The Pen Addict 509/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	509
Title:	All Over the Nib Map
Release Date:	April 13th, 2022
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 509
Audio File:	Audio Episode 509
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 509
Length:	6464 min <br />1.067 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 509. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens and Trade. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Hi Myke, how are you? Oh, I'm good. I'm good.

Brad: I am good too. I'm good. Why are you good? Because you're talking to me?

Myke: Yeah, I mean, this is quite accusatory. Like, I'm just in a decent mood, you know what I mean?

Brad: I'm sorry, I accused you for being in a good mood.

Myke: I had a coffee before this. I had a good lunch today. Do you know Nando's, Brad?

Brad: I'm familiar with the name. Yeah, I think so. I recall.

Pita Bread Controversy

Myke: So, it's like chicken. It's like chicken is their thing. Portuguese style chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Portuguese style. I know they're based in South Africa as a company, but I believe, but I think that their thing is like Portuguese style. Yeah, so born in South Africa, a blend of Portuguese and British culture, which is just like a funny thing. And I get like a chicken and pita and I get some sweet potato fries and it comes with this garlic peri naze dip, which is great. I get it every Wednesday because I record latest on Wednesdays. Nice. So, it's how I fill myself up on an uncharacteristically large lunch to get me through to when I get home at like 10 o'clock or whatever.

Brad: Yes, because while you record with me in the middle of the day, you're kind of only getting started for the day. Can you tell me again, what was the bread item that your chicken came in?

Myke: A pita. Oh, okay. Sorry. That's what we're going to go with.

Brad: Is that better? P-E-T-E-R. No. It's not necessarily better. It's just different. How do you say it then? I say pita, but I don't know that that's correct. Like, why would I profess to think in that? Oh, yeah.

Myke: So, that's right. Definitely. The correct way. The E sound. Just say it like it's the letter D, right? Yeah, that's it. You got it. Good work, American. Pita. That's it. Water. I'd love a glass of water with my pita bread.

Brad: We have a controversy on the podcast right now. Pita bread. There you go. Just place all the T's and D's. Uh-huh. Pita bread. If I said that to my wife, she would give me a look. But, like, I'm with you. I like pita. I like pita bread. We'll go with that, I think. This is a good introduction to our first topic, Myke, which is fountain pen etymology.

Myke: Oh, here we go.

Fountain Pen Naming

Brad: So, we talked about this. It was like, you know, for all the pens we talk about and, you know, being avid fountain pen users and in the community, where did the fountain pen actually come from? What is the source of the word? Would you like to attempt the reading of this or how do you want to do this?

Myke: Well, I mean, what I'm looking at here is just the definition for the word fountain.

Brad: Mm-hmm.

Myke: You want me to read that?

Brad: Well, no. I will cut to the chase. So, it obviously comes from the word fountain, fountain pen. The extended sense of artificial jet of water and the structures that makes them. So, first recorded in 1500, but this is for a fountain. So, hence also fountain pen by 1823. Oh, I see. So called for the reservoir that supplies a continuous flow of ink. A French fountain pen is described in 1658 and Miss Bernie used one in 1798. 1789. Oh, sorry. 1789. Fountain of Youth and the story of Ponce de Leon's quest for it seem to have been introduced in American English in 1837. So, it definitely comes from the jet of water you see in a fountain. And I guess this type of pen, when it was created and invented, it had similar qualities to what people are used to seeing in a fountain. Therefore, it became the fountain pen.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: Clear? Clear as mud? But yes, I mean, it seems, you know, accurate. Like, okay, yeah, that's how it's going to happen, right?

Myke: I mean, it's close enough. Yes. Right? Close enough. I would argue that fountains are typically constant. Like, they are either sourced from a large body of water that doesn't need refilling, or it just refills itself, which a fountain pen does not do. You know, it's maybe, I would maybe say it's more like a bucket pen in that you can pour liquid from it, but it will end.

Brad: Right. And it will not continuously run, which we do not want in our fountain pen. So, do we need a proposal to rename the fountain pen to the bucket pen? Yes. Is that what we're saying? Yes. Bucket pens.

Myke: That's what I would like to call them. Okay. Or like, I don't know, it's like closer to like a jug, or because that has like a spout, you know, or like a teapot or something. Okay. More than a fountain.

Brad: Yeah. I am actually with you. Pot pens. Pot pens. Okay. So, I'm going to stick with bucket, and yeah, we're going to go with bucket pens, because fountain is not how we want to describe most of our pens. Although, I have a pen today, Myke, that I will talk about later. That is fountain-ness, I guess, is definitely not a word, but it flows like one. So, there you go.

Myke: What is it?

Anti-Grind Pens

Brad: Um, we're going to not talk about that one first. We're going to talk about the anti. Oh, I see. We're going to talk about the complete opposite of my fountain pen. Yeah, we're bookending. So, lots of allusions to what's coming up later in this show, but I want to start off with this Estabrook needlepoint nib. So, what we're going to do today is we're going to dig a little bit deeper in some of the stuff that I picked up at the Atlanta Pen Show, and that we talked about on a surface level last week while I was on vacation. And now that I've had more time to spend with some of the products, specifically nibs, this show is going to be a very nib-focused show. So, I picked up the Estabrook needlepoint nib from my friends at Kenro Industry. But they are now available, I think, from several vendors. When you go to buy an Estabrook, the way they do their specialty nibs, like the journaler nib or this needlepoint nib, when you go to a retailer and say you want to buy an Estabrook fountain pen or the Estee, specifically, you can have your nib size choice, you know, extra fine, fine, medium, whatever, and then you can have the add-on option for the specialty nibs, you know, the journaler, which was the first one that Gina Salarino did, and then Joshua Lacks has done one, and now Kirk Spear has done one, which is the needlepoint. Those are add-ons, right? They're more expensive add-ons because obvious reasons, right? These nibs have been modified to give you something a little bit more special, and you get charged for it. So we'll have a link in the show notes to the Estabrook pens page to read about it if you're interested in this type of thing. But I think that's kind of the kicker with these needlepoint nibs, Myke. Not everyone's going to be interested in this, and that's okay. As far as a using, a use case perspective, right? Like you would never in a million years, I wouldn't even hand you this pen to test because you would just go, yeah, no, it's not for me, and hand it right back, like within a sentence, right? It is really needly and sharp. I don't have a way to measure the thickness of the lines that small. Like I don't have a micrometer or anything like that, but we're talking like 0.2 millimeter lines, maybe even less, right? It's very, very fine, which is what I enjoy writing with. Like I can write page after page with this small, tiny, firm handwriting. So this is on a steel Yovo nib, and it's just great. Like it's exactly what I anticipated it would be because I have used other steel Yovo nibs before, and this one's done on a fine nib, so like the base nib is a fine nib, and it's just ground down Kirk from Pen Realm, who partnered with Estabrook to make this nib. Just grinds it down, and it's like a 0.2-ish millimeter line. It's very fine. Like compared to other needlepoint steel nibs that I have, it's right there with them, which is good. So I talked to Kirk about it at the Atlanta Pen Show because I sat with him to get a Lamy Safari extra fine nib ground into a needlepoint as well so I could use it in my different safari. So I purposefully got Kirk to do it so I could sit and talk to him about, hey, what's the difference between what you're doing for me right now with this Lamy Safari versus what you did for Estabrook with the needlepoint nib? And it was a fun conversation. And he was able to give me a couple of different sample pens for his idea. So when you're someone like Kirk and you're making a nib that is ground and specific, but you're not sitting directly with your customer, you tend to tone it down just a little bit, right? So he has to meet the expectations of a needlepoint fan like myself while also making it very useful for someone who might just be dabbling and aren't going to worry about scraping through the page or something like that if they don't necessarily know how to write with it. So it's like a balance. So his Estabrook needlepoint may not be quite as needly as my Lamy Safari, for example. Like he told me as I was doing this, like we kept breaking down the Lamy Safari nib further and further and further as I got to sit there with him. And I was like, yeah, let's take it down further. And he's like, okay, so this will be end up being deeper going into the quantum realm. There's no nib left, Brad. There's no nib. It is now a stub nib because we have to back out.

Brad: So, yeah, like we can sit and have that conversation. And that's one of the benefits of going to a pen show, right? He can grind down the nib, hand it to me. I can test it. I say, this is good. Give me more, you know, more in this case, more needles.

Brad: And we can continue this back and forth till I'm done. And he'll do whatever I want. He was like, oh, so you like it like this. Show me how you write. Try this pen. Tell me how you like this feels. And there you go. And then I buy the needlepoint from Estabrook, the pre-ground one, and ask him to like, hey, tell me how that came about. And he's like, yeah, it's really good. It's very needlepoint, but it's not going to be as, you know, sharp or as fine of a line as what I just did for you on the Safari. Except with the needlepoint, Myke, there's only so much variation you can get, right? Like I'm not going to go, I'm not going to go, oh, Myke, you'll enjoy this needlepoint, but not that one, right? They're in the same category. They're in the same realm. They both meet the expectation of what I want. It makes sense.

Myke: When you're going to such an extreme, you will eventually hit a logical limit that you can't find a lot of variation in grind to grind would be my expectation. Right.

Brad: Right. So I can sit here and put the two pins side to side, the Estabrook needlepoint nib and the Lamy Safari nib that Kirk Spear did both of. And if I don't have them inked up, like identically, like I have two different inks in them right now. So that changes how the line looks on the page. They're awfully close. Like maybe I could say the Lamy Safari is fractionally different, but it's also not an even comparison because I'm not using the same ink. Right. So, but they're that close. They're that close. So the other part of this conversation that I wanted to have is the price. You can't avoid the fact that the needlepoint is a $90 add-on for an Estabrook pen. I think, and I tried to look it up and I didn't see it right offhand, like the journal or nib when it came out, it was around a $50 to $60 add-on, I'm thinking, which is fine as well. And I'm not saying $90 is too much. I'm not saying that at all. But you have to understand the different hands.

Myke: You could argue maybe it's a lot for the pen that's going in.

Myke: How much is an Estabrook?

Brad: Maybe $165 to two low twos. But you're also talking to a guy who just spent $50 on a needlepoint nib.

Myke: Yeah, but I'm a safari. Right. And I've also spent obscene amounts of money on stacked nibs. I'm not saying that this is a, I'm just saying like maybe for the, if this was your first needlepoint, I would consider that as a consideration. Right. Of like, is this the right move for you? Because I feel like this kind of work or this kind of money spent on a nib typically I think is paired best with a pen you're really in love with, which could be that Estabrook. But if you were buying it new with this nib, there's an interesting balance there, I think.

Brad: Correct. Correct. I agree with like your big picture sentiment. The interesting thing so far is I haven't heard any complaints about the price and I'm not saying it's too much. I'm saying this so people understand the different business aspects we're talking about here. Right. So I sat down, I brought Kirk a nib. I sat down in front of him, said, hey, put a needlepoint on it and it cost me $50. Or I can buy a pre-ground nib for $90. Well, how did that $90 nib come about? Well, it's going through a distributor who has to mark them up to sell to retail, who has to also pay Kirk for his work. And a needlepoint grind is not cheap on its own. Right. I paid $50 for the privilege of that.

Myke: So I don't think it's out of line. Also, I think you've got to price it at a point, which would actually be discouraging to some people because there's a lot of manual work going into this. Like if you made like a, you know, it's like, oh, we'll make it up in volume kind of deal. That's a great idea. But then Kirk has to produce it in volume and he's just one person, you know? Right.

Brad: Right. And I remember talking to Myke Masayama years ago about needlepoint grinds that he had to start charging more because they're actually more work to execute them well. I expect more danger.

Myke: And I expect of most of the nib grinds you can do, most likely for a failure, right?

Brad: Right. Right. So to your point, I think is correct in that $90 individually to customize an existing pen you already have is a pretty good decision. You know, buying like another pen and then tacking it on there to like something you already have. That's a much bigger ask. You're turning a $200 pen into a $300 pen. And maybe that's worth it to you. Like not everyone has like pen show access, right? Or wants to take the time to send pens cross country or around the world in some cases to deal with all of that. So yeah, like that's what it costs, right? Like it's not an easy thing to do. And it goes through a lot of hands, you know, between distributor and retail and maker, right? There's a lot of extra levels of cost in there. So like that $90 is seems about right. And like you can't even ask, is it worth it? Right. Because like to me it is, but it's almost an irrelevant question, right? It's an expensive premium, but I really enjoy it.

Myke: I think as a buyer as well, there is some benefit. Again, while I agree, more expensive than a pen show. And this is not a comment on anybody, Kirk or anyone. But like if you buy this through a company for $90, if you're unhappy with it, you can probably return it.

Myke: It's not so easy to do that with a nib grind. Right. Like that is much more of a like subjective conversation. Right. Because what are you returning? Right. Like if you get something ground and you're not happy with it after a week, there isn't really much that can be done about it. You know what I mean? Like it's very complicated. It's like, well, yeah, maybe the nibmeister will say like, sure, just send it to me and I'll fix it for you. But what if there isn't anything to fix? Like you just don't like it anymore. Right. You know what I mean? And then it's like you can't return it because it wasn't their nib in the first place. But if you buy one of these nibs through a larger company who's provided distribution for Estabrook, they probably have a period of time in which you could return it. Right.

Brad: Right. Right. And which is priced into like. Exactly. That's how pricing works. Yeah. All the things get accounted for. So, yes, that's part of the part of the equation.

Myke: But I think that's part of the benefit, right? This is, you know, what I will say is like, you know, you got to make sure that you think it's right for you in the first place of the set. Like if you've just bought your first Estabrook and you don't really love it yet, which I mean, I have my own Estabrooks and I do love them. But like if you're not sure it's right for you, I don't know if I would suggest doing a $90 immediate upgrade. But if you love your pen, you want to try this out, like this is actually a really good path to do that. Like if you're like, what is this fuss about needle points? Like this is a this is a available option. Right. Otherwise, with less complication and maybe less less potential risk attached to it.

Brad: Yep. And my decision to buy it. Well, number one, I like needle points. Number two, I review things and I like to talk about new things that created. But number three, I was only going to buy it if I knew what pen it was going to go in. And and I, you know, planned on it going into my Montana Sapphire. Like I have a fancy Estabrook. That's already a three hundred dollar Estabrook that I would like to upgrade with this nib. Like that's the the the calculation I made. I just happened to end up with another Estabrook that it went into that's equally as special, which we might talk about later in this episode.

Myke: All right. Should we take a break and get to that?

Brad: Coffee break, buddy.

Trade Sponsor Discussion

Myke: Coffee break and talk about a wonderful sponsor, Trade. We love here at the Pedantic podcast because Trade is all about making sure that you have great coffee. I have got so much good coffee from Trade. I, you know, one of the things that they, you know, in the in the ad copy that we get, they ask us, you know, like to talk about our experience a little bit. One of the things that it mentions is, were you surprised at the results? And what I'll say is like, at first, I was surprised that when I took the quiz that they have, a really great quiz, you can just start to kind of talk about what you like in coffee and what you don't and then they'll match you up or something. So when I did that and they sent me one, I was like, oh, wow, this is really great. I was no longer surprised with any of the other coffees that came in because I then had complete faith in Trade to deliver coffee to me that I was going to enjoy. And they have every single time. When you become a Trade coffee customer, you can enjoy knowing you have the freshest and best tasting coffee you ever made at home. And the coffee you'll be drinking will be from the country in the US, the best independent craft roasters around, which helps out those small businesses a lot, too, which I love. So one of the things I love about Trade is that they source it from all these small companies. I just think that's so awesome. It's one of the best things about coffee is how many small companies there are doing things differently. And, yeah, I love it. Trade's coffee team, they taste test thousands of coffees to keep 450 different kinds live and ready to ship every single day. And everyone has that one coffee that they just love, and Trade's going to help you find it. Trade is so incredibly confident that they will match you right the first time. If they don't, you're going to get – just give some feedback, right? Contact them. Tell them what the experience is, what you like about it, what you don't. Because one of their actual coffee experts is going to work with you to send a brand new bag for free so you know that you're going to be looked after. Trade Coffee sends you freshly roasted beans from 60 of the country's best coffee roasters, small businesses who pay farmers fair prices to sustainably source the greatest beans from around the world. It takes just answering a couple of questions to get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. Right now, Trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order, plus free shipping. Just go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz at drinktrade.com slash penaddict, and you can let Trade find you a coffee that you're going to love. That URL one more time, drinktrade.com slash penaddict for $30 off. Our thanks to Trade for the support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad: Shout out to Portrait Coffee in Atlanta, a new roaster that I found out because of Trade that is making some killer, killer stuff. So definitely love it. Portrait Coffee? Portrait, yes. Like a picture frame portrait.

Myke: Yeah, I just found their website. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, I like their branding.

Brad: Yeah.

Myke: Good stuff. I love good branding on Coffee. It's so important to me. I don't know why. I love it, though.

Brad: You know what's silly about Trade that I love, as I digress here? Mm-hmm. When I get that little red package in my mail, I don't know if you get the same in the UK, but the bags of coffee are wrapped in this little red cellophane. I know that's a new bag of coffee. That's good, right? I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Like a little simple thing. Like it probably costs them like two cents, and I'm like, it registers with me. Oh, little red bag. That means coffee.

Myke: It's good. It's a nice little bag, too.

Brad: All right, Myke.

Myke: Okay, Brad.

Brad: Let's have a discussion. All right. I did a thing at the pen show, which I did more than one thing at the pen show, where I just bought things to try. Or I bought things not necessarily on a whim, right? I hesitate to tell people to like don't buy things without like thinking about it or knowing what you're getting into. But what happens with me a lot of times is when I've read a lot about products or researched a lot about products and had a lot of time to think about products and, you know, see how other people use products. You know, you kind of build this little mini database in your head of like, if I ever have this opportunity, would I buy this? Yes or no, right? And you kind of have a little bit of baseline for it. So over the years, the stack nibs and the customized nibs have become really popular in our world from almost like an experimental perspective, right? So Sailor, this is all Sailor's fault because they in-house make some really wild, crazy, customizable nibs. So that now we have enough people in the fountain pen community around the world that can see these things and are talented enough to try to mimic some of these things on their own, different materials, different construction ideas to get these line results that Sailor would get with their custom nibs. And Sailor, I don't know, they probably make 10 or 12 different custom nib shapes and designs. But this has led this kind of uptick in experimentation from a lot of people. And you have participated in purchasing some of these nibs. We've done a show in the past where we talked about stacked nibs specifically because my friend Andrew wrote a post on the Pen Addict blog. He is a huge stacked nibs fan. He has tried to get me into them for years. And when we discussed it on the podcast, our friend CY at Tokyo Inklings got in touch with you, you specifically, because no one really thought that, and myself included, that I would be a real candidate for the big, broad nibs that you ended up getting.

Myke: They're like Marcus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. So you got two. Is that correct? You have two stacked nibs? Yeah. And both from CY. And are you still using them pretty frequently? All the time.

Myke: They're in my Sinclair that I take every day. They are two of the six pens I have in the Sinclair constantly. Really? Nothing's going to change it.

Brad: That's crazy. That's awesome. That's really cool.

Myke: I just love them. I absolutely love using those pens.

Brad: So I've been thinking about it and how I would use these types of nibs, right? So that's like the main buying decision anyone should make is not, oh, this is cool or, oh, this is limited, but, oh, how will I use this? And is my money going to be well spent? Because let's be perfectly honest, these nibs, like the needlepoint I mentioned before, are not cheap, not even remotely. Because there is a lot of work that goes into them and sometimes a lot of materials that go into them. There's a lot of cost that goes into this. So I was sitting at the Atlanta Pen Show with Damien from All in the Nib getting a nib grind done. And one of the cool things Damien does is he offers pre-ground nibs for sale, right? So like say you wanted a cursive italic nib, Damien's all booked up for the whole weekend. You can grab like a Yovo cursive italic nib pre-ground that will fit in your Yovo compatible pens and you just can buy it essentially off the shelf, right? So Gina's done that. I've bought some nibs from them in the past. And, you know, Damien has done it. And I like the opportunity to pick up something extra, right? So I'm sitting getting work, I can also bring home, you know, a different Yovo nib for whatever pen I might have in mind to use. So sitting there on his display is a stack nib from a friend of the show, friend of the pen shows, Jim, who is also known as Pen Sloth on Instagram. And he's been dabbling in this for a while now, making different stack nibs, experimenting with, you know, attachments, you know, how to stack the nibs, how to grind the nibs, how to make the proper shapes in the nibs. And it's just sitting there, right? It's like sitting there, Naga Nanatogi, stacked steel Yovo nib. And I'm looking at it. I'm like, cool. And, of course, Damien, being the smart individual that he is, has a different one to test, right? So he's like, oh, yeah, hey, look in this jacket right here. Look at all these watches I have for sale. Do you need a watch? And he's like, hey, you want to try this out? I'm like, you know, while I'm actually sitting there waiting for work, you know, testing these things out. And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. That's nice. He's like, I'm going to end up with this nib, aren't I? Like, I'm just, I'm buying this nib. And he's like, you know, whatever. You know, it's not cheap. So, yeah, I bought a stack nib, my first stack nib. It's the Naga Nanatogi shaped, like I mentioned, steel nib, double stacked. It's not like a five nib monstrosity that you will see sometimes these nib makers will experiment with. And I'm kind of liking it. Like, I'm not hesitantly liking it. I'm not begrudgingly liking it. I'm deciding that I think this might work for how I use things if I will allow myself to have these wider lines on my page. Right? So, that's the mental block that I have in the how will I use it portion of the program. Right? Like, this nib was $160 just for the nib. Right? And I'm not going to spend that kind of money if I'm not going to use it. So, how will I use it? And I'm still trying to figure that out. Right? I've just inked it up this morning, as a matter of fact, to start play with it. And it took me so long because I really wasn't sure what ink to put into it. But I went with a pretty normal ink with some character. I chose Sailor Yamadori, which is probably like a top five all-time ink because it's got good shading and good sheen. And it flows well. And I like Sailor inks.

Brad: It's pretty cool. Right? So, the Naginatogi design allows for angle-dependent line variation.

Myke: Man, if you buy one of these in a pen, it's $600.

Brad: Yeah. And that's really like those Sailor pens. Is that what you're talking about? Uh-huh. So, and that's like the most basic Sailor bearer. You're really essentially buying like a $600 nib.

Myke: Yeah. Because it's just a black 1911. Yeah.

Brad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is fine. But yeah, the Sailor nibs. But the Sailor nibs are also gold. Right? So, the one I bought is Steel.

Myke: Okay. So, explain it to me then. Is it just Naginatogi inspired?

Brad: So, it's the shape. Yeah. It's the shape. The nib shape and the writing expectation is the Naginatogi terminology. Right? Okay. So, it's based. It's an angle-dependent to where if your pen angle is very high to the page. Mm-hmm. The line is narrower. And then the line gets wider as you lower your angle to the page. Yeah. In a horizontal fashion.

Myke: Because the Naginatogi is not a stacked nib.

Brad: Right. Generally not. From Sailor. Generally not. Yeah. Right. So, the Naginatogi, you can get a ground. You can get one of your nibs ground into a Naginatogi, which we'll speak about here in this segment. Also, but you generally need super large tipping, like from a Sailor Zoom nib level of tipping to get a true full scope Naginatogi. Right? So, what I did separately from this nib, which we'll get back to in a second, is I bought a broad nib from Jonathan Brooks when I bought a pen to take it over to Matthew Chin at Matthew's Nib Works to get what he sells as a mini Naginatogi grind. I'm like, yeah, that's the one for me because I can take a broad nib, which has a good amount of tipping, but it's not enough for any type of what you would call a pure Naginatogi grind. It's just not a big enough platform for him to make the full shape to get the full scope of what a Naginatogi should be. So, he does a mini one. I was like, oh, this is really great. I actually did that first before I decided to buy Jim's nib. And I liked how I wrote with someone else's. I like the idea of it. It's basically, like, if you think of it like an architect style nib to where your horizontal strokes are broader and your vertical strokes are thinner.

Myke: Yeah, one of my stack nibs is in this style. So, your left or right lines are wide. I don't know if it would be exactly considered the same. Like, we'd need to check to see why. But it has that kind of hook on the end of it, right? So, like, you can get multiple line variation from the way that you hold the nib.

Brad: So, someone described it like a spear tip. Like, it's kind of rounded to the point. And if you hold it, if you point it up, it's a thinner line horizontally. And if you lean it back, it's a wider line horizontally. So, it's really enjoyable. I've sat here trying to see how many different, like, line widths I can get. Then you can flip it over, right? And write really, really fine with it. So, like, it's got that added bonus. So, I got that from Matthew. And I really enjoy that. I've been using that since I got it, right? I inked that up immediately, been playing with it. And I was a little more hesitant. I was like, what am I going to do with this stack nib? Am I going to, like, at worst case, I'm going to test it out and try it. And that's what I'm doing right now. I'm enjoying it. I can envision how I'm going to use this as not just a complimentary pen to what I'm using. Kind of like you, right? It provides a compliment. Even if it can be your main writer. But it can also compliment what you already have on the page and how you do your work. And I am really, my mind is kind of refreshed on giving this a try and seeing the different things I can do to enhance my writing. As opposed to just saying, hey, this is a big marker. I don't need a big marker, right? I'm trying to be very open-minded in my usage of this. So, I'm really going to, I'm really happy so far. Even though it's really only been literal hours since I've used it. But it's making me smile. And that's always a good start. And changing my perspective and openness of, like, not shutting off things immediately that I don't think were going to work for me. Like, there's things that won't work for you, right? Like, we talked about you and a needlepoint. It is absolutely not going to work. And I wasn't sure that these type of nibs were going to work for me. And there is a limit, right? I'm not going, like, I don't envision necessarily going bigger or wider with something like this. Because, like you said, it is a marker style. But I'm enjoying it. You're going to see a lot more of me talking about this, right? I don't think this will become a new thing for me. Like, I'm not all of a sudden going to need, like, five shapes of stacked nib grinds for marker pins, right? But I like this. Like, I'm enjoying this. I kind of have two now, even though only one's, like, a big stacked experimental type nib. And I guess it's more a story of me experimenting and seeing how it goes. And so far, so good.

Myke: I'm very happy.

Brad: Yeah, I am too. Like, in a confused way. I was like, huh. Maybe, like, I am definitely open-minded about it. I'm definitely enjoying it. It's, I like, I do like the story aspect of the level of nerdery that this is in an extremely nerdy hobby. Like, this is, you know, nth degree type of nerdiness. Yeah. And I'm always here for that type of stuff. So, yeah. It's making me happy for all of these things, including the usage of it. So, more experimentation. More show and tell. I'll be talking about this pen or this nib specifically a lot going forward. And same with the mini Naganata Togi, which I actually have used for just basic writing. Like, it's at least half the line width of this stacked one that I have. So, they're two very, actually, very different pens besides having the same idea for both of them. They're very, very different and unique.

Myke: You can't make fun of me here, all right? I can't. That's not what I'm about to say. Okay. So, because I know you're going to jump to the immediate joke. So, as somebody who's used stacked nibs very frequently for the last nine months, one thing I will give you as a piece of advice is cleaning the nibs is more complicated. Okay. Because, like, if you, you know, I don't know if you ever, like, use a cloth or tissue paper or something to, like, clean the nibs or you want to dry it or whatever. Or you say you've got ink, an excess of ink on the nib or something. Mm-hmm. Because what I have found is there are more places for, say, a cloth to catch on the nib. Mm-hmm. Right? Because you've got these two surfaces on top of each other. So, just something to watch out for. Like, it's just something that I have to be pretty, pay attention to, right? Because imagine, like, you know, you've got, like, the stacked part one on top of the other. Right. So, if you were to clean down from the body of the pen, like, downwards, like you would on a normal nib, right? You just go down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going to catch.

Brad: Right.

Naginatogi Nib Experience

Myke: Or it's very likely to catch. So, just something to be aware of. There kind of isn't a great way to do it. You just have to just be very particular.

Brad: Yeah. So, two quick things on that. One, I purposefully didn't choose a shimmer ink for that, even though, theoretically, like, you want this big, bold line for that. But I was also worried about, hey, this is going to be. Like a build-up? Yeah. Much more difficult to clean than shimmerings already are. Yeah.

Myke: And I will say, like, I don't know why this is, but my, the nib, the pens that I use, like, those nibs, the stacked nibs, they tend to have quite a little, they have more ink on them, on the nibs, than my other pens. Maybe it's because they, like, pool in different areas or whatever.

Brad: Right. Right. Right. The second thing is I did just write down Myke was right, which is really more of an Andrew was right, CY was right, and you were right after them, but before me. So, yeah, I'm digging it.

Myke: This is such a great experience. And, like, it really is. It's a good word. Experience. It really is, like, using, like, especially one of mine, I wished I could remember how to describe them properly now, which I'm terrible at, but the one that I have in my canalea pen, it is, it's huge. It's not the Naga Naga Togi one. It's basically, like, just two nibs. I think there were two platinum nibs just, like, sandwiched on top of each other, and it's a music nib as the base, and then there's another nib on top. So, it is like using a marker pen, but I know that, and so I use it for that kind of stuff. Like, I write a lot of headings with it and stuff like that, but, like, I will sit and write in my journal with that pen. Like, I'll write my daily thoughts with that pen, but I just know I'm not going to have as much space.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. I love it. Yep. I'm glad that we have makers in our community that are willing to experiment and bring these out for other people to have fun with. So, it's very, very cool.

Myke: I do hope that this experience will push you to a little bit of one of the C-Wise nibs.

Brad: Oh, I'm sure. Like, I'm not, like I said, I'm not going to end up with, like, five or six of these, but I could see, like, two, right? Like, try something. So, I have my Yovo one, right, which moves around, and then I could get something, you know, Japanese gold nib. You know, pick a Sailor or a Platinum or something like that, or a Pilot to have for that aspect. So, like, I could see that, like, being the limit.

Myke: You could put it in something really special, you know, you put it in, like, a really nice Platinum or, you know, something like that, or a great Sailor pan, like a King of Pan or something.

Brad: So, I'll start saving for, like, Tokyo 2023. Yeah. But, you know, I'm not that patient, so. We'll see. We'll see.

Myke: This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company. I think it's purely because they make a surprisingly small oven that can be powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas that lets you make restaurant-quality pizza in your own backyard and is so portable it will fit into any outside space. Uni also focus on making their pizza oven incredibly easy to use. They reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius. This is what lets you cook that restaurant-quality pizza in your home in as little as 60 seconds. This is a massive difference. It's, like, worlds apart from what you can produce in a regular home oven. That's what makes the difference. Uni have a couple of models that are really popular. One is the Uni Karu. This is multi-fueled, so you can choose whether you want to use wood, charcoal, or gas. You know, maybe that ends up giving you different results, and you can choose between which you want or which you have access to at the time. There's also the Uni Kota 16. This is a gas-powered oven that cooks pizzas of up to 16 inches in size with an innovative L-shaped burner at the back that gives you even heat distribution throughout. This is the one you have, Brad, right?

Brad: Yep. Yep, so we use the natural gas with the L-shaped burner, and it is so cool. Like, it cooks perfect pizzas. We can cook five pizzas in five minutes, right? Like, it's madness. So you get everyone together to, like, make their own personal pizza however they want it, and then we just line them up. And I go in and get them, pop them out in the oven, stand there for 30 seconds, spin it, stand there for 30 seconds more, bring it in, grab another one. And we're all eating, like, hot pizza, customized pizza, personal pizza in, like, the span of five minutes. It's fan-freaking-tastic. I love my Uni.

Myke: And I think it was Jason Snell that was telling me, because he has the gas one, too. He also has outdoor heaters, and they use the same gas. Yes.

Brad: Yes. Yeah, so they have tanks underneath those heaters. So, yeah, it's the exact same type of situation. So I just have it for Uni, so it actually, I keep it outside separate, and then I keep the Uni inside when we store it up. That's the other good thing about the Coda is, like, the legs stack up. And, like, after it cools down the next day, I just pick it up and haul it inside and stick it in this, like, little outdoor closet stuff that we have. So it's great.

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Myke: I wanted to know from you, you know, now that you're a week and change out from the Atlanta Pen Show, you bought like 165 pens there. I just wonder if there's any of the selection that you came home with that you've been more drawn to or spending more time with.

Brad: It's funny. So it's nothing that we've talked about today, which is weird to say. Like, I had to think about this. Because my new Esterbrook that I bought was an Esterbrook prototype. And I need to take pictures and put all these on Instagram so I can start showing y'all and stop talking about it. I know I sent them out to Pen Addict members. You've seen a lot of the pictures. But these need to be shared, obviously, publicly. And I do that, too. But I'm just a little bit slow on the Instagram sometimes. It's this really great blue and white wavy sparkly pen that's just fantastic. It has the needlepoint in it. But that's not my number one used pen from the Atlanta Pen Show, which that honor goes to the Olive A. Franklin Kristoff Model 46.

Brad: Part of the reason is the color of the pen. Part of the reason is the shape of the barrel. Part of the reason is the color of orange ink that I chose to match with it. But the primary reason goes along with the theme of this show, and it's the nib. So I got an extra fine SIG nib done by Audrey.

Myke: Man, you're all over the nib map today. Right? We've gone from needlepoint to stack nib to italic. Something in between. Start the italic grand. Yeah.

Brad: Wow. As you get into this hobby, the main thing that I've always wanted and the thing that I've always said is the best part about this hobby is how customizable the fountain pen writing experience is. And people say, why fountain pens? And I say, because it's the most customizable writing experience. Now, that doesn't always come on day one when you buy a fountain pen, right? But after years of experimentation and years of trying new things, and obviously I have the benefit of a lot of access to test these new things, I can dial in what works best for me. And that's why stack nib has never been on the radar, right? Because I haven't been open-minded enough to, like, let's try this and see what we can do. But something like a needlepoint or something like this extra fine sig complements my writing so well, that nib in a different pen may not give me the same feel, right? So it's the combination of all of those things. It's like style, aesthetic, build, shape, nib performance, ink. All of these things add up to something that fits me very, very well that's customizable to me that I chose, right? I customized all these things, putting it together, and nailed it. Like, 10 out of 10. Boom. I did it. So, again, like, all the things we talked about today are very, very specific for me. But I hope it's informational in people, you know, wanting to learn more about things or, conversely, scratching something completely off the list. You know, like a needlepoint. Oh, like, that is not going to work with my cursive loopy handwriting, right? So I really appreciate how all of these things work together. And, you know, that's why we've been able to do this podcast so long because it's – the discussions are infinite when you're trying to do something personal. Like, something as personal as, like, a writing experience, right? It's very individualistic. That's why, like, I continue to grab this Franklin Kristoff Model 46 just for all the things. That is definitely my favorite pen that I came away with from the weekend. And, you know, it was an expensive pen, but it's probably one of the least expensive pens that I picked up. And it might be my favorite, right? But that doesn't mean I don't love the other ones. It's just, you know, when you keep grabbing for the same thing over and over because the joy you get from just using it is that good, you know you did a good job and made a good purchasing decision.

Myke: It does look really cool, that pen. Like, I mean, I'm sure it works great, but it looks amazing.

Aesthetic Appeal of Pens

Brad: Right. Aesthetically, it makes you pick it up, right? And then you decide, you know, okay, is this the right shape for me? Because it does come in other Franklin Kristoff shapes. And then, well, what do I want to do on the front end to complement that in a nib? And then what ink do I want in it to kind of put it all together? And you have this whole concoction that just ends up, you know, being perfect. And I really like that.

Myke: Brad did mention his newsletter. I'll take an opportunity to mention it more completely. Bradley, Brad has a wonderful membership newsletter called Refill, which goes out every week on Sundays. And you can go and check it out for yourself by going to penaddict.com slash members. I love Refill. I read it every week. And this past weekend, was it the weekend before we? Yeah, it was this past weekend's edition. You showed off a lot more information about all of the stuff that you bought. So I know you're going to publish individual things and more on the blog. We'll talk about more on the show. But also there's a thing called the penaddict rating system, the PAR. We should probably do a show on that.

Brad: Well, this was always the plan, right?

Myke: This is the first time we've mentioned it. One day we're going to talk about the PAR. But I think your plan is to eventually make some of that information more public. Yes. It's a fascinating extra thing where Brad has been assigning a rating system to a selection of well-known products. It's really cool, actually.

Brad: It's something I've wanted to do forever. And I've never been confident enough that I could pull it off and it be worth everybody's time. I've gotten more feedback on that than almost anything I've done in a long time. Well, yeah, because you're making some real moves. I mean, some of them I don't. And it's not on purpose. It's just like the words I want to get out about things. So, yeah. Yeah. So we'll share more of that. Like I don't intend to keep things private, but I do run a membership program. And, you know, members, you know, you always want to. You get it first. You get it first and talk about it. So, yeah. But the rating system does require tons of context, right? It's almost you kind of need to look at it as a whole, a big picture type of thing. So I needed to like put in the work to start building that like over the first year. So it's been fun so far. I'll have another one coming out this afternoon.

Myke: Yeah. I want to break down a bunch of them later on.

Brad: Yeah. We'll do. We'll. That will definitely be a show in the near future. Maybe this summer sometime.

Myke: Right. Yeah.

Myke: All right. So should we do a couple of. Well, actually, we'll do some nice TPA, but let's go some follow up. Because before. Yeah, let's do the show. Yeah. We had a message from Craig and Craig wanted some help finding a pen over a hundred dollars. And I believe that you've met Craig at the show.

Brad: It was awesome. So poor Craig. So Craig, shout out to Craig for being extremely patient.

Brad: I got the full. He got the full pen addict experience in the few minutes that I was. I met him and said, yeah, let me go help you. And let me go show you a few things of what I was talking about. And then you can take it from there. And if you have any questions. And from the time I met Craig said, hey, let's go look at some things. It was probably another 15 to 20 minutes of me talking to other people, getting stopped, taking pictures, doing the whole pen addict routine at a Saturday morning on a pen show. Knowing that I also have to leave in about 30 minutes. I felt kind of bad for Craig. But we got there. We got there. And he was very happy with what he ended up going with. He sent me a picture on Twitter. He ended up getting a Pilot Custom 74 and some ink and some paper. And he was real appreciative. And I tell that to anyone at a pen show. You know, if you see me at a pen show, I will help you shop for things. And help answer questions. And I do that a lot at pen shows. And, you know, a lot of the pens I bring to pen shows are representative of things that people might want to research at a pen show. So they can try. Like I had, you know, a friend trying to decide, you know, what type of Japanese. They bought a Pelican. And they wanted to have like a Japanese pen now. You know, a comparable. You know, so do we look at a Pilot? Do we look at a Platinum? Do we look at a Sailor? And, you know, they were able to test out a few of these things. You know, what about a Pilot 823? I hear everyone raving about that. So I have an 823 there for them to test. Or maybe they're considering getting a nib grind. And, you know, I have a few different nib grinds on certain pens. And we can discuss why this grind over this grind. Or what, you know, these type of things, these comparisons are. And that's my favorite part of the pen show is helping other people out. So, yeah, it was cool. It was cool to meet Craig. And I'm glad he had a good time at the pen show. And I hope I helped out a little bit. But...

Myke: Well, that's like the prime service, you know.

Brad: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Direct help. Yeah. I tell people all the time. Like, especially people that it's their first pen show. I was like, hey, if you have any questions, just come find me. And I'm glad to help out.

Myke: All right. Should we knock out... Talking of helping out. Should we do some Ask TPA?

Brad: Yeah, yeah. We have a bunch of Ask TPA. And I apologize. We have some really long and detailed ones that I want to get to. I don't know that we're going to be able to get to them this week. But we'll hit maybe this one this week. And then maybe we can do like a full Ask TPA show pretty soon. Because I know I'm behind on a couple of these. And people are probably already moved on from me trying to answer these questions. But let's hit a couple and see what we can do.

Myke: All right. First comes from Kathy. So this is Kathy Campbell, who is our community manager here at RelayFM and host of Roboism and Conduit. So after last week's episode, where you mentioned the Estabrook Esty, the candy one, I immediately sent this to Kathy. Because Kathy loves unicorns. She is the unicorn sidekick. Yep. And I took one look at this pen and I knew it was for Kathy. So I sent it to her and she bought it immediately, as I expected. And then asked the question, what ink should I get to match this pen?

Brad: Number one, they just need to change the name of this pen to the Esty Cathy fountain pen. Yeah. I actually don't think candy is a great name for this. Actually, I don't either. I would have been fine with cotton candy as a whole.

Myke: Yeah. Because when I think of candy, just candy is red and white. Mm-hmm. Right? That's what I imagine. Yeah. You know?

Brad: What do I imagine if I just say candy? That's a good question. I'd have to think about that. But it's not this. This is definitely cotton candy-ish. It's unicorn. Like, this is unicorn-y. But it's more unicorn-y than anything. It's pink and purple and gold and sparkly. Like, it's all of the things. It's amazing. It's amazing. Which makes it a little bit difficult to nail the ink. So, my first inclination is to just go for the straight-up hot pinks that I love so much. Specifically, Pannonia cotton candy. Shocker. To go in there. I also just bought Pilot Orochizuku Tsutsuki, which is another hot pink. I like all the hot pinks and magentas to go in, like, the pink and blue pens.

Myke: I mean, always got to give a shout-out to Califolio Andronople.

Brad: Yeah. Califolio Andronople is right in that same category. But those are what we would consider standard inks. And as you and I both know, Kathy is not a standard person. And I mean that in a loving way. She's amazing. So, she almost deserves more sparkle with this pen, don't you think? Like, what can we do for sparkly?

Myke: I mean, this really calls for a shimmer ink, right? It kind of does.

Brad: I think it does. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I would probably, in that case, if I'm going shimmer, if I'm going writing ink, I'm going with, like, magenta, you know, hot pinks, things like that. If I'm going sparkle ink, I'm going to pick one of the purple sparkly inks, kind of, to go with this, to complement just the swirls. And have, like, the gold sparkles. So, I don't have one specifically offhand, but, like, the Robert Oster shake and shimmer and the diamine shimmers.

Brad: What have I tried in the past? I tried one of the grape ones. I think it's a little too dark.

Myke: My issue with this is I agree with you on the shimmer ink. I have not tried a shimmer ink in a color that I think would match this pen. That's my problem.

Brad: There's some purple ones out there.

Myke: Oh, I know. I'm sure that there are, right? But I haven't tried it.

Brad: So, that's what I'm saying. Like, I've tried the brand of shimmer ink, say, you know, the J. Herban or Robert Oster. But the exact color in those inks, like, I don't know that I could pick one out. But we could. But I know, like, if you pick one from those brands, it's going to be good. So, let me look real quick. I'm browsing. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find something fast enough. But let's see.

Myke: What about Robert Oster, Shake and Shimmer, Las Vegas? Oh, what does that look like?

Brad: It's like, it's purple. Oh, that's the new one. Oh, and it's a bright purple, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's probably a good choice. That looks pretty fun, right? That's probably better than I want to come up with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Myke: Purple with, like, a little green in there to give a bit of contrast.

Brad: And so, the second one, I will tell you, let me get the name. It's one of the Vinta Fantasy inks. And there's a bluish, pinkish one that actually might be the best color. But it's brand new. I don't know where I can find it real quick.

Myke: Okay.

Brad: So, vamp for me. I'm going to get this.

Myke: Well, my vamping is currently looking at a website called Pure Pens. I've never heard of them before, I don't think. But they have Vinta inks. Okay.

Brad: I know I can find the link. I just, the name is weird, so I can't recall it.

Myke: Because one of the things that I was wondering about this pen is, because there's so many colors. Like, would this be one where you wouldn't try and match one of the colors? Like, you would go with something off base?

Myke: No. That, like, thematically matches, but color, but doesn't match color? Like, I was wondering about that, you know?

Brad: No. I think you kind of want to go reasonably matchy.

Myke: Because I was thinking a gold ink would be fun.

Brad: Here it is. It's called Lock Bay. I'll put the link in here. Okay. It's blue with a pink shimmer. Okay. Oh, let's see here. But I couldn't remember the name.

Myke: Hmm.

Brad: There you go. Take a look at that one. So, that's a brand new ink. They have a fairy tale collection. I'm saying fantasy collection. Oh, this is also really good. Yeah. This one.

Myke: Does this have, like, sparkles in it? Or is it just a shimmery? It is.

Brad: It's got shimmer.

Myke: Hmm.

Brad: So, this whole fairy tale collection, probably any of these inks. There's one called Plume. I don't know if it's Plume A, but it's more purpley. And then they have a gold one. I would maybe look at the Vinta fairy tale collection. That might be the option. If Kathy wants a shimmer type ink. Otherwise, like I said, if I'm picking just a pure writing ink, I'm going hot pink. Just because I personally like hot pink so much. And I have that pen here, the candy. And I think hot pink would look great coming from that nib. But if I wanted something, if I wanted to get a shimmer ink in there, I'm not going with a pink one. I'm going with a purple-blue type of setup. So, yeah.

Myke: Makes sense.

Brad: Vinta fairy tale. Brand new. Hot stuff. We're going to be reviewing them on the blog here very soon. I got samples of all those inks, and they look amazing.

Myke: And Joe asked, what do you both think of the 2022 Pro Gear Soda Pop? I was bummed about the price increase, but this looked too good to pass up. I'm pleasantly surprised by the slim model, which I thought might be too small.

Brad: It's fantastic. It's a good looker.

Myke: Yeah.

Brad: I mean, I'm going to say the one thing that I'm contractually obligated to say, and it's no knock on this pen. It's that they've done this several times, right? It looks the same as- Yeah, I feel like I've seen it before. Lucky Blue looks the same as a couple of other limited editions they do. But that's the thing I always talk about with Sailor or anyone who does limited editions. Sometimes this is someone's first limited edition. Yeah. Right? And they don't care what came before. Uh-huh. And independently of my past experience with seeing this pen before, it's independently great. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. I think it's almost perfect. So if I'm into this stuff or if I'm looking for my first Sailor pen or Sailor Lemon Edition, like expensive Sailor pen, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a better looking one than this one, in my opinion. For me. Like, it's just fantastic. Yeah. Right?

Myke: Just really bright blue, completely demonstrator with gold glitter sprinkled throughout the body. Mm-hmm. It's great. Really, really great. I don't know what the finial looks like. I haven't seen an image of that.

Brad: Probably standard. The nib's standard. So I think most of the pen of the years are pretty standard nib finials. Still old-style nib. It does have the new Anker nib. No, it's got the new Anker. No, it's the new one? Let me see. I just saw it. I thought I saw a new Anker. No, it's the old one. You're right. Yeah. It's the old one. I thought I saw this one. No. No, one picture has the- Yeah, it's the old one. One picture has weird lighting that makes me think it's the new one, but it's the old one.

Myke: Don't test me. Sorry. When it comes to Sailor, I mean, come on. I know. There's no finial picture. I'm looking at one right now. I'm looking at the nib. Because it still has all the adornment on it, right? Yeah. Where the newer ones, they kind of got rid of a lot of that and just focused more on the Anker. And less on the 1911, too. Yep. I think it's fantastic. It's great. Yeah. I mean, I have a couple of pens that are like this. Not this color, right? But I have a purple one that has this glitter through it and stuff. Right. So sometimes you can get too many at the same time.

Brad: Yeah. If you're looking for this type of pen, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a better one. Yeah.

Myke: And I will say for what Joe's saying, the slim is not small. It's just thin. Yeah. Right? Like, the difference between a slim and standard Pro gear, it's not... Yeah. Sometimes I have to look at them a little bit closer. Yeah. Like, it's not the length of... I mean, there is a length difference, but it's a very small difference. Yeah. It's more of a diameter. It's more of a diameter thing. And honestly, sometimes I can forget, like, which ones of my pens are slims and which ones are standards. Right. So, like... I wouldn't let it put you off. And I would actually recommend that these days, the Pro gear slim is probably the one to go for just because of the price increases. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad: Yeah. Like, I'm a 1911 slim fan. You know, like, I think that's my favorite of the two smaller models, right? Pro gear regular, 1911 slim. But, you know, that could just as easily be reversed.

Myke: Mm-hmm. All right. If you would like to send in a question of your own, just send a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord.

Myke: You can find Brad online in a bunch of places. Go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. He's penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter, and Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can find some products that I work on at cortexmerch.com. And I stream keyboard-related stuff on Fridays at mike.live. Thank you to Uni and Trade for the support of this week's episode. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.