The Pen Addict 646/transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 646. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I would like to wish a Happy New Year to you and to Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. Happy New Year, Myke Hurley, and to everyone listening. More importantly to everyone listening, I think that's the order you went in. They're more important than we are to each other, right? But secondarily, I would like to wish you a Happy New Year, Myke. Thank you. I will just say I love our listeners, but I love you more, Brad. Oh, that's very sweet, very sweet. It's okay for you to love our listeners more than me. Somebody should. No, no, no. Okay, good, good, good, good.
• I feel funny starting this with a lot of feedback from two weeks ago. I would like to, if you don't mind, I would like to currently be the ghost of podcast past and provide this piece of follow-up due to the, what I call thousands, because it's what it felt like, thousands of listeners. Yes. Who wrote in to let us know, in regards to the ink vent, we were talking a couple of weeks ago, we ran through the ink vents, is it Christmassy or not? One of the inks that we said wasn't Christmassy was named Marley, because what does that even mean? It's named after Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol. Duh, Myke. Who wouldn't just know that off the top of their head?
• So, in internet terms, just so y'all know, I think we've covered this before, if several people have emailed, that's one person, right? If a bunch of people have emailed to tell us stuff, that's usually like three to five people. Yeah. If a thousand listeners write in, that's probably like double digits, like 10 to 20. So, like, just contextually. But for us, that's a lot. But it's mostly when, like, you open the feedback, and there's like 10 pieces of feedback written basically the same all in a row. That's when it feels like thousands.
• Yeah, it's great. I love the feedback. I love this one. I loved, I especially loved, because people weren't, like, apoplectic that we didn't know that. They were, like, genuinely helpful. Like, I got a bunch of emails, like, outside of the feedback, right? I'm getting, you know, messages and emails and stuff like that on the same topic. And they were, like, generally helpful in, like, going into details. I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then they kept coming. It was hilarious. This is one of my favorite bits of feedback that we've ever gotten. Yeah. It is, like, sometimes when you get something wrong, and then you know it, and then you keep hearing about it. Like, that's as if, like, you know, now I know this piece of information, but I keep being told it. But that is the life of a podcaster. It is. It's great. And we aim in our lives to try and be as correct as possible so we don't get that feedback. But as always, I appreciate the feedback. We have been well corrected, and we can now correct our past mistakes. Yeah. So we added that one to the Christmas list. A couple of bits of follow-up on that. One, I would like to shout out the appropriately named Marley's on, you know, on the internet. It's our friend on the internet in the Relay Discord and on Mastodon, who sent me the Muppet version of A Christmas Carol, where the two old guys are both the Marley ghost in there. So I thought that one was really funny. Is that Statler and Waldorf? Statler and Waldorf, yes. I recommend as well a movie on Apple TV Plus. It's called Spirited, which is with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, and it is a modern twist on A Christmas Carol. Yeah, I believe I saw that when it came out. Yeah, it's a good movie. We just watched it again this Christmas. Yep. And second bit of feedback.

Discussion of "fruit cocktail" ink and its reception.

• We're not going to finish off the ink list, but I had a question on one of them that came up, and now I'm blanking on the name. Oh, fruit cocktail, Myke. Christmassy or not, fruit cocktail. I thought this was... Honestly, at this point... I'm asking this one because this is a difficult one, I believe. You see, I don't... Because then I'm going to say it, and they're like, well, actually, in 76% of the world, they have fruit cocktail. You know what I mean? I don't want it now. Right. Like, it's been... Especially because... Look, I'm not going to call this person out by name, but someone wrote in to be like, how could you say Tundra was Christmassy? It's not Christmas. It's not cold everywhere in the world where Christmas is happening. And it's like, yeah, I mean, right? Like, but come on. I think most of the world that is celebrating Christmas as a holiday, I would probably expect it's cold during December. But, you know. Well, I think... I just think Tundra as a concept is literally just like frozen land and frozen ground. So, like, that's the way I thought of it. But then it's like, is that considered... Is cold frozen considered Christmas? That was what they were. I see. I see. Yeah. I mean, in Australia, like, probably not. But... No. I bet... I bet, you know, they have some snow scenes alongside their surfboards and beaches. So, yeah. I get it. I get it. I don't want to comment.
• Too late. Too late. So, fruit cocktail, Christmassy or not? I mean, for me, not. Like, there's nothing... I'm going to go with not. Fruit cocktail, which is Christmassy. Also, that this seemed to be one of the most hated inks. It's funny. The hated inks are the ones that are the least Christmassy. Lemon, lime, fruit cocktail. Fruit cocktail was scented. Was a scented ink. And in looking at the reviews of it, it was just like bleeding. Like, the scented inks just have like some type of composition that makes them feather all over the page. Great stuff. Yeah. Yucco. All right. We're not done with follow-up today, but we're done with follow-up for now. We have more follow-up in the STPA section. Now we go to... Well, now we'll transition to Ghost of Christmas Future. Yes. Yes. So, we're going to talk about themes for a minute. As we always do, I like to tack on to your cortex conversation with Gray every year. Because I think there's a lot of crossover in this time of year when you and Gray are thinking about yearly themes or people are thinking about, you know, different goals and plans they have for the new year. So, I never like to usurp that show, but I like to add on to that show here and get you to elaborate on your theme. And then I kind of lay out a little bit of a theme on there. So, why don't you lead off and if there's any additional info you want to add, maybe for like Cortex and why you do this. Yeah. I mean, like, I think one of the reasons that it ties in here is like the reason that we created the Theme System Journal. Because there is something about having a yearly theme and journaling that go really well together. So, a yearly theme, in essence, is instead of setting a resolution, you set a theme for the year. And this can be a word or a concept that throughout the year you use to guide you. A great example that we always use every year because it's like easy for people to understand. Instead of saying, I want to read 10 novels this year, you would say you're having a year of reading. So, if you only read five novels and you would kind of fail your resolution based on the way that you set it for yourself. But if you just had a year of reading, like, as long as you've done more reading and like reading has been a focus for you, then that's fantastic. And also, you know, halfway through the year, you may say, I don't want to read novels anymore. I want to read more long form articles on the web than I have before. And like, that can be part of your year of reading. And, you know, there might be other things in your life that you do which become important for making that a thing. Like, for example, you know, you might say, oh, you know what? I want to set up like a little part of my house where I have like a reading nook and like that's part of your year of reading. And like, you know, and so I've had many themes in the past, you know, like I've had a year of refinement, year of the weekend, like all these kinds of things. And we have some examples of this on our website, themesystem.com. I'm actually thinking and we're working on like for next year, having like actually making like a yearly themes.com and having just more examples of themes and how to set them up and stuff like that. But I'm actually also, I think people from the show will like this when I'm done recording today. So probably after most people have heard this, I'm going to be doing a stream on the Cortex YouTube channel where I show how I set up my journal for the year. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes to the YouTube video so people can watch that if they want to. So this year, my yearly theme is the year of fatherhood.

Announcement of impending fatherhood and its implications.

• Yay! So that, because I'm going to be a dad, which listeners of the show know.
• And that's, there's obviously a lot in that, which is, you know, like trying to be present and trying to make basically every big decision or medium sized decision that I make throughout the next 12 months will have to be kind of filtered through the idea that I'm a father. Like if a new work project comes to me, I can't just add it, right? I either have to say no or I have to remove things to be able to make it possible because I want to be able to spend as much time focused on being present as a father this year. That is like my key. That is the absolute 100% key thing. And everything else is in service of that for this year. And then probably for the rest of my life, but I expect things will kind of fluctuate as time goes on. But this year is the most key for me. And this is actually for my journaling, the year of fatherhood is actually going to be kind of shaping my journaling a little bit more. So I'm going to be focusing on reflecting more in my journals, kind of on my life rather than talking about necessarily how I'm feeling about something. I want to journal more about something that happened, right? And with the idea of the future in mind. So the way that I do my journaling, I kind of just like talk about like, oh, how am I feeling about something or what's something that happened today? And just like kind of get it out with the sense that I'm never going to come back and look at it again. So I don't reread my theme system journals. Like it's not a thing that I do. And it really is a different practice to write as if you think you may read again. Because if you think you may read your entries again, you are more likely to add context. And I actually chose not to do this because I wanted to lower the overhead. And also, I wanted to feel like I could be completely honest in my journals, right? Where I feel like if I am going to read them again, maybe somebody else may read them again. And then I'm maybe going to maybe like soften what I'm saying in some way.
• But that is actually something I'm going to change a little bit this year where I want to journal this first year of being a dad with the potential that I may want to read this again in the future. Or someone in my family might want to read this again more in my future. So I'm going to be doing, I'm going to kind of be doing that a little bit more this year to kind of think about my journaling as a reflective, as a reflective thing. And that also I may want to reflect on it later.

Transition to journaling and weekly planning habits.

• So yeah, and it just tangentially related in a sense, in a sense. I have started doing something that I mentioned that I would do, which is I'm now on Mondays, I'm writing out my weekly appointments on one of our Sidekick calendar companions. We were talking about that, right? Like the mixture of digital and analog and kind of like, yeah. So, and I've actually found that to be quite a therapeutic experience of like sitting down and writing it out, especially the next month. This is actually a good time for me to do this. This next month is so incredibly busy for me.
• Obviously, I've got a lot of stuff going on with work anyway. We've got a lot of stuff with baby prep and we're also starting our antenatal classes, which are huge chunks of time. And we're doing two sets of antenatal classes for reasons that basically we booked a thing and we thought it got canceled and then we booked another one with a different company. And then we just decided when it wasn't canceled, let's just do both of them. So we're just going to have the most information we could possibly have. But that is like a lot. So I've got a lot going on this month. So I actually think it will be nice to sit down and like write out what's going on and write. And I kind of have been looking at my calendar and then looking at my task list to write like, what are the biggest time sinks that I can put in here or the things that are out of the ordinary. So that's an evolving thing, which is interesting. But yeah, for me, with journaling and my theme this year, I'm considering more about being reflective than just kind of reporting. Yeah, that's a good thing that a lot of people, maybe when they start journaling, don't consider from the start is who are you writing for? You know, why are you writing to begin with? Like, what is the end goal here? Do you just need to get stuff out of your head and never see it again? Do you think someone is the context that someone is going to read this later?
• You know, down the line years from now. So thinking about that sometimes, you know, is important when you're writing a journal. Yeah. So, yeah, I think this is really good. I think it's going to be an interesting year for you, obviously. I mean, that's an understatement of the year right here on January 1st. But it's going to be, from our perspective and being show-specific, specifically selfish, you know, how some analog tools, you know, kind of work into your day-to-day down the line. So, yeah, I think it'll be good. I think it'll be good. All right. So my theme last year was the year of recording. And the idea – so my themes are generally, like, more conceptual. Like, I've – one year I did – I did the – was it the year of commercialism? I don't know. Something like that where I was like, hey, I'm going to make all the things this year. Yes. Just, like, you know, work on that. And actually, that ended up not happening that year. It ended up happening last year. So – but last year was the year of recording. And, you know, it was the idea that I wanted to track more information and do more things with that data that I was collecting. I did really good for right up about the time where I went to London. So, like, the first six, seven months, I was really solid. I was tracking everything, you know, having a list of what pens I used and, you know, what products came in and why they came in and where did they go and do all this stuff. I did really good. And this was all just handwritten, right? I had a notebook in my William Hanna. I had it laid out for different sections, for different things. And I eventually just stopped, like, a lot of these things happened. And I was thinking about recently when I was trying to think about a theme for this year, you know, why did I stop? Or not why did I stop, but, okay, what value did I get from this, even if it wasn't, like, maybe a completed year? And that's the other thing about themes is they don't have to be for the whole year. You can have multiple themes throughout the year. You can have a quarterly theme. You can stop and start. You can have overlapping, whatever. I've had, like, two concurrent themes. Like, you know, I kind of added one in halfway through the year because something big happened or I switched it up. Like, the year of refinement was about me going out into the world and experiencing things. And then we had a global pandemic. So I kind of had to get rid of that one. Yeah, so my intent going in was for it to go the whole year. And I started thinking, okay, so I didn't pull one of my lists back out, but I would track, say, January.
• And, you know, like today, I'm using the Muji Platinum Preppy pen. And I would just put, like, I'd write down the pen name and write down the ink and put, like, a little check mark or a little tick box next to, okay, I use this today. Right? And then I would just track. If I used it five, seven more times this month, it would have little slashes next to it. And that's how many times I used it.
• And the goal was to – I guess my goal at the time was to see how much I used certain products. But I think what the real answer I was looking for, which I never got to, was why did I choose the products that I did the most often? And if I looked at it from that way in the beginning, so I at least learned that. Like, it wasn't the actual recording and the tracking of all the things. In the end, I didn't look at enough why did I choose the things the most often that I did. And what made me pick up a certain pen more than another pen or what made me use a certain paper or a certain ink more than the others. And that's like a little bit of reflecting I did on last year's theme that I had. So, you know, it's always something – it's always a learning experience whether you like maybe take it all the way to completion or not. Or does your theme – you know, a lot of times with themes, it'll just become part of your new routine. Therefore, it's no longer a theme. It just exists as part of your life. Right? So, like I could still be recording things and thinking about things like that without it being my theme. So, that was my last year.
• This year, I had a few different kind of concepts rolling around that I wanted to do. And I landed on one that is something I've attempted in the past that was very valuable to me.
• That a lot of times when we do these things that are very valuable and they make things better, you stop doing them once the things are better. Yeah. Right? So, oh, things are good now. I don't have to do the thing that I was doing to get me in that place. I was like, by the way, maybe it's better because you had this – because you were doing these things.

Introduction of the "year of the hour" personal theme.

• And in the past, this was something I would do. So, I'm calling my theme the year of the hour. Okay. And what I mean by that is in the past, and by past, I think this was probably like two years ago where I was pretty actively doing this. I didn't do it at all last year. I would take an hour out of my day and stop working and only create and only do like things that would inspire me, things where I would learn, you know, like reading, things that were self-help like meditation. So, like my hour was usually in the mid-afternoon. I would stop my work day, say like a 2 p.m. in the afternoon. And I'll admit straight up, like I'm very fortunate to be able to have this flexibility to do this whenever I feel like doing it.
• At 2 o'clock, like I'll be working from 8 or 9 in the morning.
• At 2 o'clock, I would just stop. And at 2 o'clock, I would meditate for the first 10 minutes, right? I would just stop working, and then I would go sit and do my meditation. And then after that, I would either – most days, I would just grab a book, whatever book I was reading and read for like maybe, you know, like 30, 45 minutes. And then I would get back to work, right? And then it was this really, really defined stop in my day where I just like context switched like really hard, right? Just going from work to no work and then back into work. But it helped me out so much the rest of my day to think clearly and be more productive. And it was just a very valuable way to do this. So the other things I plan on doing in this hour are – I'm going to get back into meditation, which I found to be very valuable. And when I say things got better and then you stopped, I think it was mostly the meditation that helped me. I was like, oh, things are better now. I don't need to do that anymore. It's like, well, dummy. There's a reason why things – why you were working better or why you were more present in your day or more present with your family, you big dummy. So maybe like keep that going. So I want to do some more writing for myself, like just personal stuff. Like I have a very – how would you call it? I have a very ongoing inner dialogue with myself, right? Just all day, all night. Part of it, I think – and this is like self-diagnosis. Like it's because I'm at home alone by myself a lot, right? Yeah. So I'm always thinking, right? Whether – it doesn't have to be thinking about work. It could be thinking about anything. Think about going to the grocery store or what we're cooking for dinner. But there's this always – this ongoing monologue in my head, and I think some of it is worth capturing. I think a lot of the times my thinking time is thinking about why I like things or why I don't like things, and I'll just play this stuff over and over in my head. Like if I hear a new album by an artist, I'll either like it or don't like it, right? And then I start thinking, well, why didn't I like it or why do I like it? Why don't I want to listen again tomorrow? It could be anything, anything related to that. And I want to start writing those things down. So I started a new notebook today, which is part of the idea.
• Of a new notebook. Yeah. Yeah. So this all goes into like this is going to be one of my tools that I use in the hour that I assign to do not work.
• And this all goes back again. This is probably like two years ago where I just had an everything notebook is what I called it. You know, it's kind of people have like the commonplace notebook concept. And I feel like mine's a little bit different or at least I wanted to make it more personal to me. So I called mine the everything notebook. And I didn't have one for like the past year and a half. I started one and I got about halfway through it and I didn't like it for some reason. Like I think I just like physically didn't like the notebook as much. And that just made me stop. Right. That didn't make me try to figure something else out. I was just like, yeah, I'm not going to pick up this notebook and do the thing that helps me. I just stopped. So it's funny, like all these these habits I had like two years ago, I just kind of got out of.
• And I wanted to bring them back. And it all builds around having this hour to be creative and to think differently and to not work. But it's important for me that this hour is in the middle of my day. I can't totally define why, but I can't do it in the morning.
• I'm not a morning pages type of person. Right. Like that does not work for me. And I technically could do it at night. I don't mind doing it at night, but I usually get distracted at night. You know, there's a lot more family stuff going on. There's a lot of other things going on. So my hour happens to be probably like mid afternoon because that's when I'm the most able to actually accomplish what I want to accomplish in this hour. So another little tidbit that kind of builds into this. It's also it's you know, it's a good way to use my stuff. Right. So like it's a way to try new pens, try new paper where I may be working on a review or working on projects and I'm always using like the same things or testing a handful of things. It's a good way to experiment in this hour to in a more creative fashion and not not using something because I want to not because I have to type of situation. So this hour that I'm calling it is very helpful for my mental health and for like my creativity. I'm never like creative blocked. I just a lot of times have too much going on in my head. So this is going to be this is like a good space for like a little bit of thoughtfulness and reboot and reset. And I'm not committing to do this seven days a week. Like I probably won't do this on the weekends. Right. Even though I work on the weekends, I don't need this during the weekend, I don't think. But a lot of days during the week, I will probably be doing this and integrating this part of my daily routine, because the more I look back on when I've attempted things like this in the past, the more I realize how good it was for me. I was like, yeah, let's probably do those things that are good for you again. So that's that's my theme for this year. What kind of creativity would I expect you to be doing in that? Like, are you coming up with things for work or are you just like no creating fictional characters? Are you drawing? Like, what are you doing? Yeah, it would be more like drawing or like I like I like drawing patterns. Right. So, yeah, like I can't draw like the Sega Hira waves. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but there's a wave pattern like I can learn how to draw that pattern in my notebook. Yeah. And that's just like it's it's basically the the it's the year of the adult coloring hour is probably like the context of it. Right. That that is like the perfect way to describe what kind of creativity you're going to be doing, which is like it is non consequential. It is not important. And that is actually by design and purpose that it is purely for the joy of sitting down and doing something like Lego. Right. Like you is another example. That would be a perfect numbers. All of those kinds of things. You're just like it's not it's not it's not about like even creating something special. It's just like I'm I'm going to sit down and just spend some time doing a thing. That's for me. Nice. Because it makes it make. Yeah, it makes the other things better. Right. It makes me a better person by committing to do these things that I don't allow myself to do. And this is me allowing myself to do something that, you know, is not work related. You've actually given myself permission, if you don't mind me saying a very like core benefit of a theme where. Now you are not just giving yourself permission to take an hour out of your day every day. If you take this hour to quote unquote not be working as you or others might see it, you're actually achieving something. And that could be really helpful for people with certain brain types. And I think you are one of those where you would feel guilty. Right. For taking this time. Because it's like, oh, like I should be working right now, but I'm not. And that's bad. Well, now, like if you actually take that hour every day, you have achieved something which is to be like mindful and present with your theme. And that is like an achievement. And so it's like another good reason to have something that you can look to as something that you are attempting to achieve and stay true to as the year goes on. Because it also gives you a little bit of leeway and a good excuse to do a thing that you care about. Yep. Yep. So powerful technology. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. It's always been in the back of my head because I've done this before. Right. Like I've had this concept before. This is not necessarily a new concept for me, but it was more in a passive sense. It was like, okay, I'm feeling crappy. I'm stressed out. I'm going to go have my hour. I'm going to go. I think I called it the me hour back in the day when I was doing it, which is just take a break and do things for me. Read a book. Yeah. Meditate. Yeah. Stuff like that. So this is like a continuation of this concept because apparently it was pretty valuable to me when I was doing it before and I've just stopped doing it. And it might be nice to do these kinds of things preventively rather than retroactively because you're feeling bad. Instead, like why don't you give yourself the space and feel good about it. Shocking. Shocking, right? Yeah. Like therapy is one of those for me where doing therapy regularly rather than looking for help when I was feeling in some kind of crisis is way better for me. Yeah. Because then I know it's coming and I'm used to it and it's much more helpful for me than kind of scrambling around and trying to get help.
• Yep. Totally. Totally.
• This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Penn Chalet. They have the products you're looking for from the brands that you love and maybe even from a brand you don't know you're going to love yet. Penn Chalet do the best prices around on the products that they have on their store. They're adding new stuff to the website every couple of weeks you'll go and find new products from all of your favorites over at Penn Chalet. They do fountain pens and roller balls, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, inks, carrying cases, and all of the accessories you may need to fuel your hobby. The hobby that we all share. Penn Chalet have great discounts all the time on their site. It doesn't matter what time of year it is. You're going to find great discounts and great deals on their site. They're very fast and reliable customer service. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the U.S. and they also sell internationally with the best shipping rates they can go with. Penn Chalet has low prices and high quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Penn Chalet, run at Penn Chalet, wanted me to let our listeners know they're currently running a ton of year-end reduction sales with some incredibly good discounts. So make sure you head over to PennChalet.com slash PennAddict. You can see a list of offers that are exclusive for Penn Chalet listeners, but you can also get a code to save 10% on anything at Penn Chalet. And it will also take you to a lot of these end-of-year reduction items. Has anything caught your eye, Brad? Well, to Ron's note there, this is an extremely long and extensive page. So we're going to go through that, but when I landed on the homepage at PennChalet.com, I was met with Color Versus Blue Green Snake Inc. So it's the year of the snake mic, so we're going to have a lot of snake content. Brad, this is upsetting me, I've got to tell you. Snakes are my biggest fear. Oh, okay, okay. They're my biggest phobia. I hate spiders, and so like, I have always hated spiders. I also don't like snakes, and the thing about snakes is, they're pretty big, you know what I mean? Like a spider, most of the spiders I could ever encounter in my life, not too bad, but snakes, even the snakes that I could encounter here in the UK, way bigger than I want, and like way more dangerous, and they're just like a horrible thing. Now, the problem is, this year of the snake, my daughter is going to be a snake, so there's nothing I can do about it. So I don't know how to feel about that, not great. It sounds like you need to lean into these snake edition inks, Myke, and just get over your fears. It's making me uncomfortable even talking about it.

Discussion of fears and the "year of the snake."

• I'm trying to think, do I have any like really strong fears? I don't fear like any of the animals or creatures. I'm more of like a claustrophobe is my big fears and stuff like that. So anyway, it's year of the snake. We're going to get to annoy Myke a lot, especially like about the first quarter of the year, when it is when all the brands are going to be hammering home the snake theme stuff. So now I have a duty to all of our listeners to really mention at least some snake content every episode or two. So we're going to work on that. So back to the sale page over here. A bunch of other inks, a bunch of Colorverse inks on the sale page over at PennChalet.com. You should check them out. I always think like inks are a very popular item. And when you can get them for a discount, they're not always on sale, right? So especially like good quality inks like Colorverse. And then you scroll down this page. Like, again, this is a very, very endless page. So there's Y Studio products on here, right? There's Bennu products. There's Lamy's, Lamy Safaris. There's different Lamy LXs. There's all kinds of different Lamy's on here that I'm looking at. And ones that I haven't even tried. They still have some of the Perkyo, the Kaweco Perkyo, the infrared one, which is my favorite. Y'all need to go buy that one out because that's the best one that they've done in years. And there's a whole list of Kawecos here. I can't really go through individually here because there's so much stuff on there. But you should know if there's a brand you're looking for. PennChalet's probably got it. And they might have a pretty good deal on it right now. So go check them out. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash PennEdict. Our thanks to PennChalet for the support of this show, but also for continuing their support with us into 2025.
• All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. Wow, what was that? I'm not committing to mixing it up every episode because this is how I got into the nickname problem back in the old days. Yes. But, you know, 2025, I'm keeping it alive. You know, we're going to do it. We're going to see where we end up. Yeah, if you're a new listener, rewind about eight years. Eight years ago, Myke would introduce every podcast episode with like a really long detailed description of my name. I'm not going to put you on the spot now. I would call you like the purveyor of pencils or the like enigmatic eraser. It was always, there was always an iteration to it. And the problem was I most of the time hadn't thought about it in advance. It was just like whatever came into my mind. And luckily, I'm pretty okay with stuff like that. But it got real bad for a while because eventually you run out of things to say, you know. Yeah, because I think it went on for over a year. Oh, it went on for a long time. Yeah, like almost two years probably. So, yeah. Good time. So, if you're a new listener, just go drop in like probably, I don't know, episode 228 and see what you get. I'm really not sure that I recommend people go that far back. But, you know. Hey, for our 500th episode, I listened to our first episode and it surprisingly held up. So, I feel safe. I just can't stand the way that I sound and how the show sounds. Okay. Well, see. But like you're talking into a laptop from the next room. And I'm like, all right, gazer. Welcome to Penn Addict, innit? So, not into it. Not into it. See, that's where you and I differ. I worry about the content. You worry about how we sound. Yes. Yes. All right. So, shout out of the week is our good friend Patrick Ng over at Scription who released this year's Chronodex, at least the first six months, Chronodex Planner. We always shout this out because I think it's one of the most fascinating systems on the internet that any of us use that I could never use in a million years. I don't get it. I, to this day, don't get it. I've tried really hard to get it. Yes. But I love it. But I respect it. At the same time, I want this. I respect it. This is the coolest thing ever. People who are into this are mega into this because you're not a little bit into Chronodex, right? No, you've got to live that. You're all about that life. Yes. You've got to be in that life. Live in that life. Some people are a little bit into bullet journaling. Yeah. Like, that's fine. That can work. You cannot be. One does not simply be a little bit into Chronodex. One does not simply wander into Chronodex. That's so good. I love that. But it's a fascinating system. Um, what Patrick's got to be a decade into this, right? Like, I don't even know. It's been going for as long as we've been doing this. As long as we've been going. And Patrick's been doing this. And I love the visuals of the Chronodex and how it's basically a time blocking system, uh, based around like a watch face type of system. So, uh, it's really cool. If you haven't seen this, go check it out. Um, and I don't know, maybe it'll click for you. Maybe you have the type of type of life or type of work that would benefit from this type of system and, uh, go check it out. So, love Patrick, love, and, uh, always, always give him a follow. So, all right. Um, to kind of continue a little bit on the themes, I asked people on the internet to say, hey, what are you up to for 2025? Like, with your stationary goals or ideas. So, we got a lot of comments, a lot of feedback. And the reason why I wanted to discuss this or the reason why I enjoy seeing this, uh, type of feedback is because I think it's a really good, uh, getting a pulse of what people are into these days. Right? Whether, you know, like very specifically in the stationary world, you know, what are people thinking about as broader concepts? So, if you don't mind, Myke, and feel free to stop me anytime. I have, I don't know, maybe 10, like, little short, short entries here. And, you know, we'll kind of read through these real quick. And then I'm going to talk about some thematics, uh, um, that I see, um, that run across several of these. So, um, these will all be anonymous. They're, you know, they're not anonymous, like, on my Instagram account or anything public you can see it. But it's just easier for me to just do these as the content itself without, uh, like tying in names to it. So, first one. My 2025 goals include using what I have instead of buying new things, especially washi tape and stickers. I like the specific call-outs here. Like, you know, the one specific thing. Trying to let my creative side come out to play more. Often playing with ink, drawing badly, writing, and maybe taking up knitting again. Rehoming pens and inks that I don't use anymore and being more intentional with what new things I do buy, as in no impulse buying. I'm going to be tracking all this, so we'll see what happens. But I have a good feeling about it all. So, I like that vibe. This person is every pen addict. Yeah, this is, this is actually why I put this one first. Because it's kind of all the things, like, I want to do every year and think about every year. And it's just being thoughtful and, you know, like, being specific and being intentional about your purchases. Because, you know, this is a very, you know, very collect-y, spend-y, you know, type of hobby with all of your extra funds, right? It's not something that you have to do to live your life. You don't have to have new pens and paper.
• But it's something we do as a hobby, so you do have to take some care into that. So, next one, it says, instead of just keeping track of what ink is in my pens with Excel, which is kind of impressive, I'm going to make a swatch book for that as well. I have plenty of notebooks, so I like that. I like that. Yeah, I think that there is something to say about, like, if you want to make a collection of your ink, don't do it digitally. Like, the ink is there, you know? Yeah. Do both. I have a component of it, which is actually, yeah, the swatching is important, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Just like fpc.ink, the fountain pen companion, like the digital repository. Like, is one place you can track all this stuff if you don't want to run your own Excel. But then have a, you know, have a matching swatch book or something like that. So, next one says, it's very boring, but I plan to turn the page in my current bullet journal. I may go wild and do a title page for 2025. No special books or anything. So, I think the concept here is, you know, changing up how they do bullet journaling, basically from learning what worked for them in the past, and they're going to change it up and do some, you know, go wild and do a title page, right? Like, that's a big deal for a lot of people is exploring their creativity when they don't feel creative, especially with bullet journals. The way I read this, Brad, is that, I mean, you could, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I don't understand. It's like, they're not going to start a new journal. I kind of thought that. Yeah. But then, the way I still read it is they're going to have the same concepts without being rigid about the quote bullet journal. But also, maybe this person's not feeling like they have to buy a new journal to continue their journal. That, like, they can keep using their current notebook and not feel stuck that they have to get a new one, which I like to. Yes, 100%. Next one is, try to figure more of it out. I love the idea of a notebook only for ink swatches. So, that's, like, one of the things that we all get into is sometimes we just acquire.
• And then you have to look back and go, like, what did I just do? You know, maybe the figuring it out phase should happen earlier for a lot of us in this game. And that way we can be more intentional. So, it's a really good idea. So, these next two, I kind of want to read together. So, first one is I just set up my William Hanna as a planner. And the next one is two new binders. So, the person who wrote two new binders, I know for a fact one of them is a William Hanna. So, I love the idea of the William Hanna. Like, if you've looked at Plotter and said, oh, that's just too small or the rings are too small or that's not the system to me. But you want kind of a removable page system, which Plotter is rings. William Hanna is disks. So, there's other disk bound systems out there. The William Hanna is spectacular as a system and a system builder. Like, that's what I was using last year for my tracking. And I could set up all these different sections. And I just really, really liked it. It came in real handy last year for me when I was doing a lot of different project pages for products I was building. Like, they all had their own little pages and sections. And I could keep a good track of it. And you can move things around and organize it. So, yeah. Really, really good stuff. Next one, using my weeks, which is the Hobonichi thin, small product to keep track of three weekly goals. Like, that's great. Like, very simple. Very straightforward. Using your stationery to manage your weekly goals. Easy.
• Next one, I grabbed a 10-year journal. Going to start that journey on Wednesday. Being today. Here we go. So, this is great. I love the commitment. Getting through that first year is the challenge. So, I have a five-year journal, Myke. I just finished year two of it. So, I'm starting year three today. That's great. It has stuck with me. And I'm still a little bit surprised. These products are fantastic. You just have to commit. Yeah. And that's the challenge, I think. Yep. And it worked for me. So, I was highly tentative for years that this would not work for me. But it did. So, that's good. Next one, I would like to discover some new papers and lock down some of my nib ideas. So, that's... I will call out my friend Jim at Penn Sloth right here. He makes some, like, really complicated, interesting... To say he makes stack nibs is an understatement, right? He has some really wild stuff out there. So, you can go look at Penn Sloth on Instagram and see some of the things that he makes. Really, really cool. Really creative. Really interesting. But the part discovering some new papers, I think, is something we would all be interested in. And, you know, that's something... I have a couple of papers here that I haven't used that I bought last year. Different paper types. So, I'm going to be exploring those as well. This one I really like. Back to the beginning for me. Parker Jotter. Field Notes. Crappy Sketchbook. And a 2B Pencil. Otherwise, I'm still debating on Traveler's Notebook Standard Planner. But I have a day to figure that out. That second part is kind of funny. But the back to the beginning stuff has never gone away from me. Because that's what I initially loved using the basic products before there was such a thing as the Pen Addict, right? Those were, like, part of my life. And I still have a fondness for them. Like, I've talked a lot about recently the BitClick came back into my life because of a promotional pen that I picked up, right? And, like, I just have a huge love for the most basic stationery. That's all we ever need. You know, that's not all we ever want, obviously. You know, we don't keep doing this show because I'm only using a ballpoint and a copy paper or a mead spiral notebook. But there's something beautiful about keeping it simple and classic like that. And I'm way in on that. So, these next two are funny. They're kind of related. I want January 1st to be here today so I can use the new planner that I bought in September. This is one of those stationary things that never ceases to amaze me. How early planner season starts. And I think it's just hilarious that, like, by August 1st, it's, like, on for 2025. And you're, like, making all these plans, buying all these things. And then they sit for months. Well, I'm shilling hard for myself today. But this is why I don't date my journals. Yeah. Like, the theme system journal is not a dated product. So, you can start it at any point. You can also not do it. Like, if you skip two weeks because you're going on a vacation or whatever, you don't miss two weeks of pages. You just go back to the page where you left off. That's very important to me. It's very important to me. I cannot sign up harder for that idea. Yeah. Very much a believer in that.
• Opposite of that statement, I've been rocking the 2025 planner I got at Stationery Fest since September. Which I just find hilarious. It's a great, great thing. Last one. And I think this is kind of, like, ties a bow on the very first statement that we had, too. Use my stationery. Don't be afraid to start writing in my notebooks and use all my stickers. Of course, I'll be buying more, too. So, like, that's kind of the perfect situation that we're in right now. We all want to use our stuff more. Make a plan to use it. Figure out how you can use it more. Be intentional with your purchases. You know, never, you know, try not to just hit the FOMO button over and over again. And really, really enjoy what you have and what you're writing with and what you're purchasing. And enjoy what everyone else is using, too. Always go take a look and talk to people about what they're using. See what they're using. Ask them questions. And figure out why things work for other people. That's one of my favorite things to do is why people use the things that they do.
• All right.
• Real short topic. And then we have some Ask TPA feedback I want to be sure to get to today before it gets lost. My pen show schedule is starting to take form. And then by the end of the month, I will have a lot more additions for, like, the first six months of the year. We may have talked about this already. But since it's a new year and the new pen show calendar has started, I will be in Philadelphia at the Philly pen show from January 17th to 19th. So in just a few weeks, Myke, I'll be at my first pen show of the year. And then in February, I'll be heading out to L.A. for the California pen show February 14th through 16th. So if you're planning on going to either of those shows, I'll just be there wandering around. Come say hi. We'll talk more about them. Probably do some recaps for them on the show. Coming up, I haven't really – Philly's coming up, like, hot and heavy. Like, I'm not ready for that at all. It's only two weeks away. Like, it's been a while since I've been to a show. So I feel, like, out of the flow. So I need to think about it. I probably need to, like, go look at a vendor's list and kind of get a game plan and see what I want to accomplish at this show. I think I'll be traveling a lot this year.
• Last year, I had more big trips, right? Like, I had the big London trip, right? That takes a lot of mental overhead and time and money and things to think about. This year, I think I'll be spread out throughout the year a little bit better. Like, I traveled heavily for, like, five weeks in the summer, like, all together. And that kind of, like, did me in. So I knew not to do too much before, and I definitely didn't want to do too much after. This year will be more spread out. So I'm going to spend the rest of January figuring out, you know, like, I'll obviously be at the Atlanta Penn Show because that's close nearby to me. But then what other shows am I going to go to? You know, what shows haven't I been to that I want to get to? Am I going to do any international shows this year? You know, like, the Dutch Penn Show is always at the top of my list, and can I figure that out? So I have a lot of work to do over the next month or two to plan pretty much probably through the summer. I need to plan through the summer probably in the next month, no later than, like, the next month or two. Because, like, I was talking to Jonathan Brooks yesterday, and the Washington, D.C. Penn Show hotels just became available. And last year they sold out so much that people had to stay at a different hotel, like, from the show. And I prefer to stay at the show hotel just for ease, right? So I have to start thinking about this now. So I'd love to see y'all out there on the road, and we'll definitely be talking about my travels this year. Sounds good. Myke will not be traveling this year for reasons, as we mentioned. I'm going to a Penn Show. This is the one. This is the one. If you were hoping to see me somewhere, you ain't. You ain't seeing me nowhere. Yeah. Not this year. Not this year. So, all right. Let's do some Ask TPA follow-up. We had some good questions that we tackled on the last episode and got some brilliant feedback. So, the first one is a follow-up on the Sheening ink. And I got a reply from Matthew Gore, who is on YouTube as the wet pen. So, a lot of y'all introduced me to Matthew on my streams. I was like, I don't know what y'all are talking about, the wet pen. And he makes his own inks, and he's based in Washington, and I've just never tried him. So, I'd also like to cordially invite Matthew to come on the podcast while you're away to talk about ink making. So, I've always wanted an ink maker. So, this email has been in my inbox, and I would like Matthew to know that this is my reply, because I'm yet to reply to his email. But we're going to talk about him here today, but I will reply to you shortly, Matthew. Thank you for sending this in. So, Matthew makes inks, and he sent me a very long email. I took out kind of the core. The question was, how does sheen happen in inks? So, Matthew says, sheening is simply a property of the dyes used to make inks. It is the color that they appear to be in crystal form. For example, the common dye that I buy to make my ink rainier blue arrives as pinkish-red crystals. When I add water, they immediately turn blue, of course. But if that liquid then dries slowly enough, the dye molecules will crystallize into that organized structure that will, at least from certain angles, reflect a different wavelength of light. So, on an absorbent paper, the molecules don't have time to crystallize, and they're also not on the surface where they can form an uninterrupted crystal pattern. So, the short version of this is people smarter than me are telling you how this works. And this is great.
• It's not easy for you to say. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.
• So, I would love to. I really, like, just over the holidays, I have not been in my inbox very much and just haven't, like, planned on things. But I am going to reach out to Matthew to see if they want to come on the show later and talk about ink making because I've had that question a lot. Can we talk to an ink maker? And I was like, I'm not really sure who I could go to. That would be very, very easy to talk to. And Matthew was all, like, this was one snippet in a very, very long and interesting email talking about ink making. So, love you. I'd be very interested. Yep. I would like to hear about that process more because I don't understand it. I do not understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds, like, yeah, very complicated to me. Like, I'd be worried. All I would be doing is worrying about how bad I'm going to mess things up. Like, I'm not very free when I'm, like, if I was doing, like, chemistry type stuff, I would have to be. That's why I'm not a good cook because I have to follow exact directions, right? I can't just go with the flow and create. Well, I would say you'd probably be a better cook than a baker.

Transition to nib grinding and related questions.

• True. True. That would be rough. Yeah. That's too, just, like, too magical. Too magical. Cooking is art. Baking is science. Yeah. That's probably right. That's probably right. All right. Next up, speaking of art, let's talk about nib grinding. So, the question came up.
• The last episode, we were talking about, hey, I love the SIG grind that Frank and Kristoff does. Would it be okay for me to take it and copy it? Have someone else copy this? And I thought we, I think generally the answer was, like, you know, you should be able, you, the goal for the user would be able to explain why they like a nib and be able to relate that to a different nib grinder to create an experience. Yeah. So, I got some feedback from a nib grinder. I'm leaving them anonymous in here. They, you know, they would probably be completely fine with me using their name, but just, you know, for whatever reasons. And this was, this was a, a popular nib grinders feedback on that comment. And again, this is one paragraph in probably like a five or six paragraph email that was just spectacular. And I appreciate it. You know, everyone taking the time to, to send in this feedback. So, this is their, their response to, to the idea. So, it says, my personal take is that there's very little that is completely unique that hasn't been done before. Of course, there are unique grinds that a given manufacturer might offer. For example, the SIG nib or the Naginata togi nib that Sailor makes, for example. But my view is that a competent nib meister should be well-versed enough to be aware of the grind and be able to grind something along a similar vein. That doesn't necessarily mean that each nib meister is going to create something that is an indistinguishable copy of that nib. Each nib meister will have their own take on it and have some amount of variation from the original that can be both interesting for the person grinding and the end user's writing experience. To sum up, in my view, no grind is off limits because each one will have a different interpretation. The original will always be the original. So, I think that's kind of along the lines of what I was getting to. Two is you're rarely, even if you say, give me an exact copy of this, it's never going to be an exact copy of this for the most part. And that's kind of what this nib meister was saying is they might be able to do something close or might try to, you know, mimic the writing style. They were mentioned they do a grind that's similar but different in their own particular way. And I think that's how probably most nib grinders would handle this as well is, you know, it's an interpretation of a nib and their own personal take on it. So, any comments on that? I feel like this is a pretty fair answer. I still think it would be weird to ask for a signature grind. I still think it would be strange to sit down at a table and ask for that. Yeah. So, let me add that. So, this goes along. I didn't put this in the notes and this is something that they added. If someone, he said, if someone came up to me and brought me a Franklin Kristoff nib and asked me to do a sig grind on it, they would turn it down. Okay.
• Because that would be one situation where they would say no. If you want to sig grind on a Franklin Kristoff nib, let me tell you where you can go to get it. Yeah. Right. That's a good call. So, I thought that was a fair way to do it. But otherwise, like, they're going to try to make a nib that their customer is going to enjoy. Yeah. Right. So, I still just think it was better done in description of expectation of result rather than description of brand name. Correct. Correct. Correct. And I think that we got some other feedback on that. And I think it was generally, like, the same. It's like, you know, most people are going to be able to just, you know, and this is kind of what we said in the show. You know, just explain, like, what you want in the nib and you're going to be able to get something really, really nice. And, yeah. So, good stuff. I appreciate all the feedback. If you would like to send in feedback for the show, just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send in your questions and your follow-up there. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. You can find Brad online. He is at penaddict. And you can also find him on spokedesign.com.
• I am here at Relay.fm. Well, Relay.fm. But we are, of course, just Relay now, kind of. You can go to cortexbrand.com for my products. You can find me on social media, too. You have to do your own work in trying to find me because you know how social media is these days. Thank you to Penn Chalet for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.