The Pen Addict 492/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	492
Title:	I Can Tell You Don't Like It
Release Date:	December 15th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 492
Audio File:	Audio Episode 492
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 492
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 492. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello. Hello. Who is this? Who is this person on the other end of the line? Who could it be? Hi.

Brad Dowdy: We have chatted, you know, over these last couple of weeks, but it's always different when I get to sit down on a mic, and I haven't heard from Myke on the mic in a few days. Two weeks. How are you? Two weeks. Like, we've done it a million times before, but, you know, I just miss you that much, Myke. Oh, amazing. You're so sweet. I mean, last week I totally forgot about you because I had, like, the greatest guest ever in Annabelle Hiller. I don't know if you've had a chance to listen to the show. So, how good was it? Really great. On a scale of 10 to 10.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Annabelle's Episode Recap

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, that was a really, really fun episode, and I've been wanting to talk with Annabelle on the show for quite some time now. I think her story is amazing, and she's doing awesome stuff, and I wanted to share it and get her on in chat. So, it was a huge, huge thanks to Annabelle for doing that and making the time. Yeah, we had fun. So, I don't know if you caught one certain part of it where I need you to coordinate the London Pen Show one week apart from the Dutch Pen Show so I can travel to both on the same journey. So, I'm going to need you to work on that next year, okay?

Myke Hurley: What happened to the Capital Pen Show?

Brad Dowdy: It was their first year was going to be the 2020 year. Was it? It was going to be year one of that. And so, then I have not tracked what's happened from then with that particular show. I just know that the standard, what's the London writing equipment show?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, Luez.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Luez has been back on their twice a year schedule now, but no peep from Izod or whoever was running. Izod's who I think was running that, the Capital Show, if they're going to reboot and come back and get that on again. And I have not looked into that, so I will be looking into that. That might not be a going concern. Yeah. Which would be a shame. Yep, yep, yep. So, anyway. Good stuff from Annabelle and I hope to talk to her online again, you know, on the podcast format because I just think she's super cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I just went on the Capital Pen Show's Instagram and their last post was 90 weeks ago. Yeah. Talking about needing to postpone the show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So, that was the summer 2020 where we were in peak, like, shut down.

Myke Hurley: June. Yeah. It was supposed to be in June. Yep, yep. Shame. But yeah, no, I really loved the episode. I really loved everything Annabelle was talking about. She seems super smart. Yep. And it was also just like a different view into a different world. Exactly. A little bit than maybe what we're used to. Especially being, like, more metal. Like, that she's focused more in metal. Oh, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That show was very metal.

Metal Show Cursing

Myke Hurley: Always very metal. More cursing than maybe any episode of The Banner Addict ever.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, that's how we run. When we do a metal show, I mean, we're just going to throw down.

Myke Hurley: Which was very funny to me. So, sometimes I have the very wonderful Jim Metzendorf edit. He's a wonderful podcast editor we use at RelayFM. And sometimes if we have guests or we do double episodes, I will have Jim help me by doing the editing. And I sent him your edit notes, which included places to bleep. And Jim said to me, Annabelle's over there keeping peng podcast real.

Myke Hurley: And as I said, I'm very intrigued as to what caused such energy.

Brad Dowdy: So, Annabelle does not know this. But she told me, we're going to give some behind the scenes here, Annabelle. So, you'll forgive me. But I think she will enjoy it. She told me at the beginning, she's like, I cuss a lot. And I'm like, that's cool. We'll edit it. I was like, I cuss a lot too. But I've also done this almost 500 times and can meter myself a little bit. I swear a lot, usually.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have conversations with me when I'm recording. I do cuss a lot.

Brad Dowdy: So, she warned me. And I was like, yeah, not a big deal. We'll just edit it out, whatever. And then I just didn't tell her when she did it. I just wrote down the timestamps. So, I knew I had to send it to you. And then I never told her afterwards. So, sorry, Annabelle. We got you now. That was fun. That was fun. But yeah, y'all enjoyed my edit notes this week, right? Very much. Yeah. This is what you have to do every week. Yes. Yeah. I don't enjoy that part. I do more edit notes than you do, obviously. Yeah. I forget everything. Like, I'm just busy trying to talk words. And like the edit notes, I was like, oh, yeah. I'm supposed to write down when that ad read started. And I just nope right out of that.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. There was one part that I wanted to talk to you about because Annabelle mentioned that she's a fan of Formula One, like me. Yes. And then in the refill newsletter this week, you commented that you've been binging Drive to Survive.

Brad Dowdy: It's on. Like, it's official. Yeah. It took like almost no arm twisting for me to engage with this content. Yes, Brad. It's kind of fascinating me how quickly it happened. Right. Because I'm a sports fan, right? Like, I am a sports fan. I have my sports teams and I pull for sports ball. And like, I like that type of competition and all that stuff. So like, you know, I got into the Premier League a few years ago, but like that was something like that took some time, like over, like I know I would love the Premier League or soccer, just worldwide soccer. If I took the time to understand it a little bit more and like I got there, it was good. This was like, I like, I've never been into any type of racing and or motor sports. Mm-hmm. And I was like, there's no way. Like, I don't want to like get involved in this. Like, it doesn't seem like it's going to grab me at all. Like, what's the point in all of these things? And then like you just hear like from yourself and from just other people I follow about how Drives to Survive like really changed how people, you know, took in this sport. And I was like, I just finished two very long television series, right? I just finished rewatch. I finished watching The Wire, which was five seasons. Yep. Which I had never seen before. Then I finished watching Boardwalk Empire, which was five more seasons, which I had never watched before. I was like, I need a break from that type of show. Let me pop on season one, episode one, Drive to Survive. And by the second episode, it's like I'm completely invested. I'm completely invested in my hate for Daniel Ricciardo. Interesting. I'm completely invested in everything else that's going on and learning about understanding like the best way to put it for someone who doesn't understand F1 is how important seventh place is. And once you kind of grasp like, and that's just like an arbitrary number. It's like how important the non-winners are and how much emotion is tied into those things. Best of the rest. You can't help, but you can't help, but be hooked. And I was immediately hooked. I'm in season three now. Watch my first race this weekend, which was complete madness. I watched the whole thing.

Myke Hurley: I actually didn't see it. I was on a plane. I don't want to talk about it. I'm so pleased. I didn't see it. Okay. I don't want to talk about it yet. We won't talk about it. I'm yet to get over it, honestly.

Myke Hurley: And I know that me and Casey are going to have to talk about it on Analog this week. And I think I can only have this conversation once this week.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, definitely. So yeah, I will let you have that.

Daniel Ricciardo Discussion

Myke Hurley: Do you still dislike Daniel Ricciardo?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know. I just think he's...

Myke Hurley: I would say season one of Drive to Survive doesn't do a good job for him, honestly. He seems like a pretty nice dude. He's fine. He's completely fine. I wanted to maybe give a differing opinion. Annabelle said that Drive to Survive was really inaccurate. I wouldn't paint it that way. I would say that it dramatizes some things. However, Formula One is an incredibly dramatic sport. Like from a... And this is kind of what I like about it. Like I like the racing, but I also like everything around the racing too. Right, right.

Brad Dowdy: The thing about Drive to Survive is if you watch a lot of TV or that type of entertainment product, you see how... You see very quickly how edited it is to fit the narrative. And if you don't have that in the back of your mind, I can see you like people like losing their minds over it. But just like, oh, like these people hate each other. It's like, do they really? Or did you just edit that? Because this is pretty questionable.

Myke Hurley: There's definitely one of these where they kind of... They try and play up some things to be more than they are. Like they said, they over-dramatize it. But I wouldn't say it was necessarily like really inaccurate. But it is just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. They pull on some threads more than is necessary. Like there isn't actually a thread to pull on, but they keep trying it anyway. But Drive to Survive is the reason now that like the sport is going through a massive resurgence. Plus, this year has been incredible. Like this season has been... I mean, a lot of the commentators are saying like this has maybe been the best year ever for Formula 1. Yeah. With the title contention. It is just such a shame how it ended. Yeah. In absolute BS. Yeah. I nearly needed to be it.

Brad Dowdy: You'll save that. So I'll just say that I'm glad I'm coming in in an off-season. So I'll have some time to get my education level up. Yeah. I think...

Myke Hurley: In like March, February or March, Drive to Survive Season 4 will come out. So you'll be able to catch up on this whole season. Yeah. That was kind of what happened for us. Like we got into it in... Like we watched Drive to Survive Season 1 and 2 maybe or at least 1. You know, we watched... I think it was Season 1 we watched in January. Then we got Season 2 in March. Then we were all ready for the season to begin. And it obviously didn't for a long time. Right? Because of COVID. Yeah. And so, yeah. So then we got into it in 2020 when the season began in the summer.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So Season 3, Episode 1 did not age well with the pre-COVID getting ramped up.

Myke Hurley: Season 3, Episode 1 is amazing. It is, I think, maybe my favorite episode of the entire show. Really? Yeah. Just because of the way they set up this time where nobody thought it was going to be a big deal.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And everyone was acting a fool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And they were messing around with it. And it was like, this is what everyone was doing then. Right? Like nobody thought this was going to be a real big thing. You know? Or it was like, do I have to wear this face mask? That's ridiculous. You know? Because that was March. Right? So like Formula 1... It was February. It was February when they recorded it. So like it was before anything. Yeah. Right?

Brad Dowdy: Because I was still traveling then. Right? I was in Baltimore at the end of February 2020. Yeah. So yeah.

Myke Hurley: It seemed like, oh, this might be like a swine flu kind of situation. Yeah. Where like there's a health thing going on, but we don't dramatically change our lives. Yeah. But I liked it. And what I also like in Season 3, this is such an aside now. I apologize, everyone. Yeah. This is anytime anybody mentions Formula 1 to me now. I just want to talk about it for two hours. Mm-hmm. Um, but, uh, uh, what I like about the whole season is they don't keep coming back to that well. Okay. Good. Like they do the COVID stuff in Episode 1 and then they get on with the season.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I must be on like Episode 3 because they're just getting back to the first race. Yeah. Where they just, they just like air gap the whole like downtime, which however many months that was. Yeah. They just go from like, this is probably going to happen and then we stop and then the next episode is here's the first race and then they just go.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I like it. I like, I like that they did it. So it's like, here is this, um, here is like this time period. Here's how it began. Here's how it's changed the sport. And then they're like, now we just get on with the season. And like, they don't really spend a lot of time at all talking about COVID. It's like, it's not, it's because the season continued. Like the only times they come back to it is like, spoiler alert, drivers got COVID. Mm-hmm. And so they come back to it then, you know, but.

Brad Dowdy: Well, heck they still had a COVID test this week. So, you know.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. My Japan was out. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: So anyway, that's, uh, that's our drive to survive segment. I am hooked. Um, I, what I enjoy is not as much like the, the, the soap opera Nesso, although I do enjoy some of that, but I really enjoy the, the, the, the big company money aspects of how they're managing these teams. Yep. And it's kind of fascinating. So I'm enjoying that. And the, and the, and the engineering. And the impressiveness. You are starting at the perfect point.

Myke Hurley: Because next season, so many rule changes are happening. Yep. Like the cars are going to look different and they're going to act different. This was all meant to happen this year, but they pushed it a year. Yep. So you cut, you actually join in at a really great time.

Brad Dowdy: Good. So yeah, I'm going to spend some time over these next few months. I'll be ready for, uh, for, uh. And there's going to be two US races next year. Oh yeah. Where's the, oh, Miami, Miami. Yeah. I forgot about that. Interesting. I can drive to Miami.

Myke Hurley: You could.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

Myke Hurley: Let's, let's, let's take off a break and then. Hey, are we on? Is this thing live?

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Myke Hurley: This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. Do you remember that? We do pens around here. They're not, they're not tire chalet or anything like that. It is the wonderful people at Pen Chalet. Because we know that really what you're interested about around here is pens. And Pen Chalet, oh boy, have they got the pens. From all of your favorite brands, you can get Pelican pens, you can get Pilot pens. Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco, Lamy, Monteverde, Estabrook. The list goes on and on and on and on. And they're an authorized dealer of all of them. They're adding new products all the time from new companies and new types of products. Whether you want a rollerball, a fountain pen, a pen holder of refill, ink, carrying cases, every type of accessory, every type of product you're looking for, Pen Chalet has got it. Always go to Pen Chalet first for a few reasons. One, they do 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high quality products. They do special discounts twice a month. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US. They sell internationally with great shipping rates. And because you listen to the show, you can get 10% off anything at Pen Chalet by going to PenChalet.com and clicking the podcast link at the top of the website and entering the password PenAddict. And you will get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. And also, you will be able to peruse some special offers only for Pen Addict listeners. Like what, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: Right out the gate, the Colorverse Nebula 2020 weekly planner. The Colorverse Nebula notebooks are getting rave reviews across the Pinternet. I have ordered some for myself to test. Anyone who has written about them for the Pen Addict has loved them. And people outside of the Pen Addict family have told me how much they enjoy these notebooks. So this is the planner version for 2022 at a really, really good deal, practically half off. Also, one of my favorite products is well known on the show, the Caran D'Ache 849 ballpoint. So Caran D'Ache, I actually haven't even seen these Style 3 Claim Your Styles version 3 ballpoints. But the Claim Your Style version 1, version 2, and version 3 all have a really big sale going on right now at Pen Chalet. And that's about as good as price as you'll ever see on these pens. They sometimes get a little bit discounted. But this is even, I have a Pen Addict edition 849. And these retail for more. But after the discounts that Pen Chalet are running right now, they come out to less. So that's a really, really good price for really one of my favorite pens. This is one of those endless lists that just goes on and on and on. There's some really interesting gift items in here. There's actually one of the Cross Classic pens. You know, the basic skinny cross pen. They actually have a really updated version that's pretty inexpensive. You know, it's like, I don't need that pen personally. But maybe you have someone in your life that needs a stocking stuffer. And that looks like a pretty killer pen for a pretty great price.

Colorverse Nebula Planner

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, like, I can't even get to the bottom of this list. The Diplomat Arrow rollerballs are a huge percentage off. The Penider Metropolis rollerballs with all kinds of different colors are, like, it's non-stop. So definitely go check out PenChalet.com right now. Use the code PENADDICT. And there is something there for you, I promise.

Myke Hurley: Thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this week's episode.

Brad Dowdy: So when are we going to start talking about pens and the different colors as their livery?

Myke Hurley: Oh, also it's livery.

Brad Dowdy: Livery. Yeah, sorry. I'd rather say it livery. But I heard something like livery. I like it. We should start doing that. Like the sailor livery. Sailor livery. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We have some hot off the press, literally, a topic to discuss today. And this relates to an envelope I received in the mail from one of my good Pen friends who happened to be at the Tokyo International Pen Show and happened to acquire me some of the Sanzen Tomoe River Successor paper, which I just opened yesterday on stream. So we can put in a link to my recap of the stream. So if you want to see me testing inks and kind of giving my long form rambly thoughts on my first look at this paper, you can do so. But I have it here in front of me, Myke, and I would like to discuss it if that's good with you. I would, I desperately want to know. First off, my good friend Jacob at Fooday Fan, go check out, we've included this link to his review of the Sanzen paper that's up on his blog. I haven't had that amount of time to spend with the paper yet to do a full proper linkable review. But Jacob's is fantastic. He goes through all the different tests that you would want to see in testing out this paper compared to the version 1 and 2 of Tomoe River paper. So go check out what Jacob has to offer. So my first look was throwing ink at the page with a folded nib, right? So I'm putting a lot of ink on the page. And then I did a little bit of writing. So for round two, I'm going to do a lot more writing because that's what really most of us use this paper for. But the idea with this paper is to recap, Sanzen is a manufacturer that bought Tomoe River in name from Tomoe Gawa Paper Company. So Sanzen is the new owner of the Tomoe River brand with the intent to make a similar paper to the famed original Tomoe River paper that fountain pen fans love and rave about and is used in a lot of products.

Brad Dowdy: There's been a long road to get here from a stationary fan perspective, right? So Tomoe Gawa stopped making, stopped using the original machines for the Tomoe River paper that everyone loves. And that caused some problems because their replacement was very poor. It was not representative of the original at all. So it's been a challenge ever since then to see, hey, are we going to have something similar? And I think Sanzen has done a really good job here.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to start at the end and then we'll go through it a little bit. It's not as good as the original Tomoe River paper, the 52 GSM. But that's relative, right? Like it doesn't have to be, right? What it is is a really...

Myke Hurley: There's a lot of headway. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: What it is is a really, really good paper that's going to do a really good job as a replacement. Like I would... I don't know that I've called any of the other Tomoe River options a replacement or finding any other brand as a replacement to the original Tomoe River. This is about as close as it can get. It handles ink really, really well. You see all of the character you want to see in the inks from whether that's shading, sheen, you know, just how, you know, the color is... The brightness of the color on the page. All of those things are really, really great on this new Sanzen paper. If you have to keep comparing it to the original 52 GSM Tomoe River, that paper does all those things better, right? It's not a fair comparison at this point. Because like that's going away. It just needs to go. Because I don't think anything's ever going to match. When I put these side by side, it's clear there's differences. But that doesn't mean that the Sanzen paper isn't exactly what the market needs. What they're trying to figure out is how to make this thin paper that's really great for fountain pens and stationary users specifically, right? So the companies that rely on the old Tomoe River paper that is going to be no longer available, I think will be very happy with using this paper for their products. I'm talking about like a Hobonichi or any notebook manufacturer that has previously used Tomoe River paper. What I see out of this paper is really high quality fountain pen performance, right? What I said in my Instagram post is you don't get the highest highs of like the peak shading or sheen that you would get like a 10 out of 10 on the 52 GSM old Tomoe River. It's like an 8 out of 10 on the Sanzen. Do you know how good that is? Like it's really good. Not a lot of papers can accomplish that.

Myke Hurley: This is what I was saying about headroom, right? Yeah. It doesn't need to be as good to still be basically the best. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I think what I see so far is this paper is going to do really well. It's going to, people are going to get this and go, oh, okay, good. I like people are going to say, I'm good with this, right? If they pull up a sheet of the old paper, the 52 GSM and put it side by side, they'll go, yeah, I see some differences here, right? It's not like an exact match, right? It's not the same formula on the same machines and the same, you know, the, the same air and the same air quality and humidity and all those things. Like it's just not, but what it is, is really dang good. And I think it's going to do really well as whatever air quote replacement you want to call it. And like, that's, I really, I'm going to bang this drum again. And you, you were on the other side of this coin. They got to shake the Tomoe River name completely. It has got to go. And I, I hope for their sake, it has to go because if you keep that name, all you can do is ever compare to it is compared to what came before the Tomoe River one, Tomoe River two, and this people will just call it Tomoe River three, right? The Sands or Sands and Tomoe River. And if you have that name, like I understand you bought the branding, but this is a different product. It's, it doesn't compare, you know, it's a hundred times better than whatever the, the catastrophe that Tomoe River two was, but the original Tomoe River paper is still like one of the greatest fountain pen papers ever. But for like a very particular audience, right? Like the, the one in 2% fountain pen user audience understands what Tomoe River 52 GSM original is. And this is not it, but this is a heckin good paper, right? It is going to be that replacement. It's going to do really, really well for those applications where this type of thin fountain pen quality paper is, is going to be right. There's no feathering, no bleeding, you know, none of, none of the, the negatives. Um, this paper doesn't have any of those downsides of any performance related downsides, right? It just doesn't have peak color and shading and sheen that the original had. So long story short, they have something here for sure. And I think we'll start seeing this in broader stationary use hopefully next year. I don't know anything about dates or anything like that, but if what I have in my hand, as far as I'm concerned, is, is ready to go. Like, I think people will be very happy with this paper and, um, it's, it just needs to be a standalone product and you have a standalone mindset when you're using this. Like, I feel like it's, it's really, really good. Um, just don't get caught up in forcing to compare it.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I've said before, I think they should, I think they should keep the name, but I think maybe what they should actually do is riff on the name. Yeah. Like, I don't, I assume Tomoe River is a place. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I don't know the, the whole, I just know Tomoe Gawa, uh, the original company. I don't know the actual, like, um, entomology of the, of the name.

Myke Hurley: Cause like, I don't know, like you could call it like Tomoe Air Paper or something. Yeah. You know, I, but I, I personally, I would still say, um, keep the name.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, uh, last couple of things on here, like I did a bunch of ink testing, right? And it's funny. It's like some of the inks perform better on one, on the Sanson compared to the old 52. Some perform worse and some perform the same. It was like really interesting. It was very ink dependent on how they, they, they worked. Like I tried a very, a sheening ink. So I tried the Diamine Iridesc Ink Phillip. Those almost performed identically. Like you could see just as much sheen on the Sanson paper as the Tomoe River paper. But then I tried Kyanit Dune Paul, which is a shimmer ink. And it's not the shimmer that made the difference on the page, but like it took the color differently on that ink on that ink on the Sanson paper was, had different character than the ink on the old 52 GSM paper. You know, um, worse in my opinion, you know, it didn't show as much of the ink characteristics, but then something like Kala Armada, which is a very shading ink and a lighter ink. It had a ton of character on the Sanson paper and was a little bit flatter on the original. So it was very hit or miss as far as like exact, did they behave exactly the same on, on each, each page? It was like a weird yes, no, maybe kind of situation. So, which tells me it's like, it's going to be very good. Um, overall and overall paper, it's going to be very good. So, um, I will do more testing. I'll do a proper test. I'll do a lot more handwriting. Um, again, I was just spreading ink around and, um, I have some questions about how the Iron Gaul inks behaved on the Sanson paper that needs more testing. Right. Like I, I don't think they did a good job. Um, like the, the chemical composition of the Iron Gaul did not behave near as well on the Sanson paper as they did on the 52 GSM. I, I, and I don't know why, right. I don't know why that is, but that was a clear difference in, in paper. But again, overall, it's going to be great. I think it's going to do really, really well. And people, you know, 95% of the stationary users who use this paper will be thrilled. And then, and then, you know, we'll hear about, you know, forever comparisons to the original Tomoe, um, which is fine too. Like that paper exists and it's, it was popular for a reason, right? It should, should be beloved. But yeah, um, this is a different paper and it's good.

Brad Dowdy: You wrote a review of the Lamy Zivo. Oh, I'm going with Zivo. I haven't, I haven't heard them say it.

Myke Hurley: X Evo.

Brad Dowdy: X Evo. What is this pen? I even spelled it wrong.

Myke Hurley: Where did this come from?

Brad Dowdy: Um, out of the ether. Um, when did this come up? Um, we were looking at a different pen just recently when this one came out at the same time and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I was like, well, what I, I had the same questions as you as like a Lamy super fan. I was even like, what is this pen? What are you telling me here? You know, what is going on? I couldn't even tell from Lamy's original pictures. And I alluded to this in my review is like, is this a metal pen? Is this plastic? Like, I didn't know for sure until like I saw the price. Like, is this a $50 pen? Is this a, you know, $25 pen? Is it metal? Is it plastic? It's a plastic pen and it's $10 and it's freaking great. It's like they really did a good job with a really basic pen. And it's not always easy to do when you're someone like Lamy. They have, you know, some of the biggest design chops in the whole industry to make a really simple entry-level pen, make it well and keep it at a decent price point. You know, $10 for, you know, most of us in the stationary world or that are listening to this podcast, that's a pretty inexpensive pen. I understand, you know, relative to like a Pilot G2, it's a very expensive pen. But, you know, for what we talk about on a daily basis, this is a dirt cheap pen and it definitely plays above the price point or at least delivers for that price point. So it's a triangular barrel. I also wasn't sure about that when I got the, when I first ordered the pen, how did the triangular grip section play with the rest of the pen? So it kind of, it's one of those that kind of morphs as it moves towards the end of the pen, like the end of the pen turns round, right? But towards the, towards the tip, it's triangular and that allows a good grip. Like it makes a good grip. Like not everyone's going to love it.

Myke Hurley: It reminds me of the things that you would, when you were, when I was learning to write and you'd put like this rubberized triangular grip around a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And those work because you can rotate them, right? Unlike the Lamy Safari, that's not a rotating in your hand pen. And which, you know, you could argue that fountain pens are not pens you're going to rotate in your hand anyway. So that grip works for the Safari, but this is a ballpoint, use a ballpoint refill and people just, you know, habitually just turn those pens in their hand when you're right. And at first I was like, oh, like, this is interesting. Like the, the clip, it kind of hits my hand when I have it in this position. I was like, oh, wait a minute. I'll just turn it. And it's perfect. I really like this pen. It's like kind of hard to explain why other than maybe I didn't expect it from Lamy, even though they do a really good job at the low end. Like the high end Lamy is where most of my angst lies, right? Like, you know, gold nib pen Lamy is where, you know, I struggle with what the brand's doing, even though I would like to see them do more at the low end. And the high end is, I think, where they're, they're falling short of the, just the general consumer or the, or the, the picky stationary consumer that listens to this show. But this pen for 10 bucks, sign me up. The, the only like downside is this is a reasonably proprietary refill, right? It's a ballpoint pen. Not everyone's going to like that. It's not going to be compatible with Parker style refills. It's got this really particular design element to it where Monteverde has actually made refills because Lamy uses this refill shape so frequently. Monteverde does have a few different colors, but you're really, you're really tied into a ballpoint refill with this pen. But I could see this being like the Lamy Tipo for, um, for Lamy where, you know, every year they make two or three colors of it. If it, if it does well, and the Tipo is a rollerball platform and this is a ballpoint platform. And, you know, maybe, you know, next year we get like a, you know, they start mixing up the colors and, and see how it goes. I just think for $10, it's such a good pen, really well executed by Lamy. And I'm just like, I'm impressed that at this, that it's at this price point to be perfectly honest. Like it doesn't feel, I mean, don't get me wrong. Like you, you pick it up and feel it. You don't go, Oh, this is a $60 pen. It's not right. But for what it is, it's really darn good.

Myke Hurley: Did it, what? Did it just have it in this gray?

Brad Dowdy: Oh, there's a black one right now. So gray and black. I mean, it's Lamy. Come on. Huh. But like, there's no, with this plastic barrel, it's, it's basically, you know, just the two piece. Yeah. Two piece barrel that I don't see with this material, why they just couldn't be in whatever color they wanted it to be. Yeah. It's not, but it's also Lamy. But with the Tipo, the Tipo, they mix and match. And with the Pico, the Pico has a metal barrel. That's the weird retractable pen. You know, they do all kinds of wild colors in that, fluorescents and metallics. And with the Tipo, they do the same thing. And they have a few pens that they like to do that with. And this is just the most basic of all of them. Like literally the most basic of all of them. Like there's no reason.

Myke Hurley: Is this a cheapest pen?

Brad Dowdy: I think so. I think the Tipo is like 13. I'm trying to think if they have anything sub 10. I don't think they do. I think this might be. Which is good. Like you're making a statement like with that. Like, I don't think you do that unless you plan on continuing to do that. Right. In my mind, $10 pens don't work as, hey, this is a one-off. Right. The $150 pen is like, hey, that's a one-off. Right. Let's just, let's do this. And like, it's whatever happens, happens unless something, you know, really goes crazy. But like you make a $10 pen and just, it's so easy to just do more. If they were received well. And I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be received well.

Lamy Zivo Pen Review

Brad Dowdy: Like this is the perfect pen to, you know, like everyone knows what those Lamy displays look like. I mean, this is just going to look good in those displays. They design towards the display.

Myke Hurley: And it will look even better at $10. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And then it'll look even better when they do purple and blue and yellow and line all them up there for all the Lamy boutiques. And someone comes in and just passing is like, well, I don't want to spend $30 on a fountain pen, but $10 on a ballpoint? Give me two.

Myke Hurley: And there's some updates for fountain pen companion, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Urban is gone off the deep end here. So the fountain pen companion.

Myke Hurley: Even more than already.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I love Urban. Urban is like, he is on it. So he's been, he's been messaging me in the background as he's been going through this process. But what he's done is actually link reviews on each ink product page, which like sounds like a simple task. But right now there's 7,500 inks cataloged on fountain pen companion. And he already has 20% of that number with at least one review of the ink from, you know, somewhere, you know, like my blog or Kelly's blog, Mountain of Ink or, you know, Fountain Pen Pharmacist. There's a ton of just ink only review blogs. And those, those reviews are getting pulled in on the individual ink product pages. And it's just kind of blowing my mind that he's able to like attach this type of content into this database to kind of help people figure things out. Right. Like it's, it's a really cool way to help people figure out because fountain pen companion isn't just like your tool to track your database and your inks and your pens. It's, you know, it's part discovery tool too. So you get to see like, Hey, a bunch of people are using this ink. I wonder if I would like it. And then you can look at the fountain pen companion page and see how many people use it. But now you can see quickly, like is, can I learn more about this ink from, from someone else who has tested it out and written about it. And then there's even a space now for like users to submit their own reviews, right? Like if you write something, you can submit it in there and Urban will add it to the page. And I just think it's just really, really cool. It's like, I have got to get better in using fountain pen companion. I haven't made that full commitment despite trying like a million times saying, I need to do this. I need to do this. So I don't know. Maybe if you could commit one pen a day, right? Just put one pen a day in there with whatever inks in there and do it five minutes. Knock it out. End of the year, I have a bunch of pens and inks listed. I think it's great. Urban's doing a fantastic job and he was pretty excited about this. He was, he sent me a lot of messages about this and I love seeing that type of passion for these, these projects.

Myke Hurley: Gotta tip my hat to the amount of manual work he does. It's, it's enormous.

Brad Dowdy: Like it's no joke. Yep. So big shout out fountain pen companion. Great job, Urban. Thanks for sharing this with me and, and let me know about it so I can share it with everyone else who, who either uses fountain pen companion and haven't noticed yet, or who might consider just going over there and poking around and checking out what it is. It's really great. Really great resource. All right.

Myke Hurley: This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace have got you covered by combining cutting edge design and world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish a home online and to make your ideas a reality. Squarespace also make everything really easy to manage. You don't have to install anything or upgrade anything or patch anything or any of that nonsense. You can customize everything, the settings, the products that you have on sale and the design with just a few clicks. You start one of their really beautiful templates and you can customize it exactly as you want, but it's all just clicking around and you're seeing things change right in front of you so you know if they're right. Every Squarespace website is optimized for mobile. Your content will look amazing on every device. And when you're actually in the page editing tools, you can select for it to show you the preview of what it will look like on a phone, on a tablet, and on a desktop screen. So I really like that too, so you don't even need to switch around devices. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support, free unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, SEO and email marketing tools, and domain name registration as well. Squarespace really is the full package to help you turn your big idea into a new website, to help you showcase your work for portfolio design, publish your next blog post, promote your business, announce an upcoming event, and so much more. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I've been using Squarespace for over a decade now, and when I want to get something online, it's the first place that I turn to. Because they just have all the tools that I need, and they make it easy for me to understand, and really to focus on what it is I want to be doing, not on spending hours and hours and weeks and weeks building a website for it. Go to, once again, squarespace.com slash penaddict, and when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you will get 10% off your first purchase, show your support for the show. I thank Squarespace for the continued support of the Penaddict and all of RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: All right, so that was some new products, some new news. I actually have more of that, Myke, if you will allow me. Yes, please. Especially this first one, which I think you also have, because I think we subscribed. Yep, I got it. And resubscribe to Field Notes at the same time, so we both have the Ignition Edition. So what I would like to do is open this envelope while we're sitting here talking, because I haven't yet. Because I've seen it online, right? And I've seen all the, you know, watched the video and read all the specs and understand what's in here. So let me get all the unboxing materials out of here.

Myke Hurley: This is an interesting edition, I think.

Brad Dowdy: It's an interesting one, for sure. I have lots to say, as shocker to no one. Brad likes to talk about stationery. One thing, which we have not spoken about, I don't believe, is the price increase, right? So Field Notes has a price increase for volumes and for, excuse me, volumes. We're talking about Blackwing volumes later. For the Field Notes subscription, it's gone up. And the individual three-packs price has gone up. It's like just, you know, one of those things. We talked, we had a big rash of price increases earlier this year in the pen world. And like, these are the things that happen. Field Notes, to their credit, has tried to like, continue to include things in your subscription bundle. Like, this time we got book darts in there, in the, um...

Myke Hurley: In a pen.

Brad Dowdy: In the, yeah, in a yellow pen. And a calendar. Which is a great pen, the calendar. So, yeah, they've tried to do little tweaks, little upgrades to make it good bang for your buck. And I still think it's like completely fairly priced. Like, I have no issue with that. So, on to the edition, Ignition. Feels like I've seen this before, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I mean, kind of, but not really. Not really. It is an adaptation and a forward move of a previous thing that they did.

Brad Dowdy: I was going to go with new and better. So, yes, I'm not really like, you know, crushing them for that. But it is new and improved resolution edition. Which is what, two years ago, three years ago, something like that. Which I absolutely did not like the idea behind the resolution edition. Because they kind of had the quantities backwards. Right? Resolution edition was two books of checklists and then like one book of calendar. This, Ignition, is actually two 26-week date books. If you do the math, Myke, I'm not a math major. But if 26 plus 26 equals 52 and that's how many weeks are in a year, it almost makes sense. Right? It's kind of on purpose. So, yeah, I think that's super smart. So, like your pack of Ignition gives you a year's worth of the date books. Which are small. And, like, I think the layout's good. Like, I had no, like the resolution, I like the layout. They've actually improved the layout. It's generally the same as the resolution edition. But it's a little bit more efficient in the space usage.

Brad Dowdy: So, I like the fact that they give you, hey, it's the end of the year. We're going to give you something for the entirety of next year if you're so into that thing. And we'll give you a singular book for just random notes checklist. You know, it's got their, like, the circles, the half circles, like the fill in your circle checklist for tasks. So, yeah, like, totally fine with it. Like, it seems like a good addition. I love the colors. I mean, you know that I'm going to love the aesthetic of this gray, white, and black with the really bright yellow.

Myke Hurley: It's very construction-y.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, it's super field notes-y. It's super Brad. Like, this is my look. I'm not going to use them. Like, I'm just going to be straight up. Like, I will probably give these packs away, which is fine. It doesn't mean I don't think they're, like, really good and useful. They did a much better job with this release than the resolution. And maybe they needed the resolution to happen to get us to this point to where they actually thought about how people use things. In a little bit of a different way from the resolution edition to have that kind of, like, efficiency and, like, product respect that this one offers. Like, it all adds up in what they did. And I think they look cool on top of it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think that this is a... I would be... I would be very surprised if a version of this does not remain a permanent product available. Yeah. I mean, the reason for that is because they've not dated it. I know what that means.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right. But this is a way better stock item. Yes. I think. I'm trying to think. I'm business thinking out loud. I was like, should they just default it to a two-pack? I don't know.

Field Notes Anniversary Edition

Myke Hurley: I would expect it probably will be. Because the stock additions, whenever they do this, whenever they take a limited and make it a stock, they make some kind of change. And I could imagine that they're just like, we now sell a date planner. Like, here it is. You can buy one or you can buy a two-pack. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I would. Yeah. Anyway, like, I think it's good. Like, I just really love the colors. And I think they're cool. And I love the pen. I love the book darts. This is my last.

Myke Hurley: Book darts are smart because it basically allows you to have a book marker, which would otherwise be incredibly difficult to do on the type of book that they make. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Especially for a planner-type book like this is. Like, the book darts are perfect. And guess what? There's three book darts for the three books.

Myke Hurley: Three book darts. Three books. That's very good.

Brad Dowdy: Book bag. It's, yeah. This is the end of my subscription. This was the last edition, right? Yeah. We resubscribed on the 50th. I'm not renewing.

Myke Hurley: Well, we both resubscribed because we wanted the anniversary book clips.

Brad Dowdy: We wanted the 50th goodies. Yeah. Totally worth it. Totally worth the subscription. That's a coffee table book forever for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like the subscription, their subscription is totally worth it in my book anyway. Oh, yeah, yeah. I just don't use this product enough, which is always a good decision maker when you're deciding whether to spend your money, things like that. So next up, Blackwing volume 93. I also have thoughts on this one.

Myke Hurley: Of course you do.

Brad Dowdy: So let me start with the story. You know I love my stories, Myke. Corita Kent was an educator, artist, and social justice advocate. Never heard of her. Automatically in love, right? Like give me a person who's artistic and does social justice work and educates. And like the story of Corita Kent, I've actually gone and watched some videos, looked at the artwork, looked at her story, and tried to figure out what she's all about because I never heard anything about Corita Kent in my life. And I'm someone who like her description is like perfect for what Brad would be into. And it's great. It's just fantastic. I think these pencils are terrible. I'm just going to say it like that. Oh, really? I hate these pencils, Myke. Why? I don't know. They look like they should be the back to school special for like the 24 pack for $5. Oh, I like it. I want, you know, I'm the rainbow everything guy. Like give me all the rainbows on all the things. And this is a rainbow set of pencils. It's just not hitting for me from a design perspective. Take the story out, right? Take the story completely out because that's going to make me fall in love with the pencils because the story's great. I don't like, it feels cheap and not up to Blackwing's crazy standards for the price that they charge. I don't get it. I can't describe it. I don't know. Like the artwork is very specific, right? The splashes of ink are basically, are Corita Kent's, you know, ink imagery on certain types of artwork. And if you go look at her artwork, the artwork is amazing. Like all the silkscreen and the print work is like, give me all of it. And like, it just didn't hit for me in this execution of her artwork. And I really can't explain it. I want to say it's the white ferrule, but I actually think that's probably the best part of the pencil.

Myke Hurley: So I think it's mimicking a book cover of hers.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it looks very much like that. These are on purpose. It does. Maybe it didn't have to be. Maybe.

Myke Hurley: You're not into it, huh? I wish I could explain why. Her general art aesthetic, just for looking through Google Images, it is quite different to that book cover. But she's famous for that.

Brad Dowdy: Like that's a famous cover, right? Like I get it. Like I'm not knocking the idea, whatever, or whatsoever. Like I'm just saying like for me personally, here's maybe a broader perspective.

Myke Hurley: She also did an art piece called Love is Hard Work, which is this too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think from a broader perspective, Blackwing is doing more interesting things outside of the volume sets than in the volume sets.

Brad Dowdy: And like if we're going to do this, the Love is Hard Work idea, I want all of that on one pencil.

Brad Dowdy: You know, when I'm thinking about this, because individually, what are you telling someone if you give them the red splash pencil, right? But what if I could have the full rainbow with Love is Hard Work on the pencil? Then I think I'm probably feeling differently about it. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Like I don't want like just six of them. And they've all got the same on it, which is what they've done, which they usually do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. I just think they're falling flat. Like you look at this last series of the limited, of the volumes editions, they don't hold a candle to what they're doing for limited editions like Preservation Hall. If you look at something like Preservation Hall and you're telling me that's something outside of volumes editions, then I wonder what we're doing here. Because that's one of the, I don't know anything about Preservation Hall, but that's the coolest pencil I've ever seen, right? But that's not a volume. And if you look at like the past years of volumes, there's, I think they're leaving something on the table with these volume sets that it's like a change. I'm seeing like a business path change in that where volumes was the leader in Blackwing's offering. They're almost the laggard now that they have limited editions, labs, and collaborations. Volumes is no longer the superstar in design, from design and, you know, testing perspective, right? It's the more mainstream product now. And I think it's falling flat compared to literally every other Blackwing I can buy outside of the basic 602s and Pearls.

Brad Dowdy: They're the least interesting. And it used to be the most interesting. And I mean, that's just good for Blackwing that they're growing and able to support all of these different lineups. But I'm not sure that volumes is the most interesting thing that they're doing. And I don't even think it's close, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, did you look up this Preservation Hall set?

Myke Hurley: Preservation Hall.

Myke Hurley: Blackwing. I was looking more Karita Kent stuff. Yeah. She also painted a big gas storage tower thing.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I'm all in on her artwork.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. I saw this Preservation Hall one. I mean, it's nice. Yeah. That's what volumes is to me. I really like the Karita Kent one, though. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can tell. I can tell. You don't like it. I really like that set.

Brad Dowdy: I don't hate it. I'm just, I feel. Are you sure? No, I feel like it's not enough.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: Or, yeah, I think that's the best way I can put it. I feel that I'm looking around what Blackwing's showing me these days, and I expect more.

Brad Dowdy: I really like it. I like it, okay. But then, you know, you click on the past releases button, and I'm looking, and I was like, okay, the Bruce Lee. I thought that was great, but it's black and white, black and gold stripe. And then the comic set with the artwork, I thought that was pretty cool. I like that one probably the best of this year. And then the volume 223, like the, what is this, the Woody Guthrie one, the highway, This Land is Your Land. It was terrible.

Myke Hurley: What is happening? I was not expecting this from you today.

Brad Dowdy: But just look at the last four editions, and tell me that, you know, you don't want other things that Blackwing is selling besides these last four editions. That's the way I'm looking at it, and it's like, I don't want any of those. I want the things that are on their limited editions or in their labs.

Myke Hurley: How do you see the list of things that they've done recently? I find that complicated. Their website is very challenging. It's, again, funnily enough, for subscriptions, the volumes is actually quite tricky.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So click on limited editions, and on the left is Blackwing volumes, and at the bottom is past releases.

Myke Hurley: Limit, edit, edit. Yeah, because that makes, that's complicated, because you can get to it in two different ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not. Wait, so wait, go to limited editions.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, on, you'll have a drop down. On the left is Blackwing volumes, and at the bottom is past releases. Past releases. That gives you everything.

Myke Hurley: All right, so what, the black and white one, black and yellow one, I didn't like that one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, it's meh.

Myke Hurley: But the other ones I like.

Brad Dowdy: The comics one's fine. I don't like the Woody Guthrie. I mean, it's fine. Like, I don't hate any of them. I'm just, my expectations have been set by previous releases and current special editions and collaborations, and those expectations are not being met by what I'm seeing in volumes releases.

Myke Hurley: Maybe it's harder because they're doing other things that you think look cooler.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. So it's like. Like, literally everything. And these, let's be perfectly clear, this is $30 for a set of 12 pencils. These are not cheap, right? And I feel like I'm getting more by not subscribing to volumes and buying the other cool stuff that they do.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: That's my rant. Well, on that note, if you'd like to get the show notes for this week's episode, you can go to relay.fl. Brad may or may not be back next week. Slash an addict, slash 492. If you find Brad with a pencil lodged in his neck, then you'll know what happened. I have the Bruce Lee one sitting right here. I'm sure you do. What was that one that was still cool? Was that like the, the Bruce Lee one's good though, actually. I forgot about it. I didn't like it when I saw it black and yellow, but then when I remembered it was the Bruce Lee suit when you said it. Yeah, no, I like it again, but you hate it. I love these pencils. No! You own it, but you hate it. It's like a love-hate kind of thing.

Brad Dowdy: True, true, true. That's what I do. I like the light money on fire.

Myke Hurley: He loves to hate things and then he buys them. You can find Brad on Twitch. He streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv, slash penaddict, at penaddict.com, and spokedesign.com. You just brought out a new product, right? The Spoke Pencil 6. Is it 6?

Brad Dowdy: Spoke Model 6. Right. It's a really cool next version of our pencil design that's been really popular so far. It's a little bit bigger and has some little bit bigger diameter in the grip section. So, yeah, some of our pens, you know, can be small, but this one is slightly bigger and allows us to mix and match a ton of colors. Like, there's 10 colors already, color combinations already, and I'm sure there will be more because Brian's a madman. Yeah, I love it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I love it. I think it looks really great. Yep. They're awesome. I did find it funny that in, like, the post, it's like, we're not going to get rid of the 4.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because people are asking, like, the 4, so the 4 is, like, the pencil, right? Like, I don't know if you would call that, like, a company's, like, canonical product. I mean, it's the thing that doesn't mean you want to spoke. It's why I'm involved with spoke. And it's, like, you don't want to say you're never going to beat that design, but it's good for a reason, right? And so, no, the spoke Model 4 is not going away, so people can rest easy. Because we got a lot of emails about that. Anytime, because we've already done a 5 and we've already done a 6, and people say, well, the 4 is not going, is it? And it's like, no, no, it's not going anywhere.

Myke Hurley: It's very funny. It's always very funny. Like, nope, got to keep it forever.

Brad Dowdy: All right, I'll let you get us out of here. I'll shut up now.

Myke Hurley: You can also find Brad. He is at Dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. It is that time of year. You should be thinking about your next year. You should be thinking about your theme. Yearly themes time is coming up. And so you should get yourself a theme system journal. You can go to two places. Go to themesystem.com to find out a little bit more about why you would want to get yourself a theme system journal. But if you already know you want one, go to cortexmerch.com. We have them in stock. They're available right now. Who knows if they'll be in stock in a month or so. We have no idea of knowing. There's more being made. But it is an unknown quantity, this kind of thing. So I recommend people go and check it out right now. You can find me. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, on Twitter. And thanks to Squarespace and Penshalay for the support of this episode. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.