The Pen Addict 478/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	478
Title:	27% More Color Density
Release Date:	September 8th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 478
Audio File:	Audio Episode 478
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 478
Length:	7373 min <br />1.217 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 478. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Harry's, and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

Brad: Hi, Myke. How are you?

Myke: I'm busy, man. I'm busy. Very busy. I'm not going to be on the show next week. So we're going to talk about the podcast-a-thon in a little bit. So we're doing podcast-a-thon next week and Brad was like, hey, if you need to take time off for doing that, you can. And I was like, no, no, I'll be fine. And then Apple announced an event for Tuesday. So the combination of those two things, unfortunately, has pushed me over the edge. So Brad is going to be picking up the reins of a wonderful guest for next week's episode.

Brad: Yep. Top secret, waiting on final confirmation, but I think everyone will enjoy the conversation greatly.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Myke: So speaking of St. Jude, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month for the third consecutive year. We are supporting the life-saving mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is finding cures and saving children. Because cancer kills more children under the age of 14 than any other disease. And doctors from all 50 states in the U.S. and around the world refer their patients to St. Jude because they have the world's best survival rates for some of the most aggressive childhood cancers. St. Jude also provides thousands of free consultations for doctors treating children worldwide, including kids in your community. This September, you have already helped RelayFM surpass over $1 million raised for the kids at St. Jude during our third annual RelayFM for St. Jude fundraising campaign. We'll go back to that in a second. You can help us continue to move forward through to our goals by donating right now at stjude.org. If you donate a single gift of $100 or more, you'll receive an exclusive sticker pack at the end of the campaign. And if your company does corporate matching for donations, just send us an email at steven at relay.fm because you can double your donation that way. The RelayFM podcast-a-thon for St. Jude will be happening on September 17th from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern time, Eastern U.S. time at twitch.tv slash relay.fm. Tune in to help us support St. Jude and donate today at stjude.org slash relay. Let's cure childhood cancer together.

Brad: Awesome. When you think about raising $1 million total, where does your mind go to? Because it's amazing. It really is. I'm so proud of y'all in this community.

Myke: Well, we're all a part of it, right? We're all doing our part for this. So, yeah, this is our third year. We crossed $200,000 raised yesterday evening, which was what we needed to go over a million over the three years. You know, we'd raised $800,000 in the last two years. And we got to a million now in three years, which is just, I mean, it's astounding. It was an incredibly emotional evening last night. Me and Stephen streamed live on Twitch to talk about it and celebrate it a little bit. I'll put a link in the show notes to the video. We also set off some confetti cannons in our respective studios, which caused much distress. So, if you want to see what that looks like, it will be a Twitch replay for the next couple of weeks. But I'll put a link in the show notes. Cool. So, people can go there. And plus, that's where you want to go to follow the channel. So, you'll be able to watch the podcast as well.

Brad: Yes. So, Penn Addicts are doing our part. And with the help of a bunch of great friends in the community, we're doing a raffle to raise money for St. Jude. We'll have a link in the show notes to the original post. Myke, I'm going to have a second post, an update post out today with even more wonderful prize donations from our good friends. So, we already have my field notes collection, which I'm going to say this quietly and secretly. We're efforting the full run, like the 36 through 51. I think we're going to get the whole thing done by the time we're done. But I'm not going to lock in yet. But I think we can do it. So, I'm working on that.

Myke: Oh, my God. Really?

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, we're going to have a full run from the beginning to the current edition of field notes.

Myke: That's going to be big moves if we get that sorted out. I hope that's happening how I think it might be happening.

Brad: It is not. But it is happening with wonderful friends of the show. Wow. That's even better. It's a lot easier when I have all the hard stuff taken care of. We can all chip in and make the current stuff happen. Right. So, we're going to get that done. We have the Carolina pin, spoke pin, eyedropper insert. We have the Canalea pin, Kona Cherry. We have the Kassama Tala Ultum from Mark Backus, the nib grinder. We have the Shown Design Ultum from Shown Design. The new editions. We have a Good Made Better Pinwell, the Craftsman, Myke. The big, nice one with the brass bass in deluxe galaxy black from our friends at Good Made Better. We have four, Myke, four Opus fountain pens from an avid Opus fountain pen collector in the community who wishes to remain anonymous. Thank you. And then we have, I have at least three more things I'm trying to finalize by the day is over. And I get this new post up. And that's not all. That's just the stuff I'm going to get finalized.

Myke: By the time we finish this, everyone's going to win something.

Brad: With some of these offers I've had, we could. But I don't want to ship that many prizes. That's incredible. But no, we have a bunch of stuff coming in, a bunch more prizes. If you want to participate, you donate through, what's the link everyone should go to, Myke? Stjude.org slash Relay. Go there and make your donation. Every $10 you donate, you get one raffle ticket. And the way I'm keeping up with this is you forward your receipt from your donation or a screenshot or something of that nature to Stjude at penaddict.com. And then I'm collecting all of those receipts for every $10 you enter. You get one raffle ticket entered into a spreadsheet. I have 93 emails currently I need to sort through.

Myke: That's incredible, though. That's 93 donations so far. That is, I mean, I will say, like, you know, we're always astounded every year. This year, like, we genuinely cannot believe how much we've raised to this point. Like, it really, like, last year's goal was a quarter of a million.

Myke: If things continue, we might get there before the podcast-a-thon even begins. That's true. We're at $212,000 right now. It's truly astounding. Like, you know, I'm not going to start crying again. I did enough of that last night. We'll save that for me later. Yeah, it's just, it's unbelievable. Like, it means so much to us that everybody gets on board with this.

Community Support and Donations

Brad: And I just want to give a special shout-out to everyone donating prizes. And I'll make sure the blog post is updated and everyone gets to see the new stuff today. And there will be more. Like, this is not stopping anytime soon. You have about two weeks to get in. It wraps up on September 21st to get your donation receipts in to stjudeatpanatic.com and be entered in the raffle for what's turned out to be dozens of awesome prizes. So, there you go.

Myke: You'd be wild not to do it. Like, you know, it's an incredible cause. And you can get an entry for just $10 with all these prizes. I mean, come on. What are you waiting for? Yep. All right. You ready to do a show? I sure am. Thank you, everyone, for putting up with all of this, too. Like, it means a lot to us that you listen to it.

Brad: It really does. Like, no joke. Like, this is, yeah. I could just go on forever about this community and how awesome y'all are. And we appreciate that y'all allow us to do this and are actively participating in this. So, it's great. All right. I want to give a Yovo nib update, Myke. Sort of. Like, everything I feel like when I talk about Yovo, hey, what's going on with Yovo? Everything's like in air quotes, right? Like, I feel, yeah, kind of. Yes, sort of. Well, we at least have a large needle-moving update from sort of Yovo themselves and mostly MeisterNibs, the U.S. distributor. They obviously have, MeisterNibs, that is, has a big need to push this with Yovo, right? Because they're the ones in our community that are getting hammered because, you know, Yovo is essentially out of communications reach, right? So, everyone's going. And they're the distributor, right? MeisterNibs. They're the distributor in the U.S. So, there's a post from Brian and Meister. We'll link it in the show notes.

Brad: Basically, Yovo is committed to replacing every housing that Brian owns currently. My word. Yeah. Including replacing all of the replacement that he has already taken upon himself, which I can't imagine the extra work going into doing this, which is where I'm super grateful for him and his staff. You know, replacing all the broken ones out in the field, right, from people having broken nibs, which is, I mean, excuse me, broken housings. So, in the hundreds and hundreds.

Brad: And then Yovo coming around saying they theoretically have it fixed, so we're going to send you, you know, stacks and stacks and probably thousands of these housings to replace.

Myke: Have, like, solved their issue, right?

Brad: Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to give, like, a capital Y yes, but, you know, based on their latest Instagram post. Their second Instagram post. Their second Instagram post.

Myke: Which I love. I love that this account only exists. Yeah. They're just going to keep posting the same image every time. And it's just their logo. And then it's like, hey, we're here to talk about the next issue.

Brad: Yeah, it's like a visual performance art account, right? It's just going to be the same picture.

Myke: It's like, you know, you see those, you get, like, the AI-generated things. It's just, like, AI-generated apologies.

Brad: Yeah. So, I'm going to read the main piece, and it's not the whole thing. It says, we found that in a small percentage of housings, the plastic tended to break. As a result, the injection molding process was changed by the manufacturer so that this defect will no longer occur. The primary cause of the issue was the operating temperature of the injection molder and a few production runs. Okay. All right. So, supposedly fixed. And then, Yovo, the way I read the Meister Nibs post, is just going scorched earth with the old product and flat out replacing it with new good housings. That's the idea. So, shout out to Brian and Meister Nibs for stepping up, taking on a massive amount of work. I cannot tell you how intensive it is to change that many housings because you have to pull the nib in the feed and then swap the housing. That sounds easy.

Myke: I mean, it's not easy to do it just at one of them. Like, it doesn't work that easily. Absolutely.

Brad: And doing that a hundred times. Like, I can't, I still have trouble with my wrist removing those. Like, I can't do them in bulk. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. So, I know that it's just a complete pain and just time consuming. So, thanks to Brian. Hopefully, this gets us over the hump and on to good products and consistent quality products from Yovo again. And that's why we loved them in the first place. And this was a failing on their part. I think they're doing the right thing, though, here, Brad. Yeah, yeah. The only issue is it took them too long. And this is the small maker versus the faceless company, right? You just can't get the communication that we, being you and I in this community, have face-to-face with problems with the people that we support when we're dealing with, you know, a company, with a board, you know, on a stock exchange. You know, that type of communication relationship. It always takes longer than we want it to take. I mean, you know, there's like... We got there.

Myke: Maybe I'm... I don't know why, but I'm giving them maybe a little bit more benefit than that, which is just like, maybe they just didn't know what the problem was. And it's taken them this long to try and work it out. And what are you going to say? Sorry, we have no idea why this is happening, you know? I don't disagree with that. Yes, that is a route you can choose to take, but you don't... Yeah. I don't think that there's one way to deal with these things, you know? And this might have just been the best way they could deal with it, you know?

Brad: Yeah. It just never ends well, even if it does end well, when it gets to the point where it looks like the yelling made the difference in the result.

Myke: That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so there is definitely a way to do some kind of intermediary communication, but I don't know what... It's hard to know what the right thing to do is. And ultimately, like, there could be an argument to be made that it was always going to end up at this point anyway. So, like, you know, like, you know, as you're saying about the yelling making the difference. Like, if they would have said, like, we don't know what the issue is, people were still going to be yelling at them. So, like... I agree. Yeah. Like, ultimately, was there any outcome other than this one? I don't know. I don't know.

Pen Design Critique

Brad: Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything you're saying. Yeah. It's... I'm glad there's some movement in the positive direction, which I feel that's where we're at now. We'll see. What is the phrase?

Myke: Like, damned if you do, damned if you don't? Right. Like, I feel like sometimes you're in that. That's kind of just where they are. I mean... Mm-hmm. But for me, always, always, the ultimate is how it's resolved. Like, that's the important part. Like, it's how it's resolved. Mm-hmm. I mean, and it feels like they're going above and beyond to resolve this. Yeah. Like, that's quite an aggressive way of resolving it. Like... Yep.

Myke: Proactively shipping them to fix. You know, because they could just say, hey, if you have an issue, you contact us, and then we'll send you one. We'll send you one, right? Yeah.

Brad: This is essentially... They're going to zero out the old inventory and put in the new, and hopefully we're all golden from that point forward.

Myke: Yeah, especially if you believe them that it's a percentage. Mm-hmm. Well, like, if it was just a percentage, and I'm sure it is just a percentage, because I have... You know, because I think that's been the case, right? It's not been every...

Brad: Yeah, but I mean, percentage of them, for them is tens of thousands of units, I'm sure.

Myke: Yeah, yeah, but what I mean is, like, they're not, like... If it is just a percentage, then you could just say, like, okay, if you come across any broken ones, we'll fix them. Right. But going this route of, like, we're just going to replace the whole thing, that's a huge cost. Yeah, that's good. So... But this is, I believe, is the right way to do it. I think they're doing it the right way for their customers. Yes. But, you know, I think it's worth just noting that, like, that's quite an investment they're making.

Brad: Yep. Yep. So hopefully we're all good from this point forward.

Myke: All right. Let's take our first break and thank our friends over at Squarespace for their support of this week's episode. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to help you build your online presence and run your business. They have everything that you're going to need, from website building tools to online store functionality, marketing tools, analytics, domain name registration, SEO and email marketing tools. They have got it all. There's nothing to patch, install or upgrade. With Squarespace, when you build your website there, you'll get unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security and dependable resources to help you succeed. They combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Whether you want to showcase your work of a portfolio, publish your next blog post, really get the word out about your new business. Maybe you want to announce an upcoming event. It doesn't matter what type of website you want to make. Squarespace has everything that you're going to need to make it beautiful, to make it modern, to make it awesome. You start with a professionally designed template, use drag-and-drop tools to make it your own, customize the look, the feel, the settings, the products, everything with just a few clicks. And all of their websites are optimized for all kinds of devices, so it's going to look great no matter where your customers are coming from. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support, so if you need any help, they're going to be there for you. I really love Squarespace. I've used them for as long as I can remember now. They are my first stop when it comes to putting something online. I know Brad's the same. I know Brad has a bunch of websites over on Squarespace, and it's purely because they're just the best place for us to put our stuff. It's fantastic. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict. Then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad: I think we need a new name for this segment that's about to happen, Myke. Okay. The one segment that seems to be more frequently occurring is the segment where Brad gets angry about things that don't matter. You – Oh.

Myke: So I saw this – So we're going to talk about a post that Brad put on Instagram, and I read the text yesterday, and I was surprised at your anger. So this is in relation to some new Pokemon-branded Energel pens. Yeah. I'm going to read. I'm going to do a dramatic reading from atpenaddict on Instagram. When you grip the pen normally with the clip facing outwards, all you'll see is the most massive, ugliest barcode logo and details I have seen on a pen like this. It's egregious, disrespectful, and the designers should be embarrassed.

Brad: Did you like that? That was good. That was good. That was you. So this came out of a Twitch stream yesterday. I was doing an unboxing, and I pulled the pen out, and I'm like, oh, sweet. Look at this Pikachu pen.

Myke: The artwork is stunning on these. I love it.

Brad: The color choices.

Myke: Just the way they draw the Pikachu. It's like unfinished. It's like sketched. It looks really good. Yes.

Brad: It looks great. And then I turned it over to start to write with it. I clicked the knock, and I was like, wait a minute. All I see is this terrible logo, barcode, and descriptions on the pen. I was like, is that an accident? Can I twist any of this around? Can I move it? Can I peel it off? And I was like, no. That's what you see when you write. That's what's visibly apparent. And I lost my mind because it caught me off guard. I was like, really, the first I grabbed the pen, and I go, oh, man, cool, Pikachu. This pen looks fantastic. I love the colors, like the one I'm using. The first one I grab is like brown and yellow and off-white, and it's just really extremely well done, like you said. And then I went to use it. I was like, this is abhorrent. I don't know any other way to say it. It's like if someone took the back cover of a book and used it for the front cover, right? It feels completely backwards. There's no redeeming value to this pen visually when you use it as pens are intended to be set up, right? I find it very upsetting.

Myke: The thing that upsets me the most is just that you print the barcode. Just stick the barcode on. Everything else would have been fine. The text and stuff, it's got its own flair to it, you know? It's part English, part Japanese.

Brad: Yeah, but it needs to roll around to the backside.

Myke: I mean, I agree with you.

Brad: I mean, Pikachu can't be under the clip, but it has to be rotated.

Myke: There has something. There should be something going on. But the thing that annoys me the most is the barcode being printed on the pen. Because that's not something you always see. I feel a lot of the time it is a sticker, and I don't know why they felt like they needed to do that.

Brad: Yeah, and I thought it might be a mistake, right? And I grabbed the second one out, second one that I ordered, which has, it's like three different Pikachus. He's doing a, have a swell time. Pikachu is what it says on here. And it's laid out the exact same way. So my gut tells me that this is what the future will look like once our robot overlords take over, Myke. I don't think a human being had any idea that this happened. Interesting. Because there's no way that anyone in their right mind would have sent this out into the market. Because it's essentially backwards, right? This is like, it's a pen wrap, right? So the design gets designed in a wrap, and the wrap rolls around the barrel. Well, in this case, it's a very specific notch cutout for the clip. And I just can't imagine the artist or the designer or Pentel or anyone approved this to leave. And I guess they just assume that like, Pokemon anything is going to sell. So we just Pokemon all the things, and we stick them in the robot, and we shoot them out. And now we have Pokemon Energels, and they're on the counter, and everyone picks it up and goes, Oh, Pokemon, this looks fantastic. Which it does. That's why I ordered it. And then you get it home and use it, and it's like, oh. Well. It looks like a bunch of crap.

Myke: I might really like, what I see is like, it was approved as an image. Right. But then when you use it, you see that maybe it's not ideal. But like, the image in the packaging looks great.

Brad: Doesn't it? Right. It's one of the better looking designs. If you like using the clip jammed into your hand while you're writing with a pen, this is the pen for you. This is the pen for you. So anyway. All right. That's my segment on where I get mad about things that don't matter. Cool. I will not get mad about the Pilot Vanishing Point Black Ice 2021 Limited Edition. Although I'm not doing like handstands and cartwheels for it. What do you... Do you remember the Pilot Vanishing Point, Myke? That's what I feel about this release. What are your initial thoughts when you see this?

Myke: I mean, I'm over this. I was over this pen a long time ago.

Brad: I think that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So what are they going to do to make us not over this anymore? It looks great. Like, bar none, it looks fantastic. There are also five editions into this gradient type of color or so. So what we learned a couple of years ago is every year there is a North American and European Pilot Vanishing Point Limited Edition. You know, we've seen these in the past. Um, 10 years? I don't know how long. And every other year, the design rotates between a choice of Pilot North America gets to choose the design for the year. Or Pilot France gets to choose the design for the year. That both regions get. So all of these gradient color ones come out of Pilot North America. And then all of, like, the black, like, the guillochet ones and, like, the black stripe ones, you know, with the designs. Those all come from France. So you can tell the alternate years who made what. And this is a little bit resting on your laurels type of thing. This is what has worked for the past decade. Or in the case of the gradients, maybe the past six or eight years. And it's going to work this time. Um, the price keeps creeping up there. We're up to $257 on this model. Which is fine. Like, it's not great. Like, the regular vanishing points are, like, $160, $170. Those have even gone up. But it's just, like, marketing is funny. And design is funny these days.

Brad: Because we are just hammered all the time with new stuff. And then Pilot keeps releasing the same old stuff. And I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Like, it's, like I said, it's what's worked in the past. But I want them, let's, can we do something different, you know, in 2023? Like, let's, you know, I have faith in you, Pilot. You know, believe in your North American market and your European market to kind of try something different. Right? I just want them to try something different. Like, I get it. Instead of, like, next year giving me, you know, the orange and white creamsicle vanishing point. I would probably love it. But I would never buy it. I want to buy another vanishing point. And this ain't it.

Myke: I'll tell you what I would need. Well, not need, but, you know, they need to redesign this pen. It's old now. It just looks old now.

Myke: To me. Like, I've seen this design for so long.

Brad: How about update instead of redesign? You're losing me on redesign, but how about update?

Myke: Yeah, that's kind of what I mean.

Brad: I know what you mean.

Myke: The profile of this pen needs to change, I believe. Okay.

Brad: I won't argue that the Decimo is not a better pen. It's a little bit narrower.

Brad: You're not going to get any argument from me if you say the Decimo is the superior version.

Brad: Yeah. I don't know what you do. You know what I want to see? If we're going to do this, if we're going to keep this size, give me a raw metal one. Like, just lean into some crazy metal design, right? Because it's a brass underlying pen. Give me something. And I'm talking to you, France. You have done the more subtle black ones and black and white stripe ones and the classic ones. I want you all to strip it down to the bare metal and etch it or do something.

Myke: The saying in the Discord about going back to the faceted design, that I would be more interested in.

Brad: I would. And I would like to see them do it metal on a metal barrel because the old faceted designs were plastic barrels, right? And that the old faceted designs were more of the Decimo size, a little bit thinner. And I still think that's the best design.

Brad: And they use the same internals, too. So, I don't know why there's, you know, that focus on the two different models. I wouldn't mind going back to the faceted but do it in the metal body. If you gave me, if you strip this down to the metal and faceted it, oof, man. I don't even know how many of those you'd sell. So, like, this is just another vanishing point. It's great. I think this one looks awesome. Yeah. Just, like, it's fine. Like, but I'm ready. Like, I'm ready. Like you're saying, give me something new. Redesign. Update. Make me want the vanishing point again because I still think it's one of the great pens. And I have, like, the two or three that I like. And I just don't have any intention of, you know, getting another gradient.

Planner Recommendations

Myke: And what you're saying is they need to strip it for parts. Strip it for parts. So, it's good for now. Strip it for parts. You know, like, I think, for me, I think the thing, I feel like you could have shown me this pen and been like, hey, do you remember this one from last year? And I would probably say yes.

Brad: Yeah. I think that kind of puts a point on it. Yeah.

Myke: You could very easily trick me that this was last year's special edition. Mm-hmm. So, I think that's the issue that they have now.

Brad: Yeah. It's just. And like Rich Dix is saying in the chat, if it was cheaper, we would love them more. Yeah. I mean, we used to get these for, like, $140, $150.

Myke: Yeah. I mean, I remember when it was around that. Because I remember $150 or one, you know, like, something less than $200. I remember it being, like, a big deal for me because it's the most I'd ever spent on a pen, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But now the price keeps going up. And I don't really know if it warrants that anymore.

Brad: Yeah. So, like I said, it's good. They will sell out completely. I don't think it's that outrageously priced. I think that's just the way the market is these days. I'm not going to. I will get into Sailor more about their pricing than I will about Pilot on this LE. But, I mean, it's getting up there. That's for sure. So, anyway, I think it's just time. I think we're both in agreement. It needs to be freshened up if you're going to continue moving forward with the Vanishing Point as an anchor product in your product line.

Myke: Mm-hmm.

Brad: Speaking of anchors, like the Zebra Sarasa R might be a boat anchor. I don't say that happily. I reviewed them recently on the blog. And they're fine. And what the Sarasa R is one of the new, again, marketing-focused pens like the Uni Ball 1, where both Uni and Zebra have decided that we, as consumers and stationary fans, need a gel pen that's jellier. It needs to be, have more jelly brightness in its colors. And they're saying, Uni Ball saying the pigmentation is richer. And Zebra saying we have 27% more color density. And I'm just going, gel pens and colors are cool. They all look kind of good. These don't seem special. So, I just wanted to point that out. If you like the Zebra Sarasas and gel ink pens, the Zebra Sarasa R is a good one. You're going to be fine with the Zebra Sarasa clip. If you like the Uni Ball pens, the one's a good pen. I love the design of the one. I love the design of the Sarasa R. The Uni Ball RT1 or the Signo DX. They're just, they're going to be as good, if not better. And this is pretty much marketing.

Myke: I prefer the design of the Uni Ball one. I think that that's a very slick looking pen.

Brad: It's awesome. I like, out of these two pens, with these two high color pigmentation ink formulations, which is what they're selling, the Zebra Sarasa R is a better writer than the Uni Ball one. I love that Uni Ball one barrel, though. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring this up. I, this is like a, I appreciate like the marketing and the R&D that goes into like trying new things. Like, I always want companies to try new things. But this is, I don't think these high pigmented color versions of existing pens are going to like really move the needle forward. Like, I don't think they're going to like really stick the landing. Like, they'll exist for a little bit. And then they'll just kind of fade away when the next whatever marketing thing they want to do that R&D comes up with. So, they're not enough to move the needle past what's already really good pens, right? Each of them are fighting against themselves in what are really, really good gelling pens. They're having to beat themselves. And it turns out, to me, they're just cannibalizing themselves. Like, well, it's not that much better. So, we'll see. I just wanted to point that out. So, that review is up. People have been asking me about it. Asking me about the 1 and the R. Like, do they make a difference?

Brad: Maybe. But the trade-off is worst performance. And that's these two pens in a nutshell.

Myke: Worst performance how?

Brad: The ink goes on the page wider. And it's a little spreadier. And it oftentimes bleeds. And it just doesn't feel great when you write with it. That's more for the 1 in the feel. The Zebra Sarasa R actually feels normal. The Uniball 1 feels almost glossy when you're writing with it. It's weird. It's hard to explain. It doesn't feel like a traditional pen. Where the Zebra Sarasa R feels exactly like the Zebra Sarasa clip to me just from a writing perspective. But the ink performance is worse than their standard gels, if you can believe that, on both of these pens. Hmm.

Myke: And you reckon it's something to do with the formulation? Like, why do you think that's... It's got to be. Okay. Yeah.

Brad: It's got to be the manipulation of the formulation, which I can't really speak on. They're both saying... One's saying saturated. And one's saying denser. So, same idea, right? Right. And whatever that change is, is making the ink not as universally good as their standard gel ink pens. Okay. That's it in a nutshell.

Myke: This review was particularly full of puns.

Brad: I didn't notice that. I mean, the one I noticed. The second one, I did not notice. I guess that's just how ingrained... Pens are punny to begin with. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, you just can't help it. And sometimes, like, it's obvious and I notice it. Sometimes it just happens because I've done it so long. And it's just like, oh, well, I guess that was a thing I didn't even notice I said.

Myke: You said on paper, figuratively, not literally. We'll get to that in a moment. Yep. Okay. And does the 27% more color density make a big difference on the page? Not in my book.

Brad: That was a great one. That I had no idea. That's good, right? That was, like, legitimately good. I had... Until you put that in there, that did not register with me when I wrote it.

Myke: It's a great quote that you had literally zero to do with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. But it's good writing. You should embrace that. It's good.

Brad: I'll work on that. Yeah.

Brad: All right, Myke. Let's try to spend some of my money. I'm going. I'm going right now. What do you got for me?

Myke: I'm going to talk about our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have everything you're looking for, from the very best rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, to mechanical pencils, to pen holders, refills, converters, carrying cases, inks, and so, so much more. Pen Chalet are constantly adding new products to their site. Come on over! What's happening over there?

Brad: I opened up the link. All right, keep going.

Myke: My word, you scared me, Brad. There must be a good deal over there at Pen Chalet today. They have a very fast and reliable customer service. Oh, I'm freaked out now. You know you do that thing when your adrenaline goes? That's where I am at right now. Sorry, sorry, mate. Maybe it's just because I'm so excited about Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet. They're always adding limited edition pens, accessories, everything that you're going to want, they've got over there, over at Pen Chalet. They sell internationally with great shipping rates, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com, that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website. You want to enter the password penaddict? This will get you a code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet, as well as these apparently incredible special offers.

Brad: I haven't gotten past the first one, because the Scribo Puma fountain pen is something that has been on my radar for, I don't know, I would say a long time, but they haven't been around that long since they launched. Wow, that is a good price. So the issue with this pen is, number one, myself, and I'm including myself in this commentary, not a lot of people know about Scribo, right? They're a relatively new company, and they start on the high end of the writing spectrum, right? They're not ramping you up like a lot of companies will start you at the lower ends, then say, hey, here's our medium range, and hey, here's our high-end pens. They start straight at, hey, everything we do is a high-end pen, right? So the Scribo Feel was a model that came out at least a year ago and was well-received, well-loved, a lot of Omos design ideas here. And then they came out with a second model, which I saw on the list today. It's called the Scribo Puma. And what this pen is, is their simple, basic pen. Smaller, straightforward shapes, you know, standard cigar shape, standard clip, really nice acrylics. And guess what, Myke? Very expensive, right? So I'm a fan of the Edison Perlette. But it's a smaller acrylic barrel pen. And it costs about a third or a half of what the Scribo Puma costs. With a steel nib. Now, these Pumas have 14-karat gold nibs. Flex nibs, even, I think. And I love the design. This is like my design. You want to know why I like Nakaya? Nakaya, well, you look at one of these Scribo pens and say, boy, that's a great design, but it's too expensive. And, like, that's a lot of the Nakaya thing, too. So, like, this pen really speaks to me. But I've never even considered ordering one, because I thought they were just too much money, too expensive. And, yeah. Thanks, Ron. Ron went and he did a thing. There's some colors. He did a thing.

Myke: Like, what's the name? I need to find the name of this color. It's like a really pale blue. Mm-hmm. Do you know the name of that color?

Brad: Yes. I just had the whole page up, and I accidentally closed it. Hang on. I will get it for you. There we go. But, yeah, there's, like, two solid colors and two, like, acrylic kind of marbly colors. So, the solid color is what? Altrove? No, that's burgundy. Ratio.

Myke: Mm.

Brad: The solid color one or the acrylic one? Oof. So, Altrove.

Brad: Yeah, it's hard to get the name. Is it Utopia? Which one? The blue one? Yeah. The blue one is...

Brad: Ooh, I think it's Liev. Liev. Liev. Okay. Gray blue? I don't know.

Myke: Yes, that one. Liev. Liev. Liev. I wouldn't call that gray blue. I don't know why it's called gray blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a good-looking color. So, it's nice pens. I can see why you freaked out, considering that price is really good.

Brad: You know what, Myke? They have some other good stuff on this list, like the Pilot Knight rollerballs, which I need to try. This is, like...

Myke: Our friend Danetto's back again?

Brad: Our friend Danetto, yeah. But the Pilot Knight ballpoint is, like, this vanishing point, if we turned it... Not the... The vanishing point does have rollerballs and ballpoints, but the Pilot Knight is, like, the low-end pretend vanishing point, and it's, like, 15 bucks. It's, like, crazy. Like, if people want, like, a good writing pen, you know, just... That's not a fountain pen, something they can just throw around and mess around with, that's the ticket. Then they also have some of the Platinum Presidents down there, which I know some people like that shape and feel of the Platinum President over the 3776, which you don't often see those on. Not my President. So, yeah. All right. So, I got some looking to do after this show, and we'll see. We'll see what's up.

Myke: Penchalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast. Link at the top of the website. Use the password, PenAddict. Our thanks to Penchalet for the support of this show. Relay FM.

Brad: All right. I want to do a little quick 101 planner talk, because it's that time of the year, Myke, where all the 2022 planners starting to come out. Don't I know it. Don't you know it. And I'm going to talk to you about planners, too. Yeah. But I really... Now, I'm starting to get questions, right, about planners. What should I buy? What should I do? Things like that. And it's impossible to cover everything going on in the world of planners. They're very particular. And it's really close to, like, what's going on in the world of pens. There's so many planners. There's so many pens. There's so many different options that fit your needs. Mm-hmm. So I want to kind of lay out some basics here that if you're considering buying a planner for the first time or considering changing what you already use, here's a couple things to consider. Right? So I want to start with you, Myke. And because you're not a traditional planner user, you have digital planning, which we're going to talk about some in here. And then you have daily writing in the theme system, which would not fall under the planner category in my mind. Is that fair?

Myke: Sure. I'm a digital planner and a paper journaler.

Brad: Yes. So that's exactly how I would put it to. So what I want to talk about is the people who want to take that digital planning style and move it onto paper or have it complimentary like I do.

Myke: Right.

Brad: So that's the first question you have to ask yourself is, do I actually need a planner? Am I buying this stationery as a lot of us do just because it looks cool and I've heard nice things about it and, you know, I just want to try it out? Well, planners are kind of hard to do that with because they're a commitment. Like if you buy a pen and you don't use it 24 seven, well, it can sit there and you can pick it up again when you need it. Planners don't work that way. Planners you have to use at least on the daily, maybe on the week, depending on how you set things up. So they're more of a commitment. Do you need that commitment? Are you happy with your digital setup? Are you happy with your blank notebook or your note card, whatever you use on your desk to keep track of what you do? Who knows? So ask yourself that question first. Then if you need a planner, if you think, hey, maybe this paper planner would work. That's when like the real questions start to happen. How simple do you need it or how complex do you need it? Because let me tell you, you can get every single bit of every single thing that you want with that. So, you know, do you need just a starter type of planner? An open layout planner, right? Just some general days and dates like Steyology or Hobonichi. They're essentially, you know, kind of one blank page per day and you can do whatever you want with it. You can integrate a bullet journal style, you know, to help you lay out your days. You can just have it more as a task list to do list. You can have it as part tasks, part journaling. You can have it all journaling. You know, that's the simple layouts. Then you can go all the way on the other end to something like a Jibun Techo where you have a two page spread of a seven day week where each day is vertical and each column is separated into 30 minute sections for a 24 hour day, right? Can you imagine filling that out? And I've seen some of those filled out and they're amazing looking, but wow, that's an intense commitment to your scheduling. And like that's only part of what the Jibun Techo does and part of why it's popular. So think about doing some research and how I would do it and how I did do it when I was looking to change is I sketched out my own layout. I just took a blank notebook and said, what would my perfect layout look like? Okay. So I get out this page and I'd lay it out how I wanted to. For me, it was like an hour column down the left hand side broken up into 30 minutes, but not for a 24 hour block from like a 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. type of thing. Um, and then on the same page on the, that would be on the left half of the page. Then on the right half of the page would just be essentially an open column for notes. And I would sketch that out for a couple of days, try it, modify it, change the layout and say, okay, this is my idea of what would work for me. Does this layout exist? And in my case, it did. I mean, I knew that ahead of time, but I wanted to write my own or sketch my own just to see if there was something I was missing or to see if something I wanted different. And it turns out that like the layout I like, I wouldn't say it's super common, but you can find it like it's reasonably common. So do that, you know, do you need an hour, you know, hour by hour column on your page or not? Do you need check boxes on your page or not? You know, what is your single page layout? Do you need your whole week over a two page spread? That's how I used to do it, right? I would have smaller blocks for individual days down the left side. Left side would be seven days horizontally, not vertically, like in the Jibun Techo. And then the right page would be for notes for the entire week. And then I can, I move that into a page, one page per day with time slots and notes. So you got to play around with this stuff. So that's what I suggest. Figure out what features you have to have. Figure out what's unnecessarily unnecessary and figure out like what's extra. Like some notebooks have, you know, big swaths of open note space, right? You can go, like I've said, the Jibun Techo to me is like one of the most high maintenance type of planners where they're very detail oriented. And then you can go all the way to the other side of the ledger and stay in the planner, planner realm with the Hobonichi Techo Day Free is what they call it. It's essentially has your monthly calendars in the front for the year, like the two space, two page spread calendar page, and then like 150 notebook pages, you know, journaling pages. I don't know the exact page count. So like you can get all of these things. That's like just a big open layout type of thing. So I got an email that kind of prompted this. And this is what you want to think about when you're looking at planners and how myself and other people in the community can help you kind of narrow down your ideas because it's always, layouts are always changing. What you might have used from Leuchtturm for five years might not be available anymore, right? They might have changed the layout some and now you're looking for something else. So I got, someone's looking to switch planners and they gave me the very basics of what they need. And I like this. So this is from Marty. It says, I want A5, which is the size of the notebook. That's one thing I didn't talk about. These come in all different sizes.

Myke: Mostly A5 though, right? I feel like it seems to be a pretty standardized.

Brad: Yep. A5 and then B6 is pretty common, which is slightly smaller. And square, maybe not square. That's probably the wrong term, but a little bit smaller than A5. And then a lot of the Japanese brands will do like the A5 slim where it's a little tall and narrow. So, but like Marty says.

Myke: We love non-standard size in our own.

Brad: I like, they pretty much made, they all ganged up to decide that A5 slim is a thing. So Marty says, I want A5. I want one page per day. That means like when you open your notebook, you have two pages facing you. But on one page, say on the left page is today. And then the right page is tomorrow. And then you turn the page and it's the day after that. It's on and on. So that's what one page per day with our stickers along the left side. So like, you know, just our timestamps printed on there. Kind of like, kind of like mine is honestly what he's saying. And then to-dos along the right side of the page. So maybe a more lined approach on the right side of the page for a to-do list type of writing as opposed to me having an open page where I can do whatever I want. I can create my own to-do list.

Ink Bottle Designs

Brad: And then he also says, I want fountain pen friendly paper. That's another question you have to ask yourself. And then I want to spend between $30 and $35. Like that's kind of everything you need to say, does this product exist? And I think for Marty, like something I don't know off the top of my head, but it wouldn't take me long to kind of poke around. And I think we can get pretty close to the check marks that Marty has asked us to tick off here. And like that's the kind of things you need to be thinking about if you're thinking about a planner.

Brad: You know, just kind of lay it out yourself. Just do some chicken scratch on some blank pages and say, hey, does this work? If it does work, does it exist into a product I can purchase? And am I willing to commit to that for a year? I've found it to be helpful for me, the way I schedule things, to have a paper planner, which shouldn't come as a shock to anybody. But yeah, it's complex and difficult to go planner shopping. So if I can help in any way, let me know. I'm glad to. And then I'm going to end this off with a question for you, Myke. And a question for chat, which they can hit me on Twitter or email. And I'm curious. And I posed this to Twitch chat and I assumed what the answer would be and I assumed correctly, but I was a little bit surprised. For someone who has used a lot of planners, for someone who has used a lot of pens, if you're searching for a new planner, is the first thing you look for your first requirement, the planner layout or the planner paper to use with your pens that you love? And I think the obvious answer and the answer that most people answered was the layout, right? Because what good is a planner if the layout doesn't work for you? But I think the opposite could be said, well, what good is the layout if the paper sucks and you're just frustrated using it the whole time? Would you switch pens to use a better planner layout?

Myke: It depends how better we're talking. Right? It's not that easy of a question. Right? I mean, the way you're describing it, I mean, you seem pretty positive, but I feel like Marty wants something super specific. And if you can find that thing which is so specific, but it's like the thing you've been looking for, maybe it's worth making some trade-offs for the perfect thing.

Brad: Right.

Myke: Like, for example, so I make the Theme System Journal, right? And it's kind of funny, like you were talking about like, oh, you went out and made your own layout. I mean, you ended up working with like getting it sorted with William Hanna. But for me, again, this is journaling, not planning. But I wrote out my own journal layout in a Hobonichi, right? Yes. I do it my own way and realized that I actually think this could be a little bit better for me. And so I ended up designing and producing a product around that. And then building it out to be like, it's the system first. And then there is the product, right? That you can buy and put the system into effect if you think it will work for you. Yep. Yep.

Myke: But I know that the paper that I use is not as good for my fountain pens as Tamari River paper. Mm-hmm. Because that's not the product I'm making. But I'm happy to be like, well, I'm going to use paper that is by and large better for most people rather than focusing on just like fountain pen performance. Because that's not the product that I'm selling. Like the product that we make is meant for everyone. And Hobonichi Techo is not for everyone. Right. Right. It's like you got to kind of know our audience a little bit. Right. But that's kind of what I'm saying is like for me to get the perfect layout, I was willing to accept not as nice an experience as a full-on fountain pen paper would get me. Where I use a more generic paper, which I think performs great with fountain pens. But it's not perfect, you know?

Brad: Right. So this puts a bow on my final point. But you're almost never going to find the perfect planner. Right. You're going to have to make some, you know, exceptions to the firm, fast rules that you have to get into a planner that works the best for you. Could be one layout item on the page doesn't suit you, but, you know, 85% of it does suit your needs. It could be that you're a hardcore fountain pen user and the paper is only average for fountain pens. So you might have to switch it up a little bit. That's the biggest thing you want to think about with planners. Like you and I can find the perfect notebook that works for everything exactly how you want. When you start adding planner details into a notebook, that changes. Right. It's hard to absolutely nail a planner 100% perfect.

Myke: Because now we're talking preprint. Right. Like that's the thing. You can find the perfect notebook. But I mean, and then I guess you could just draw it out yourself like we've both done.

Brad: Well, that's why bullet journal is so popular because you take your own and then you dial it into yourself. So, yeah. Planners are complicated and complex. And that's why we always talk about them so much. Because I find them interesting. Just the design decisions, design choices. And that's how they actually help me do my day-to-day work. Where years ago, I didn't have like a planner. And now I'm into it. But I'm not like, I'm more on the basic side of the ledger than the G-Boom Tetris side of the ledger. But I do find them useful. So, I wanted to put that out there now that it's, this month is when you're going to see most of the next year's planners launch. And so, we're going to have a lot of questions on that. So, I just wanted to kind of put a little, few little nuggets out there for you to think about if you're shopping for planners.

Myke: Yeah. Hobonichi's up already.

Brad: Yes. Hobonichi's out. The G-Boom Techos are next week. I don't have the dates in front of me. But you're going to see pretty much everyone in like the next four to six weeks have their 2022 stuff out.

Myke: Man, I hope one day I can do this kind of thing. It's like a goal for me. Like, you know how they have these big things. And it's like, here's the next year. And these are all the accessories. And now we've got the different colors. Like, oh, man. That's a dream for me, Brad. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. That'd be cool. You know? Because we could do. It's like, oh, it's theme system season. Like, we started. I mean, yeah. Like, you know, like we are, if people do it, they buy them all year. And we do sell them all year. But we're expecting the biggest time of year for us is always going to be the holidays. We're going to find out. This is like, you know, we get there. Like, we have no idea what it's going to be like if people are going to jump on board again, hopefully. Yep. Please. Yep. Call us to be much.com. And it would be amazing, like, one day to be at that point where we're like, oh, and this year you can get in this color and this color and this color. And, you know, man, it'd be awesome. Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

Brad: I'd love to see it.

Myke: Yeah. I mean, I would too. All right. Let's take our final break. And then we'll answer some USTPA to finish out today's episode. This episode is brought to you by Harry's. Hey, if you're heading back into the office now, maybe you're getting out into the world a little bit more again. It might be time to start thinking about getting that fresh, clean, all business look. And Harry's can help you. If you don't know Harry's, it's time you do. They were created to be different from other shaving companies. And they craft high-quality, long-lasting blades with durable weighted handles that make a close, comfortable shave quick and enjoyable. And because Harry's insists that you shouldn't have to choose between a great shave and a fair price, they give you both. With refill blades starting as low as $2, it's an easy decision. And new Harry's customers get their starter set, which includes a five-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and a travel cover. It's a $13 value for just $3. Plus, Harry's offers a whole range of amazing face and body care products, all delivered right to your door that I know Brad Dowdy is a big fan of.

Brad: I mean, just look. Look at me, Myke. So beautiful. I mean, come on. Seriously. Harry's made that. Yeah, Harry's.

Brad: Body by Harry's. Yeah, I am a huge Harry's product lover. I think I am getting deeper and deeper into the Harry's ecosystem as the years go by because I love the blades, right? I love the handles. The shave is the best I've had in my life without a doubt. And then, you know, I've mixed in a few of the other things that I've checked out, including my favorite hair paste ever, Myke. I mean, come on now. Come on now. That's important stuff.

Myke: That is good stuff.

Brad: Beautiful head of hair over there. Thank you.

Myke: There's never been a better time to try Harry's. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to get this starter set for just $3. It's 100% satisfaction guaranteed, so you've got nothing to lose. That's harrys.com slash penaddict right now to get this special offer. Go there. Check it out. That is harrys.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and Relay FM. All right. We're going to finish out today with some hashtag Ask TPA. Okay, questions. The first comes from Lachi. I'm going to say. LACCI. I keep forgetting to ask about the Morning Glory muck 3 being discontinued. How's the Morning Glory pro muck? Is it a good replacement? Are there any other fine tip rollerball gems hiding out there?

Brad: I get a crazy amount of questions on the Morning Glory pens.

Myke: I don't know anything about this pen.

Brad: And I'll tell you why I get the questions and why you don't know anything about this pen. It's because it has a combination that you rarely see, which is a 0.38 millimeter tip with a rollerball ink. Right? So it is a liquid ink, not a gel ink, not a ballpoint, and it's a needle tip.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: So the famous pen in this category is the Pilot Precise, either the V5 or the V7. Those are world-renowned, famous pens. But no one's really done something comparable in a 0.38 tip size. Well, Morning Glory did, I don't know, many years ago. Gosh, I don't even know how long ago. Probably the last six, seven, eight years. And they were great. Like, it was like, oh my gosh, this is actually comparable to the Pilot Precise. It is that good. On top of that, they mixed in, you know, different colors. Like, I had a bunch of blue-black ones, still do. You know, and they do pink and oranges and purples and things like that. And they worked. Like, that's one of the highest compliments that I can say about a pen like this, is that it really, really worked when you wouldn't think it did. So people fell in love with them. And then I can't answer why they went away or why they're not available anymore. Maybe, you know, they're just not getting imported into the U.S. anymore. Maybe they don't exist anymore in their home market. I don't know. And I haven't tried the ProMock Rollerball. I would wager it's just as good. But you can tell by, number one, the design of this pen, and number two, the offerings, that they have kind of reined it in a little bit. Like, this is back to the basics. Office-style pen, three colors, blue-black-red. Still .38. I would imagine the tip and ink technology is still good, so they should be good. But it's unfortunate we don't have access right now to more what the original one used to be, the Mach 3. Which was, like, it was just like this beloved pen, almost like a cult classic type of pen. And that once people discovered it, they didn't, you know, they wanted to know where this pen had been all their lives. So it's a really great pen. And, you know, I assume you're going to do okay with the new model. But it's just a little sad knowing what we used to have with that pen and how great it was. And hopefully it's not gone-gone. Hopefully it's just maybe an access thing. I haven't looked at the sourcing to see if it still exists out there.

Myke: I actually have one more question. Do you have any recommendations on grips to add to pens and pencils to people with arthritis or repetitive stress injuries? I have several friends and family members who have asked me, and I don't know where to point them.

Brad: This is a tough question because there's no real pen addict-y answer to this, if that makes sense, right? The stuff that we're into, I can't say. Well, if you're into, like, all of the things that we're into, these are the type of grips you want to buy that are add-ons and accessories. To your existing pens, right? And that's what we're looking for here is the add-on, not the pen itself, which they're mentioning, you know, they can recommend, you know, the wider diameter pens, the softer grips. Like, I always recommend the Uni Alpha Gel. But wider grips help with that. But as far as the accessory itself, to go on top of an existing grip, it's just not out there in our world, if you will. Like, you can find the basics at any store, and I'm sure that's what Lachi has done, is just taken what's available. And what's available is not that great, what they're finding. But there's not actually an upgraded version of that in our world that I'm aware of. So if anyone has used anything, I know a lot of people will reply with, like, their custom and, like, at-home made stuff, which I've gotten a lot of feedback over the years on, hey, I made this for my pen. But as far as a more widely accessible thing, I really can't name one, unfortunately.

Myke: Yeah, it feels like almost like some kind of gel or, like, putty that you could put on the pen would probably be better, right? Because it could go on any pen and be shaped the exact way you need.

Brad: Yeah, there's definitely some stuff you could mold around. Yeah, mold.

Myke: That's the word I was looking for, like something that you could mold around the pen.

Brad: Yeah. I just don't know, like, what the one is, you know, from my perspective.

Myke: So we would love to know if anybody has a suggestion because it's a really good tip. Yeah.

Brad: And we definitely have listeners who would know this or into this thing and trying to solve these problems. So reach out hello at penact.com and I'll pass this along.

Myke: This comes from Debra. I use it to be eco and love it. Of course, why wouldn't you? My favorite ink is Vert Prix by J.E. Bon. Do you buy a generic ink bottle that is a shape that makes filling easier? If so, which one? The J.E. Bon bottle is large on the bottom, which makes it impossible to fill from once it's two thirds full. So, Brad, do you know of or do you ever buy, I guess, another bottle to decant the ink into so you can actually fill it more easily?

Brad: I love this question so much. This is a very pen addict-y podcast question. Mm-hmm. Because this makes every bit of sense for someone to do who has a commitment to a singular ink that they love the most and use the most. Right? So, in my situation, my decanting is grabbing one of the 200 bottles I have sitting on the shelf and just inking from there because I'm not that monogamous in my ink relationship. Right? If I were, I would definitely get or find a bottle that was perfect for me and replace the ink that I loved in their not-so-great bottle and put it into the more accessible bottle. And what you get, what a lot of people will do is if, say, you know, they love Orochizuku ink. Well, that's, okay. If they love Sailor ink in the ink pots, right? And those are traditionally poor, poor bottles to fill from after, you know, the first few fills. They're just short and flat and you can't really get the nib all the way in there sometimes. Would you get an Akramon bottle and after you've used that up, pour your Sailor ink into that? I was like, I would 100% do that, like, if that was an option. You know, I don't know. I think that's what a lot of people will do is they'll empty out the one ink bottle they love the most and then put their most favorite ink into that bottle. And that saves them from having to dry to buy a new bottle. But, I mean, you can just buy empty bottles.

Myke: Maybe this makes me particular, but, like, I couldn't put the ink from another brand into another brand's bottle, if it were. I would want to get some kind of plain bottle instead.

Brad: As weird as I am about things, that wouldn't bother me.

Myke: Interesting.

Brad: But I don't know. Like, you can find the generic ink bottles and ink wells, which you would look for. Like, if you were searching for it online, you'd look for an ink well, not necessarily an ink bottle. And you would get returns of, like, bottle-shaped designs for you to fill your ink from. A lot of them were designed for dip nibs, so they still may have some of the depth problems in the bottles that you're running in. And two with a Jair Balm. But you could start your search that way. I just don't know.

Myke: It never ceases to amaze me how many ink bottles are not good for filling pens from.

Brad: It's crazy, right?

Myke: And I kind of can't understand that. Like, why? Yeah. If you're going to make a big bottle, which I don't necessarily think is a great thing anyway, because the bigger the bottle is, the harder it is. You need to come up with some kind of system, like the Akamon system. Yeah. Where it's the little chamber in the top that you actually do the filling from. Right. If you have a huge bottle of ink, like, the Hiroshi Zuko big bottles are like this. Like, you get to a certain point, and it's like you're doing some kind of gymnastics to try and fill the thing.

Brad: I get so much joy from bad ink bottle designs. It's just almost a given, right? Especially when someone's trying to be unique with their ink bottles and not just doing something standard and going, this actually takes three hands to fill.

Myke: It's like, it makes you wonder, like, have you actually used it? Are people using this product? And I know that sounds so redundant.

Myke: Redundant isn't the word, but you kind of know what I'm getting at. But, like, it just sounds reductive. It sounds so reductive as a thing to say. But sometimes it's like, well, I can't understand otherwise why it is this way. Like, if you've ever used a product like this, you would understand how at a certain point, people are just going to get frustrated with your design. And if people are frustrated with your design, they're probably not going to buy it again.

Brad: Yeah. I think we need to get the Pokemon Energel designers to make an ink bottle for us all.

Myke: They'll just put barcodes all over it.

Brad: It would be upside down.

Myke: I was going to say, the good design's on the bottom.

Myke: So you never actually see it.

Myke: I have one last question for you today, Brad, before we wrap up. This one comes from Matt. Matt wants to know, how long can you store ink before it will spoil or degrade in quality?

Brad: As all great answers go, it depends. Right? So, in general, with nothing going on, there's no reason your ink shouldn't last you like a decade. Or, you know, five to ten years. Whatever. Just random, perfect situation. It should last you a long time. Like, you shouldn't hesitate to use it after years and years and years and years. The problem is, we have ink stored in different manners, in different lights, in different temperatures. And manufacturers that use different properties and chemicals to keep their ink happy and healthy.

Brad: That we don't know, you know, we may not have extended test runs on. So, without getting into, like, all the chemistry stuff that I don't know, you should assume that if you're buying a bottle of ink and you're storing it properly and the temperature's, you know, managed and it's not in the sunlight for 12 hours a day, that it's going to last you as long as you're using the pen or paper that you're going to use. I wouldn't put it under, like, a good ten years or so. Like, it's just not going to go bad in a reasonable use time frame. Cool dry place. Cool dry place. All my ink is stored in a dark closet. You know, go in, turn on the light, grab my ink, and leave. You know, just don't leave it out. Don't leave it in somewhere where the temperature's going to change a lot. And don't leave it exposed to sunlight a lot. And it's going to last just an infinite amount of time. I would not worry about it unless you're in an extreme situation, an extreme environment, or have an extreme ink. So, yeah. I don't know how to answer it better than that.

Myke: So, it's fine for me. If you'd like to send in a question for a future episode of the show, it's very easy to do so. You can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. Or you can email that question to hello at penaddict.com. Thank you so much for checking out this week's episode. If you want to find show notes, you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 478. Thank you so much to Squarespace, Penchelet, and Harry's for their support of this show. I recommend that you all go to stjude.org slash relay. Make a donation to help support the mission of St. Jude. And when you do, send your email receipt to stjude at penaddict.com. And you'll be entered in to our raffle for St. Jude, which is going to be super great. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to spokedesign.com, penaddict.com. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. Brad on micro.blog. And Brad streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Do not forget to check out the St. Jude, RelayFM for St. Jude podcast-a-thon. On September 17th, starting at 12 p.m. Eastern Time on twitch.tv slash RelayFM. We'll see you there. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. We'll be back next week. Well, Brad will. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. next week. Well, Brad will. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.