The Pen Addict 506/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	506
Title:	Chicken Ink
Release Date:	March 23rd, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 506
Audio File:	Audio Episode 506
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 506
Length:	5454 min <br />0.9 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Brad: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 506. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Microsoft Lists. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. What's up, Myke Hurley? How are you today? I'm good, my man. How are you? Good, good. How was that hour time change treating you? Hmm. Hasn't changed yet. Changes this weekend for me. Questionable. I'm looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. But I think it's time to get rid of it, to be honest. Yes, you're in the Twilight Zone. This is a Twilight Zone episode for us. And so, yeah, it's just something, you know, the podcasting life, Myke, you just sometimes got to deal with those schedule changes.

Myke: That is the real, you know, it's like we're back down here working hard, you know, schedule changes. Woof. We have a very, very hard job that we have.

Pen Purchase Discussion

Brad: Such complainers, these two. These two. So let's talk about the $800 pin I bought, Myke.

Brad: Times are tough. Man, man, man. Oh, boy. I got my Elbwood Pocketmaster and I thought I would take a moment, even though I kind of talked about buying a celebratory pin, because this is my first official, what I call a celebratory pin. It's a topic that we have covered a lot of times previously from you kind of doing that and some listeners also asking about that type of topic. And the more I thought about it, I've never really specifically, like, tried to, like, mark an occasion with a pin. Like, I'll buy my first Nakaya, but it's a big deal because it was my first Nakaya. It's just, like, you know, part of what I do, you know, enjoying pins. But this one I bought to celebrate, obviously, our 500th episode in 10 years of The Pin Addict. So I bought an Elbwood Pocketmaster, Myke. And as we mentioned before, this is manufactured in Germany, a small maker out of Germany called Elbwood, made by Frank. They're at the Elbwood factory. You know, I think he's a pretty much solo operation. And I saw this pin on UK Fountain Pins for the first time, and it kind of checked all my boxes to look into further, right? This is a small, pocketable pin that is my style, my aesthetic. I like this kind of setup for a pin, so let me look into it more. So I was going to buy one model of pin that was pretty stock, just a full metal pin, you know, steel nib, you know, the same shape and style, until I kind of browsed around Elbwood more and got roped into talking myself into, well, let's just buy, like, the mega upgrade model and we'll celebrate 500 episodes. And it could be my first time celebration pin. So what I ended up with, Myke, was kind of like I went full send on this one. There he goes. So you only celebrate 500 episodes one time, right? So I went with an ebonite barrel, which is this great kind of teal polished ebonite. And the hardware is silver, like legit silver, like 935 silver, whatever it is.

Myke: Is that a new thing? Do you have any other pens that are silver, like actual silver?

Brad: So I have a Yardo Led, which is a full silver. I think it's sterling. This one's Argentium, I think. I'll tell you the difference in a minute. But it's a big bulky pen, the Yardo Led, and I'm probably going to end up selling it. It's really, really nice. But it's just a very, very, very big pen. It does what it does well, but it may just not be a fit for me in the end. Even though the few times I've used it, I really, really enjoyed it. So this one has silver hardware. So the grip section is silver. The barrel threads, the threading, the post on the back of the pen, because it's a small pen, you have to post the cap to actually use it as silver. Like the internal cap threads that you don't see on the outside, also silver. So there's a lot of silver in this pen, which is a neat thing for me. You know, I did the full upgrade. And I also went for the 18K nib. I mean, if I'm going that big, we have to round it out with the 18 karat gold rhodium plated nib. So this is completely tricked out for me, right? You could probably do something even more crazy. You could probably get a full silver pen from Frank. I haven't looked because that wouldn't be something I was looking for. But this one, this one is. But it's a small pen, right? But when you, like a, say, picture like a Kaweco Sport. It's small, pocketable when it's capped. But you can uncap it and post the cap on the back and makes it like a full length barrel, right? So when you're writing with it, it fits your hand properly. I would not enjoy using this pen if you didn't post the cap, right? It's designed to be used, posted. One of the other things you have to think about buying a pen this small, it's only going to fit short international cartridges or terrible short international converters, which I refuse to use. So I wanted to not use just kind of a stock cartridge I have for this yet. So I had an empty cartridge, right? Which you can just clean out with a syringe. You know, take like a Kaweco cartridge. In my case, I took a Diamine cartridge, right? They're just all these short international cartridges are very, very common. You get one, clean it out, flush it out with a syringe, and then syringe fill it. And I chose a Graffon Faber-Castell Deep Sea, which I did a whole kind of, I wanted to go matchy-matchy on this first fill. I'll probably, this is kind of made to be like a good blue-black pocket pen for me. Okay. So I'll probably just go to a stock cartridge later, like Waterman Mysterious Blue is probably going to be like the main cartridge for it.

Myke: Is it that like there are no converters or that any converters that exist to just be too small, you'd never get enough ink in them?

Brad: So we've talked about Kaweco making these, and they've gone through a couple of different designs. And you can fill those with a syringe, but like trying to fill them as their converter, like attached to the pen, is just an exercise in frustration, right? So the only good thing for those converters would be to syringe fill them also, right? And you're still going to get less capacity because of the converter mechanics having to take up a little bit more space in there. So there are converters, they're just generally poor or frustrating. So they're just, it's not a good experience, even though you're having to go through a couple of extra steps to, hey, get an empty cartridge, syringe fill it, you know, that's a couple extra steps as well. But it's, when you have a pen like this, that's like super special, I wanted to, like, I'm fine putting in that extra effort, right? Like to make it really, really nice for what I want to do.

Myke: But similarly, if you do have like a standard cartridge that works for you, then great too, right?

Ink Preferences

Brad: Yep, which is why I really like Waterman Mysterious Blue. It's an ink that doesn't get enough credit for just being a really, really nice blue-black. And it's the exact cartridge fit. It's a short international cartridge. And I already have a box of them that I can just pop them in there. So we've talked about cartridges, you know, over the past year or two that more companies are getting into the cartridge game. Like you can get some really nice Caran d'Ache colors. Diamine has stepped up their cartridge production to have a really, really wide range of colors. So even Graffon Faber-Castell, I just don't have a deep-sea cartridge. Like I would use that in this as well. They make short international cartridges for this. So that would be a good choice. There's some good stock choices out there. I'll eventually go to that because if I'm writing this pen out of ink, I just want to kind of pop in the next cartridge and go. Because this extra fine nib, it's pretty juicy, right? It's a gold nib. It's just dead smooth. It's Yovo nibs, right? So Elwood uses Yovo nibs. They have the Elwood logo stamped on there. It's a really, really nice. I'm assuming Frank tuned it before it left. It's right on the money. Like it just feels great. But even, you know, the extra fine German gold nib is still pretty wide. I might actually tweak this down a little bit or maybe like get it into like a cursive italic. But it's a juicy extra fine that writes really, really smooth. The one kind of question I didn't know, the one risk I had going into it was the grip section of the Elwood Pocket Master. It's vertically grooved or scored, if you will, right? So the grip section is textured. And we'll have pictures in the show notes of what the Elwood, we'll have a link to the Elwood site. And you can see, because most of the pens have this same section. It actually works really, really well. Now, I haven't written a novel, you know, holding a metal vertical grooved section. But it is shockingly comfortable. You can imagine that it just kind of locks your fingers in without having to use very much pressure. So the concern isn't like the front part of your grip, but the backside of your grip. If you have like a traditional tripod grip, the back of your middle finger rests on the barrel. And that's the part that generally gets to be uncomfortable, not the front part where you're like your pinchers are, your index and your thumb. But the way the pen is weighted and balanced, it's almost a non-issue. Like I don't even notice the grip. So the only thing you do notice that's not standard or what you would experience with say like your regular Platinum or Sailor. When you're threading metal on metal, it's a little bit more noticeable, right? And especially a softer metal like silver. So you like you feel the grooves when you're when you're posting the pen or when you're screwing the cap back on. Where if you're doing that with a Platinum or like your Kaweco Sport, you just kind of just go to town. Don't even notice it. It's plastic on plastic. It's not a big deal. You notice metal on metal threading, right? So some people may not like that, but it's really a non-issue if you're if you've used metal part pens before. So overall, like, yeah, I'm thrilled with it, right? Like, it's it's this is a me pen that I would have a hard time recommending to you pen, right? Like this is not a pen I go out and recommend to a lot of people. It's very particular. It's very specific, which is why I latched onto it really quickly. Like seeing it right. It it checked all my boxes. So I was in and I would think a lot of people would go, yeah, that's not really for me. And that's like super valid, too. Right. This is not a universal type of pen design. It's very, very particular in that aspect. But it fits my particular in this. Perfect. So I'm I'm really, really happy with it. Using it for show notes today. The I'm I'm really proud at how well I match the color when we stream. Well, I have a little picture where we did a bunch of ink testing on on stream trying to get the perfect color match for it. Yeah. And I'm good. But like, this is not something I would send you over to go check out. Right. Like it's like I don't see you ever enjoying a pen like this. Oh, really? Well, I mean, yeah, you would like to use it like you. Oh, yeah, that's cool. But like you don't have any interest in owning it. Right. Like, I don't know, maybe a full size one.

Myke: A full sized I would. I do find it very beautiful, which is what intrigues me. But I just could not buy a pen like this before I tried it out because I can very clearly see it has to be posted. Right. Like there's no way around it. And I don't know how I would how that will feel for me because I just know that the weight is going to feel different than if it was full sized. And I would be keen to understand how it feels, you know.

Brad: Yeah. So let's talk about that weight as we continue down this show note. So disclosure, I paid full regular price for this pen. You know, no discounts. No, no blog. No pen fluencer pricing for this.

Myke: No pen addict rates.

Brad: Right. No pen addict rates. And then the box showed up. And the box showed up with two boxes on the internals, Myke. And I only ordered one pen. I was like, hmm. OK. So I break out the first box, which is my my I guess I'll call it my deep sea pocket master because that's kind of what this color looks like. And I break out the second box and there's a little post it note on on it said maybe for your followers, question mark. And I opened it up and it's another pocket master, but a big difference in this one. So this is an all ebonite model pocket master. Which compared to mine is a very different feeling pen having essentially no metal parts except for the nib. So when I pulled it out of the package, I did a weight check on these. So my pen checks in around 50 grams with all the silver and everything like it's not it's not a light pen, but it's not overly heavy for how it's designed. It's balanced. Well, like I don't notice the weight when I use it until I picked up the all ebonite one and it checked in at 10 grams. So it is this air light, really neat looking pocket master, which I'm giving away, Myke. It's on the blog right now. I'm giving it away. So Frank was nice enough to send this to me and I want to pay it forward, send it to someone out there in pen addict land. So we'll have a link to the giveaway on the blog. The entries are obviously going fast and furious. It's got a nice black steel nib attached to it. And it's a really unique pen in that it's so it's it's unique and it's designed to begin with, which is why I was attracted to it. But the weight of it is abnormally light. And I think it's going to be interesting for whoever gets this to to use. It's it's definitely more along the lines of a Kaweco Sport. OK. And I think it's might be lighter than a Kaweco Sport, which is saying a lot, which is really, really cool. So I look forward to where is this weight difference coming from?

Myke: Like, what is it? Silver.

Brad: So mine has silver. So it's so it's not just a silver like grip section. Right. So the post on the back of the pen is silver, which means it has to thread through the barrel. So like the barrel lining of mine, it is also silver. Right. Because it has to thread in. So there's internal threading on the front end and the back end of the barrel and on the front end of the cap for me to attach it. So each piece of this has internal metal parts. In my case, all those internal parts, there was not there's no skimping on the internals. All the internals are silver as well. Right. There's not brass or steel inserts on mine. So it's just all of that weight adds up. But like when you hold it, you go, OK, it's got some weight to it. It doesn't you don't go, oh, my gosh, that's heavy. But when you write with it, you don't notice the weight at all, which is always the sign of a well-designed pen to me.

Myke: Right. OK, fair enough.

Brad: So I'm happy with it. I will you will definitely see some more pictures and me not shutting up about it for a little while here. And yeah, so and also shout out to Frank for adding in that extra pen for me to use as a giveaway, which is now up on the website. So go check that out.

Myke: Well, I look forward to seeing it one day and I'm really pleased to see that you are happy with it because it was a it was a bit of a risk. Truth. You were taking, I feel like.

Brad: Yep. It definitely was. And it's one of those things I talk about big picture wise. Right. Where say we people ask, like, do you have a list of products, say for like a pen show or something like that. Right. And it's like I don't actually keep like a shopping list. I keep a research list. Right. So I'm always seeing these things, reading about these things. So when the opportunity comes up, I'm better positioned to make a good decision with my money. And when you're spending that much money on a product, you want to be sure you're making as good a decision as possible. So this one happened to come about a little bit quicker. Right. Like the decision making process was a little bit quicker. This is probably a whole like podcast segment down the line of of how I choose to buy an expensive pen. And a lot of it is waiting and researching until you're comfortable to know that you're spending your money wisely. So, yeah, we'll save that full exploration of the topic for a later date. But, yeah, like it was a lot less risky for me having the level of experience that I have. Right. Where different people would have a different process in thinking about these things.

Commercial Break

Myke: All right. Should we take a first break? Let's do it. All right. If people have heard this and like, oh, man, I want a new pen. I know where you can go. Pen Chalet because they have everything you're looking for from all of your favorite brands and all of the types of products that you want. Whether you are looking for a new fountain pen or maybe you want a new mechanical pencil in your life. Maybe you just want some ink or you're looking for some refills or maybe just some little accessories like converters, carrying cases. No matter what it is that you're looking for, Pen Chalet is the place to go because they do free shipping on orders of $50 in the U.S. with great shipping rates worldwide. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Pen Chalet had the fastest, most reliable customer service in town. And they run special discounts. Every couple of weeks, you're going to find closeout specials. And then also make sure you're checking back to see their new styles of pens. And they're having new products from new brands all the time over at Pen Chalet. If you're ever seeing something online, like, oh, I want to check this out, go to Pen Chalet first because you're a listener to the Pen Addict podcast, which means that you get to save 10% on anything at any time over at Pen Chalet. Just go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password, Pen Addict, and you will get the 10% code that you need to save on anything at any time, as well as getting to feast your eyes on some specific offers just for Pen Addict listeners. What have we got, Brad?

Brad: We have the Monteverde Giant Sequoia fountain pen at a really, really nice price. This is one of the neater Monteverdes. We reviewed the Invicta today on the Pen Addict blog. Jeff just did his review. The Invicta is a pen that he really enjoys. This is an acrylic model pen where the Invicta is a metal barrel pen, and it's got some really neat striated acrylic materials. And for that price, like, it's a really, really exceptional price for a pen that I know a lot of people enjoy. They also have a couple of Pelican Special Editions. The 200 Golden Barrel, which was last year's pen or ink of the year, and then before that, the Moonstone. They also have the M205 Moonstone at really exceptionally marked down prices. So those are always good deals.

Myke: The Special Edition one that you mentioned is cool because it's a clear demonstrator, too.

Brad: Yep. Yep. Which is, and that's actually, I like Pelican's clear demonstrators because they have made those for decades and decades, but they don't always have them available, right? So it's actually a very modern type of pen, but it's really a throwback to, like, some vintage designs that they've had back in the day. So really cool. Y'all go check those out. There's some great stuff on Pen Chalet, as always.

Myke: That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Pen Addict. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for the support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad: Do you think Pen Chalet is ever going to stock chicken ink? Chicken ink. Chicken ink.

Myke: What is this? Do I want to know?

Brad: Do you? I think you do want to know, Myke, because chicken ink is coming to a pen near you, Myke. Our friends at Wearing Ool, even though we've probably never mentioned them on the podcast, I'll say that they're friends, friends of the show Wearing Ool. They're an ink maker out of Korea, I believe. And they are doing April Fool's right, Myke. They're making a silly product that's going to be real and launching it on April Fool's because they just want to have fun. So they are literally making an ink to match a traditional fried chicken and a spicy or a seasoned fried chicken. So there's like a golden brown caramel-y colored ink, and it's paired with kind of like your sriracha red ink.

Myke: Very interesting to me that you decided to describe it as caramel.

Myke: Why? You could have just said it looks like fried chicken.

Brad: It's golden. I don't know. It's that color. Well, because you don't look at ink colors, Myke, and go, boy, that one looks like ahi tuna.

Myke: Well, you do if they say this is the tuna ink.

Brad: Although we did have a salmon pen just recently, so I rescind that remark. Yeah, we do get a lot of inks based on foods and colors and tastes and smells. But chicken? Chicken, that's a new one on me. And I got to say I'm here for it.

Myke: Well, I mean, it works because we're talking about it, right? Yeah. I do appreciate the conviction, though, of we're going to do a funny thing and make it. My only criticism is it's March 23rd. Yeah. Why am I hearing about it now?

Brad: Well, because they're just saying, like, it's for real, and we're just going to do something a little silly. But they're doing it as kind of like a pre-order, not like a pre-order, but like a launch notification. I know what you're saying.

Myke: If this is an April Fool's Day thing, just do it on April Fool's Day. Like, do it on April 1st, you know? Right. I don't know.

Brad: Yeah. So, scheduled to be released on March 30th. I do appreciate, like, the drumstick art, right? Oh, it's beautiful. Of how the ink looks. Like, you're never going to look at these and go, boy, that one looks like, you know, Nashville hot chicken or something. But you're always going to have chicken inks. Like, who doesn't want chicken inks, Myke? Uh-huh. I think we all want chicken inks.

Myke: Now, I'm particularly interested in the next link in the show notes because I looked at the words that you had written around it, and you seemed very excited. And I opened the link and thought, is this what Brad wanted to put in the show?

Pilot 912 Custom Edition

Brad: Yep. Yep. My excitement is tempered of the Pilot 912 Custom 2022 edition, right? But the design choice is not what I wanted. The idea that they're thinking about expanding the Pilot Custom 912 lineup into, like, annual editions that are different looking than the standard black Pilot 912, it makes me think that they're at least thinking about it. Right? So, what I want, so my big, my master plan for Pilot, if I was on the board, I want the 912 to be essentially the sailor pro gear of their product lineup, right? To where, like, every year you give me two or three or four kind of new stock barrel colors, right? Just solid orange, solid purple. You know, it's an acrylic pin. It's a good size. The 912 also allows for the best nib selection range, right? This is where you start getting into the posting nibs and the FA nibs and the stub nibs and things like that. So, this doesn't go that far. So, this is a, almost a throwback 912. But the way that they're wording the terminology of this is 2022, like, special edition release. Mm-hmm. It at least gives me some hope that there might be something more coming in the future for the 912 as a platform. So, these are your basic gold trim fountain pens. And these colors hark back to, like, the 60s and 70s. It's, like, blue and gold and green and gold and red and gold. You know, they're fine. Like, they're not my style, not my aesthetic. But the idea, like, this is the path, right? I'm seeing the light. Is Pilot seeing the light? I don't know. Because you can only get stock nibs with these. You can only get fine, medium, fine, or medium, which is lame. But, like, I am anxious now. I'm like, this is, like, do they see it? Is this going to happen one day?

Myke: Well, do they usually have an annual release?

Brad: No, not for the 912. Okay. They've done some other things. Like, they did, like, last year, they did the 91 with kind of those swirled marbly barrels. I don't know if we didn't talk about them that much because they, honestly, they weren't, like, super attractive. It was, again, kind of almost like a throwback design a little bit. I don't think they were, like, super modern. And they were okay. They were also priced much higher than these are. These are closer to regular price 912s, which is what I want to see, right? I just want, like, give me an orange 912, okay, as part of the stock lineup. And then give me, like, a special edition one, you know? Give me, you know, this is where I want to see your glitter finials or your translucent, you know, materials or your weirder materials. Things like that. I just think the 912 is such a great pin that is really held back by being available in black.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: So, I just think because it is priced, it's the size of a ProGear standard, right? Not the ProGear slim. It's the size of the bigger one. And it's priced so much more competitively and provides such a great experience from a fountain pen that's, you know, it's expensive, right? It's over $200. But for what it is, it really punches above its weight. Yeah. And I just think this is the one product lineup I want Pilot to, like, extremely lean into. And I doubt that we'll see it. Honestly, that's not Pilot's move. Like, they'll do one thing here, one thing there, and never really kind of change up the theory of, you know, what the product lineup is. But I'm holding out hope. This is my dream scenario. You know, we're now 1% into the dream scenario, but it's better than 0%.

Myke: Now, tell me what you've been up to here on your Instagram.

Brad: It was kind of like maybe to troll you a little bit.

Myke: Hey, I know you're not trolling me.

Brad: No, no, not really. And I'm even really trolling myself because, you know, as we know, we're not going to talk about F1 too much on this podcast because Myke has his own podcast to talk about F1 called The Backmarkers, which I enjoyed the first episode after the first race, the Bahrain race, which was extraordinarily interesting. Oh, so good. If not from an on-track perspective, but just from an everything perspective.

Myke: For you and for people that started, you know, started, got into Formula 1 this year, because talk about a season opener, my word. Yeah. What a fantastic race that was last weekend.

Brad: It was really, really great. Yeah.

Myke: Action to the very last second. It was just like, that's the best.

Brad: Well, that doesn't happen very much. It really peaked at the end, and that's not always the case. And it peaked in a very, I mean, negative is not the right word, but it wasn't like, ooh, this is great racing. It was like, oh, no, everything fell apart.

Myke: Oh, I mean, if you would have seen the view inside of Megastudio, someone got very excited.

Brad: I'm sure there was some running around.

Myke: Oh, there was some screaming and some pointing. Yeah. Yeah. Very happy boy.

Brad: So one of the benefits of me being involved with spoke design is the ability to have trays and trays of very colorful fountain pens right at my fingertips. So while it's a little bit, you know, self-absorbed to post my own pens in these very interesting ways, I get to make some cool colors. Like I made a McLaren pen the other day, you know, before the season started. We're going to have to retire that pen just like the McLaren cars for now.

Myke: Oh, it's fine. They're going to be fine.

Brad: It is fine. But it traded it in for a Ferrari pen. So I got to make a bright red Ferrari black and silver. And I just thought, you know, I'm going to do this. I could even go a little bit further. I can find a gold nib and maybe get some gold ink to like really go full Ferrari mode. And I was wondering about you. Like, would you ever want a pen to represent like any like fandom type of thing? Not even F1. Like I wrote it as an F1 thing because honestly, I think my general answer is no, because it's so specific thing. Right. Like I talk about, you know, my baseball fandom and my team won the World Series, the Atlanta Braves, and their colors are red, white and blue. I just don't need a red, white and blue pen to represent that. But there's sometimes it kind of looks cool when like I'm making these like McLaren and Ferrari based pens. I can make a really nice Aston Martin pen with some of the colors we have. But like, would that ever be a thing you're interested in? Because I think maybe the prevailing answer is no. It's like almost a bridge too far.

Formula 1 Pens

Myke: Well, I bought the Tactile Turn GT as well because I wanted to support my boy Lando, you know. Yes. And there are some similar color overlaps there. I will also say that the red that you chose for your pen is better than the red that Ferrari chose for its own car, which is good. Yes. Good work on you.

Brad: Yeah. Very strong opinion from you this year, which I don't disagree with.

Myke: And what I'll say is like, I don't know if necessarily I would like just buy something because it matches the color. But in the sense of like with say the spoke icon where you can do some color choices of your own, you know, you can buy some extra parts or whatever. As a way to create a color combination for myself, I could see doing this because I don't necessarily know, especially buying online, like what is the right combination for me? Like the best combination, you know, like of all of the stuff, what is the stuff that goes best together? Because that was the thing, right? Where like I bought mine and I'm happy with it, right? Like I got the orange inside of the black, but as you were putting stuff together and it was like, oh, I had no idea this and this would go well together. Right. Right. And so if I was faced with that kind of decision, I could see myself choosing. Like I now genuinely wish that you had like yellow. Yeah. Because then I could make a Mercedes, like I could make a Lewis focused pen.

Brad: Yeah. I really want a teal. I'll talk to Brian, see if I can get some like teal parts because I think that would work good with like some of the black and the silver. Like that's the one I want to make to see if I could get it close. And I can't right now with the parts. Like the greens are too lime and the oranges are too gold and orange. Yeah. They're not yellow.

Myke: The actual like Mercedes colors is like that teal, right? But I'm very into all of this pops of yellow that Lewis put on his card this year as well. But like, you know, I could imagine like a silver pen with a black grip section and then one of those colors would look really great for a Mercedes pen, you know? Yep. So I would do that. And I imagine it's one of the reasons that people do, which is like if you're faced with color options, what colors do you choose? And an easy thing is just to like support the thing that you enjoy, you know? Yeah. Because I wouldn't know what to get otherwise really. Yeah. It's a fun little story you can tell. Yeah.

Brad: It's a fun little attachment to it. But yeah, I don't think it's a huge thing. It's something I'm more like to have fun with. And, you know, I was sitting there. I was like, I got to do this. Like, I'm going to make this after this weekend. So I went and did it. And it was fun. It came out really well. And I'm actually, I took the nib out of my Lando pen, which is what I call the spoke icon. So it's sitting there in the pit right now. So the Ferrari can have the nib. So there you go. This is what happens to Brad when you leave him alone for any period of time. I enjoy it. I enjoy it at least. All right. Let's turn to a serious bit here for a second. And I know a lot of you have been reaching out to me and to other companies and other bloggers and everyone asking about Benupin. And their relation isn't the right word. But they're a Moscow, Russia-based pen brand that we are all fans of. You know, me personally, I'm a fan of Benu. I've worked with them for years. And I know a lot of people had some questions like, what's going on with Benu? You know, what is their stance? And they have made it very clear that they are anti-war, you know, anti-current administration, anti-all the bad things that are happening in Russia. To the end where they are actually picking up and moving to Armenia. Not just moving. You know, the owner is just moving. They said they're moving their employees. They're going to be basically an Armenian-based company. Going forward, they have, you know, pledged their support to the people in Ukraine and anti-you know, the Russian war sentiment. So, I just wanted to point that out for people that are asking. They are not very active on social media right now for obvious reasons, right? They're in a tough situation personally. So, I'm just hoping the best for Benu. I've emailed Kate, who is my contact there, one of the founders. And we've had a great relationship over the years. And, you know, I haven't heard back from her, which is very, very understandable. So, like, I would just preach patience with everything that they're doing. I feel like they're doing the right things and the best things for them as a company and as people and as, you know, believers in, you know, doing good for the world. So, I think the best thing we can do is support them as much as we can. Although, like, direct via Benu support may be a little tough right now. We can always support them through retailers. I've reached out to the U.S. distributor here just to see, hey, is there anything we can do to help support them? What's the right path to take? So, when I hear back from any of that, I will definitely let people know. Let them know on Twitter or mention it on the podcast here. But they are making a stance. And I support them wholeheartedly. And I hope they come out unscathed through all this. But I can't imagine, you know, what they're going through, much less what, you know, the people in Ukraine who didn't ask for this are going through right now. So, they definitely have all my support. And, you know, we're all affected, like, by this in different ways. And having someone directly affected, like Benu Pen in our space, you know, it hits home a little bit more. And I just support them completely. And, like I said, I hope to hear from them soon once they get set up. And hopefully this war ends very, very soon for all of our sake. Like, you know.

Myke: What a thing to have to contend with.

Brad: Yep. Yep. It's, I can't imagine. Like, I held off emailing Kate for the longest time. I was like, they don't need an email in their inbox. I was like, you know, I'm just going to tell them I support them. Is there anything I can do? And not expecting to ever hear back. Like, they're just, you know. So, I hope we all can continue to enjoy their fun, sparkly, amazing pens. I need to go ink up my Benu after the show, as a matter of fact. And start posting about it. Because I really love my Benu talisman that I have. Do you have a Benu? I don't think. Like, I know it's the Benu. Hey, completely separate topic of conversation. Speaking of not for everybody, Benu pens are not for everybody. They are wild and sparkly and weird and odd shapes and just crazy pens. Like, I don't think you have one. Am I right? No. Yeah, yeah. Like, nor should you. Like, I don't think it's a pen for you. Again, like, we talk about these things. Like, I can say I love something, you know. Until the cows come home, that doesn't mean it's for you. And Benu pens are not for everyone. But I know the one that I have, I really, really love. And I've seen some other ones that I love, too. So, if you're a Benu pen fan, stay tuned. Hopefully, we'll have more from them in the near future.

Myke: Yeah. They're not for me, Benu pens. Yeah. Totally. Not my style. Absolutely.

Brad: And they weren't for me for years, right? I've talked about this.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: Like, I was just like, yeah, it's cool. It's not for me whatsoever. And then, like, slowly over the years, I was like, okay, I think this is the one. Like, they make a lot of different styles, a lot of different shapes, and they hit a shape that I like. I've always liked the materials to a degree. Like, there's certain ones I really don't like, obviously. And there's some that I do. But when I found, like, the match of shape, which was more important, to color, which was the secondary factor, I was like, yep, I'm in. And I'm glad I did.

Myke: All right. Should we take our second break? Let's do that.

Brad: Then we'll get to some Ask TPA. And then we'll keep on writing about some other stuff.

Myke: This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Microsoft Lists. Are you looking for a new way to track and manage work and life from start to finish? Microsoft Lists is here to help you clear your brain space and get organized. And it all starts at lists.live.com. Microsoft kicked off a preview program to try Lists with your Microsoft account. It's all designed for small businesses and individual use. You start by creating and sharing your Lists with your work colleagues, maybe partners, friends, soccer team, your neighbors, whatever you want. You know, maybe you want to create a list of books or movies for your monthly meetings, track home improvement and important receipts throughout the year, or build out team rosters for your soccer team or volunteer group. I am a big believer in if there's some information to be stored, it should be. And lists are the perfect way to do that. You know, like if you want to keep track of stuff, especially sharing them with other people, so everyone, you know, remains on the same page and you don't have to rely on everybody keeping track of the list themselves, right? Like if it's all shared, it's pretty amazing. At lists.live.com, you can get started quickly with ready-made templates and use filters and views to visualize your information so you can get one list of a bunch of views on it. So you can share your lists as links draw to others. Sorry, you can share your lists as links that then draw others in and work together. You could do a lot with lists. The ready-made templates save you time or you can start blank and add in exactly what and how you want to track your information. It's super flexible and great for stuff like gift ideas, issue trackers, event itineraries. What about keeping track of the inks that you want to try and the inks you've got in your pens, all that kind of stuff. You could do that with Microsoft Lists if you wanted to. Go and try the preview now at no cost. Go to your browser and type in lists.live.com. That's lists.live.com. Sign up, sign in, and track what matters most. Check it out and let Microsoft know what you like and any feature requests that you might have. Our thanks to Microsoft for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

Brad: Interesting. I will be checking this out. I like this idea. See how it can be used for fountain pens also, Myke. You might have heard I play pickleball and we have a lot of friends that play. I am aware of your pickleball activities. We might contract how we do some things better in a collaborative aspect like this. Hmm. Hmm. Pondering. Pondering. All right, let's ponder some Ask TPA.

Myke: You know, I will say about your pickleball, I get scared every time I see you playing pickleball.

Brad: Nah, I'm good. That's why I'm losing weight. Hey, look, I know you're looking great, but like, you know,

Myke: you had a horrific accident, you know? I did. I did. So I get scared. I'm scared. I don't want you to get hurt again.

Brad: That's fair. It's fair.

Myke: Because I know you. I know you're not half playing it either. I know you're going like hard, right?

Brad: Yeah, I mean, we had a tournament this weekend. We got a gold. We got a silver. We're going for it, man. We're playing hard. We're putting the hurt on some people out there and just not myself.

Myke: Please, just keep it that way, will you? All right, JemH asked, I'm just randomly wondering if you ever cogitated on the name Fountain Pen for our beloved writing instruments. I mean, fountain and pen. Did they used to spurt like fountains? Anyway, if you ever suffer from insomnia, if you ever suffer from insomnia, that's a hard sentence to say, you're welcome. So you can tell that JemH was obviously staying awake one night and wondering where on earth did the term fountain pen come from. Have you ever thought about this or looked into it, Brad? I'm sure.

Brad: No, but I do enjoy the spurt-like fountains aspect of it, right? You know, we've all seen, you know, the fountain pen being used as a weapon to shoot ink in the bad guy's eyes. I'm sure this is a very popular Mr. Bean activity to actually shoot the fountain pen as a weapon. So I think of it in that aspect, but never as actually the literal fountain aspect of it. So yeah, no, I haven't thought of it that deeply, but it's funny. We think about all these things, especially in this online world that we're in, like we refer to each other as people's screen names a lot of times without even thinking twice about, like if I said this out loud in person, like in a crowd of people, I would get looked at very strangely, but fountain pen has just, it's entered the normal terminology besides, aside from the fact it's just a very, very odd name for something we write on paper with. So I like this thought. I will not think about it any further than that though.

Myke: Like I often say this about things, at some point the name of a thing just becomes the name of the thing and it's not about what the name means.

Brad: Right. You know? Right, right. So yeah, I'm sure like the chat's saying, there's probably articles out there about where the actual fountain aspect of it came.

Myke: I did a quick scan of a Wikipedia and it didn't help me.

Brad: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we'll have to work on that. And by we, I mean not you or I, someone else. The royal we.

Myke: The royal we. Via David, this one comes from, favorite erasers for good, clean pencil case erasing without shredding paper or leaving graphite behind.

Brad: So you want perfection, David. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah. You want like the.

Myke: Good, clean pencil erasing, no paper shredding, no graphite left behind. So perfect one in every way is what David is looking for.

Brad: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I wish I could give you that answer. I don't have the full eraser experience. I do know that I will always use a Tombow mono white eraser when I get the chance just for their erasability. You know, they get, they are soft enough to not shred the paper. They do a great enough job at cleaning the graphite off the page. They still have a little bit of, you know, eraser shrapnel, you know, when you're, when you're done erasing, but not as much as some others that I've used, but Tombow mono is considered one of the best. It's the one that I kind of keep sitting on my desk. Um, when I need to reach for, uh, either a block eraser or Tombow also has like the, the pen, pen type erasers where they, they're like in a pen barrel, you know, where you can just like click them forward for like more fine erasing. But I, I prefer just like the block style Tombow mono eraser.

Myke: Uh, frames asks me, Myke, is there any reason you haven't delved into the world of nib grinds as heavily as Brad?

Myke: I think there's a few things. I can answer this question. I would like you to test. What do you think? And then I'll tell you what I think. It's not what you need from your writing. That's true. I mean, for me as well, it's just like, there's just so much, it just feels like more hassle for me than, than is worth it. Especially when a lot of the grinds, a lot of the grinds, a lot of the popular grinds, it's like, how fine can I make this nib? You know, I just don't want that at all. Like I've used like architect grinds and stuff and I don't enjoy it. Like it, it makes the writing experience less enjoyable for me. And some of this can be exacerbated by the fact that I am an overhooking left-handed writer. Right. So some of this stuff is just really complex. Like it's just really like not well suited to someone with my writing style. For me, you know, I like big nibs, right? Like that's, that tends to be what I enjoy the most. And so I've never really been into these specific grinds. Like the stuff that I like is the stuff that's really readily available. Like, you know, stub nibs and italic grind. Like I like the SIG. I've used the SIG a few times. It's a stub italic, right? Yeah. And I like that. Like that, that actually, I quite enjoy that. But outside of, you know, then going into all the stuff that Brad gets involved in, it's just like, not really for me. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. So I use a lot of what I've referred to as picky stuff. And I don't mean that in choice. I mean that as they can pick the paper, right? Or the edge. And that's either like a sharp cursive italic edge or a needle point. If you don't hold them at the right angle, they, they pick at the paper, right? Which is a bad experience. I hate that. And yeah. Yeah. So the way I write, I, that doesn't affect me. Right. But if someone else picked up my pen, you know, there's a high likelihood they're going to dislike it just because of how kind of extreme some of the edges or the points are. So like, so like you, like you're just, I, I refer to you as just like a stock medium person. Right. And then everything kind of morphs from there. Right. Start me with that. That's going to be my best universal answer. And if I can get some type of experience that rotates around, you know, that little space right there, you know, be it a stub nib that has a rounded edge or something like that, then, then I'm in. But then if you stray too far from that center of the universe, it, it, it's, it doesn't work as well for you.

Myke: Yeah, I agree. That is 100% my, my experience. Thomas says, I'm planning to pick up a Caran d'Ache fixed pencil 22, but I just noticed that some come with a rough texture grip section. Is this new? Have you had any experience with it? Would you choose rough or classic smooth?

Brad: This is a great question because I was not clear exactly what Thomas was asking, or I answered it incorrectly the first time because I wanted to know more. So there's actually three different styles of fixed pencil grips, which I learned after talks, talking to Thomas, you have your standard, you know, just painted barrel standard eight 49 that just goes on the, you know, the roller balls, the ball points, the fixed pencils, you just, your basic smooth grip.

Myke: Uh-huh.

Brad: There is a grip that I dislike that they just started to do. Caran d'Ache that is where they would take the edge of the facet and groove it. Right. So it wouldn't be like a concentric circles, like all around the grip. It would just be on the edge and the edge of each raised part of the facet would be notched. And it's really uncomfortable. I dislike, I dislike that. So I was like, if you're talking about that, no, I would get the smooth, but he said, no, let me send you a picture. And there's actually a third grip, which I hadn't seen before. It's almost like they sandblast the grip area of the pencil to where it has that more of a texture than just the glossy smooth. And I imagine that's fine because it didn't look overly textured. Like it didn't look like if it's going to be rough on your fingers, but it would actually give you some grip to where, you know, maybe the smooth one is too slick for some people. It would give you a little bit more of a grip. So yeah, that one looks cool. I will actually, I actually want to get one of those to test out, but I have tested ones with ridges on the edge and I instantly disliked it. Like it would, I don't know how this became a product because it digs into your fingers. Like it's, it's not, not beneficial to, to the, uh, writing, uh, well with a fixed pencil or a ballpoint or whatever else they're using this grip on. I hope it goes away soon.

Myke: Yeah.

Myke: And Sam asks, do you know of any good fountain pen friendly index cards that are blank on both sides?

Myke: No,

Brad: I, I, I don't. A blank is,

Myke: we've got to be rare for index cards, right?

Brad: Yeah. Blank is the hardest to get to begin with. And, you know, I want to say, Exacompta might do them. I would even have to look. Exacompta is more known for either their color cards or their grid cards. They might offer a blank in white.

Brad: Um, so that's what I would look at. Um, Exacompta. Yeah. Um, unfortunately, knock has never made a blank one. I've been asked to make a blank card before when we were making things at knock rip. Um, but I always had a weird feeling about selling a blank card, right? It's just like, what did I do to actually create this? It's like selling you oxygen or something, right? It's just so basic. Like I felt dirty.

Brad: So I, I don't think other companies would think that way, but I check Exacompta for some reason. I'm thinking they might have an option now for blank. They, I think they might actually do a few different rulings. I'll have to look at this. I'll see if I can follow up with Sam. I'll, I'll look myself, but, um, there's really, uh, just a dearth of options in fountain pen friendly index cards. So maybe these knock, knock ones should, um, should live on somewhere, somehow, some way.

Myke: If you would like to send in a question of your own for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA or use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. You can also email them to hello at pen addict.com. Uh, if you want to find Brad online, you can go to pen addict on Instagram. He's dowdyism on Twitter and at pen addict.com spoke design.com as well. And you can find bad Brad streaming live on Twitch three times a week at twitch.tv slash pen addict. You can find me. I'm at I Myke. I am Myke. A E. You could check out my new formula one podcast. If you're interested at relay.fm slash back markers. And we stream. There's also a video version. You can get a back markers. Live. And we stream, uh, that basically as soon as after the races as we can. So we've done one episode so far. We're going to be streaming after every race weekend. Uh, so come check it out. If you are so inclined, if you're not inclined, watch formula one drive to survive, uh, on, uh, Netflix. And then maybe you will be because that's what got me and Brad into it. Uh, if you want to find our show notes for this week's episode, you can go to relay.fm slash pen addicts slash five zero six. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Microsoft lists for their support of this show. But most of all, as always, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.