The Pen Addict 586/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 586 |
| Title: | Only 19,996 to Go |
| Release Date: | October 18th, 2023 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 586 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 586 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 586 |
| Length: | 4949 min <br />0.817 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
From RelayFM, this is the Pen Addict, episode 586. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Ship Station. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke. How are you? I'm good, my friend. How are you? I am good. I'm good.
I'm busy making all the things, shipping all the things. I thought maybe we'd talk about that a little bit today. Talk about what I'm up to with Spoke, mostly what Brian is up to with Spoke, what all we got in the hopper. So let's just say it up front, like Brian's my hero.
Brian is Spoke. I'm just another pretty face, Myke. I won't take that at all. I know Brian's great, but I will not handle that. You're not an incredibly important part of the Spoke machine.
A Spoke in the wheel of Spoke, as it were. Yeah, so every now and then I like to just chat about what we've been doing at Spoke and what we have in the pipeline. I thought today was a good time getting, seeing that we're getting towards the end of the year, the holiday season.
Are we going to have new things for the holidays? People are always wondering that. But before we get to that, we have been cranking out new Roadie and Roadie XL models for the past couple of months since like probably August. The Roadie Model 2 and Roadie XL have been doing super, super well.
And we've added in, Myke, I don't know if you've seen this, but we've created different like cap types where we have like a slotted cap. We have a perforated cap with like holes in it. And we've added different grips into the pins, knurled grips. Knurled is cool. I should get one of the knurled ones.
So what I haven't even tried yet, I just got, I just received a shipment of them and I haven't tried them personally. We have a brass knurled grip. I'm super interested how that's going to go. So a Roadie with a brass knurled grip is now available.
Those kind of things. My favorite thing that we've done recently, and this is the last pin that I've stolen. I talk about, I think it's funny when I actually have to steal one of our products because it's so good. I have to have it, which is very rare.
I try not to pull from our own inventory for my personal use. Myke, the Roadie Groove Poly Blaze is one of my favorite pins we've ever made. Like it is the smaller Roadie, which I love. And it's a titanium barrel or stainless barrel. Titanium, it's both. So sorry.
The grip is titanium. It's grooved and it has a titanium barrel and it's got a stainless steel nose cone because that's the part that has to be stainless. So it hits the magnets right. So it's mostly titanium.
And then the cap is orange Delrin. So it is absolutely sick. It's cool to have like the plastic and the metal. That's not plastic, but you know, the Delrin, the polycedil Delrin.
That texture together is so cool. Like I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it. And it turns out I actually love it. So that's like, that's my favorite.
You do a big boy too, don't you? So that's what I wanted to talk about today. That's new. So we did the small one. The small one is what I stole.
We just launched the big one, which is the Roadie XL. Those have been flying off the shelves and you can get the Delrin. We do the Delrin caps in orange and black. So it's like a groove pattern.
And you can get them in orange and black. So I really like what we're doing there. We've added in the brass grip, which is fun. We've mixed and matched some of the Delrin caps.
So you can get a purple barrel XL with a black Delrin cap and a titanium groove grip. It's just I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of my own products, Myke. And I would hope I would say that, right?
Like I love what we make, love what we do. And if I didn't say that, I wouldn't be part of the company. Like I love this stuff. So Brian's crushing it.
So what I wanted to add on to this is what we're working on for the rest of the year. And I think I might have alluded to this in a podcast not too long ago. I can't remember if I did or didn't, but I know I shared them on Twitch.
So we're testing out our click mechanism, right? So we're doing a spoke click pin and we'll do two different sizes of that, right? So we'll have a click mechanism for a longer barrel pin that will fit your Pilot G2 refills. And then we'll do a click mechanism pin that will fit your Parker style refills, like our Jetstream refill that we use in the roadie.
And we are pretty far along in these prototypes. And given that I teased them not too long ago in the hope that we would have them before the holidays, I'm not sure we are. It's going to be close because we're trying. It's really hard to design physical goods, like as you know.
And we're having like we're we want to be happy with the end result. And we knew in the prototypes, the prototype was to test the shape and the knock. And we put on like a temporary clip. So we put on like a wire clip.
So like a wire clip is like you see on a Lamy Safari, right? That's not what we're using for this, but it just had to be temporarily done until we can get our clip finalized. And we're just struggling with that. Like we want it to be really good.
And so like I'm wondering now we don't even have the clips in production yet. And are we going to get them done before the holiday? So I wanted everyone to know that we're making this click pen, but we're trying to finalize the clip. So we're going to be up against it here.
We're going to get to see like just we always start these things out with a few colors and a few shapes, right? We'll usually do like the popular colors like black barrels or silver barrels, you know, black knurled grip, silver groove grip, things like that. And then if it goes well, people like the pins, then we start mixing in the blues and the purples and the reds.
Then we can start looking at brass grip sections and brass knurling and things like that. So I like that we're able to iterate as we go kind of thing. But that was all to say, I hope we get these clicks done before the end of the year. But I'm not holding my breath given how manufacturing goes.
But I'm sitting here just playing with them, using them. They're really good. The shape is good to go. Like I've pretty much signed off on everything. We just got to finalize the clip.
Did you make your own click mechanism? So we made part of it. So like the part that moves on the inside is a part we found. Brian bought a bunch of parts and tried to test them out.
And we use the kind of an internal part that's off the shelf. And then we replace the end button, if you will, with our of our own manufacturing. So we'll be able to, so like the part you actually see and touch on the outside of the pen, we make that part.
But the inside that moves it up and down is off the shelf. So that gives us an option to like trade out and, you know, do different colors and do different anodizing and different parts on that. So, yeah. Is it clicky? It's very, it's, it's, I'd say it's medium clicky.
It's solid, but quiet. Okay. Right. It doesn't rattle. It's not metal on metal. So we decided to go with a nylon material, which is basically like a plastic that never wears out. Yep. And it's, it's quieter than metal.
And it doesn't, it's when it's, since it's a mechanism that's constantly rubbing against itself, like it doesn't have that wear that you'll have on there. So it should last forever and it's been rock solid so far. So, you know, we need, I need a click testing machine. I said I was going to go on Twitch and just start a Twitch stream and I was just going to do like 20,000 clicks just in silence.
And people hated that idea. I'm just going to stream, man. What's wrong with you? Because how would you even keep count?
I don't know. I would just go. I would just go to town. We're going. Here we go. That was four. I hear nothing. That was four. That was four clicks. I trust you. There you go. Only another 19,996 to go, Brad.
Exactly. Exactly. So anyway, they were very confident in, in the mechanism and we like the part. I'm excited to see this. Manipulate. It's very cool. I wish I had, like I've shared pictures of what they are right now with the non-final version of clip. And I think they look cool.
Just like we're definitely not sold on this clip. So we want to finish. It'll be a more traditional split clip. Like if you look at our pins right now, it's going to be that style of clip as opposed to like a wire clip, which was in our prototypes, which was again a placeholder.
So manufacturing is hard. We're working up against a time crunch for the end of the year. And we have been working on this for a while. And prototypes are expensive to make.
Like we got 10 prototypes made and that just costs a fortune, right? When you're only getting 10 things made, manufactured, that costs just a fortune. So yeah, but we, we like how they turned out. Now we're just, now we're just trying to finalize it.
So I just wanted to give everyone an update on where we're at. And then, you know, that's it for the, this year, but 2024 is right around the corner and we'll have, we'll just keep cranking out more, more pins, more designs, more grips. I like the modular aspect of everything that we make.
So we're going to work on the modularity of the parts, the more parts we can swap out and the more customizable products that people can make, the happier they are. So we like that, even though it's like, we're, we're into a, we're a heavy skew business. You sure are.
So that's a challenge. And, you know, but we're happy to do it because both Brian and I like making these options. Like if we can make a cool pin barrel and a cool grip and allow people to mix and match some of that stuff to make their cool pin, I like, I'm all about it.
So there we go. So that's where we're at right now with Spokes. So it's, it's been, it's been fun. That's what's mostly I've been working on.
And, and I have like literally no other projects in the hopper other than like Spokes has been super busy recently, which is great. And Brian's crushing it. Like, right. Seriously. Like, like Brian. Brian is the, the engine that drives all this. And I'm just happy. Yeah. He's the man.
He's the man. So yeah. I'm excited to see this click pen. Yep. I think it's going to do well. I just look at the shapes. The shapes are good.
They're very spokey, right? Like they look like spoke pins, but then there's something different about them. Yo, this has a knock and Oh, the grip on the long one is tapered where we haven't had a tapered grip before. So it's, it's cool stuff like that, that we get to mess around with.
And Brian gets to flex his design muscles and I get to make pins that I enjoy using. And it's a, it's a, it's a good collaboration. And, the, the products have been coming out super, super well recently. And, I'm excited to see what's next.
Do you want to know what I'm up to? Yes, I do. All right. So let's take a break first. Wow. Are you ready to drop something on us after? I'm thinking about maybe talking about something I haven't spoken about.
You've, you've. Okay. All right. You've been to take a break then. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ball points, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have your favorite brands from Monteverde to Pelican, to Lamy, to Pilot, to Namiki, to Sailor, to Kaweco, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many more.
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Now, Brad, this is one of those weeks where I was talking with Ron and it was like, oh, no, this is like secret special week. We have offers we can't talk about. You know? Yeah. Sometimes Ron's up to some stuff. We can't talk about it because he's doing some secret specials for Pen Addict listeners.
And this is one of those weeks. Given the run that he has been on recently. The Ron run. The Ron run that he has been on. I am scared to see what he's got cooking because it's going to hit me right in the pocketbook.
Because like recently, there have been so much good stuff. I've never gotten more feedback on all the great stuff that we see on our pen addict page over at pen chalet. So, yeah, for Ron to say that, like, let's go. I'm excited. Let's go, indeed. That's penchalet.com.
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Our thanks to pen chalet for their continued support of this show on RelayFM. All right, Myke. What you cooking? Do the shout out of the week first. We've got to stick to the format, you know? Shout out of the week.
Fountain Pen Pharmacist. This is a blog I've been following for ages and they do ink reviews. And it's the coolest thing when you go to the homepage at Fountain Pen Pharmacist. Like, I'm usually used to only seeing, like, the individual posts coming in my feed. But when you pull up the main page and get to see all the ink reviews and how all the comparisons are listed out on the homepage, it's like, how can you not click through every single one of these posts?
They just look so cool. So, great job over at Fountain Pen Pharmacist. A lot of ink reviews for, yeah, I think mostly just ink reviews. And you'll see some other reviews mixed in there from time to time.
Amazing job. And shout out to all the pharmacists out there. My wife is a pharmacist. And boy, they are up against it right now. So, I feel you Fountain Pen Pharmacist.
You're not alone out there. Keep making those ink reviews and escaping from the drudgery of your day-to-day job. All right. So, at the moment, I'm in, like, just wild trying to understand the final quarter of the year kind of mode. Where, like, so many things are coming together and crashing, like, tectonic plates.
So, and we're structuring. I feel like what we're doing this year, while it is chaotic, is at least, like, understanding a little bit more how to structure this part of the year for us. Like, every business is super busy around the holiday season, right? That's just the way things go.
But at Cortex Brand, the theme system journal is, I consider us very lucky that it actually sells very well all year. But it obviously has a natural bump around the holidays. People buying them for gifts, but also mainly because it's when people are starting yearly themes. Maybe it's the first time they've done it.
Maybe they want to give it another go, and they want another journal to do it, right? And we have, like, a whole thing. The podcast has a big time then as well with the yearly themes, and it all ties in nicely together, right? But that means that we need to, like, really think about what we're doing around this time of year.
You know, like, we're putting a restock order, which is not too many units. I think we're pretty good where we are right now, but that's happening. So I'm, like, dealing with a restock with our supplier. We still make the journals in Poland, and so, like, I'm working with our Polish supplier on that.
And then also, like, we're working to try and maybe do a little bit more marketing around the whole time period. And we're not going to, like, we're probably not going to put, like, a ton of advertising spend on this marketing, but we're trying to, like, maybe use this year as an opportunity to understand what the best messaging is.
We have, like, five different messaging options that we're going to go with over, like, a two or three month period, see what works and maybe adapt some of it in future years. But, like, just because there's, like, having done this, you know, we've been making this product for four years now.
And so, ooh, that's a weird thing to think about. I was doing the math while you were pausing. I was like, yeah, that was, like, four or five years. Yeah, and we're getting ready.
I think it probably, if it hasn't happened or happened very soon, we've sold 40,000 of them. Right. That's amazing. Congratulations. Which is, like, sickening to think about. Like, it's sickening more, right? But, like, it's built the business, right?
And so we want to play around with that a little bit more as we're continuing to, like, think about what the Theme System Journal is. Because, like, you know, the Theme System Journal is currently still the bread and butter of our business, but it's not where we've been putting our focus.
Like, we've been putting our focus into the Sidekick notepad because it's new and I think has a larger adjustment on market. And, you know, I just think it's, like, to a lot of people, maybe a more interesting product. It's also, it's my favorite because it's also, like, expensive.
It's expensive to make, which means we used expensive materials. And, like, obviously that's where I am going to lean towards more because I just want things that feel really nice to use. And we're still kind of, like, building that part of the business where it feels like for at least the last little while the journal has kind of, like, run itself, managed itself.
And so we've got, like, a bunch of things. When this episode goes out, we're in the last couple of days of selling our subtlety and sweater and hoodie, which is, like, something we do once a year. And it sells very well. But, like, the added pressure that we've got right now is that we are using that as a part of the business to help us fund the restocks that we're doing, which is, like, not a thing we thought about before.
Right? So it's, like, a very different way to think about how we need this to be more of a success than we've necessarily thought we needed it to be before. Right? We're always kind of, like, we've got the subtlety going up. We'll see how it goes. And it's always done really well.
And we've been very happy. But now this year we put expectation on it that we hadn't before because we are beefing up supply of the Sidekick notepad because Gray is going to make a video about it also in Q4. And he's kind of a big deal. He's kind of a big deal.
And, you know, like, he's done two videos about the journal before, and every single time we sold out. So, and that is, like, thousands and thousands of units that we sold, and we just sell out. And I don't want to sell out of Sidekick notepads, so we have heavily overordered, hoping that we will sell a bunch when he does his video, hopefully, that people will like it.
And then we'll also still have stock left, right? And then we can restart. Right. But so I'm kind of, these are, like, the things I'm working on right now. Like, as we're recording today, I'm also, like, waiting on a quote for shipping for those because we ordered, like, tons of them.
And we need to get them shipped over. Included in that is, like, a new skew, I guess, of the Sidekick notepad, which is, I've mentioned it before, Sidekick Calendar Companion, which is, like, a, it's the same format. Different color cover. I'm anxious for this to see if this is something that's going to, would integrate for me because I have a feeling it might.
Yeah. And it's just, it's, like, a seven-day layout thing. So it's, you know, it's one page, and the page is broken down into the seven boxes. It's actually six boxes, and the weekend one is cut in half, right? Yeah. It's mostly a work thing.
But it's the same thing. It's 60 pages, so it's, like, a year, which is, like, very different to think about. But it's all the same construction. It's the same product, but just a different print.
Same dimensions. Yeah, same dimensions, same paper. We're still using the extract coffee cup paper, but we've changed the color of it. We don't have a ton of color options, so it's just, like, a lighter gray rather than black. And so, like, we ordered a bunch of those, and they're going with this shipment.
And so, like, we did them together because it reduced the cost, right? So we're working on that, but, like, we wanted to have, this wasn't what we were going to be doing. Like, we have, like, a whole other product that is effectively ready for, like, ready for us to just place an order on.
Maybe we'll do one more prototype, but it was going to be our holiday product, which we haven't spoken about yet. I'll give some very simple details on. We're working on a pocket notebook in the Sidekick family, but it's a lot of, like, similar design aesthetic, like the way it looks.
But we're making it from different materials because we're trying to make an entry-level product into the family. And so we're trying to make it as cheap as we can make it, and it be kind of like a, not a loss leader, but like a equal leader. You know what I mean?
Like, we're not going to lose money on it, but we're not looking to necessarily make money on it because we want to give… It's an entry point. It's the entry point product because we want to show people what our products are like if they don't want to spend the money on a Sidekick notepad, right?
Right, right. And so that's what we're working on, and it's going to come in two packs, and we're going to do lined, dot grid, and to-do list. And you just choose a two-pack, and you get two of either lined, two of dot, two of to-do.
I'm excited about it. I would say Gray started, like, putting it in videos, which is kind of funny. You can kind of see it, like, peeking up in places what it's going to look like. Well, perforated pages as well, but you don't need to perforate them.
You don't need to rip them out, I mean. Like, the Sidekick notepad, I think you kind of do need to rip each page out, but I know people don't. But the Pocket notebook, we are making it that you can choose. That's great. That's great. I don't know when that's coming, though.
Right. I hope that we will have, because now it's kind of like a Domino's thing, if the Sidekick notepad sells really well over the holidays, then we'll make the order. If it doesn't sell, like, gangbusters, then we're just going to need to wait a little bit longer. Like, we will sell through everything that we're ordering, but it's just about, like, how soon.
And if we do sell a bunch, but not so. Basically, if we sell all of them, then it's going to need to wait still, because I need to make another Sidekick notepad order. Right. But my hope is that it will sell really well, and we'll then still have some stock to sell, and then I can, well, then we can progress with the Pocket notebook.
But I have, like, a ton of other things. Honestly, it surprises me how I keep having ideas for new paper product. I thought I was going to run out by now, but I feel like I have, like, all the time, I just have more and more ideas. Like, I have, like, an idea, like, for different lines, too.
I have different types of journal that I want to make, and I have different kinds of notepads that I want to make. And so, I don't know how many of them will see the light a day, and I'm trying to be a bit more realistic. Like, I keep saying, oh, we're going to have two new products next year, and I've been saying that for the last four years.
So, like, all I'm kind of committing myself to mentally right now is we will have one new product in 2024, and anything else is, like, golden, you know? Yeah, that's great. That's great. So, you said one thing, if I can elaborate on this topic a little bit more.
I wasn't really planning on doing this, but I was taking some notes while you were talking, and you said one thing or alluded to one thing. I don't know if the listeners caught, but it's also how we run things at Spoke is you make things to help fund other things, right?
So, like, it's a good way to run the business, like, we don't run this from debt, which also means, like, we don't necessarily make a lot of money. Like, there's not a lot of take-home money in these projects, but we're making a lot of projects that fund other projects to do cool things, and you hope in the end, the collective totality of all these things, oh, you can make a little bit of money in the end, right?
Like, most of the year, we're not taking any money out of the business. Right. And, like, we set up the business in, like, we didn't, basically, we just sold products for a really long time and held all of the money and then created Cortex Brand. And, like, that funded journals, it funded the Sidekick Notepad, and we didn't take any money for, I don't know, like, the first year and a half, at least, because we were just putting it all in.
So, we are debt-free, and even though we're committing, like, a lot of money into the stock that we're ordering right now, we still have cash in the business. Like, it's just like, for me and Gray, that's just the way that we want to work. And there are a lot of downsides to doing it this way, especially around taxes.
Like, we have, it's complicated stuff with the way that the company's set up. But we believe in the long run it will help us create the business that we want to make by not having debt and not having investors and all that kind of stuff. Like, it's just not what we want to do.
Exactly. And, like, one of our big expenses is prototyping expenses, which I alluded to. Like, if we want to make a new clip. Oh, it must be healthy. Yeah. If we want to just make, like, a new clip die, it's going to cost us four figures, like, just for the die.
And I hope it works, right? Yeah, we don't have that. And then you have this part and that part. And, like, so we have to think about those types of things.
So, like, we're always working towards, hey, what can we fund to, like, make these prototypes for the next thing that we hope is going to be, like, a really core product line. And those types of things built on it. Like, we spend a lot of money prototyping. But it's because every unit is, like, I don't know.
Like, sometimes I've spent, like, $200 on a notebook or whatever. I might do a few of those, which is expensive. But it's not, like, every time you want to revise a die, it's, like, a four-figure number. And, like, that's horrible.
Yep. The second thing, which I just thought about, and, like, I know this in my head and listening to you and I talk about, like, products, product releases, things and that. If you take, like, your full, like, 12-month calendar of, like, production, you really have about three months during a 12-month year to create things.
Like, when I think about it. Yeah. Because it's so hard to get things made and it's so hard to go through all these processes. And you think about someone who makes stuff, it's like, oh, well, you're just making stuff year-round. It's, like, literally, you have about three months for your ideas to come to fruition to get anything made in, like, the following 12-month period.
Because that's how hard it is. The dream for me, and I guess it is for you, too, is that, like, we get to a point where someone else is doing that. Like, and then I can work on the design I can do, right? Because I can't actually design, you know what I mean?
Like, I can't draw out what I want, but I do what I think is, like, I come up with the product and, like, what I want it to be and then work with someone who can, like, help me make it. You know what I mean? Which I think it is a part of design.
I don't know what you'd call it, right? But it's kind of, like, how I would imagine, like, a chief design thing. You know, like, someone who's, like, the design lead of a company is not, like, opening AutoCAD, right? Right, right, right. But they're, like, saying that this is what I want it to be, this is what I want it to be made of, this is what I want it to look like, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And then I hope that one day I can just focus mostly on that and we can have someone to help do the logistics stuff. But we're just not even close to that yet. But I think it can happen. I think it will happen.
But it's just about how many years it takes to get there. This is good stuff. These are those conversations we always have and now we get to have them online. Yeah. Because I just thought it was on the pocket notebook.
It's like we're using recycled paper for the first time. I found a very, very good recycled paper. Different from what's in the sidekick. Yeah, because we use Monk and Lynx.
Okay. I'm thinking of the cover for the sidekick is the. Yeah, that's the coffee cup paper, which we won't be using on the pocket notebook because it's too expensive. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Gotcha. But in kind of, like, in its place, we're using a 100% recycled paper, which works pretty good for fountain pens, which is a thing I've never experienced before.
Right. Because there's usually a lot of fibers, right, in recycled paper. And there is a little bit of it, but this paper has been designed with that in mind. To reduce that. And so it's, I've used, like, all kinds of fountain pens on this paper, and I've been really, really pleased with the results.
So that's what we're going to use as kind of, like, as a way of being conscious, like, in the way that we use the coffee cup paper, but we can't use it in this one because it would make, it would kind of, like, destroy the idea of the product.
Right. But also not reducing the quality, but finding something that can still work well, has a great story to it, and also helps if we're producing these products, reducing the impact of the product on the world a little bit. Cool stuff. Who knew this was the Big Business Boy podcast?
Sometimes. It's good stuff. Yeah, every now and then. We talk about this stuff offline, but every now and then I like to talk about it online. But for all you people who are like, snooze fast, talk about some other stuff. We're going to talk about some other stuff, but first we have a sponsor to thank, and that is ShipStation.
When you're a business owner like me and Brad, preparing for growth and change is one of the best things you can do to save time and headaches later on. I promise you this ad was not related to the content of today's episode. It wasn't at all. It just fits nicely in.
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I have been a long-time ShipStation user. When we started Nock, that was our shipping platform of choice. I remember. Yeah. It served us very well through Nock's creation, through all of Nock's Kickstarter projects. And I enjoyed that platform so much that I've integrated it through the pen addict shop.
So everything that goes through there, like if we do the big Retro 51 projects, or just my day-to-day selling Fire on Fire ink, and the other pens that I sell, that all integrates with ShipStation. And what ShipStation does is makes it such an easy way to get my orders out, right?
It's all integrated with the platforms that I use, in this case, Squarespace for the pen addict shop. I just tie all that stuff in together. The orders show up. All the information's filled out.
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Shipping fees are a challenge. And to have a partner like ShipStation that I've used for so many years that tells me what I need to know, when I need to know it, and prepares me ahead of time for the changes that are coming down the pike. It's just like I really appreciate everything about ShipStation.
And I've been using it for a while. When you get orders from me at Panatic, they are all routed through ShipStation. And yeah, I'm a huge fan. Been a customer probably not quite a decade, but I bet we're pushing a decade here pretty soon.
Well, yeah, because you were using them when you were shipping, when we used Nock to do RelayFM merchandise, like right at the beginning. And so like, we're coming up to 10 years. That was around like 2014-ish. Yeah. So probably next year will be like a decade.
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All right. Since this is a podcast about pens, let's talk about some, Myke. Okay. So we have a little game we're going to play today, which we have done lots of little games in the past. Some of these are always enjoyable. So my friends at Sam Alpert on Instagram, you Twitch streamer, Twitch chatters, might know him as Glyph in Twitch, sent out a, tagged me in an Instagram post last week and said, you're taking a pencil, a fountain pen, and a non-fountain pen with you.
What do you choose for each slot and what are you carrying them in? So a really simple concept of making a little kit and the restrictions are pretty light, right? A pencil, a fountain pen, and a non-fountain pen. So three writing instruments and a case to put them in.
What are you carrying them in? So Sam put as out on Instagram. We'll have a link in the show notes. We have a spoke model four.
We have a right turns auto medley. And then we have a tactile turn TI bolt action. So those are the three pins, the pencil, the fountain pen, and the standard pin, all carried in a Notco. Oh, they listed it as a high tower.
It's a lookout. So the three pin lookout for Notco. We'll get, we'll give Glyph some grief about that. But look, the problem is you have so many products and they all had very different names. You know, what do you expect from people?
I mean, this speaks like right to my like PTSD of pen shows with a little printed sheet that I would need. So I have asked Myke to participate in this experiment. I have built my, I have built my kit. I've not posted it on Instagram.
I'll do that probably next. One of my next Instagram updates, we'll build this kit out. Make sure we'll share it out there. But I had, I like the restrictions of these types of things.
And we could do this, you know, over again next week. And I would probably pick different things. But it's like, okay, what mood am I in at the time that I'm trying to build this kit? Like, what am I feeling?
What am I enjoying? Do I want to have a theme to the kit? And that's what I landed on, Myke. So I don't know if you can tell just by my handwritten descriptions of the pens that I'm using.
But there is a little bit of a theme here in that they're all kind of shiny, silvery metal. So number one, we're taking the Spoke Rohde Groove Polyblaze. I may have talked about this a lot at the beginning of the show. This is my favorite Spoke product.
This is the pen. And this might be my single most used pen over the last couple months in any category. Okay. It goes with me everywhere. It's pocketable. It's portable. It has a great Jetstream refill.
I love the look. I love the style. I carry it with me everywhere. This is the pen that got me in trouble at Uniball saying, why aren't you carrying a Uniball pen?
I said, au contraire. Mont frère. Mont frère. It has the Uniball Jetstream. We built it because we love the Jetstream refill. So, yeah. Did you say suck it after you said that?
I didn't. I feel like that would have been a good moment for a suck it, but I understand why you maybe wouldn't want to do that because you were being corporate Brad that day. It was literally within the first two minutes that I walked through the door that I was meeting.
That would be setting a tone, wouldn't it? I was meeting my contact and then someone happened to be walking by and saw the pen in my shirt and said something like right from the jump. And I was like, yeah, we're going to hold off on this one. But I did dig in on the refill.
So I wonder if like, because that was my initial urge. I wonder if in that situation, if I would have actually said that, you know, I feel like I wouldn't, but also it felt like the obvious thing to say. So I don't know. I don't know. So that's the pen.
That's the standard pen I'm going with. For the pencil, I thought about another spoke. But once I kind of had a broader look at this, because I do use the spoke model for is my favorite spoke model mechanical pencil and probably one of my favorite mechanical pencil period.
You know what matches this spoke roadie very, very well is the Rotring 600 in silver, which is my one and only Rotring. It's the silver barrel. It's 0.5 millimeter. It's got the great knurling. And it's just, it's just the goat of, of mechanical pencils.
It just is. As much as I love so many other mechanical pencils, this is number one. And like number two is pretty far down the list. So it's, it's that good. The fountain pen, I went with a pen that I raved about last week in the Pilot Murex.
So I really set up this kit to be the shiny metal titanium steel looking kit to where I, I don't know this. I'm pretty happy with the results of this combination of three pens. So with the Pilot Murex, I always use the Pilot blue black cartridges in them.
You know, I might have to, I don't have this currently inked up, but this kit has gotten me inspired to use all three of these pens. Make sure I'm carrying them, using them regularly. Not just the spoke pen, which I use all the time. So the case was my biggest challenge, I think.
Because like in Sam's post with the Lookout, it's like, well, I could just use the Lookout. It's a standard three pen case. But I tend not to, so I thought of this as something I want to carry around, like that I was mobile with. And, you know, leaving the house with, going places with.
So I tend not to look at, use the Lookout for that. I tend to use the Lookout if I'm putting it in another bag and carrying that other bag. But I won't carry necessarily the Lookout just by itself. So I thought I might use the Tallulah.
Again, back to your knock naming of products. So that was a two pen case with a zip carry and it's thinner. And that would work for this. And I really thought about that.
But then I remembered I have this great Superior Labor case. It's called their Wallet case. I think it's called the Pen and Wallet case. It's a very, see, they have very normal names, Myke.
Why can't they call things the Tallulah? And then I would know, I would know more what they are. Although Pen and Wallet is pretty descriptive. But the Pen and Wallet case from Superior Labor.
This I bought when we were together at Wonder Pens on our Toronto trip in what, like 2019, 2018, something like that. I bought this case then. I still love it. It has three pen slots on the interior.
It's got a couple little slots for cards. It zips closed completely. I can fit it in a pocket, you know, fit it in like a shorts pocket or a jeans pocket very easily. It is very strong and durable and I love it.
And that is my kit. I'm so happy with this kit. I might just run this kit for like the rest of the year, like, and just kind of make it my portable writing kit with the pencil, the fountain pen and the standard pen. And I'll have to throw in some little note cards or something in here to add to it.
But yeah, I'm very happy. All right. Do you want mine? I don't really have a theme. Let's go. Yeah, absolutely. I just picked what I like.
So that's a theme. Pen, standard pen. I'm doing the same as you. Cortex brand. Mark 1. That's a good color. Black or the blue.
Like, I'm not going to lie. Well, okay. I have the blue. The blue is my, in my heart, you know, like the black is for everyone. The blue was for me.
Yes. Gotcha. You know, that's my favorite one. Earlier, you mentioned the spoke roadie groove polyblaze as the writing implement that you have used the most recently. Mine is the Studio Neat Mark III mechanical pencil. Fascinating. I don't understand. I cannot get enough of this pencil.
Yep. I just, I use it every single day. I have it on my desk. It like just nestles up against my sidekick notepad. And it is what I use to take the majority of notes that I'll make it a day.
Yeah. Love it. That's, so the best products I find are the ones you keep grabbing, but you can't totally explain to someone else why. I can't explain to you what it is that I like about it. I just really, really do. Like it just is very pleasurable to use.
But like it doesn't have the bells and whistles of like a Kuro Toga, right? Like it's not like it's doing something special. It is a mechanical pencil. Like that's what it is.
But I think there's just the simplicity, how comfortable it is to hold, like the overall size and weight. I don't, I just love it. I really love it. Yep. For my fountain pen, I've decided to go like a little wild with it because I feel like I would need that.
Because I kind of imagined this as like a desert island kind of scenario. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So I went with the Platinum 3776 Galaxy Starlight, preferably with the Tokyo Station pen stack nib that I have in it. This pen is very famous in the lore of the pen addict.
And we haven't heard about this pen in a while. We've been through a lot together. You've been through a lot. The nib broke immediately.
Took a long time to get a new one sent from Japan. Then I chipped the Urushi. And now it's got this behemoth stack nib inside of it. It's just good times, man.
Yeah. So the other favorite product category is, you know, aside from like what we're talking about with the Mark 3, where it's just something you pick up and you don't know why. It's products with a story. Right? Yeah. Like products with a story that are meaningful. Like that's...
I mean, plus this pen I bought to celebrate Real AFM's Sith Anniversary. And so it already had a story before I bought it. I bought it from Choosing Keeping. Yeah. And yeah. Love this pen so much.
And it is actually one of the pens which is always in my Sinclair. It is one of the pens that I mentioned in the previous episode of not being inked right now. And that makes me sad. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. And so you mentioned the Sinclair.
That's what you're carrying it in. Well, yes. See, I'm an OG, right? So I have the Nocco Sinclair. Which one do you use?
Which color? The brown one, I think. Brown and violet. Coffee and violet. No, no, no, no. I have the black one. I have the black one on my desk.
The... Aqua? No, I think it's the one with the... Is it the one with the special material? So there's a black wax canvas. I think I had the black wax canvas one.
Yeah, and Aqua Interior. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one I got. Yeah. Yeah. Because the brown one was the one I bought for myself. And then the black one, I don't remember how I got it.
Whether you gave it to me or it was a Kickstarter award or something, I don't remember. Yeah. That was a Kickstarter one, which you probably did back. Yeah. And so that's... I use that one. I'm sure the Rickshaw ones are great.
I've just never used one. Sure, sure, sure. You know I'm an OG. Yeah. Same, same. That's why. I was looking for one of my OG Tallulah cases just when I was thinking about this. One of my favorite products we ever made, complete digression, is the Tallulah Clay and Sunshine we did for Panatic 19.
That might have been Toronto, New York. And it's just that clay and sunshine material was not a color that I thought would ever work together. And it's turned out to be just one of the best of all time. Oh, man. I forgot about the Tallulah.
Now I'm looking at it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So I was actually looking for that. That's what I was thinking I wanted to carry for this little segment here. But we want the Superior Labor case.
So yeah. Really good stuff. I love these little thought experiments. If y'all have more that, you know, we've done different things. We've had price limit games that we've played. We've had, you know, pick one ink and one pen and one paper, like the kit kind of games that we've had.
So I love doing this kind of stuff. And if y'all have any more that y'all want us to set up, let us know. Be happy to oblige. Because it gets me thinking about things a little bit differently.
How it, because I have to pick three things and they, I kind of want them to work together and what is my concept here. So it's, it's fun to do. So if you would like to send those in, I actually have a great way that you could do it.
Yeah. Go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can, you can submit these things there. You can give us all kinds of questions, all kinds of follow-up. Go to penaddictfeedback.com. Fill in the form.
Let us know. You can also go to penaddict.com to see Brad's writing. You can go to spokedesign.com to please buy his products. You can find Brad online as penaddict on all the social platforms and over at twitch.tv slash penaddict streaming three times a week. I am iMyke.
I am YKE. Please go to cortexbrand.com and buy your products from there as well. Support your neighborhood podcasters. Thank you to ShipStation and Pen Chalet for their support of this week's episode. But as always, from our heart, thank you for listening to the show.
We'll be back next time. Until then. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.