The Pen Addict 495/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	495
Title:	Parter Jocker
Release Date:	January 5th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 495
Audio File:	Audio Episode 495
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 495
Length:	6060 min <br />1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 495. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. That was very exciting. Well, it's getting close. Intro. It's getting real close. To what? To, I don't know, the end. No, no.

Brad: No, it can't be. No. I know. Episode 500 and episode 500.

Myke: We had to start the show a little late today because I thought it would be kind of fun to take my kind of show notes where I write down all of the edits and stuff with my drill log. So, I've got my Carla inks, my Carla Neon inks here. I've got four of them here at the studio and the drill log here on my desk. Drill log, just a great desk accessory. It just looks nice on the desk, you know? And I inked it and I just set it down for a second. Because that's what I do. I kind of either set the pen down or I put it in my Pen World Traveler. That's where the replacement pen is. Because basically what happened was the drill log, the ink dried up on the nib, the dip nib. So, it would not work for what I might... It's not fit for purpose. No. It was definitely not the right idea. I needed to find that out. I was wondering if the ink would kind of just cling to it. No. But it didn't. You could see the ink. The ink was still there, but it wouldn't flow anymore because it basically dried.

Brad: Yeah. So, unbeknownst to you, I became like the big drill log defender yesterday on my Twitch stream, which was accidental. It was like, man, the drill log is not made for everything. It's just not going to work for a lot of people. I can't say that enough. And I got yelled at. It was cool, though. It was cool. I love my drill log, but man, it is very dependent on a lot of things going right for you to use that effectively. Oh, yeah. So, we have our first episode of the year, Myke, 2022. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. It doesn't feel like a new year. It felt like since we recorded last week, normally we haven't talked for a couple of weeks. And it's like, hey, man, how was your holidays? And it's like this week, it's like, hey, it's the new year, but we just talked. But we promised last week to talk about, or at least I promised to talk about my yearly theme, what my planner set up and situation is going to be for 2022. And I thought I would drag you into that conversation a little bit, even though you've mostly covered your theme and how you do things on Cortex episode 123. Can you give us like the quick overview, but then we'll point people to that episode to kind of, you know, listen to all the details that you have?

Yearly Themes

Myke: Yeah, of course. So, my yearly theme for 2021, so 2022, oh, darn it, which is, you know, this is the kind of the main focus or like the overarching focus of what I want to achieve this year. It's called the year of structure. And the description that I've written down for myself in my journal is, I need to have a better structure in place to handle my various responsibilities while also allowing for more unstructured time. I want to make more space in my life while also balancing the things that I want and need to be working on. And this will, I have like some outcomes that this all goes in my theme system journal. So, to give you kind of like a little bit more context for the stuff that I'm wanting to do, I want more days with no calendar appointments. So, I have lots of time in my diary and my schedule to think through big problems, tackle new projects, that kind of stuff. I want a smaller to-do list, which is a similar idea. And the way that I'm wanting to do that is by, again, maybe removing some responsibilities or moving some of my responsibilities to other people, which also lends into letting work get done without me being involved in it. So, I can take a hand off some things. I want to continue my focus on Cortex Brand, continue my trend of health and fitness. These are just like extra things that I want to do, but I want to build those, especially the health and fitness, into the structure of my life and my week. Like, I want to have structured time off. So, like when I worked an actual like employment job, I had like 25 days off a year. And I think I need that again. Like, you have this amount of days a year that you need to take. So, I'm going to think about that.

Brad: That was super interesting when you said that. I was like, oh, that's a really smart idea for like someone who works for themselves and does basically, like the more that you and Gray were talking about having, if you have unlimited vacation, do you really have any? Essentially, was the idea, right?

Myke: There's so many studies about this. Companies that give unlimited vacation time, it actually means that people just don't take vacations.

Brad: Right, right. So, saying, hey, I'm going to give myself four weeks of vacation this year or whatever the number is and actually tracking it and using it and trying to allocate that. I thought that was super smart.

Myke: And so, the last part was to like structure, more structure in my communications. Like, I've really liked this. Like, with my newer ventures, I kind of keep them siloed. So, like, for example, with Cortex Brand, I have like a completely different email app and a different notes app to RelayFM and personal stuff. But at the moment, my RelayFM and personal notes and emails and all that kind of stuff, they are completely intermixed. And I want to look at what would it take to split them out. So, I'm able to be in the right apps and the right tools and in the right frame of mind every time I'm working on something specific. That might be too complicated. So, that's kind of like a stretch goal for the year.

Brad: Yeah, I just wrote that down because I must have missed you talking about that yesterday. I just wrote that down. It's like, hmm, separate apps, question mark. Okay, so tying that into the Pen Addict show, you're using your theme system notebook, right, to track your themes, obviously. And you've gone through how you use the theme system daily. I think I've asked this question probably a thousand times, but I don't remember the answer. Do you only use one pen in your theme system? Like, is there a dedicated pen for that? You'll just pick up, like, whatever you have. It's not like your Mark 1 or whatever. It's not like the dedicated pen.

Myke: No, I use two pens a day. And I never allow myself to use the same pen two days in a row.

Brad: Okay. Yeah, I'm nodding my head because, yeah.

Pen Usage Routine

Myke: So, I use one pen to write my headings in my boxes. So, in my boxes, I write, like, what is a good thing that happened today? So, like, good, bad, think, forward. They're, like, the way that I label the four boxes. So, top box is what good thing happened today, what bad thing happened today, what are you thinking about, and what are you looking forward to? So, I use one pen to write the headings and then one pen to actually write what I'm feeling. Gotcha. Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. And I did that because it allows me to use more pens. It forces me to use my whole collection more often.

Brad: Exactly. Exactly. Which is something I always strive to do, as we'll find out here in a minute.

Myke: Which is really useful when you don't clean pens. Yeah. Because if you use them, you know, every couple of days, you keep them going.

Brad: So, sidebar, related to that, I cleaned all of the pens I had inked on January the 1st. I have about 16 pens. And the interesting thing I found is that five of them I had written dry, and I just never set them aside to clean. So, I was, like, kind of happy with that percentage that, hey, five of these had to be cleaned anyway. Like, I wasn't wasting ink. I actually used them up. So, yeah. High five to me on that. So, my theme for 2022 came about late. I was actually considering no theme, just because I'm in a little bit of state of confusion, which is the reason why you need a theme, right? It's like, hey, you're defeating the purpose here. And I purposefully don't listen to your show, the Cortex theme episode, until I know what I'm doing. So, I actually didn't listen to your stuff until yesterday morning was when I listened to the episode. After I had already figured out what my theme was going to be. And I'm honestly, I don't love the name of the theme, but the idea I hope will come across and maybe if we have a better name for it down the line. But mine is going to be called Year of the Reboot. And what I mean by that is not in the broad sense of, hey, let's reboot everything and, you know, kind of re-retrack what we're doing and give everything a fresh start. It's the micro reboots that happen on a daily basis when I'm context switching between work and life and back and forth and back and forth, right? I'm having trouble kind of separating things, right? And like my work schedule is good, my life schedule is good, but I have these transition points where I just lose sometimes hours out of time of the fog. I get stuck in the fog when I'm switching things. And I'm trying to figure out how to fix that. It's almost like I need like a daily defragmentation, right? It's like all you youths, I don't know if you know what a defrag is, but look it up. But it's almost like when I'm transitioning, like I'm done for work for the day, right? And I have free time, I get anxious and angry and I don't know what to do when I'm not doing nothing.

Brad: And it's like this, it's becoming like this building upon itself struggle is like, I don't want to stop working because I know I'll have to think about doing nothing. And I'm missing that.

Myke: So does that make sense? Well, for one thing, it sounds like you need to let yourself go a little bit.

Brad: Yeah, I'm really bad at that. You're being too harsh on yourself. I'm really terrible at letting myself go.

Myke: You need to let yourself off a little, like that's one thing. Yeah. And then outside of that, what I would suggest you maybe need to focus on is how do you make it so you're not switching backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards between your various endeavors so often. So like that could be really, it kind of feels like you are straddling the theme that I had this year and last year. So last year's theme, I called the year of reinvention. I realized that if you listen to Cortex, I realized I didn't really name it very well. And probably I would have liked the year of foundation a bit better. It's kind of like setting the stage a little bit for kind of a future me. And then also this year I'm dealing with structure stuff, which is now I have an idea of who I want to be and what I want to focus on. Now I've got to put the plan in place to make it work. And it kind of feels like that you're in a similar-ish boat where, which is not surprising really, you've got multiple endeavors and they're changing and you want to work out where your time is being spread across both of them. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like maybe there's something in a little bit of self-care. Yeah.

Brad: I need to cut myself some slack on the downtime and breaks. Yep. Like it's okay to not do anything all night long. Like that's cool. Like, you know, play a game, watch TV, whatever, you know, be with your family, that kind of stuff. And I'm getting better at that. So, you know, in the analog ways that I'm working on that is like my writing, like my physical, like if I'm going to write in a journal, that almost always happens late afternoon at the end of my, quote, work day, right? I'm not putting that at the beginning of the day. That's like my transition out of, okay, work's kind of done. Let me recap the day in written form using my pens and paper. And then we'll transition into the remainder of the day. And then I'm bad about letting myself get sucked back into, hey, thinking about something or, you know, checking email or, you know, I don't have like, I'm not good at like hard line stops, right? There's always something like kind of lurking, mostly in my head. So just trying to figure that out, you know, like that's the time of day where I need to be reading or like Kate mentioned, have this transitional activity. Like I think that's the writing and the reading break at the end of my day before I can continue on with my evening where I need to spend time with my family and be present, you know, for the kids and do things like that. So, yeah, that's my working plan for figuring out, like I don't have a clear answer yet on how I'm going to do this, but I have some ideas, right? But I just need to free up my brain when I'm doing nothing. And like I'm okay with doing nothing, but the problem is I'm not really doing nothing. I'm thinking about doing things I should be doing.

Myke: Right, and then it's like, then you're not doing, you're not helping yourself either because you're not giving yourself a break and you're not working. Oh. So there's something about you needing to find ways to let go or use some kind of tool to allow you to just get down what you need to get down and move on. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah, at the risk of this turning into a podcast not about pens, like this, I've had this new thing recently where my most stressed and physically anxious time of the day is when I get into the bed. It is really strange.

Myke: So when you're done with the day. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. So like I'm having like anxiety in my back, like I feel the back pain and my day is over, but it's like I'm thinking about doing like, what didn't I do? What do I have to do? It's like super strange. Like this just started happening. And like that's never happened before. I was like, man, I need to fix like whatever. I don't have enough like mental freedom, I guess. I'm not allowing myself to just like relax for a change and it's manifesting. But like everything else, big picture is like super good, like works good, life's good. Like I've lost almost 30 pounds since October. Like I'm taking care of myself. I'm being active. Well, man. Yeah. Like I'm super happy, but it's just like, I don't know. I got to work on like having this time to reboot myself like every day to have this separation. So that's what I'm working on. Yeah. How I'm tracking, how I'm tracking this is really in my Hobonichis. I have the Hobonichi A5 cousin, which is the big A5 size entire year, one page per day type of setup. And that's working for this so far. So like every day at the end of the day, like, so today is January 5th. I have literally written nothing on the 5th because if I do it in the morning, this is so bad to say, I'm going to get so many emails. I feel like I'm just like writing down impending doom. And I don't mean it like that aggressively, but I would rather use this page at the end of my day to recap what has happened and positive, you know, positive and negatives then. But in the beginning, I'm like writing, I'm like pre-planning like my day.

Myke: Honestly, I feel like journaling in the morning for me is like setting myself up for failure. Yeah. I guess that's what I do. I journal in the evening as a reflection. Some people, it depends how you come into it. Some people do both, but, you know, there are some people that they are journaling to help set themselves up for the day. I journal to reflect on the day. And then some people do both parts, right? Yeah. But I kind of feel like my days can change so much sometimes that it doesn't really feel useful for me to start in the morning.

Brad: Right, right. So every day so far that I've written in my journal every day, and it's just like, hey, the day went like this. Here's the things I accomplished. You know, here's what went good. Here's the pens that I'm using, right? Like I like tracking like the pens and inks and whatever I'm using to write with during the day, even if it's not the pen or ink that I'm writing this entry in. And like I've been very happy with that so far. It's only been, you know, five days or four days that I've written so far. But I was like, oh, that feels pretty good. And kind of recap, you know, most like positive stuff and accomplishments and things like that. Definitely using different pens for entries every day. Definitely using multiple pens sometimes. I'm eventually need to like start sketching some things in there. You know, I like doing that type of stuff. I'm not really there yet. Just writing random stuff, keeping it around during the day and just kind of notating it down. So that goes along with my regular journal. So I have the Hobonichi A5 Cousin. And that's essentially my planner, right? But there's space to kind of track like you track in your theme system journal. I'm not using the theme system journal, but I'm using some of the concepts of like, hey, how did I break down my day when I'm using the theme system journal? What went well? What was needs to be improved on? And the space is just the right amount of space in the A5 Cousin for me to do that.

Myke: I think that the theme system journal is the best place for it, but it's not the only place you can do it. And we've never said that, right? Like you can take this stuff and you can make it work for you in whatever tools you use.

Brad: Right. Right. So then I have basically two active notebooks. My other one is my Misubi bank paper journal, which I've just been slacking on. And that's where I just like long form writing, rambling, more like a morning pages, but still again in the afternoon. I almost never do that in the morning. It's got to be in the afternoon or at least like lunchtime. Like I might take a break during the middle of the day and write through that. Like, you know, yesterday I wrote like a page and a half, A5 pages, you know, just blasting whatever I wanted to say. Nothing more specific. Whereas the planner tends to be a little bit more work related, but it's got a little bit of side fun in there too. Where the journal is more of just kind of like the brain dump. Hey, this is on my mind. Let me explore that on the page a little bit. And I also try to use as many different pens and papers. Like I can't even have like a pen section in this topic because it's literally all the pens, you know, all the pencils, all the inks, right? So like I try to use as much stuff as possible. You know, I probably have 20 pens and pencils within eyesight right now. I'll just grab one that wasn't in use yesterday. And that's going to be the pen for that I write these entries with today. And, you know, I'll learn a little bit more about that product as we go. So, yeah, it's good to think about this stuff and talk about this stuff. And it's better to execute on this stuff. So, you know, that's what I'm going to be working on. Just figuring out what these transition modes are for me. As Kate mentioned, just try to figure out how I can break away from either work or play when I'm doing the other, right? Like I'm very content with my general, my big picture schedule, my capital S schedule. I'm good. Like I get the work done that I need. I have enough time to do it. I feel like I've managed my businesses accordingly. You know, like I've cut things away, like knock, even though we're not totally done with that, right? Like I've transitioned. Hey, I've eliminated that. So now I can do more for Panatic members, which we'll talk about something new I'm doing for them maybe in a month or two once I kind of build it up.

Brad: So, yeah, like I feel like the work balance is good and the life balance is honestly good. Like I'm using my free time well. But like it's still just having these breakaway times where I'm not completely present mentally in the thing that I'm doing, be it work or play. And that's where this reboot term kind of comes in. I was like, all right, I'm done with this. I'm going to press the power button and then we're going to turn back on. And now we're just clear to do the next thing. So that's what I'm working on this year. I feel pretty good about that theme. And, you know, I've kind of set a little bit of the path, you know, with my health stuff here since like October. Like I've been really, really good and I've seen some great results. And that has made me want to like try to fix some of the other things that, you know, all of this plays, all of this works together, right? Like you can't do one, you know, getting healthy and but then working yourself to death. That doesn't work, right? You know, or, you know, just taking all the time off and, you know, eating like crap, you know, that doesn't work. You know, so it's trying to figure out like all that balance and stuff. So, yeah, I've been pretty happy with how those things are going. So now we just need to work on this reboot theme and we should be good to go.

Work-Life Balance

Myke: Well, I am very happy to check in with you on this later on if you want. Yeah, sure. See how we're doing. What I would say is, you know, like with these things, I know that you obviously got some frustrations here or whatever, but you are going through a, you said already, transitional phase. But also like with all of this stuff and one of the things that I personally find so valuable in doing this is once you've highlighted the problem, you can take steps to fix it. But you need to actually highlight the issue first. Yeah. Like really think about it and put a label on it and name it, look at it, think about it. Yeah.

Brad: So I'm in the first step. I'm in the breaking it down phase now. Yes. Like I've done kind of step one. So now I need to move on to like either like step 1A and like really break it down or into step two into like actioning, actioning real, real change. So, yeah, it's good. It's good. I like this type of thing. And we talk about this here because the tools that we use really help, right? Like I could not do – I wouldn't feel as comfortable like exploring these things if I couldn't like write them down in my notebook. And I've said this before, like not recently, but like sometimes I use my journal just to yell at it, right? And like that's cool to have. Oh, yeah. Come on. Yes. Like we talk – like this is a podcast like really about stuff, right? But like this stuff is useful. Like we use this stuff for a reason. It's not that we have, hey, this $300 fancy pen. It's like sometimes I use this pen to express myself and I enjoy that part of it and maybe I'm more willing to express myself. You know, maybe those tools make me feel better about doing that. So, you know, I think you understand what I'm getting at even though I probably didn't explain that very well.

Myke: No, I get it. I get it.

Brad: All right. All right. Let's clean me up for the new year, Myke.

Myke: Great. It's that time of year again. It's time for fresh starts and thinking about the year ahead and that is why I want to tell you about Harry's. Whether you're trying to manage your finances better or just trying to look your best going into the new year, Harry's can help. Harry's is an award-winning razor brand that makes a full range of grooming accessories and they were founded on the belief that you shouldn't have to choose between an incredible shave and a fair price. You should have both of them, right, Brad? That's what Harry's gives you.

Brad: All of it. Oh, it's my turn?

Myke: It's your turn. Yeah. You tell me what you like and then I'll say the other stuff.

Brad: All right. So, what I like. Oh, Myke. You're not going to believe this. This is going to be the funniest thing. So, this is going to be the year of my son getting his first Harry's razor.

Myke: Oh, yes.

Brad: So, we are passing down the Harry's tradition.

Myke: Oh, this is good stuff.

Brad: In the Dowdy household very soon. This is good. As in my wife is yelling at me to make it happen now because it's looking a little sketchy over there in the Dowdy household. And we need some Harry's products in my son's bathroom ASAP. And, hey, I mean, just look at how those products, you know, how well they work for me. I mean, it's clear that it's a really great, really great product. My son is about to get initiated probably this week. So, we will report back soon. And you know what? It's going to be awesome.

Myke: I'm so excited to hear this. So, we can start the new year. Tyler can start the new year with some savings if he's going to be buying them for himself. I would hope that you could maybe start these savings for him, but we'll see. New customers can redeem a Harry's trial set for just $3 when you go to harrys.com slash penaddict. Harry's delivers a close, comfortable shave at a fair price still as low as $2 per blade. Harry's blades are designed to stay sharper for longer. In a recent study, people who shaved four times a week said their eighth shave was as smooth as their first. Harry's is giving their best offer to penaddict listeners. New Harry's customers can redeem a starter set where you'll get a five-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, a travel cover to protect your blades when you're on the go, all for just $3. That is a $13 value for just $3. There's never been a better time to try Harry's. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to try Harry's today. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: I missed a really interesting product launch from Sailor, Myke. And I had a listener email me this. So thank you for sending me this. I get the email. Y'all should always send me email. Hey, you know, you've probably gotten this a hundred times already, but I want to send this to you just in case you didn't. And this was one of those times where someone said, hey, you probably got this a hundred times. I literally had not seen this. So sailor-bespoke.jp will have the link in the show notes. Did you get a chance to look at this, Myke? I tried. Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Myke: Yeah, I tried and it didn't work for me.

Sailor Build-Your-Pen Website

Brad: So what Sailor did was launched a high-end build-your-own-pen website. Now, it's not completely functional right now. They've actually taken down the build-your-pen section. We'll talk about that. But the videos and the layout of the site, you can get a lot of things, a lot of things you can figure out from this page that I find really interesting. So let me just give you the overview of what this is from the translation of the website. So the website says, you can freely choose and assemble your favorite parts from various colors and materials, such as pen tips, lids, lid plugs, torso, tail plugs, tip plugs, and metal parts, such as clips. In the future, we will prepare new materials and limited color parts, further expand the fun of choosing, and complete a gem that expresses your identity. What they did here was kind of like what Montegrappa did with their customizer, where you could pick literally kind of every part, like the barrel, the barrel cap, the clip color, the end cap on the barrel, and different materials were available at different times to mix and match from. Right? So they might have a green barrel available now, and when they run out of that part, those parts will switch out. The interesting thing, I don't know if you caught this while you were looking through the site, they had swirly resin barrels, and I've never seen Sailor offer a swirly resin anything. Did you notice that?

Myke: No, I didn't. Like I was, I've been really struggling to do anything on this website.

Brad: It's kind of broken. You can click through some of the links. So what I did-

Myke: Oh, I see it now, right? At the bottom?

Brad: Yeah, at the bottom, there's like this gray swirl. Okay. Right?

Myke: And a red one too.

Brad: And a red one. Yeah, that is not something we normally see from Sailor. No. And they have these opportunities to build a pin with like a barrel that is swirly. The most interesting thing I found about this, Myke, is they're using the 21K gold nibs. So those are generally reserved for the larger of the two main product lines, right? The 1911 standard and the Pro Gear. The standard Pro Gear, excuse me, and the 1911 large.

Brad: That's the upgraded nib from the Pro Gear Slim and the 1911 standard, which is a 14 karat nib. And there's, you can also get those nibs not just in gold, right? They have rhodium plating and then they have like the black ion plating, which is, they kind of went all in on this. Like I'm a little bit surprised. Normally when you see these products launch, it's going to be a little bit simpler, right? Gold nibs, gold trim, right? Maybe if you're lucky, the rhodium plated stuff, but they're having like the ion plated, the matching hardware to where you can get the same hardware as the nib color. And I'm like, huh, this is, this is exceptional. I think they did a really, really good job. And I wouldn't be so positive if the price was outrageous. Like the Montegrappa ones, when you build the Montegrappa pen, it's well over a thousand dollars, right? Like the custom Montegrappas are around $1,200, $1,400. These are 46,200 yen, which breaks down to about 400 bucks, which is your price of, that's almost a better price than the 1911 larges and the Pro Gears standards that we get in the U.S. right now. And this is something you can build yourself. I was kind of taken aback by this whole thing, to be perfectly honest. Not only does it look like they've executed it well with the options available, they've priced it kind of like a mainline product, which is stunning in and of itself. And I'm pretty pleased with this whole thing. Now, the build site. I wish I could use it. Yeah. So the build site is currently closed for renovation. That's what they say when you go to the page. But if you go to, I have a link in the show notes, Myke, we can put in there where you run it through archive.org to see like the previous settings to where you can actually play with some of the dropdowns. It works a lot better in Chrome than it does in Safari.

Myke: This explains why I was struggling because that wasn't working for me at all. And I just opened Chrome and now it works.

Brad: Yeah. So you still don't, you know, some of the images aren't archived, right? But they have the image names are in line there. So you can see there'll be like 10 different barrel choices and 10 different cap choices. It's pretty nice. So my question is how big they're willing to make this because they've already had to shut it down, you know, from the first launch. I did see on the website that they have it tied in with the Ankora store, which is their high-end store in the Ginza area of Tokyo. They're high-end retail establishment. So this isn't priced though. Like it's not like a $800 or $1,000 offering. Like it's a reasonably fair mainline price for this. Honestly, it's priced better than almost all of their other pens that are, you know, standard issue, limited edition, things like that. And you get to make it yourself, although you technically can't make one right now. Any other thoughts on this, even though you didn't really get to play with it? I just feel that like it checks all the right boxes of what I would hope for for a big-time pen brand to do a bespoke pen. And they just kind of hit all the high points. Well, I'm honestly surprised.

Myke: I love it. I want it to exist. I hope that they don't just have standard colors because I feel like I would struggle with those. Like I would want weird things. Like really for me, I would, you know, like choose the swirly one and leave it at that. You know, like they maybe do limited edition barrels through this.

Brad: Right.

Myke: I don't think that this is a thing that they're going to offer for very long into the future for all. It seems too complicated at the price point.

Brad: It's very aggressive. I don't think that's what's surprising me. It is very aggressive. Like they are going to cause a lot of work and a large.

Myke: Unless they've built some kind of incredible machine, which we know Sailor is a robotics company, right? Right, right, right. We know this now. But like unless they've built some kind of machine that can do this very easily and very quickly, I don't know how this is a sustainable business model.

Brad: Yeah, as soon as this turns into a six or 12 month turnaround, people are making different choices with their money at that point.

Myke: It's like you even know what this kind of stuff is like. Oh, sure. Right, we spoke. And it's impossible to do a scale. Right. It's way, way too complicated. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I could imagine if like there was a way that they could just ship you the parts and you put it together on your own. That would probably be easier. But I don't think they would do that. Yeah, they would never do that. Not in a million years. Not for $400, right?

Brad: Right. So yeah, I want to see them finish the renovation and then really take a look at it. Like you may not be able to order it outside of Japan, which is fine. Like that's a lot of times how these things are structured, right? But I at least want to see more feedback from people who use the system because I'm not sure if anyone has yet. I haven't dug into it too much. But I don't know if anyone got in on the initial ordering for this. But I am very curious. My interest is very piqued by this because they almost did too good a job. Like you're saying now I'm concerned. Like I feel like they really did a good job here. And let's see what happens. So something to keep an eye on as we go further in the year in 2022. We'll see what happens here with this. But if it is what they are saying it's going to be, they might have a winner on their hands. We'll see.

Myke: All right. This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Squarespace really have got you covered with everything. To start with, there's nothing to install. You don't have to patch or upgrade anything with Squarespace. They take care of all of that for you. And they combine cutting-edge design and world-class engineering to make sure that you have everything that you need to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. They really have the whole thing. So you can build your online presence. You can run your business because they have websites, online stores, marketing tools, analytics. They've got it all right there for you. With 24-7 customer support. They have domain name registration tools, SEO and email marketing tools. They've got everything. You start one of their beautiful templates. They're professionally designed. You can use drag and drop to make it feel like your own. You can customize the look and the feel, the settings, even the products that you have on sale if you want to set up a store. With just a few clicks, you can get it set exactly the way that you want. All the Squarespace websites are optimized for mobile as well. This is done automatically. Everything's resized and adjusted. So it's going to look great on every type of device. You get free unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security and dependable resources to help you turn your big idea into a new website, create a beautiful portfolio of your artwork, publish your next blog post, promote your business, announce an upcoming event and so much more. I've been using Squarespace for over 10 years. Probably this is my 11th year. Maybe even more. Because they are just the place that I go. If I want to set something up online, super easy. I know how to use it. And they have great apps and everything so I can manage things when I'm on the go. Head to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you can sign up for a free trial right now with no credit card required. With that trial, you can go in and build your entire website. And then when you're ready to show it off to the world, you sign up for one of their plans. So you just use the code penaddict and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So that's squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you're ready to sign up, use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support with the Pen Addict and Relay FM.

Ask TPA Segment

Brad: All right. Before we get to some of the Ask TPA today, which we've been running a little bit behind on, I wanted to talk about a new pen from Leonardo that I'm seeing being advertised around. It's called the Mosaico, right? So the Leonardo. I'm curious for you, Myke, when I originally got my Leonardo, I got the Blue Hawaii.

Brad: And we were talking about the acrylics that they use and how the acrylics didn't line up. What if I told you we did that but made it even worse on this one? What would you think about this? Is it better that it's not meant to? Or do you have any thoughts on the lining up of acrylics? Because I love this pen and I'm curious what you think about this pen.

Myke: Well, I mean, these do line up.

Brad: Yeah, because it's on purpose, right? Yeah. It's purposefully lined up to not line up.

Myke: Well, what do you mean? Well, they're horizontal stripes, right?

Brad: Right. But there's no essentially like through lines like you would see a normal acrylic, right? They're not meant to be, right? So you're good with this type of design.

Myke: It actually is a little bit more like a weave. A little bit. In some places.

Myke: This is better because it's designed this way, I think. Right.

Brad: It's purpose built.

Myke: But I could never buy one of these without seeing it. Because I feel like I would need to pick the one that looks right to me.

Brad: Yep. Yep. So yeah. So each of them were probably like a little bit different. Even with the regular acrylics of the Memento Zeros. But I think these look fantastic, right? These started popping up on Instagram. You know, Leonardo sharing them. So there's what? Like three colors of them now. And they're using like the blue Hawaii, which was like one of the popular first ones. They're using the mango, which is, you know, my favorite one. And then there's like one other color. I forget even which. What's the name of the color? But yeah. So there's like three models of those. Okay. So the first one is called Chio Ros... Yeah. I'm not going to get that. Mosaico Chio Ros Curo. It's basically like a brown... Different shades of brown and gold trim. Looks great. Looks really, really good. I love these pens. I think they look fantastic. Maybe a day later, Myke, I saw this new pen from Mayora. And I guess it's called the Alpha K. Take a look at this pen, Myke, that I just linked to you.

Brad: What does it look like to you?

Myke: The same pen.

Myke: They just have different bands. Is it? Is it? They have the same clip even.

Brad: So Mayora now has three... I'm just going to call them mosaicos, even though they're calling them the Alpha. Alpha K. So they have three colors. Alpha K. So there's like a, you know, like a warm tones, like a red, yellow, brown. There's a blue tones. And then there's like a gray tones. But it's the literal same idea in a pen.

Brad: So long time or even short time listeners of the show know that Leonardo, pens, and Mayora came out of the closure of Delta. They were formed in the wake of Delta's closure as independent pen companies. Now Mayora has bought Delta.

Brad: And Mayora and Leonardo are making the same idea of pen. Do you think they really came up with this acrylic independently and launched them at the same time? Are we seeing the reformation of Delta pen right in front of our eyes to where Leonardo and Mayora are just going to roll back up into their own Delta version? Because this is too perfect to be accidental, right? These pen designs are too close to not have some conversations about, hey, what are we doing here?

Myke: Well, here's a question I'll ask you. Maybe you don't know the answer to this. Was this a design of Delta? Like, did Delta have this kind of style of acrylic?

Brad: I don't think so. But I could be wrong. I just don't recall seeing anything like this.

Myke: Because I wonder if it's like, oh, you know, they've just got the bits.

Brad: I guess. But they got the same idea at the same time and the same launch date right after Mayora has announced that they bought Delta is, I don't know. I'm just saying, like, you know, I don't know. There's not that there's some shenanigans going on because there's nothing bad about this. Like, all these pens look great. But it is really weird that the two offshoots of the Delta come out with a very similar pen right when one of the offshoots just re-bought the Delta. And I don't know. I'm just basically saying it out loud. It is too weird. These pens are identical.

Myke: It is too weird. It's too weird. But, like, what would... Okay, so if you, like, follow this through, it's like, oh, as you say, they're bringing the band back together. The issue with that is why wouldn't they just do that then? Right? Yeah. Like, they haven't done that. They've said, we are two companies. We have these two pens.

Brad: Because Mayora just closed on Delta, like, two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Like, in the last month. So, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I thought it was interesting. Just an interesting... Some interesting data points at the same time that are all kind of, you know, coming together. So, I just thought I would point that out. Because once I saw the Leonardo, and I was like, oh, man, that's great. I was like, it's not for me, right? It's the same colors as pens I already have. It's just done a different way. And then, literally, like, within days, I saw the Mayora. Even though the Mayora might have actually launched first, I didn't look at the exact dates. I was like, this is the same pen, just in different colors. What is going on here? Like, are these competitors? Are they working together?

Brad: I don't know. So, anyway, just it's something to keep an eye on. Something I personally find interesting that no one else probably does. Let's do some Ask TPA.

Myke: First question comes from Ben. I would love some guidance in my search for the perfect rollerball. I'm interested in something metal or partially metal with a click mechanism and medium size. I have a Parker Jotter ballpoint, and aesthetically, it is precisely what I'm after, but I want something a little larger. I have considered buying a Parker Jotter XL to try. To be fair, that sounds like exactly what you want. But for reference, my Pilot Metropolitan Fountain pens are about perfect in terms of barrel diameter. I feel like the correct answer is going to be a Retro 51 Tornado, but I'm very much attached to a click mechanism rather than a twist. I want to know if there are any options I haven't yet considered.

Perfect Rollerball Guidance

Brad: Yeah, I like the detail in this question. Like, give me all the things you've tried, what you're thinking about. The Parker Jotter XL. Oh, I like that.

Myke: Parker Jotter.

Brad: Parker Jotter. It's closer to the Pilot Metropolitan than the Parker Jotter will ever be. Like, honestly, that might be the thing. I didn't love the Jotter XL, but I would probably like it better if I put in a rollerball refill instead of a ballpoint refill. I like the ballpoint refill in the smaller traditional Jotter for some reason. That's just a personal thing. Once I got to the bigger XL, it's a good pin, but I didn't like the refill as much. I would rather have a rollerball refill, which these are just your standard Parker refills. You can switch rollerball refills in there very, very easily. So if you like the Pilot Metropolitan, I think the Parker Jotter XL is going to be a really, really good answer for you. And I don't think, honestly, I wouldn't have chosen the Retro 51 Tornado, not just because of the click, but I think the taper is a little bit different on the Tornado than the Jotters. And I think if you like the Jotter style, you'll probably like the Jotter taper a little bit better. And the way the pin is balanced, it's a little bit lighter, I think, than the Retro 51, a little bit thinner aluminum walls, as opposed to like a brass sleeve.

Myke: If you're a Parker Jotter fan, to me, it feels like you want an understated design. And you can get that with some Retro 51s, but it's rarer to get that.

Brad: Yeah. The Jotter, I can't say Jotter. Man, it's so great that you can't do this. I was not expecting how much fun this would be. The Jotter has one of the best click mechanisms in the industry, right? It's just, it's a thud click. Like, it's almost a clank.

Myke: It's a real classic in the UK, the Parker Jotter. Like, big classic. Everybody's had one kind of thing.

Brad: It's just good. Like, it is an all-around good pin. I really, really enjoy the Jotters when I use them. I'm trying to think of any...

Myke: They have a bunch of really good colors for it now.

Brad: They have leaned into the traditional Jotter. Not the XL as much, right? The traditional Jotter is still the main, like, experimental platform for them. But they continue to do really, really cool ones, you know, all the time. And I think they're really, really fun. I'm trying to think of anything else that's not getting into, like, the real machined pin stuff. You know, like your, you know, your Mark 1s or your tactile turns or things like that. The only other thing I can come up with, which you probably won't like, Ben, is the Lamy 2000 Ballpoint. And swapping out the refill for a rollerball refill. Because their rollerball, the Lamy 2000 Rollerball is actually capped. But the ballpoint is a click mechanism that's really, really good. It's really nice. It's a lightweight pin. It's not a full metal barrel, right? It's just got the metal nose cone on there. I don't know. The way it sounds, I'm going with the Parker Jotter XL first. Swapping in a rollerball refill. And that's going to be the most comparable to your Pilot Metropolitan.

Brad: I'm staring on my desk at the Caran D'Ache 849 rollerball, which is the big barrel one. And I still think I would take the Parker Jotter XL over that. Plus, it's like half the price of the Caran D'Ache. So, there you go.

Myke: April asks, are you back on the Animal Crossing train? And what kind of Animal Crossing stationery would you want to see?

Brad: What a great game that is. Right now, I'm not. Because if I log back into it, there's going to be weeds everywhere. And all my villagers are going to yell at me. They're going to be mad at me, Myke. And I can't have the year of reboot with the villagers yelling at me in my downtime. Because that's totally what's going to happen.

Myke: Plus, they added some new content, which we did play a little bit of. But it didn't pull me in as much as I was hoping it would. Like the Happy Home Designer kind of style thing. Yeah.

Brad: I will say, right now on my desk and in my Hobonichi, I have the Animal Crossing. Do they call it the writing board? Right? It's like the insert that you put behind the page to write on is Animal Crossing. All the villagers on there. And then the Animal Crossing New Horizons leaf on there. So that is part of my daily, like it literally sits on my desk. It's in my hands right now. It's part of my daily use.

Brad: Stationary. I don't know what I, anything, like I just like the visuals of Animal Crossing. Right? So I wouldn't necessarily need like a Pentel Energel. You know, like they do the Pokemon's. Pokemon, you know, branded ones or, you know, any of the other ones. I don't need a pen with Animal Crossing.

Myke: I did not know they did an Animal Crossing Hobonichi cover.

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. They did them all the way down to the weeks, I believe. So I just have like the insert. But what I would like is like, I like the accessories, like the, like stickers and washi. Like I would be totally down with that. Because that helps, like when you get stickers and washi stuff, like those things, God, this is just so silly for me to say, but that's what this whole thing is. That helps like you tell stories, like in your own books. Yeah. Right? So like that's part of why we do this stuff is because we get this storytelling type of aspect of it. And if I can have like those types of stickers and things like that, yeah, then we're in good shape. So, you know, I like, or like paper where, you know, the characters are like in the corner. Like I like the simple, simple, you know, characterized stationary, not the overly aggressive stuff. So there you go.

Myke: I know what I want. Full on Lamy collaborations.

Brad: Okay. Well, that's different because they do such a good job. No, no, no. Like that's, no, that's good. Like that. No, I'm saying that in a good way. Like, like I'm, I'm thinking more on the smaller scale. That's in the big scale. They would kill that. I mean, just straight up. They would crush that. The whole thing. That would be amazing. Right. Good call by you. I like it.

Myke: Chaotic hobbyist asks, do you go back and listen to old episodes and hear yourself gush over pens that aren't in your rotation or that you don't talk about anymore and get hit with nostalgia? How do you manage a large collection and keeping all the things in rotation of exciting new things?

Brad: All right. So two part question. Part one. Do you go back and listen to old episodes? No, because we have listeners who will gladly tell you how wrong you were 50 or 250 episodes or 450 episodes in our case of how wrong you were that one time where you liked the thing and were terrible. So I don't have to go back and listen to them. I just let the new listeners come in and say, wow, that was a bad take. And like, you know what? You're right. That was a bad take. So part two of the question is, how do you manage a large collection? You pair it down at least once a year and, you know, try to move out the things that you don't use. I've been pretty good at least having a once a year sale of moving things out. And then I don't have like a spreadsheet or anything to do like a full pen rotation. I know a lot of people do say, you know, this is the pen that has been in use or hasn't been in use the longest. So that's the next pen that gets inked up. I don't really do that. I just do it kind of more what I'm feeling, right? Like, so I just cleaned 16 pens and went down to zero fountain pens inked. And I picked two pens that I haven't inked up. One was a new pen that, a new old pen that I no longer have and that I'm going to be reviewing again in the Pilot Custom 74. And then another one is an Aurora Optima with a Flex nib, which Michael, no, that's the pen that we got at the Fountain Pen Hospital a few years ago. Right. That's one that I regularly use, but it comes in and out of the rotation. And it's like, I miss using that pen. So therefore it gets inked up. So that's just kind of how I do it. I don't do it in a real official way, but I do think about big picture, the things that I don't use, I really want to rehome them somehow and continue to pare down the mass amount of, especially like fountain pens that I've spent, you know, a lot of money on. If they're not being used, they need to go.

Myke: I mean, my thing is just keeping as many pens visible as possible. So I have like pen blocks, wooden pen blocks and all the pens stand in them. And that helps me. I mean, one thing for me is like, I just make sure, honestly, like I have a selection of pens in Sinclair that I carry around with me. They're like my favorites. And there's a few pens in there that's never leaving it, but I swap out a couple of others and I kind of just do it at the time when they're empty. Like I'm going to refill them. It's like, instead of refilling them, what about if I pick something else up instead and put something into like, I have like three rotations. I have what goes in my Sinclair, what I have at the studio and what I have at home. And over time that's changing. And I think what I need to do, which I haven't done, and I think I'm pretty confident on making this decision now is the home rotation needs to be more like the studio rotation because the studio rotation mostly has like B tier and I want it to be the A tier now because I'm using the majority of my stuff now. So I just need to work on that. Yeah.

Brad: One final thing is I think, and this is a natural cycle of a hobby is I've figured out what works the best for me. So I've actually bought fewer personal pens, right? I still, yeah. So like it's different for me because I'm also like a product reviewer and things like that. So I get a ton of pens, but I have to separate like the things that I use personally from the things that I use for like the pen addict and reviews and stuff. So like my personal stuff, I've bought very, I've bought fewer pens in the last year than I have in all the years prior. So there's this refinement that's always kind of going on in the background. So, you know, like exciting new things. Like I, they really have to beat the things that I've, I'm already excited about in my collection. So yeah, it's a balance. And that's just, uh, that's kind of the nature of the beast when you're getting into the hobby. The, the newer you are, the more you see that's new to you. That makes sense. Right. So the longer you've been in it, the, the more you realize like that's new, but I've got something that I would prefer and therefore, you know, I'm not really interested in that. So it's just a process.

Myke: If you, I have one last question I want to do actually for you today, which comes from Richard, uh, who wants my thoughts on the best UK pen shops, either online or brick and mortar. So it's not an exhaustive list, uh, but I have a selection. Uh, my favorite store store, real store, um, in the UK, which is in London. I mean, mostly this is not, I've not done an extensive UK search here. Uh, but it's choosing keeping, which is a store that I've mentioned a bunch of times. I've been there a bunch of times, went for a platinum event there and I bought some stuff from there in the past. Uh, I really love choosing keeping. It's a fantastic store to have in London considering the quality of product that they sell. Uh, one of my favorite online stores is the stationer. Um, it's been really great to watch Tessa grow this. Yeah. Shout out Tessa. Um, and so the, the Tessa now has some of her own products as well as like a nicely curated list of fun things to buy. Uh, Colt pens, that's the place that has everything, you know? Yep. Um, they are owned by WH Smiths now and have been for a long time, but it doesn't really seem to have changed them in any way, which I'm really pleased about. And then if you want to just go for some aesthetically pleasing, just, you just want aesthetics. That's what you're looking for. Incorrect is the place to go for, for that.

Brad: Yeah. So being in the U S, um, I have ordered from all four of these shops independently and like I couldn't pick a better four. Like this would have been the four on my list, right? Like as a non UK resident, like I use choosing keeping and the stationer and Colt pens and president. Correct. Like I've ordered from all of them and, uh, really, really good stuff. So yeah, could not, uh, uh, you know, love that list anymore. It's great.

Myke: If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA or use question mark RSTPA in the Relay FM members discord. If you'd like to get show notes for this week's episode, you can find them in your podcast app or relay.fm slash pen addict slash four nine five. If you want to find Brad online, go to pen addict.com and spoke design.com. Brad streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash pen addict. Here's pen addicts on Instagram and Dowdy is on Twitter. I am I Myke. I am Y K E. If you would like to pick up a theme system journal of your own, you can go to cortex merch.com or cortex merch.com slash journal also works. I had to get all those. I had to set all that up for Instagram shop to like do like a whole thing. So now I have like forwards for all of the individual products. Good times. Cause it was tricky, right? Cause we use cotton bureau. So I couldn't verify that domain name with Instagram. So I had to do it with a domain name that I own that then forward. It's like a whole thing, but I'm happy to have the Instagram shop thing. I guess it's probably important. Do you do any of that stuff with spoke?

Brad: Do a little bit of advertising. None, not much of the shop stuff.

Myke: This might be a conversation for another time.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. We do very, very little, but like it's, it's, it goes in waves, right? Like, sure. You know, we're also, you know, when you run like a smaller business like this, you're like super inventory restricted. Right. So it's like up and downs. Like we have all the things. Do we like tell everyone we have all the things and then we will get wiped out. So it's a balancing act. Maybe it's a whole, maybe that's a whole show topic. I'm sure people, people do enjoy listening to the business stuff, but yeah, maybe those are the things we think about.

Myke: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. Thank you to Harry's and Squarespace for the support of the show. But most of all, as always, thank you for listening and we'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad: Goodbye, Brad.