is probably going to be a bad report. Oh, really? I could tell pretty quickly. I was like, oh, wow, that really hurts. So, yeah. Okay, that's interesting.

Myke Hurley: So, I guess you could just feel that once the support was gone, it was too painful.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, yep. All right, let's put me in a better mood. I want to talk about stationary stuff.

Field Notes Winter Edition

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let's talk about something that happened, like, quite literally just after our episode went out last time. Field Notes released their winter edition. It's called Snowy Evening. This is, you know, we always talk about the edition numbers, the version numbers, and this one's interesting because it's capped at 99,999 single notebooks, which is significant for them. But there's a very good reason for that. Do you want to explain what makes the Snowy Evening such a unique proposition?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so the idea behind the Snowy Evening is that, you know, no two snowflakes are alike. So, they basically got with someone who wrote a computer program to manufacture 99,999 individual snowflakes to be printed on 99,909 individual field notes covers, which were then individually numbered of 99,999. So, like, there's literally that many unique books of this edition, and it kind of blows my mind. Like, I don't know how they did this. Like, I'm very impressed with this edition. These last two editions, number one, did this seem like it came out, like, very fast, like, hot on the heels of the last issue, like, two months?

Myke Hurley: It does feel like it did, which that makes me, I mean, I haven't been planning, I haven't been watching it properly. I could assume that that means that the fall edition was maybe a little later than normal.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and you definitely want to get this edition out before Christmas, right? You just have to. Right, so.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I assume that most of their winters come out before Christmas anyway, so they can get into stockings. Yep. So, this one is super interesting. The way that they did it is they had an artist, Brendan Dawes, who created an algorithm to draw these one shy of 100,000 different snowflake patterns. And it's kind of fun now because I know enough about this kind of stuff now, like, to be dangerous. And I was like, well, this must be digital printed. There's no other way they could have done it. And I looked through, and they said, yes, it's digitally printed. What I like is that they said it was, what did I say, next generation digital printing or something like that? Which was funny to me because it's like, it's okay, guys. Like, digital printing's okay. Like, you don't have to sell it to me that much, you know? Because I could feel for them, like, there's so much in that world of, you know, it all being printed in these beautiful old-fashioned techniques. But there's just absolutely no way that they could have done this with a more traditional printing method and make it cost-effective by any way. Because you'd have to create 100,000 plates, which, I mean, it's that madness, absolute madness. So that, you know, that's how they did it. What did they call it? A next generation digital press with white ink. So, you know, and look, I've experienced lots of digital printing stuff. And I'll tell you right now, it's fantastic these days. And people would never know how to do this. But I understand for them, it's like, it's not digital printing methods are not necessarily part of the overall brand of field notes. You know, because, like, you know, their whole thing is, like, saving the traditional letterpress, which is, like, a great thing. And it's great, you know, because it's just funny that their last edition was celebrating letterpress, right? The United States of letterpress. And then they went to digital. Which, again, not a problem, but it's just, like, a funny little thing to me. So I think this is a very, very clever edition and rounds out what we were expecting, which is that this is probably the best year they've had in a while. I would say that all four of their books this year were quite good. I wouldn't say that there was one in there where it's like, oh, man, I wouldn't want to use that. So I think. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And just to have snowy evening and the United States of letterpress back to back at the technical challenges between those. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night, just thinking about other people. I don't know how they did it. Having to think about this stuff.

Myke Hurley: I really don't know how they did that.

Brad Dowdy: Because that's, these are, you know, this is why, you know, we've talked about it for years and years. This is why you subscribe and support someone like Field Notes is because they're going to do the hard thing very, very well and impress you, you know, every step of the way. And it's just kind of a, it's kind of a perfect addition, like, just like the last one was as well. So, yeah, I, I love it. They're on quite a run here recently. I love it. Love to see it.

Myke Hurley: Yep. You'll love to see it. All right, let's take our first break and thank ExpressVPN for their support of this show. The unfortunate truth is that our data isn't always as safe as we would want it to be, no matter who you are, what sites you use. There are attacks that can lead to data leaks. This happens all the time, right? We see this every now, you see it so often, these large companies, they have these issues. You don't want your credit card information, passwords, driver's licenses in the hands of bad people, especially when your data is up, is worth so much money. Thousands of dollars on the, on the deep web, Brad. You don't, you don't want to have your data there. No, I do not. Like, you're super busy already. You don't want to have to worry about bad people, bad actors trying to get your information while you use your devices. And that is why I use ExpressVPN and recommend that you give it a go, too. ExpressVPN is an app that funnels your data through a secure encrypted tunnel. So, no matter what device you use, you can have peace of mind every single time you use the internet. It's just, you know, there are some stuff that we can't stop. You know, like, some information, like, that you have to give. You can't do anything about it, right? Like, these companies have this information you have to give them. So, isn't it just a good idea that whenever you can just use something a little bit more secure, do that? It just, like, lowers your overall risk, which is, I think, is a great thing. It gives you that peace of mind. The ExpressVPN app connects with just one click. It's super fast. And the best part is it works on up to five devices simultaneously. So, with ExpressVPN, you and your whole family can stay protected. I have been using ExpressVPN way over a year now. I find it to just be super fast, super simple. It's very easy to use. I have it everywhere I need it. So, it's always there just a click away. Protect yourself with ExpressVPN, the VPN rated number one by CNET, Wired, and countless other outlets. And if you visit expressvpn.com slash penaddict right now, you can arm yourself with an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. That's exprssvpn.com slash penaddict. Go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict right now to learn more and sign up. Thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Myke, we had a retro 51 pauper palooza happen since last week.

Myke Hurley: My word.

Brad Dowdy: That's an accurate way to put this. What is happening here? Can you explain what's happening here?

Myke Hurley: This company was supposed to go away, but they seem to refuse it. I don't know why they told everyone if they were just going to have more releases in the one year period than they've ever had before.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's the exact measurement I was thinking about is like, is this the most releases in a single year ever? Like, maybe it just feels that way because we're like overly paying attention to it. But that's what it feels like. Like, who knows? But this is crazy. So four new retro 51 tornadoes came out yesterday. The Gymkhana edition, the retro racing edition. It's really cool. Really cool pinstripe looking barrels. Very, very neatly designed. The retro 51 Stardust, which is your unicorn and rainbows glow in the dark Lisa Frank, you know, type of model, which looks great. The retro 51 Who, which is theoretically about Bigfoot, at least according to the outside of the package. But it's, you know, it's got an owl on the finial. So it's kind of a, you know, the outdoorsy etched brass kind of look.

Myke Hurley: I wonder if like, if you look hard enough, if there is like, there is a, oh yeah, Bigfoot's there. If you look at it, if you zoom in on it, it's, you know, the old footage of like the Bigfoot looking at the camera. It's that. But you have to really zoom in on the image to see that. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I figured it was in there somewhere. And then the last one, the retro 51 Keystone, which is the Mount Rushmore edition where they do all of the etchings and the, you know, the shapes of the presidents on Mount Rushmore, which is like one of those classic designs that retro 51 does so well.

Myke Hurley: This one is dedicated to police officers, which feels like a weird thing to do right now.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, that's the last one. So that one I think is in there accidentally. That one's from like two years ago.

Myke Hurley: Oh, okay. The shield?

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, the shield. So that one is just accidentally. Accidentally. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like about two years old. Okay. Yeah. That one's been around a while. But it's because it's these four.

Myke Hurley: That would be a super weird. It feels like would be a super weird thing to do right now. But that's just like an old pen that's on this pen chalet page. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So two Jim Connors, red and blue. The retro 51 Stardust, the retro 51 Who, and the retro 51 Keystone. So those are the four new ones. The, just looking at the pen chalet page, the Stardust is already sold out, which is the Lisa Frank one that I'm calling the unicorn. It glows in the dark. That does not surprise me whatsoever. But like, I don't know how you release all these and they still all sell out. I do have an inch. I have a random question here, Myke, and you're not going to be able to answer this. I don't, I don't think. But these all have 951 released for each color, except for the Mount Rushmore one is 958.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's, that's, that's all I got. So anyway, if, if I'm picking out my choice, if I have to go with one of these, there's

Myke Hurley: some kind of like significance to that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I'm trying to like think, but they don't, they don't lay it out there. So I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Are these available yet?

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So as of yesterday, I think they became available.

Myke Hurley: All right. But it seems like the, um, the Stardust is expectedly sold out everywhere.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Um, if you had to pick one of these, which would you and why? The Stardust. You think? It's ridiculous. I love it. It is ridiculous. And it glows in the dark. I really like the Who.

Retro 51 Releases

Myke Hurley: They really love their glow in the dark this year. They, everything is glowing in the dark.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. I mean, if you can, why not? Right.

Myke Hurley: I'm becoming a little bit frustrated.

Brad Dowdy: With what? Glow in the dark or retro?

Myke Hurley: Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I, what's the story we're trying to tell now? Right. That's the way I look at it. And I don't know what we're doing anymore. Yeah. I don't know what's happening.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, I, like, we keep saying, okay, look at all this stuff. I guess they're going to wrap it up here soon. And then deluge, you know, thousands more pens. Then deluge, thousands more pens.

Myke Hurley: Like, it wouldn't bother me if they just were communicating what the deal was. Because nobody, nobody needed them to communicate that they were going away when they decided to tell everyone, right? Right. Like, we didn't need to know then, particularly. It was just when they decided to say. But then they left it open-ended, then kept releasing more pens, but are not talking about what the future is.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, this doesn't look any different than any other year. No. Retro 51 to me.

Myke Hurley: Which is fine, but it's like, can't you just, like, suggest what you're doing? Like, I would love to, we'd love to know, you know?

Brad Dowdy: It's very, it's peculiar. At some point, is it going to end? Or is we just going to keep on going with, you know, Popperpalooza, you know, Spring 2021 edition?

Myke Hurley: For all we know, somebody else already owns the company and they're just, like, pumping their new pens out. Like, I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Who knows? It's strange. But anyway.

Myke Hurley: It's like, you know, because I get the idea. We are not, we do not deserve anything, right? It's up to them. Oh, they don't know us anything. They can do whatever they want. But it's kind of like, to me, with these kinds of things is, I feel like, it's like having your cake and eating it. Which is why I'm saying, like, we didn't need to be told when we were told that the company was going away. Right? Right. So, I kind of feel like if you want to be that open, continue to be open.

Kaweco Hello Kitty Collaboration

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: And tell the people that care what your plan is. Like, what is going on.

Myke Hurley: I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. No, I think that's fair. I think about it the same way as you. Like, I agree with that sentiment. It's just like, it's okay either way. Mm-hmm. But, you know, just, you were that open in the beginning and now I'm just questioning everything that you do. Yeah. It's weird. A company I have been questioning pretty frequently. Mostly been pretty happy with the results. Some not so much as seeing some of the new Kaweco limited editions. And I caught this Hello Kitty limited edition on Instagram. So, we'll put a link in the show notes. I hadn't seen this before. And, you know, I love my Kaweco special editions. But, I felt like some of their regional stuff where they're just doing the colors and having to put the color names on there. That fell a little bit flat to me. But, they're more branded where they're working. Like, they work with a graffiti artist named Ombre. Which, you know, I bought that set. And this is a Hello Kitty branded edition for Taiwan. You know, this fits into a different category than, you know, the evergreen ones that we were seeing. You know, just for like the, you know, that was like a Dutch region release. You know, things like that where they had to put the color name on the side. I was like, well, I don't know what we're doing here. But, I love this Hello Kitty model. And, they did something cool with this mic. This one is like loaded up with the style, the aesthetic. They have extra etching on the barrel for the Hello Kitty. They have Hello Kitty on the nib. Like, they've done all kinds of things with this model that Kaweco hasn't done before. This is what I want to see out of their limited editions, right? Like, this, I think, is like extremely cool. Now, I'm not going to hunt it down and try to buy it. Like, I don't need it that bad, but this is what I want to see. Not the, you know, Paladin evergreen or whatever those things were. The, you know, funky espresso deal.

Myke Hurley: Give me the Hello Kitty every time, right? Stuff like this, though. I wonder if like part of what we like about it is because Sanrio were involved in the design. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: This is a lot of stuff on the pen. I didn't even look at the price, but it's got to be expensive because they've done way more than they would normally do. They're even giving you a clip and all kinds of other things. But, yeah, I mean, Sanrio is not going to let this go poorly, right? No. That's not their business model. When they go after this, they do it all the way. And, you know, it's cool to see Kaweco buy into that. Like, I think it's cool that this brand is getting that kind of treatment and this kind of collaboration. I think it's awesome.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I like this. It's interesting. Kaweco is an interesting choice for Hello Kitty. But Sanrio are very prolific with their collaborations. I see a lot of people working with them to create various merch products, like merchandising opportunities for the Sanrio characters. Because there are so many of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. And we're going to talk about a Kaweco collaboration later that I have questions on. Yeah. That I haven't found all the details on. So hold that thought. Before that, I want to talk about a tweet I got. And it's always funny to see, like, the mainstream pen conversation when someone famous talks about the pen they use. And in this case, it was Barack Obama talking about the pen he used to write his most recent book. Let me read this one little paragraph out of the full article that's a little bit bigger than the snippet we have in the tweet in the show notes. It says, Mr. Obama wrote A Promised Land, the first of two volumes about his presidency, much the same way he's worked on speeches in earlier books. Because he thinks the computer can lend half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness, he writes his first drafts longhand on yellow legal pads. The act of typing it into the computer essentially becomes a first edit. He says he is very particular, Myke, about his pens. Always using the black Uniball Vision Elite rollerball pens with a micro point. And adds that he tends to do his best writing between 10pm and 2am. I find that the world narrows, and that is good for my imagination. It's almost as if there's a darkness all around, and there's a metaphorical beam of light down on the desk onto the page. Which is a yellow legal pad. And a black Uniball Vision Elite. Really good pen choice by our former president here in the US. And it definitely runs in the family because Joe Biden uses the same pen. So the Uniball Vision Elite is the upgraded Vision pen. Which I do not like the Vision. I think it's not Uniball's best effort. But the Vision Elite, for some reason, is excellent. So they're actually very, very different pens despite both carrying the Vision moniker. And you think it would just be kind of the same insides, a fancier barrel. But I think it's a completely different writing experience. It's great. The Micro Tip Vision Elite is 0.5mm. So don't get overly excited.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I thought that was funny. I was like, I was digging around. I was like, is this a, does he use some kind of special version?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because 0.5mm is not micro.

Brad Dowdy: No. And it's rollerball. So it's a wet ink. So it's going to be, it's practically like a 0.7 gel pen. Right. At that line width. So the Micro Uniball Vision Elite is a 0.5 rollerball. So that's still, I mean, it's a narrow line. But it's a reasonably wide line. It's probably like the Schmidt P8126 line. You know, something like that. It's not, not some tiny line. But this is great because it's funny to see the president using it. A bunch of people asking about it and wanting to know about it. And then we've definitely seen President Biden have the Uniball Vision Elite in his hands. And then we have Uniball breaking off into their own U.S. subsidiary. I wonder if they're going to get in on some of this former and future presidential action on the pens. You know, maybe have some kind of updated supply cabinet in the future White House. So I think that's kind of funny. And we were even talking, it even comes up like in our relay of Slack. Yeah. Is this for real? Is this a good pen?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I felt like I did well. I answered the question and I got it mostly correct, which I was pleased about. Yep. This is just one of those times where like President Obama, if you need some help, will help, you know, if you want some more recommendations. Yeah. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: I can help you out. I mean, I'm not going to, if you like that pen, I think he's left-handed too. So like that pen, like I couldn't recommend any better pen, really. Like I'm not going to change that to like a gel ink pen. I reckon a nice. I really like that pen.

Myke Hurley: A nice Mark 1 in President Obama's hands. That's true.

Brad Dowdy: That would actually probably work pretty well. Mm-hmm. Or the Lisa Frank Retro 51, you know. Just go for it. Glows in the dark. Yeah. Glows in the dark. All right. We're going to hit some Ask TPA here in a minute. But one more shout out. I'm about three quarters of the way through listening to a wonderful interview with my friend April from Stationery Cafe. She introduces Patrick Ng, whose name you have heard here for years. Just a very start. Because I find him to be one of the most interesting stationary people on the internet. He's a stationary buyer in Hong Kong. And he's got, you know, just a wonderful Instagram. He's created the Chronodex system, which a lot of people, you know, use to do time tracking and scheduling. Things like that. And it was just a great conversation with Patrick. And April let me know that they have a video from this where Patrick does a lot of show and tell, which you know is right up my alley. So we'll put a link in the show notes to the podcast episode. And then you can follow Stationery Cafe to find out when that video drops. Because if you're like me, you'll want to see it just because Patrick is into some very interesting stuff. Throughout the interview, it kind of makes a lot more sense about where Patrick's style and aesthetic comes from. That's what I always think about when I think of Patrick the most. Because he is someone who will take what's given to him and then modify it to make it his own. Right? So there's always your base item and then there's always a Patrick tweak to it. And you're like, yeah, that's really cool. I like what he did there. So it's a great interview. Good job, April. Great hearing from Patrick. And yeah, y'all should definitely, definitely check that out and watch for the video to come out. Because I bet the show and tell is going to be pretty amazing, at least the way I was listening to it on the podcast. So very cool.

Myke Hurley: Should we dive into some RSTPA?

Brad Dowdy: We should. We got a good batch this week. Things we can hopefully help out with. Maybe a few other gifts. Why don't you hit this first one up for me.

RSTPA Segment Start

Myke Hurley: All right. This comes from Seth. My sister-in-law and I got into a discussion of hobbies and I told her about my thing with fountain pens. First, she didn't get it. But then I showed her some writing samples with rubber, oster fire and ice with the sheening and the shading, the line variability. And she got it. So my question is, how do I put together an introduction to fountain pens gift? I know the traditional answer is to ease people in with starter pens like the Pilot Metropolitan or the Lamy Safari. But I want to go in a different way. I want to get her started by wowing her with an interesting ink and the whole experience. So here are my questions. One, are there any cartridges that carry very expressive ink that could go with a starter pen?

Brad Dowdy: This is almost universally a no. Yeah. Because the answer is yeah, but you may not be able to match it with the pen you want. Right. Like you can now get Sailor's cool inks in cartridge. Oh, I forgot. But they only fit Sailor's pens. Right.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But even that, I don't think that's cool enough. I don't think that those are the inks that Seth's looking for here really, you know. Right. I think we're looking for wild sheen or shimmer or that kind of stuff. And I can't think of any of those in cartridges.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You're just not going to get that. Nor will you probably ever. It's probably just not a cost effective type of thing.

Myke Hurley: But I guess depending on how like stead set on this you are, you could just make your own cartridges.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Right. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: I mean, it's not the greatest. So maybe you could do it like a cartridge for a pen and fill it from a bottle.

Brad Dowdy: You could. You could. I just, I mean, it's doable, but that's always a lot.

Myke Hurley: Let me say though. A big ask. The thing is, Seth, I think that with just a little bit of demonstration, getting somebody to learn how to fill a pen from an ink bottle is not that difficult. Nope.

Brad Dowdy: Like, and I think we cover that in part two.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we will. But I just want to say like, it's more, it's daunting to people, but it's not, it's not a difficult thing at all. So Seth did anticipate this. So question number two is assuming the answer, the answer to number one isn't great. We're now talking about bottled ink. Personally, I find cartridge converters to be more troublesome than straight piston fillers. So what combination of piston pen and bottle ink would you recommend? I'm thinking Twisby Eco or Eco Tea. The demonstrator barrel will add the wow factor. I just want to say, do never discount the Twisby Go. Never discount that pen because it's super easy to fill. And I think that it's weirdness would be interesting or fun to a lot of people. Plus it's cheaper.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it is cheaper. It is weirder. I'm still going with the Eco. I get it. But yeah, I would, I would go with the Eco or Eco Tea.

Myke Hurley: The Eco is a better pen, but I just, you know, I would just not, I would say like, think about it, you know, like don't, don't just be like, oh yeah, because the Go is like, it's much cheaper and it's nice, weird. And I'm a big fan of it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I think you can get a stub nib in that, which is what I would get if you're trying to get all of your ink expressiveness out on the page.

Myke Hurley: 1.1 stuff. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I want to see a stub nib in one, whichever pen you decide, I would go with the Eco. And then for ink, Myke, you know, trying to figure out what's that wow ink that's going to go in there, this may, I don't know, this may not see, seem to like be an awesome fit, but for some reason I can't get it out of my head. I think I would get like Ackerman Hoff-Cortier growing number 28, the bright green ink, because it shades really well. It's really bright. It's vibrant. You know, it's not, you know, it's not a sheen monster. It's not a shimmer ink. I don't know. The 1.1s and the Twisbees, they would do good for shimmers. Like I like Diamine, some of the darker ink colors with the silver sparkles. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but I've reviewed some of those in the past in, I think, Twisbees 1.1 nibs, and that's kind of like a perfect match if you want that type of setup. So that's kind of what I'd be leaning towards. You know, either some bright shading ink, which I like, like the Hoff-Cortier growing, or the Diamine or Robert Oster shimmer inks in any color that you think would do well. And those look great in those clear barrels too, right? With the, you get to see the shimmer and everything kind of floating around in there, and you get to see it settle down and then you can shake it back up. So it's good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's something fun to that. The shimmering stuff, I think, is interesting to people because I don't think you would think that it would exist.

Brad Dowdy: Or that it would be good. Like that was always my hang-up, right? Well, I mean, it wasn't always. It wasn't always, but it is really technically come a long way. Yeah. As far as quality and performance and ability to clean and all of those things, it's like essentially just using like your basic blue or black ink now is how good those inks are.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, the shimmer inks are an interesting proposition for a thing like this because it's something which you can say to people like, look, you can do this. You can't do this any other way. Mm-hmm. You know, like it's, I know you can get gel inks with glitter in and stuff, but they're just not going to look this good, you know, because it's also like variance in color. And I really do agree that a stub nib is a good option here. Stub nibs are really easy to use and they're thick lines, which I always think is really good for people who are beginning. And it will also give the maximum impact for the ink that you're using. I think something that a lot of people might fall into is, you know, if you're not using a thick nib, you're not going to get the benefit out of a lot of these shimmery inks. You've got to put a lot of ink on the page to really get the maximum benefit, like the maximum impact, which is why you'll always see every single shimmery ink on a product page. If it's not a swatch, they're using like a dip nib or a music nib or whatever, because otherwise it just won't photograph well.

Brad Dowdy: Yep, exactly. And Twisby luckily makes some of like the most receptive stub nibs and easy to use stub nibs.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Some of my favorites. The last point is how would your answer to number two change if I tell you that she's left-handed? For me, not at all. Yeah, none. Just let your sister know that she might get a bit messy, but that's part of the fun. Mm-hmm. And that it's just going to take a bit of practice. That's all. I use all of this stuff myself. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it wouldn't change at all. I would, you know, you are at some point going to have to think about the paper you're using, right? Like that comes in combination with the pen and the ink. Mm-hmm. You know, if you're getting something like Rode or Clairefontaine, you're going to be in good shape for that. Just know that there's going to be some dry time. That you're, if you want the full effect of the ink, you're going to have to choose a paper that's a little bit slower drying than normal, right? To get those, all of the characteristics of the ink out there. So that's just something to be considerate of when you're thinking about that, especially if you're left-handed. But I wouldn't change a thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's where the left-handed, right-handed imbalance begins there. But it is something worth remembering. Yep. This episode is also brought to you by Harry's. The holiday season is fast approaching. An almost breakneck pace, it feels like. I have a widget on my home screen from the new Widgetsmith update, which I put a countdown timer in. I think it's like 15 days or something like that right now, which is, you know, it's coming up. It's coming up real, real fast. It means it's time to start thinking about still, I mean, I know I'm still doing my holiday shopping. I'm sure many people out there still are. So you'd love some great ideas. Things that aren't just those boring, cliche gifts. This holiday season, why not get that special person something they'll actually use and appreciate every single day? Something practical, useful, and of excellent quality. And this is where a Harry's holiday shave set can save the day and provide you with an excellent gift idea this season. This is a practical gift that they will want to use every day because Harry's makes sharp blades really last. They are award winning, engineered in Germany and backed by a 100% quality guarantee. If the recipient does not love their first shave, you can get a full refund for it. Harry's is the gift that keeps on giving because their blade refills are as low as $2 each. So you're going to be saving the recipient money as well. Isn't that great? Harry's holiday shave sets come ready to gift in awesome packaging, which features a handsome holiday themed gift box. And you can go that extra step to, if you really care about the person you're gifting to, by custom engraving the handle. That is like a little detail, but it really adds to the overall experience. And you can do that very easily with Harry's. And you can feel great about the gift that you're giving because you will know that 1% of each sale is donated to charitable organizations as well. Brad Dowdy, can you talk about why Harry's is such a great gift idea?

Brad Dowdy: Well, apparently I'm on the Harry's nice list, Myke, because I got the holiday gift set again this year.

Myke Hurley: You can consider that as a gift from Harry's and me because I got them to send it to you.

Brad Dowdy: Is it? Is it really? Yeah, it's a gift from the both of us. Okay. Well, thank you, Harry's and maybe Myke. But it's a very pretty gift box this year. It's kind of like a candy cane, peppermint-y theme, stripe, red and pink stripes. And the handle is a chrome handle. It's like a Jack Frost handle. It's like a chrome handle. For the razor. Yeah, for the razor. It's got like these slate blue kind of grip areas on there. It's really, really pretty. It's really nice. Very, very wintry looking, very gifty looking and a great gift box. I mean, you really can't go wrong with that. It's so cool and it's a good deal.

Myke Hurley: This holiday season, new customers can get $5 off plus free shipping on any Harry's limited edition holiday shave set when you go to harrys.com slash penaddict. This set comes with that weighted handle, three razor cartridges, foaming shave gel, and a travel cover or package and a handsome holiday gift box. Don't just give socks this year. Don't just give something boring like a belt. Delight that person in your life with Harry's. To claim your $5 off plus free shipping, go to harrys.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM. Trying to take credit for Harry's gifts to me. Come on. It's true. Look, I could say, hey, send it to me, but I'm like, no, send it to Brad.

Brad Dowdy: And when you use the Harry's gift set up, like when you use the razor or you gift it, but sometimes, you know, you do keep them for yourself. I've given a bunch of these away. The box is an awesome pencil. Just a box. It's a great box. It's just, it's really good. That's what I use them for. They're great.

Myke Hurley: Okay. So, uh, Ree Thornton asks, this might be too late for the gift guide episode, but wondering if you have any recommendations for A5-ish notebooks that include some coloring pages like mandalas, but are 80% lined paper and fountain pen friendly. This is very particular. My giftie has been looking and finding only ones that are too heavy on coloring.

Brad Dowdy: This is a crazy question. Yeah, this is. It took me, it took me a little bit, little bit, uh, to figure out what was going on here, but I think that's really what they're asking for. So mostly a notebook, but a portion of the notebook should be coloring pages like pre, you know, pre-designed coloring pages, not pages for you to do your own coloring. Right. But we should have like some, you know, adult coloring pages as part of the journal. And I haven't seen anything that's been set up this way that I could think of, which is why I like to ask these questions publicly to see, has anyone seen something like this that I could pass on because I, you know, racking my brain. It's, this is one of those things where it's, it's all one way or all the other. There's no really split notebooks for part journal, part coloring pages. Right. That, that I can think of.

Myke Hurley: No, it feels like, I love the idea. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Like that would be cool, but I just don't know that anyone has brought that to the table that I can, that I have seen. So I want to put that out there for the listeners. If you've seen, you know, this, this type of setup, that's majority notebook, journal, planner, something like that. And then contains, you know, a portion of pages for coloring that are, you know, pre-drawn that you can just, you work on your coloring on. Let me know. I'm very interested to see if, if that product exists.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I, I think for me, I'm just not sure why you need them all in the same book.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But it's not, it's not me, right? This isn't my thing.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And if you're looking for a gift, like if I was doing this, like if I really wanted this, right, I'd have my A5 notebook and I have my coloring books and I always cut pages out of my coloring books anyway. I could just grab like one or two drawings, fold them in half, stick them in the back of my notebook for when I wanted to, to do that. The other thing is that like the coloring pages being fountain pen friendly, that's even, that might be the hardest ask of all because almost universally, the coloring pages are not fountain pen friendly.

Brad Dowdy: Tough question. I like it.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Fibber asks, how do you feel about Kaweco partnering with Queen's Gambit on Netflix? I think it's a terrific station. I think it's terrific that stationary brand is involved in popular culture. What's going on here? I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: I think it's amazing. And I couldn't find a link to save my life. So I asked Fibber to send me a link because I was looking, I thought I could be able to search that pretty easily. Right. But I couldn't find any link to that. I watched the Queen's Gambit and I don't recall her using anything other than like Parker Jotters. I know were pretty common outside of the pencils they used at the chess tables, which I didn't see what brand. I didn't see if there was any Kaweco.

Brad Dowdy: Like I certainly couldn't find any Kaweco PR or any direct collaboration. Like I could see a pen like the student, the Kaweco student models that are more of that, you know, 1960s era shape and style as opposed to like the sports and things. Right. Those really aren't that era, but like the student models would hit what that is. So I'm going to keep looking for the links. If anyone has any links on that, I'd love to see it because I'm obviously a huge Kaweco fan and we really, really enjoyed the Queen's Gambit. Did you watch that?

Myke Hurley: I haven't yet, but it's on our list.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's a great watch because right now it's only seven episodes. It's the full season. And, you know, they're all about an hour long. So it's very bingeable, very rewatchable. Just really, really well done. And yeah, I'll have to keep hunting down the Kaweco stuff because I spent some time looking for it yesterday and I couldn't find anything. I noticed you put something in for this. I thought, well, Myke found it. And it's like, no, I found something else. It's very cool though.

Myke Hurley: Nicole Carpenter, who is a writer at Polygon, did a similar thing where they went through The Crown and spotted all the pens that are used in The Crown and provided images along with the work that Nicole did. So Nicole spotted Parker, Conway Stewart, Pelican, Kaweco, and more. Whoever's doing this. So like if it is for some reason Kaweco is somewhere in Queen's Gambit, I think it just shows that someone at Netflix is really paying attention to pens.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. I remember, I forget if it was season one or two of The Crown, seeing The Queen right with a pelican really threw me for a loop.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's like, you know, why isn't it a Conway Stewart or even a Parker, even though the Parkers are American, that was just a more traditional style. It threw me for a loop seeing the pelicans in there, but they were pretty commonplace in there. So yeah, I mean, I love this stuff, right? We always talk about just, you know, figuring out what pen, you know, Obama was using to write his book. Like this stuff interests me and interests our listeners. And I just find it fascinating. And yeah, there's a bunch of cool pictures here. And yeah, I love it. I love it. Keep sending those. Keep asking those. We get those. I get those all the time. And hey, what pen is this person using here? And most of the time we can figure it out. It's pretty funny.

Myke Hurley: All right. Next up comes from Benja who asks, any chance of a shout out on the show to help support the wonderful Pen Museum? Would love for you still to be able to visit it when you get over to the UK for a trip.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Have you heard about this, Myke? I think we've spoken about it before. We've spoken about it before. I think every year they do a fundraiser. And this year for, I can't remember if I've donated to them in the past, but my quarterly Pen Addict members donation is due up this month. I'm going to send $250 to Pen Museum in the UK to help them keep running. It's a really, really neat writing collection at the museum. And it's a really cool space. And I wanted to give this a shout out for anyone who might be interested in taking a look at this and figuring out how you can support them. And when we're traveling again, going to make a visit up in Birmingham, Michael.

Myke Hurley: Birmingham, right? Birmingham. Sorry. There you go. Much better.

Brad Dowdy: I should know that. I was like, I'm decent. I swear. The only thing is I'm a little close to Birmingham, Alabama. So you get a little bit wrecked that way. But I'm definitely more of the Birmingham camp.

Myke Hurley: You should maybe start calling it Birmingham, Alabama.

Brad Dowdy: True. True. Well, we can't even decide if it's Houston or Houston here. So like, who am I to say? Yeah, that's the whole thing.

Myke Hurley: Garrick asks, have you made a top five pencil sharpeners list anywhere, manual or electric? Do you even have a top five for this category?

Brad Dowdy: I could definitely come up with a top five. The problem with the top five of this one, it would be like this really disparate, disjointed, disconnected list where I would list, you know, like a pretty simple handheld plastic sharpener, which is going to be one of my recommendations to Garrick here in a second, right next to something like a $30, highly fidgety, you know, keychain size Pollux sharpener, right? There's a lot of solutions depending on your level of pencil nerdery to come up with a sharpener. But I think I don't need a top five because there's kind of two that I recommend the most. So the one I use the most is a desktop model called the Uni KH20. We've talked about this a million times on here. I found it to be the best desktop sharpener for me, for my family. The kids use it. I use it. The other choice there is generally the classroom friendly sharpeners, which I also have one as well. I tend to find the KH20 a little bit better for me, even though the classroom friendly gives it a little bit sharper point or a little bit longer point, I guess I should say. It tends to mark up the barrel when you sharpen it, so it's a little bit more fussy than the KH20. They're not cheap. They're like $30, but I've had this one for years, and I swear by it. Like, I don't want another desk sharpener to replace it. It's that good. For a handheld slash portable sharpener, I really think you can't go wrong with the KOOM 2-Step sharpener. It's just kind of the best portable option. It has a place to hold the pencil shavings until you can get to a trash can to dump them out. It's got the long point sharpener, so you put it in the phase one sharpening hole and sharpen up the barrel. Then you put it in the little smaller hole to sharpen up the graphite core. It's kind of the sharpener that all the two-step sharpeners use as a base. You can get the Blackwing models of this, but the standard KOOM is like half the price, and it's essentially the same sharpener, a little bit different shell. But same internals, different internals. I mean, same internals, different externals. So, you know, there's the handhelds are where you can get into trouble spending like $20 and $30 on handheld sharpeners. And I wouldn't do that until you kind of know what you like first because you can get some really specialty type of handheld sharpeners that cost as much as the desktop sharpener. But that's never ones I recommend on the front end, like the KOOM Masterpiece or the Pollux. You know, those are like $20 and $30 handheld sharpeners, but I wouldn't go there first.

Myke Hurley: All right. Maddow Fans asks, I love the way this question unfolds. What mechanical pencil would you recommend for a cable news host? I wonder which one they could be referring to. I think the obvious answer is a Rotring 600, but I might be overlooking something.

Brad Dowdy: I love this question because I genuinely put a lot of thought into this, right? I was like thinking, I was like, well, if they're going to be using it at the desk on TV, right? Let's just say, for example, Rachel Maddow. Why would you think that? She popped into my head. I don't know. She popped into my head. And they're sitting there at the desk and, you know, mostly reading from teleprompters and screens. And, you know, there's always papers and pens and, you know, just a little bit of fidgeting stuff going on there. I think the Rotring 600 would not be even remotely the best choice because it's a little thin. I want a dense, bigger, more dense pencil if I'm doing this. A little more showy, even though, like, you and I think, like, the design of the Rotring 600 is kind of perfect. It is in, like, a classical engineering sense. I don't know if that should be the TV pencil. I think if you're going to go with that, I think the Rotring 800 would be a better TV flashy type of pencil because it's got the gold trim. It's got the retractable, you know, lead pipe. But there was only one pencil I could think about when I was coming up with an answer for this question. And it's one that I use regularly. And it's really, really underrated. It's one I enjoy very much. But the Platinum Pro use 171, specifically in 0.9 millimeters. So, again, with the Rotring, you would at least want a 0.7 millimeter. Like, if you're a TV host, you need to write. Like, that's why they use Sharpies, right, because they're big and bold and they can see them without having to strain their eyes. And a pencil, you know, that's a challenge with a pencil, especially if you're writing with a 0.5 millimeter pencil. So you can get this nice, gorgeous, bulky Platinum Pro use 9 millimeters. It looks killer. It feels amazing.

Mechanical Pencil Recommendation

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. I'm just a super fan of this pencil. It doesn't get enough love. And I think that's the pencil that Rachel Maddow should use. If it just happened to be her. That was curious.

Myke Hurley: Final question comes from Michael Canovino, who asks, Any tips for troubleshooting your writing? That is, if you don't like your handwriting, is it just a matter of changing the variables, like pen, paper, for example?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, for me, it's always shape, right? When I get frustrated, I get frustrated with shape. So I try to fix my shapes. But that's individual letters or numbers. Now, Michael seems to be talking about the more broader, you know, the totality of writing on a page. A lot of times, the pen is the problem, which you find with gel ink pens and rollerball pens up to fountain pens, right? So depending on your writing style and the way I describe it, and the way I've described it a lot of times, in my block writing style, I need a pen that has an edge to it, right? The edges of my line have to be sharp. That's why rounded tip standard pens, like gel or rollerball, or rounded tip fountain pens, like a medium pelican nib with rounder tipping, do not make my handwriting look as nice compared to extra fine, finer nibs, or nibs that might be drier, like on a drawing pen. You know, those felt tip pens, those keep a sharp edge, even though they're bigger and rounder tips. They have a sharp edge because they're not putting a ton of ink necessarily on the page. So like I've determined that if I can have two pens side by side, I can totally tell my handwriting looks better with one certain type of pen than the other. So that is changing those variables and figuring out what works the best for your style of handwriting. Now if I was a cursive handwriter, those rounded tip pens might work better for me. You know, it might make my handwriting flow a little bit better. So general handwriting tips for people looking to improve your handwriting in general, not just specific letters like I tend to do, is slow down and extend your letters. Like you want to have some length to the letters and the words. That gives you a better idea of what's working for you as opposed to like going really fast and writing in really small confined areas. Even if my handwriting is small, I can still expand that small handwriting lengthwise and that makes it look a little bit better. I'm not talking about like cartoonish extremes, right? I'm just talking about like a little, little bit and you know, that's one way you can see what's working for you. And then if you figure that out, then you start dabbling in. Okay, maybe I like 0.38 millimeter gel pens and you know, stub nib fountain pens or a fine nib fountain pen, whatever it is to work better with your particular handwriting. But I definitely, I will get out a bunch of pens and I can tell like this one's good for my handwriting. This one's bad for my handwriting. This one's good. This one's bad. The paper and the ink don't matter as much in this exact scenario. Overall, they do matter. But in this exact scenario, I'm going to have a bigger frustration with the style of pen I'm using. If it doesn't match what my handwriting strokes are like.

Myke Hurley: In a nutshell, like my read on this question is just practice.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the only way to fix it, right? Once you figure out, okay, I have the right tools now to get better. The only handwriting fix is practice. It's mine has always been mimicry. And you just practice, you know, finding a handwriting style you like and mimicking the letters and shapes until it becomes your muscle memory. And it comes faster than you think if you commit to it.

Myke Hurley: All right. I think that wraps it up for this week's episode. Brad, if listeners want to send in and ask TPA questions for future episodes, what's the best way to do that?

Brad Dowdy: Two ways. Email me, hello at penaddict.com or on Twitter, use the hashtag AskTPA. And we will collect those and answer them for you here on the show. We love having the questions. It was a great group of questions today. And thank you, everyone, for sending them in.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com. He's also dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. Brad, are you streaming at the moment?

Brad Dowdy: I am probably not streaming at all this week. On top of my wrist, I threw out my back. So I haven't been a picture of health and wanted to sit behind the computer. But we'll see. I might be streaming Thursday this week, but I will let everyone know tomorrow.

Myke Hurley: I'm going to be streaming on Saturday this week on the 12th. It's going to be at 9 Pacific, 12 Eastern, 5 PM GMT. So it's going to be 9 AM Pacific, 12 Eastern. I'm going to be building a keyboard called the Think 6.5, which is a keyboard that I've had since September. And I've been waiting to build my skills up before I tackled it. So I'm very excited about that. So you can join me then where I'm going to be doing a full-on keyboard build at mic.live. Thank you so much to Harry's and ExpressVPN for their support of this show. But most of all, thank you for listening. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.