The Pen Addict 503/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	503
Title:	I’ve Had Perfectly Standard Experiences
Release Date:	March 2nd, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 503
Audio File:	Audio Episode 503
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 503
Length:	5656 min <br />0.933 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 503. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens and Topofolio. I'll tell you about those a little later on in the show. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hey, Myke. How are you? I'm good. You wanted to get in there. You have something to say?

Brad Dowdy: No, I was having an inside joke in my head.

Myke Hurley: You want to do the intro now or what?

Brad Dowdy: No, no. I was having an inside joke in my head and I started giggling to myself at my stupid inside joke. Would you like to share it with the rest of the class? Well, it was something related to, well, we can only cook and eat one of those things in our fun advertisers for today. It's not going to land this way. It's not landing. It was only in my head. It was really good in my head at the time and now you've ruined it for me and everybody else.

Myke Hurley: I don't think I have to blame you, buddy. You know, if you're going to make your jokes, just use the mute switch, you know? Yeah, I don't have one of those.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? Oh, you poor thing.

Brad Dowdy: You get me live all the time. That's true. Live. Very live. Brad Dowdy.

Hobonichi Planner

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My Hobonichi planner has been very live for 2022, Myke. I wanted to give an update on that if that's all right. Yes, please. As things go. So, as we talked about at the beginning of the year, I switched up my planner style for 2022. And I'm using the Hobonichi Cousin, the A5 size, which is, for all intents and purposes, one page a day, right? It's a one-page-a-day planner. And that's a little bit bigger than what I had been doing. I've been basically doing two-page-per-week planner, you know, days on the left side, notes on the right side type of thing. So, I was anxious to give this a go. I did a little recap at the end of January for Pen Addict members. I, like, looked back at my month, wrote down, like, all the products I use. I track all the products, like, the pens I use every day in there. Did, like, a little count of what pens and inks and all that stuff. And then February ended up flying by. We're already into March, as we're recording right now. And I still, I was very consistent throughout February. Like, I haven't missed a day yet, even weekends, even if I write just a little bit, right? I'm just doing a little bit of writing maybe on the weekends that, you know, I'll track some things. But I've been very pleased with myself. I'm patting myself on the back here. That it's kind of integrated itself, as I hoped, right? Like, I don't, when you change, like, the way you use a planner. Like, I wouldn't sit down every day, necessarily, and do my planner. So, I was a little bit worried about committing to this every day thing. And I'm pleased that it's just integrated, right? It's what I do. And it's been easier. I don't have to, like, set a reminder to fill out your planner, right? You know, silly things like that. It just kind of works for me, you know? So far, again, we're only two months into the year. Things could change drastically later. But the way things are going right now, I don't see them changing because it's just a very good experience. I use the planner more the day after to recap the previous day, right? So, like, today, I'll write down a bunch of stuff about yesterday on yesterday's day, if that makes sense, right? I'll have a little schedule. Okay, so you reflect. A little bit. Like, it's a little bit of combo. So, like, the way the cousin is set up, there's a little time section, like a little 24-hour block in there. Actually, I don't think the dailies are 24 hours. Say, like, an 18-hour block. So, I'll go in during the day and kind of fill out my day, right? I'll kind of block off, hey, these are the things I need to do today. This is around the time I need to do that. I can write down, like, what pen and ink I'm using. And then, unless I have, like, something very particular I want to write down on the notes, I'll usually go back the following day, say, hey, I'll look at these things on my schedule, and I'll kind of recap how they went, right? So, whatever I had written down to work on, I'll then later have this kind of note somewhat tied to it, somewhat more generic on the right-hand side of the page and just write as much as I feel about the day and then just add in different notes about, you know, how it went. So, it's not necessarily active throughout the day. It's active in the morning, and then I'll kind of flip back to the previous day and, you know, like you're saying, like, kind of recap how things went. So, you're using the A5 Cousin, right? Right. Okay. It's an all-in-one. This is an all-in-one book for a full year. There's a different one called the EVEC, I believe, that's split into six months and six months for just, you know, a little bit of different carry. Is it in English or Japanese? It's in Japanese. Okay. But, like, I've never once, not of this model, no, but not, I have never once needed anything. Like, all I see is the day dates and days and dates and months and days of the week. Like, there's no, you don't really need an English version for that, right?

Myke Hurley: But they're in English, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, like, I just flipped it open because I had a piece of paper in here. It's, like, I say 2-26 Saturday, right? Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So, there is some, but everything else is written in Japanese. Everything else is in Japanese.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I think I used one of these back in the day. I think this is what I had, which helped me end up developing what I wanted for the theme system. Right. Right. Because I remember it was small. I remember there was a lot of Japanese text at the bottom, which I assume is some kind of information or inspiration quote type dealio's going on at the bottom there. Yep. Is there anything that you think that is specific to Detet your cousin that is making this experience such a positive one?

Brad Dowdy: The layout. I'm a layout person. Okay. Right. If I don't have either the enjoyment or the freedom or the structure. Like, I'm using freedom and structure in the same category because I do believe you get a little bit of both with this. If I don't have kind of all those things and then on top of the quality of, you know, the paper and the construction and just like the neatness of the aesthetic, right, that I like the Japanese design, which I prefer. Sure. It's definitely an all. It hits all the things for me. Right. But I always will lean into structure. Right. That's why I chose my previous journal. I chose my previous layout, the two page per week, because that's how I was working at the time. Right. So that comes first. It's like, I need this to give me some visual structure to my week. Right. That's why I use an analog planner as opposed to a digital planner, even though those are visual as well. This is a little bit different. Right. And then I'm involved in this in a tactile sense. So layout always comes first. And, you know, I spent, you know, probably two years, maybe a little more two years with the previous layout until the layout wasn't as good for me. Right. I needed more. So. I looked around, found what I thought was going to be a good layout for me, took a shot with this. Honestly, you know, you don't know if it's necessarily going to work like full time as a product. Right. And it turns out like just being able to research and read about all these things and see how people use these different products and looking at the structure and how other people use it. It fit. Right. It fits how I visually want to see my days and weeks and months. Number one. And then number two, it's a pleasure to use. Right. So that's kind of my my ranking on how I would pick out a planner. Right. So there's there's a lot of combinations. You can get one or the other that, you know, you can have a great layout and it'd be annoying to use, whether it's paper quality or construction quality or things like that. Or you can get just a beautifully constructed book. But the structure does not allow you to be your best you when you're using it on the daily, weekly basis that that works for you. So, so far, this is fit what I wanted in a planner. And, you know, it wasn't again, I talk about the ability to like look at these things over the long term before I make a purchase that goes for planners to and notebooks and just like it does for pens. You know, if I'm going to make it a expensive pen purchase, I rarely just start clicking buttons. Right. I try to read research as much as I can to make sure I'm making the best decision for myself. And then you hope it works out. And so far, the the A5 cousin has and I don't see any reason that it's not going to continue for the rest of the year into the into the next. So it's it's really working well. I enjoyed a lot. I'm able to use every type of pen and pencil with it. I'm not hesitating to use pen. I mean, to use like ballpoint pens or pencils in, you know, on a 52 GSM to Moe River paper. Right. It's all been enjoyable. But of course, you know, the fountain pens are great. And that's what I'm using a lot. But my God, it doesn't keep me from using absolutely everything I have on my desk. And that was a that was a goal as well. So, yeah, I'm two thumbs up definitely so far for the A5 cousin. So I just wanted to give a little recap two months into it. And I'm mostly like I'm I'm happy with myself that I've been able to keep this up because, you know, I've the weekly journal or the weekly planner is. A little bit of a different commitment. It's more of a write in it once a week and then refer to it throughout the week. Maybe jot a little bit different notes. So this is a little bit different process, more daily and more. A little bit more commitment. But it's the right amount of structure that I need to to actually have it be like a good product for myself. So very happy with it.

Myke Hurley: Nice.

Pen Addict Updates

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Another update, Myke, on a little bit different path, but one that we've talked about before. So I wanted to follow up that we got a conclusion. We had success or I should say Havoc Rose had success. Our friend Miranda got the Twitch stationary stream team tags approved. So this is what we asked y'all to vote on on Twitch. Miranda made what do they call that section of Twitch? It's like it's like a user. It's like a user improvement. Yeah. It's like a little petition thing. So all Miranda wanted and all of us on the team wanted was, hey, when I stream about my stationary, I would like to be able to tag it stationary. So therefore, other people on Twitch can search for stationary and find us.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And it took, this was sometime last year she launched this originally.

Myke Hurley: I think they get a lot of these requests. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I'm sure. It's a lot. But the amount of votes we got it hopefully pushed it to someone in front of someone's eyeballs and said, oh, this is easy. We should do this. Maybe this is a growing community. We've certainly, you know, tried to grow the community. And, hey, we got the stationary tag, the journaling tag, and the planners tag. So it was really, really cool to see.

Myke Hurley: It's awesome to get three. I didn't remember that. I just remember journaling as being the main one.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So Miranda requested three. And thanks to everyone for going to vote on that when we asked you to and kind of push that up the list a little bit. And as of like late last week, everyone who voted got a little email that said, hey, these tags have been approved. Yep. And so what do I do, Myke? Yesterday I go on stream yesterday for my first time since we had this wonderful new feature and forgot to use it. Of course you did, Brad. That was cool. Yep. That was cool. And, of course, trying to figure. It's good that's the right way to treat it, really, you know? And trying to figure that out live, trying to add them on the fly, imagine how that went. That does not go well.

Myke Hurley: That stuff is so much harder to do on Twitch if you're doing it like in the Twitch system rather than in your streaming app. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So at no point did I figure out how to add it. We just gave up. And so my next streams will have them added when I launch. Will it though?

Myke Hurley: You know? There is the intention. There was the intention this time. You know? You know, it's like. Really got to wait and see.

Brad Dowdy: It's like once you get your hand slapped once, you remember how that feels. Right? So you tend to not repeat that action again. So, yeah. I feel like I'm going to do it. I feel like I'm going to put the appropriate tags on there. It's not like you're hedging already. No, because it was funny. Someone actually came in yesterday. Like, actually, yesterday when I was streaming, we had several people, like multiple, two or three people say, OMG, you're streaming about pins on Twitch. I am so glad I found you. And you're like, imagine if I tagged it, Myke. Imagine.

Myke Hurley: One of the things I generally find so interesting about Twitch as a platform is that what you just described? Because there are people that discover this show every week. They're new. Yeah. Yeah. But we don't know that. Because, like, the numbers, you can't really see the changes. Because they change for myriad reasons and multiples every single episode. You know, you might have, like, ten more than last week, a hundred less than last week, a thousand more than two weeks. Like, it just, you know. But with Twitch, it's like people, they appear in the chat and then they say something. Like, it's very normal to say something. And something I really love that Twitch does now is if it's somebody's first time coming to your channel, it actually highlights that for you when you're, like, it does in the app that I use as well. Yes. Because it has the embedded stream chat. And so, they don't have to say, hey, this is my first time checking it out. They could just come and ask a question or whatever. And it's like, oh, wow. Like, you really see new people in a unique way. And also, like, you know, you get notifications about people following the channel. They're obviously new. So, it's just, it's interesting that the instant feedback is so interesting. And what makes it even more funny to me, really, is, like, how much smaller the audiences are than podcast audiences and stuff. But because it is, like, real time, it feels like a bigger impact. So, it's just an interesting thing about it.

Brad Dowdy: And there's, like, even though you're broadcasting in front of, like, in my case, you know, like, a little over 100 people, you're still having a one-to-one interaction. Right? And you're allowed to have that. And, like, that's a good feeling. Right? Like, it's a comfortable type of setup. Right? So, it's pretty cool. Also, I'm happy to, you know, be part of, you know, like, the stationary community on Twitch, which I'll put the link into Stationary Brew, which is a quick way for people new to Twitch to go follow a bunch of other stationary streamers. We're all kind of tagged in the same team, stream team, which you don't have to worry about, but just know, like, people in that team stream about stationary a lot, among other things. I hope you find some. Yep. So, it's really good. And we have a lot of fun on Twitch. So, it's, I just want to, I'm not going to bring it up every show, but I like when we have something new and neat and successful like this. It's pretty cool.

Pen Streams

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I will put in the show notes links to Brad and my Twitch channels as well, if you're interested in checking out Brad. Obviously, Brad does pen stuff. I do keyboard stuff. So, we'll put those in there if you do want to come and hang out at some point. All right. Should we take our first break? Yeah, let's. All right. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas, letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your own backyard. This is because Uni Pizza Ovens reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit or 500 degrees Celsius. This is what gets you that excellent restaurant quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds. That high temperature separates these ovens from those that you would have at home. It gives a vastly different taste and experience and everything is vastly better. But what's really awesome is the Uni Pizza Ovens are incredibly easy to use and really portable as well. They're going to fit into any outside space. Two of their coolest models is the multi-fueled Uni Karu. This can use wood, charcoal, or gas. Or the Uni Koda 16, which is a gas-powered oven that cooks up to 16-inch pizzas with an innovative L-shaped burner at the back. This gives you even heat distribution across the whole surface of the pizza. They also make a really great app to help you perfect your dough recipe and give loads of pizza making tips. And Uni, they have so many accessories. They have peels, cutters, oven tables, thermometers, the whole nine yards. Brad Dowdy, I know that you're a big Uni Pizza Oven fan.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. And it's pretty much Uni season here, right? So I didn't do it as much over the winter because you cook it outside. I'm not going to bring it inside to cook. And so just as we get into the spring and summertime, the weather warming up, we will be using this oven probably a couple of times a month. Which is a lot if you think about it for making pizzas. But it's so good. It actually, it's one of those products that you don't think about until you actually have one or start researching one. It actually is fun to use and an enjoyment to use. And while you're, you know, you just get to make your own little custom pizzas and they're awesome. They like, it cooks so well. It does exactly what it says it's supposed to do. It's impressive technology to be quite honest. And the results could not be any better. I mean, it is, it's some of the best pizza I've had and it's right here in my backyard.

Myke Hurley: Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni pizza oven, which is up to $50 off an Ooni code of 16. Just go to Ooni.com and use the code PENADDICTFM22 at checkout. Ooni pizza ovens are always in high demand. People just want to make the stuff at home. Why wouldn't they? So don't miss out. Go to Ooni.com and use the code PENADDICTFM22 for 10% off. Ooni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant quality pizza to your own backyard. Thanks to Ooni pizza ovens for the support of this show and Relay FM. All right, Myke. What you got here? I received my Tactile Turn GT, the orange and blue one, the very Formula One. Not inspired by Formula One, but just motor racing in general. Yeah, classic motor racing. Yeah, the old like Ford GT colorway, the orange and like the golf colorway, that kind of stuff. I really, really like it. I love the color. They did a fantastic job. Packaging cool. You get this little like metal card in the package. It kind of explains the story of the product, which I liked. I think I made a bit of a mistake. Uh-oh. I think I would have preferred the short to the standard.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, what did you get? So there's three sizes, right? So standard is the actual full size. Yes. And then short is the middle size and mini is the small size. I think the standard is a little too long. Don't disagree with that.

Myke Hurley: I think they've named them poorly. I think it should be long, short mini. Sorry, long standard mini. I think that the short doesn't seem like it would be that short, really. Yes. And so, yeah. I really like the pen, though. I love the colorway I'm going to be using. It's just like a great pen for me to have on a desk because it's got like such a great little mechanism. Yeah. Um, and I just absolutely adore the way it looks. But yeah, I would recommend people want to buy this themselves. Mm-hmm. From my perspective, the standard is the long model.

Brad Dowdy: So, Tactile Turn sent me the Stealth, and I got to pick which one I wanted. And I opted for the standard, which is the one that you have now, the long one. Mm-hmm. I enjoy it. When I went to buy my own GT one, I chose the whatever the middle one is. Short. The short one. And I prefer it as well. Okay. So, that's my long way of saying I agree with you. The issue, not the issue, the difference between them is the big one, the standard, takes the full-size gel ink refills like your G2 compatible. So, that's what I wanted first so I could put in a blue-black juice refill in the Stealth. Perfect. But when I went to order one, I didn't want another one that size. And the short uses the Parker-style refills. So, I swapped in a Jetstream refill, the Jetstream SXR-07. So, that's your difference. So, the barrel determines the types of refills. You can fit in there standardly. You can always hack things and do other things, but just for the standards. And then the mini one is like I probably won't get a mini because it really only takes the Pilot G2 mini, which is a nice refill, but it only comes in .7. And there's not as much hackability to the mini one. So, I agree with your assessment of the normal versus the short.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and this is the thing where I would prefer, refill-wise, the G2 over the Schmidt Easy Flow. Yes. So, that's the issue.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, I have one of each now, but the one that I paid for myself, I chose the middle size just because I thought the standard was. It gets a little heavy. It's a little long. Still very, very usable, but it is a quite different feel from the short.

Mark I Pens

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. So, there you go. While we're talking about nice and big pens in one of our favorite colorways, there was a limited edition orange Mark I. Mm-hmm. What do you think? It's killer. It's straight up. That's amazing, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's amazing. I slept on ordering it, and of course, they're gone, which is fine. I didn't need. I mean, I'm good.

Myke Hurley: Brad, this is my sixth Mark I, I think. Yeah. I mean, I bought one. I bought one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted it. Like, I hovered and clicked and thought about it, and then I was like, let me just wait. Like, I don't need to just, like, it's $80, which is honestly a deal, right? Like, I say that as that's cheap, right? Because what did I just pay for this GT? Like, $100, like, twice that much, probably. Like, $140, $150? Mm-hmm. And, like, I didn't even blink at that. $80 is nothing for a pin this quality. But I was like, do I need it? How am I going to use this? I'm trying to be, have some restraint. Yeah. In the catch-them-all type of stuff, which I talk about all the time. So, yeah, I just, I saw it. I drooled. I said, this is perfect. And I passed. And, like, I'm okay with that. Yeah. I'm okay with that. Not because I didn't want it and don't think it's literally the best one that they've done. It's just that I have, I have, what do I have? The Apollo. I have my Kickstarter one. So, yeah, I guess I have two. So, I have the ivory one and I have the Apollo one. And I, this would have been my next one. But, like, it's okay. Like, I'm good. I'm good. I'm covered.

Myke Hurley: But I've got the black one and the white one from the original Kickstarter campaign. I've got an Apollo. I've got the blue one. I have the Cortex one. And now I've got an orange one coming. It's good. It's a great pin. I mean, this is one of those things where, like, I get to see behind the scenes with these guys a lot, right? Because we work together on stuff and we have our show thoroughly considered. Just people should check out if they haven't before. And they were asking me, like, knock-wise, should they go with the dark one or the silver one? And I was like, oh, silver all the way. This one, yeah. And then I strongly encouraged them as well to do more than 300. I don't know if that was what pushed them to do 500. But I was like, 300 will sell out immediately in this colorway. And 500 sold out immediately.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah, orange is a no-brainer. And that's the other reason why I didn't do it is because I also used my Ajoto that I made for the Penatic. It's the same refill. I can, like, I love the Schmidt P8126. I don't need all the pens with it, too. So I'm trying to balance things, right? So it's like I wanted this, but I held off. But I knew it was going to go quickly. And it did. Up next, Myke, I'm surprised we already have this link in the show notes in relation to just talking about the TWSBI swipe salmon. But the TWSBI swipe pear green is now coming soon. It's the next TWSBI swipe color. And this validates everything I've thought about the swipe as it was really successful upon launch. So now it gets all the colors, Myke. And they are all coming hot and heavy. You know, forget your 580s. Forget your Ecos. This is TWSBI's new hotness. They're leaning into the swipe big time. What do you think about it?

Myke Hurley: Have we been over this before? Why do they call it the swipe?

Brad Dowdy: I don't think this one we could figure out. Right.

Myke Hurley: It should just be called TWSBI spring. I like that one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think we've discussed it. And I don't know that we've come to a real conclusion. Hey, look. This green. I wonder if TWSBI has it on there.

Myke Hurley: I don't really like it. But it doesn't matter. I like that they're doing colors in this pen. It's a great pen. Fun pen. Great start. A pen for people. The more colors they do, the better, in my opinion. It deserves it.

Brad Dowdy: It really does. Like, I talk about when TWSBI does this, like, I call it a platform pen. Like, when you have the model. Like, we talked about how the TWSBI Go, which we both love, it's not. You can tell by the decisions they make in the future that it's not the leader in the clubhouse. Right? Like, the TWSBI swipe has gone off relative to the TWSBI Go as far as, like, sales goes. You can just tell by what happens next. And right now, the swipe is getting the color treatment. So, they've done the salmon. They've done this pear green. They did orange and green also. Like, more solid oranges and more solid greens for, it was a Chinese release, I believe it was. At least somewhere in the Asian market. I think it was China. Yeah. So, I have a guess on what color's next. And I'm going to go ahead and say it on this show. Do you want to take a swipe at what color's next, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Yellow.

Brad Dowdy: That's a good guess. That was on the list. That was actually probably my second guess. I think it's going to be a purple in this more muted color with the salmon, the pear green, and more of a lavendery purple. That's going to be my guess. So, we'll see. We'll see probably in about two weeks when they release the next color of this. That's how they work, man. Because they get on these heaters, and it's just, like, nonstop for them. And, like, I'm okay with it. Like, I'm not going to buy the salmon. I'm not going to buy the pear green. I don't need any of these things. I'm very glad they exist because more people should be using this pen. And if pear green or salmon is what's going to get them to use it, then, like, hey, go for it, Twisby. Twisby's doing a good job. I have no problems with my friends over there at Twisby. So, really, really cool.

Shown Design Pens

Brad Dowdy: All right. Next pen, Myke. Just unboxed yesterday on the Twitch stream. And, actually, I need to see if the for sale link is live. The shown design 10th anniversary ballpoint. I can't believe it's been 10 years since. I don't believe that. Oh, that's so true. Right? Right? That can't be true. Well, it can't be true because Ian's only 10. Right? Oh, don't do that. Like, he didn't make these. He's young. He's a young lad.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but, you know, people that are younger than you don't want to hear you say their children. I'll tell you that. Right? I haven't been that person.

Brad Dowdy: So, I'll never forget. And I wrote about this when I finally reviewed my first shown design ballpoint pen. That the original Kickstarter I passed on because I didn't think the pen was necessarily, like, perfect for me. Like, you know, I really think about, like, I buy a lot of stuff. Like, I don't want to, like, say, like, I have some form of restraint. I really don't. But I do try to consider, like, hey, if I'm going to buy this, am I going to use it? And I thought at the time, it's like, well, you know, it's got, you know, uses the Fisher Space Pen Refill. And I've got a space pen. And I kind of have some other pens that are this, like this. And, you know, I thought at the time they were going to be a little bit heavy. Right? They were, you know, a lot of brass. And I don't know if aluminum was part of the first one. But then I finally got an aluminum version of it. And I think it was maybe, like, brass and stainless at the beginning. I can't remember. This is terrible content because I should have looked it up beforehand. So I finally got an aluminum one to test. And I was like, oh, this is what I want. But now the way Ian is manufacturing these brass pens, which I have this 10th anniversary ballpoint in my hand. He sent it to me ahead of launch, which is today. We'll put the link in the show notes if it's up.

Brad Dowdy: It is lighter than I expect from a pocket brass pen while still having a good heft. Like, I don't even question the weight of this pen when I use it. So what the 10th anniversary ballpoint is, I guess I should explain. It's a little more than a ballpoint. And it shows, you know, the steps Ian has made to build and improve shown design. You know, he's into fountain pens now. And he's using different materials than metals. And he does a lot of really cool experimental stuff and does a lot of really wild anodizing. And that's where we first, like, really went off the deep end. You and I at that DC pen show when we bought the Dexter and the Lisa Frank and all these pocket pens with these wild anodized. So what this 10th anniversary is, is it comes with basically three different front end sections. So it's the traditional ballpoint pen shape, right? So the small pocketable ballpoint pen comes with a ballpoint grip, comes with the Schmidt Easy Flow refill, the Parker style refill. That's a really great ballpoint. But then you also get a front end section. You just swap these at the grip section. You just unscrew them. That has a rollerball tip, which is the fountain pen compatible rollerball tip that Schmidt makes. So I've talked about these on the show before. They are a rollerball front end, but the back side of the refill has an international cartridge fitting. So this fits short international cartridges. You just pop them on there. That's what I was most interested in using. It also comes with a fountain pen front end, right? So it's got a concave brass section with a number six size fountain pen nib. So it's got all these different parts. Like he went all out for making this pen. And it's all brass materials. And again, just kind of hot swappable sections. I went for the rollerball mic because I have not tested one of these in a while. And in general, this is a very tough sell for a lot of people. In the past, and I don't know what other companies use, but like Kaweco, for example, made a rollerball classic, like the pocketable plastic sport or classic, whatever they call the model. And you just pop in the international cartridge. And it was a bad experience for me, right? The fountain pen ink and the ball in the rollerball tip were not really compatible as far as smoothness, skipping, all of that stuff. So a lot of people are always looking for these type of pens. And Jay Herban made one. And Jay Herban. And it was generally poorly received as well. And I don't know who their tip manufacturer was. And this is years ago. And then recently, Monteverde started using this. And people started liking them again, saying, hey, these actually work. And I haven't gotten around to testing one of those. You know, it's actually a good experience using a fountain pen ink cartridge and a rollerball tip. So these Schmidt front ends, I've had one sitting at the house for a couple of years that Jonathan Brooks gave me at one time. And just never really was compelled to use it. So this was my opportunity to say, and Ian sent me this for free. I had no charge. Disclaimer.

Brad Dowdy: So I, you know, I use Ian's ballpoints and Ian's fountain pens pretty regularly. So like I'm covered on that. This was a newer experience for me. I popped in a Faber-Castell olive green short ink cartridge, short international cartridge in this pen. It writes wonderfully. Like I am, it's one of those ones. I was like, okay, let's see how this goes. And I popped it in and go, huh, like that's pretty good. Like it is really smooth. The line is good. It's like a, you know, it's like a 0.7 millimeter line, something like that. Even like there's a couple of different tip sizes. I haven't explored them both. There's a 0.5 and a 0.7. They're not marked. I was like trying to inspect them to see if I could tell the difference and even got my loop out to try to see if there was a tip size difference on the front end. It was really, really hard to see.

Brad Dowdy: But so I just went with whatever this one is. It writes about, I don't know, it's probably between a 0.5 and a 0.7 line. I'll try the other one later. It is shockingly good. Like I'm going to do a post just to talk about this tip. And who makes it? Much less Schmidt. It's a Schmidt one. It is a Schmidt part that a lot of companies use that you can just buy to build around. You know, just like the Schmidt knock that we all dislike, right? Yes. That a lot of companies use. You know, they make other mechanisms and parts for people to use to build things around, right? So this is just like a front end tip. And it has to have, you know, it's not hot swappable with like fountain pen sections and other random things. It has to be built, you know, for the diameters of this little part. Yeah, I am into this. So now I have like a rollerball pen with the fountain pen ink colors. Like we talk about this from time to time, how people would like that experience and to have something good.

Brad Dowdy: I am in. Like I will be, I am compelled to review not just this pen because it's the 10-an anniversary pen or because Ian gave it to me and expects me to review it. He does not. He doesn't care. He's just a nice guy. But I am actually compelled to discuss this Schmidt mechanism because so far it's only one ink and one test. It really works well. And I would be interested to see if it continues to work well with other inks, right? There's definitely going to be some question whether, you know, did I just get like the accidentally make the perfect ink selection, right? With the ink formulation to roll smoothly from the ball tip. But yeah, like I'm thrilled with how this is. And by the way, I get to use it in the really cool shown pen that I have, right? Yeah. So like that makes the experience like even better. Like if it was just in some random plastic stick, you know, I don't know that it would be cool, as cool or as enjoyable as this. But, you know, this great brass barrel with a, you know, a great grip section and just cool design and just exquisitely made. And Ian's doing the stamping now, the name stamping on the barrels. It's really clean. So congratulations, Ian. Yeah. Amazing.

Myke Hurley: 10 years. I cannot believe it. I know. Also, it's an achievement to have built this business and it's still be around for a decade. That's a really special thing. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Ian's a special cat. And this is just shows like he's got what it takes to make a success out of this business. His head's in the right place. His designs are elite and the quality is phenomenal. And I just can't praise him enough and all the products that he makes. I'm a super fan. So thank you, Ian, for sending me this. Congrats on your 10th anniversary. And I will be talking about this ballpoint, this rollerball tip regularly. So, yeah, we'll have to put the other, the ballpoint and the fountain pen tips in storage here for a minute while I play with this rollerball. Who knew, Myke? Who knew?

Myke Hurley: All right. We've got another sponsor for this week's episode. New sponsor. It's Topofolio. This is a Kickstarter project. It's called the Topofolio that we're talking about today. It's a tech case designed by a fellow pen addict listener and stationary blogger, Myke Lynn. The folio style case includes very unique and fun, I think, magnetic inserts. They come in a variety of styles that are designed to help your analog and tech gear all be both interchangeable and neat and orderly. It is designed with input from hundreds of tablet users. It's made to adapt and carry almost anything you might need in your daily working life. It's made to adapt and carry almost everything you might need in your daily life. It's made to adapt and carry almost everything you might need in your daily life. I think the adaptability of this case is so smart because you could have a bunch of these inserts and they're all set up, ready to go. And depending on what you're going to be doing in a day, you can just grab the ones you need. They're magnetically attached within the folio bag case and you're just ready to go. I think this is super cool. Right, Brad? I know that you were really excited about it. We were talking about it before the show today.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I saw this. So Myke and I don't necessarily, this is behind the scenes. We don't necessarily discuss like all the ads that are in there. Myke goes and puts like the details we need in the show notes. I'll write the show doc and then Myke will circle back around and put in the links. And I saw this link in there this morning. I was like, hey, what's this? And I was like looking at the link. And I had found this independently just yesterday or maybe it was Monday because I follow Myke and I follow original content books in my RSS feeds for all my pin blogs that I talk about. And I'm always linking to original content books because, you know, they do great reviews, product reviews and fun stuff and always do a nice job. And he posted about this topofolio and I spent some time looking at this. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I like this. I'm going to back this when it comes out. And, you know, it looks like something interesting. You know, I like bags. I like, you know, this type of construction. I like these types of ideas on how things work together. So it's like, yeah, I'm totally in for this. And independently from that, by the way, they were sponsoring this show. So I had no idea that these were going to be co-joined, if you will, Myke. But I'm a backer. Yep. I think this is interesting. I like the size. I like the adaptability of the inserts. Each insert kind of has a different purpose. You know, I think just looking at it, you know, I will have favorite inserts as opposed to like, you know, like the standard pen and notebook type of insert as opposed to like, say, the 30 pencil insert. But that's the cool part about it is I'll use it my way. You'll use it your way. And someone else will use it their way. And I think that's the interesting piece of the topo folio is that if you're an urban sketcher or something, you load this up with your pencils and paints and your notebooks. Or if you're me going to work at a cafe, I'll load it up with, you know, my iPad and, you know, my journal and then some pens. It's the pens and notebooks. Right. And all I have to do to change these things out is just kind of pop them out like they're magnet type of a folio insert. So it's really cool. I like seeing Myke do this. I like seeing people in the community make things. And I'm very, very interested in this. So I have backed it myself. So, yeah. And that was pretty cool that they chose to advertise on the pen addict. I had no idea. So this was cool to see today.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Obviously, because Myke is a pen addict, you know, there's tons of great, well-engineered space for all of your favorite pens. You know, you've got that taken care of.

Brad Dowdy: All you got to do is look at the product shots of these products to know if they're a pen nerd or not. So hidden in the very top left corner of, like, the main image is a Kuhn masterpiece, which is, like, a very unique and expensive sharpener. There is the James brand click pen, which is the white pen you see in here with the little lanyard attachment. So, like, these are the little nerd-level high things that I notice when people are doing products. And, like, I really, really appreciate that. So it's cool.

Myke Hurley: The case uses recycled plastic bottle fabric called Reprieve. This has an exterior slate gray color with a bright orange interior. You know we love orange. These colors were inspired by perfect sunrises to capture some of this early morning feeling into the case design. You can support the Topofolio Kickstarter project right now by going to originalcontentbooks.com slash topofolio. That is originalcontentbooks.com slash topofolio. There'll be a link in the show notes as well, so you can go and check it out for yourself. Our thanks to Topofolio for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right. We're going to hit some ass TPA this week. You bet. You bet. The first one comes from Tom, who says, I finally found a fountain pen that plays well with my field notes notebook. A fine nib, Kaweco Sport, and I'm using a Midori blue-black cartridge. There's no bleeding, feathering, or anything like that. Is it the pen or the ink that is making the difference?

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. I have very strong opinions about this topic, as do you. Uh-huh. Do you want my positive spin first or my negative spin first?

Myke Hurley: Give me negative so we can finish on a high.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know what field notes they're using.

Myke Hurley: Very good point. Let's assume it's the standard kind. Because there are way more field notes. No, that's not true at all. I've had great, like, I've had perfectly acceptable experiences with the regular field notes and fountain pens. Years I would run it that way.

Brad Dowdy: So, my opinion is standard field notes, I'm not going to say they're bad for fountain pens. I think, like Tom says, you can find a sweet spot that's better. But, big picture, overall, percentages and consistency is going to be poor. Now, Tom, you may have found the sweet spot. You're saying, is it the pen or the ink that makes the difference? And the pen being the nib or the ink, I would lean more towards the ink, but it is a combination of it being a fine nib. But, Kaweco fine nibs aren't that fine.

Brad Dowdy: So, no bleeding, no feathering. Is it the pen or the ink? I lean more towards the ink. I have not tested this combination on a field notes, on a standard field notes. My guess, if Tom would be so kind to follow up with me at a later date, if he actually hears this, because we've probably had this question in here for weeks, would be, I want to know what edition specifically you're using. Because that, my friend, Myke Harley, makes the biggest difference.

Well Water

Myke Hurley: Well, what I would say, my answer to Tom's question is yes and yes. Right? Like, it could be the pen or it could be the ink. Like, really, the only way to work this out is to do some testing yourself. Yeah. But if you're using a fine nib Kaweco Sport, like, I reckon that's going to give you a perfectly acceptable, like, use in a field notes notebook. Brad might not find it acceptable, but, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Well, just for our new listeners, this is a hundreds of episodes long debate between Myke and I of field notes usage that I don't use fountain pens in standard field notes paper. Because I don't enjoy the output of the ink and the nib on the page, where Myke has no issue, which is also completely valid. So, like, we have this kind of dividing line topic, and this has been since the early, early days, and it comes up from time to time. So, I am anti-fountain pen and field notes, standard editions caveat, and Myke is just go for it, and it's really perfectly fine.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. Luke says, I just moved to a new home, which is exciting, but raises an interesting pen issue. My new home is on well water and is hard water. Will cleaning my pens with hard water damage them? Would softened water make a difference? Do I need to start filtering water to clean my pens out?

Brad Dowdy: Can I tell you how much I love this question?

Myke Hurley: This is incredible. I mean, I never would have thought of it. You know.

Brad Dowdy: You know I love every single bit of this question, because I have never thought about this topic. No. Although, we've kind of talked about it generally. Hey, how do I clean my pens? Do I need to buy distilled water? And that's exactly what I would tell Luke to do, is at the grocery store next time, buy the big liter bottles. Of distilled water and clean your pens that way. Use that just specifically as pen cleaning water. You know. And you can, you know, hopefully kind of meter your usage so you're not having to constantly buy that type of water. And you can, you know, the water can be inky, and you can still clean your pens with, like, inky water. So, like, don't think you have to do, like, one pen at a time. You know, get 10 pens, clean them through there, and flush them. But I don't know for a fact that the hard water is going to cause problems. I would think over the long term, it would not be great. Yeah. Right?

Myke Hurley: I mean, I live in a hard water area, but it's different to well water, hard water.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. So, I just think, like, if you're going to do a quick rinse, like, I wouldn't care. Right? If you're going to do, like, your distilled water, mostly cleaning, final rinse with the hard water, you know, the house water, that would be fine. I think just a consistent cleaning with that, I think I would try to avoid just for any long term issues that might arise. That would be my unscientific take. It just sounds right. So, buy those distilled water bottles and use that.

Myke Hurley: This definitely feels like one of those things to me where it's, like, I've never considered it, but the fact that you have had to ask this question is, like, one of those things where I'm, like, you already know the answer because you asked. Yep. That's how I, you know, that's, like, a look at what you ask now. So, you have that in the back of your mind. I would recommend, considering, as press it, like, how relatively easy it would be to just have some of this water in the house that you could use specifically for this purpose. Like, you know, I'm sure you'd find even other purposes for it, similarly.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So, I think that's the move.

Myke Hurley: Joe says, I bought Robert Oster Yellow Sunshine Ink and I found it to be too light in most cases. If you have a bright yellow or some other light color ink, how do you use it?

Brad Dowdy: You go first. You're a yellow fan and I'm coming around. So, I would like to discuss this as well. But I know you've used yellow for a longer period of time than I have. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So, this is what I was, the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because what I wanted to say is, in my experience, I've only ever found one yellow ink and I've tried a bunch that I actually like and use regularly. I think I have that Robert Oster and I find it to be too light. And it's Sailor Ink Studio 770. Okay. That's the best I've found. Like, it's bright, but still very yellow, like, and you can read it and also it has some shade to it. So, it gives a little bit more texture to what you're writing. So, it makes it easier to read. And for light inks like that, honestly, I don't, I will not use them. Like, if I get an ink and I consider it to be too light, which means it's too light to really read clearly, that ink doesn't have a use for me anymore. I could imagine if I was, like, a highlighting person, you know, like, you could use those inks to maybe draw around something or you could use it to highlight with, like, a thicker nib fountain pen. But for me, like, that doesn't have a use in my arsenal, like a light ink like that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And one of the regular issues that comes up with yellow fountain pen ink is most of our nice fountain pen papers are cream or ivory color. And that makes it even harder to see the lighter colors, right? Most of the great fountain pen paper outside of, like, Clairefontaine Triumph is not stark white, right? Which helps with readability. Mm-hmm. For a light ink. So I, like Myke, I used to avoid yellow inks, just period, until I found a couple that I really enjoy. One more than any of them, which is the Pilot 101st Anniversary Iroshizuku Daikukoten, which I have a review on the blog. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. I'll find the link afterwards. That changed my mind on the usability of yellow inks because, like, you were talking about the shading in the one that you prefer. It has this little bit of character that makes it easier to read. The other issue with yellow inks is when you're writing, like, right from the nib, they're much harder to read until the ink dries. Yeah, that's a good point. So it actually hurts your eyes a little bit, straining, trying to read what you've written. So you have to find something that you can read while you're writing and before it dries. And I found that with Daikukoten. It's readable as I'm writing and looks even better when it dries. So that's, like, my go-to.

Myke Hurley: Who makes that?

Brad Dowdy: Iroshizuku. Pilot Iroshizuku. So I'll get it off the blog. We'll put the link in the show notes. It's fantastic. It's actually – that ink has made me want to try more yellow inks. Like, I bought Pannonia Dandelion. I'm not going to pretend to pronounce the real name of it, but it's a yellow. And it's not as nice as the Daikokoten is. But I keep experimenting with yellow inks now because I've actually found something that I enjoy and said, oh, hey, this is cool. Let me try to figure this out. But, you know, something like Yellow Sunrise, it just may be too light. And, you know, there's just – there's some inks that just aren't usable because they just cause too much eye strain. And that might be one of them for Joe. So if you want to stay in that yellow category, check out a couple that we mentioned.

Myke Hurley: Have you tried 770?

Brad Dowdy: No. It's really good. I would put that on the list, yeah. That's really good.

Fountain Pens

Myke Hurley: Papers, Pens, and Ink asks, I've been collecting fountain pens for about two years now. I have some that are expensive and some that are inexpensive. But I find that I am enjoying my inexpensive pens, like my Safaris and Twisbees, more than my expensive ones, my sales and platinums. Is this normal or am I an outlier?

Brad Dowdy: So if you hear me talk on a regular basis, you will see that you're very normal. While I have several very outrageously expensive pens, the pens I use the most are the basics, right? And it's because you can get really great quality and performance at a reasonable price from a ton of pens that give you just so much enjoyment, so much confidence in your writing and how the pen feels and how the ink works with your notebook and how the nib flows. And when you get into buying a more expensive pen, there's not often a lot of performance difference in those products with the lower tier pens, the more expensive entry-level type pens. But you're paying for the extras, gold nibs, barrel finishes, arushi, things like that. That change maybe the feel of the pen or the perception of the pen, but it very rarely changes the performance of the pen and how the pen makes you feel when the nib hits the page. That's my experience. That's why I tend to, like, hey, I love my Nakayas and I love my Namiki Pilot. Like, those are some of my, like, you know, if the house is burning down, those are the pens I'm grabbing. But let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoy, like we were talking about the TWSBI swipe earlier, I grab that pen and use it all the time and I smile when I use it. Like, I don't know what more I can ask for than that.

Myke Hurley: The balance is important. I would say one thing to consider is that maybe you are, like, treating your expensive pens with kid gloves, you know, and maybe being more precious over them because they're expensive, which is perfectly fine to do. But you might be kind of, like, holding yourself off from letting yourself have fun with them. And my typical thing is to just enjoy it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I had to learn how to not hold them precious. Yep. And then I enjoyed them more. Yep. Right. So that's another reason is that I don't really place that specialness. Like, I have to have a special use to use this pen. I was like, you know, I'll just use it anytime, anywhere, which makes, you know, from a writing perspective, all the pens I like equivalent. Right. It's just, hey, have I missed using this Nakaya because, man, it is a piece of art and I love using it and I love how it feels. But I can grab this Twisby swipe and just, like, put a huge smile on my face just as easily.

Myke Hurley: All right. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the Pen Addict, you can just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord or you can send by email to hello at penaddict.com. And penaddict.com is where you'll find the work of Brad and his many wonderful contributors writing articles and reviews of all the greatest products that are appearing. In the stationary world, you can find Brad online. He's at dowdyism, at penaddict, and streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you to Topofolio and Uni for the support of this episode. But as always, and most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.