The Pen Addict 647/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	647
Title:	Our First Duet
Release Date:	January 8th, 2025
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 647
Audio File:	Audio Episode 647
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 647
Length:	6868 min <br />1.133 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

• From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 647. Today's show is brought to you by Enigma Stationery, ExpressVPN, and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you doing today? You can hear me a little under the weather. You know, we don't need to make a big deal out of it. But, yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I can hear you. I can hear you a little bit there. So, hey, I appreciate you being here today. Have we ever had to call out sick at the last minute on one of these shows? Which is over 12 or 13 years. You have? I have. I once had a viral throat infection, and I was out, like out, out. So maybe I got like a, I must have got a last minute replacement, though, because I don't think we've missed. Yeah. Yeah, no, we wouldn't do that. We would just, we would move it around. Oh, we would. I mean, we would if we're like, you know, not feeling that well. I mean, it is incredibly unlikely to me that we would not record at all for a week in the sense that it has never happened. Sure, yeah. We would fill it in. Somehow it would get done. Somehow. Because that's the job. Just got to get it done. Anyway, I shouldn't be asking you the questions today, seeing that you're feeling under the weather, but I am going to make you talk a little bit. Something for our listeners to look forward to is the ad reads today, because yesterday. If you want to send me over the copy, we can make a switch. We'll see. We'll see. Because I've been, you know, I've been doing this for a few days. Sometimes it's been fine. But yesterday I was recording with Casey and I was doing it after Squarespace and I got a little lightheaded by the end of it. Because my ability to take in oxygen is diminished. Yes. And so that was an interesting time. So we'll see how that goes today later on in the episode. I thought it was just because the deals were so good. Like this is a bad read, but you know. Always. Sorry. Sorry. All right. So last week we talked about our themes and just talked about stationery in general in the broader picture. And I realized we didn't like really specify, you know, maybe some of the things that we're using to kick off the new year. That's when I kind of like, you know, make sure I clean up some pens that I've been using for the last month and get some new pens into the rotation.

Discussion of fountain pens and recent live stream

• And what also made me think about this was your video last week, your live stream on the Cortex YouTube where I was watching you go through some fountain pens and you were doing a bunch of writing. So that made me curious. What have you inked up to start the new year? Because I think you've kind of gone through a little batch, a little sea change there in your group of pens. I'm very happily using more fountain pens this year than I did last year. That's something I do want to continue on because I don't know if you know, but they're pretty good, like fountain pens in general. Yeah. Shocker. Right. They're pretty nice. And I've been using like a small selection, like of my absolute faves. Two of them, though, and what I've been really thinking about the last couple of days are both Platinum 3776s of different ilk. One is Nicely Lass, which is just their kind of like, they started doing those, I would call them standard in a way, limited editions, but like there wasn't too much better.
• That's a good way to put it. You know, like, because they just did loads of them, didn't they? And they're all great. And I was so happy that they did it because it finally, because I just was always really unhappy about the way the 3776 looked. It just didn't spark excitement for me. And then I've also been using, in the exact opposite end of the spectrum, my 3776 Galaxy Starlight, which is like ebonite with Rodden.
• Flex all the way through the pen. And I'm also using a custom stacked nib from CY. Oh, that's right. So, God, this pen has been through a lot, right? This pen has been through a lot. Okay. So, yeah, for those who don't know, we won't recap the whole thing, but the original purchase of the Galaxy Starlight was met with some nib issues. The nib snapped. Not what Myke's doing. Basically, yeah, like part of like an entire tine. Yeah. Like snapped off. So I had to send it to Japan. About a year to get it back? Yeah. Yeah. Really, yeah. Yeah. And then now that nib was replaced by a stack on this. So, like, which is great. Like, this is a pen you will never get rid of. This will be the last pen standing, I have a feeling, if it ever came to that. And also, the cap has a slight chip.
• Oh, did you do that? Don't know. Just one day. Took it out of my Sinclair. I was like, oh, there's a piece missing. So, you know. But at this point, I don't, like, I don't, I don't really care about those things anyway. Sure. I am very much of the, if I use something, it's going to get beaten up. Like, that's because I'm using it. Like, these things are tools, even though they're, these ones, this particular one is an expensive, fancy one. They are tools.

Stories behind chosen pens and inks

• And so, the fact that it has another kind of part of its story is good to me. Well, that's kind of funny because the pen I picked also has a story. But we're not there yet. But this is very interesting, the products we chose today. So, what inks are you using with these Platinums? It's such a great question, Brad. And I can't wait to give you the answer. All I have to do is just go to Apple Note and tell you. Mm-hmm.
• Okay. I use Ackerman 28 in the Galaxy Starlight. Yeah. Green feels like a good mix for something like that. I'm not sure why, but it felt good. Plus, it's just, like, the best. And then Sailor Ink Studio 452 in the LILAS. Which is what color? It's a purple. 452. Purple. That would have been my guess, given the pen. And it's probably hard to not put purple in that pen. Yeah. And it's a deeper purple, which I like. Gives it a bit of, like, contrast. Yeah. It's a contrast match. Not a matchy-matchy. It's a contrast match. Right. Which I love for those lighter pens with the darker inks. So, all right. What else you got going? And then it's mostly the standard. Like, I'm using Sidekick Notepad today. I'm using the Orange Mark 1. The one with the limited ones. Yeah. It's my favorite limited one that they did. Just, like, the safety orange.
• Yeah. I have a funny story on that one. I purposely didn't order that one. Because it's, like, too obvious. It's like, oh, what? The last thing Brad needs is another orange pen. They just sent it to me anyway. Like, Tom and Dan. Just, like, we're going to make Brad have this orange pen.
• And I've, like, bought other ones since. But I purposely didn't buy that one. Yes. Because it was too obvious. I guess I'm the sucker for buying it. You know? Yeah. You're the sucker. So, they don't normally do that. It was really hilarious, I found. They were like, yeah, you pretty much have to have this one. I was like, fine. Maybe they, like, they made it specifically so you would buy it. And then you didn't. And so, now it's like, well, I guess now we just have to send it to them. Yeah. I guess I won that game, didn't I? Yeah. You showed them. You showed them. So, what have you got going on?
• I inked up my Sailor Pro Gear Bungu Box 5th Anniversary. It's the Ibisu model, which I believe you also have. Oh, yeah. What a pen. Black and gold. I need to break mine out. That's one of my fountain pens that is still in storage from when we moved. I was thinking about this pen. I think me and you were talking about this pen recently. And, yeah, I need to break it out because my word, what a pen. Yeah. And it seems like the right pen for the new year. It's like that black and gold. It's, I don't know, it's kind of a celebratory pen, like just in style-wise. I love it so much because it has the metal grip section. Yep. Which several, I definitely have several Sailor Pro Gears with the metal grip section. That can also be a flaw in the design if it happens to roll off the table, Myke. So, if you have a pen with a metal grip section and it falls, which way do you think it points down? Always, always nib first. Always nib first. So, you have a repaired 3776 in use. I have a repaired Sailor Pro Gear in use that, thankfully, my good friend Mark Bacchus took care of. I have a picture of the Carnage on Instagram from years ago that I posted. And I'm happy to report Mark Bacchus not only straightened the nib, he now turned it into a posting-style nib. So, it has like a point down on the tip. He's like, well, if I'm doing this, you just want me to like make it really something you like? And I'm like, yes, absolutely. I was a little bit nervous about it because this is a softer gold. This is a 21K and Pilot's posting nib that I love so much is 14K and it's very, very firm. But the way this worked, he talked me into it. I was hesitant. And Mark's like, no, this will work. You'll be fine. And it really, really does. So, it's nice, smooth, fine lines. It was already an extra fine nib to begin with. So, having him tune it down a little bit and moving into the posting situation that I have now is really, really nice.
• Inking this pen has always been a challenge for me, Myke. You have the gold ink, I believe, that came with this pen. We've talked about this a million times.
• And this is one of those pens that is really difficult to... I'm sorry. I just, I wasn't listening to you for a moment there. Because I had a flashback that I had to confirm.
• Because I had a memory of my acquisition of my fifth anniversary Ibisu being weird.
• And I remember now, I bought it from a listener.
• And they were shipping it to me when I was on vacation in Las Vegas. And it didn't arrive in time. Yep. And it had to be sent back to them. And then sent to me at home. But it got lost in transit. I remember this. It got lost arriving. And then got lost being returned. And it was in a post office somewhere. It was like... There was like a 60 email thread with the person. I just had this flashback. And I had to go and check it. But yeah. Oh my gosh. That was really, really wild. So I apologize that I zoned out on you there for a minute. But I had to confirm that. This pen is interesting. Because it's one of the few pens that both of us have. Like, not in a stock pen kind of way. Like, you know, this is a pretty... A limited edition that we both have. Yeah. There aren't many of those. Especially stuff like this. Because it's hard. And also these things. There's a lot of taste in them. Like, I have the... Yeah. What is the one that's the... That got all the lines on it?
• The Bunger Bucks one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's just called Blue Black. It's the... Yeah. It's the Blue... It's... It's something having to do with the 4B. 4B. Yeah, yeah. 4B. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is brilliant one. Brilliant one. So, yeah. This is not a standard limited edition. This is a limited, limited edition.
• So, I was saying I have a hard time inking this up. And I usually choose Bunger Bucks Imperial Purple for this. Like, it's a super bright purple. And I think that's usually a good choice. But I went for a Blue Black. Which, honestly, people are going to be like, Oh, Brad. Shocking. I haven't had Blue Black inked up very often here recently. So, I like the fine lines to have some Blue Black in them. And I chose a darker one in Sailor Gentle Blue Black. And I'm just using a cartridge. But I like this ink a lot. It's really, really dark. If you like a Blue Black that is on the blacker side of the spectrum, this is one you want to look at. But it's got some nice sheen. It's got some nice color.
• And I'm really, really enjoying it. I've been using it, you know, for days now as my primary writing pen. And it's just very, very enjoyable. Mostly been writing in the notebook I started this year. The Hachimanjia Life Noble Notebook in Iris.
• Very much enjoying this notebook. I am happy with my choice. And, you know, the Life paper is great for fountain pens. But it's just as good for, like, pencils and rollerballs, too. So, it's good all-around paper, which we'll talk about later on this episode. Because I want to pick your brain on some top five things. Or pick some listeners' brains on some top five things. But this is definitely up there. Just Life's Paper in general is one of my favorites. And this one is a very, very faint ivory color. Like, it's not a white page. But it's not cream color. So, it's got a little bit of tone to it. And, like, a gray 5mm grid. It's perfect. Perfect for me. So, yeah. That's what I'm using right now. And I'm really happy. Really, really happy. This episode is brought to you by Enigma Stationery. Enigma Stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs. Along with top brands and hard-to-find imports. It is a new year. Happy New Year. And that means that the 2025 Lucky Boxes are now available from Enigma Stationery. There's three different versions of this year's Lucky Box, Standard, Deluxe, and Ultimate. I feel like I have the right voice for that today. Ultimate Lucky Box. Each Lucky Box is priced at less than half. Less than half of their retail value. Shipping is included while supplies last. There are a bunch of other new items over at Enigma Stationery. Including stamps and ink pads, sticker paper notebooks, and stickers from customer favorites like Robot Dance Battle and Mimic Gaming. If you want free US shipping or discounted international shipping on orders of over $50 or more plus a free gift, go to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict and use the code penaddict25 at checkout now. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict to get your hands on all of Enigma's latest stock plus a free gift and free US shipping on orders of over $50 or more with the code penaddict25. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show and relay. I'll say I filled Adina's stocking with items from Enigma Stationery this year. Oh, nice. It was a big, big success. Yeah, the stuff's so good. I love browsing through there. Do you ever click on these Lucky Boxes? You click on the link, you know you're not going to see what's in it, but I still click on the link. Maybe they messed up. Maybe there's a secret little tip in here on what might be in there. But man, tempting. Those look cool. So yeah, really love all the stuff at Enigma. Shout out to my favorite Studio Neat Mark 1, the Enigma edition, which is now unfortunately sold out. But that is my favorite. If your favorite is the orange, I will take the Enigma edition. So keep an eye out on all the fun things they make. All right, we're going to get into the shout out of the week early, Myke. Shout out of the week. Whoa. Whoa. I gotcha. Gotcha. Whoa. I wasn't expecting that. I also forgot that I was supposed to be doing it in a different way. Remember I mentioned I wanted to do that? And I'm happy I didn't. That might be the first duet that we've ever done. Yeah, I like it. I like it. We'll have to save that one. It kind of works. It actually worked perfectly, Ty. Which is odd considering the typical delay that occurs between our audio. So I'll be honest with you. That was not planned. I think I just play your part in my head and it actually just came out this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it worked. We're shouting out Tangle Patterns this week, Myke. This is a link that a friend sent me when I was talking about doing patterns, you know, just how I like to do different patterns. And if you want patterns, this site has them. The site is of a certain era of the internet. Yeah, man. If you will.
• I'm looking for a page counter. There's got to be a page counter on there somewhere.
• But I will add, if you can find the patterns on here, which they're easy to find. There's a whole pattern list here. You can go find all kinds of cool stuff. If you need some help with your doodles or some inspiration, there are thousands of tangles here. So shout out to my friend Digital Medievalist for sending me this link. It is now bookmarked. And I'm checking it out when I need to check out some patterns. God, I love this website. Did you find the site counter? No, I didn't. I didn't find it. But I love this website so much, Brad. It is a throwback for sure. Oh, man. That's great. Love it. So thank you for sending me that. This is great. I love this thing. So all right. So today, I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about planning for the top five pens update. So it's been since like the end of 2022, so a little over two years, that most of the main categories have been updated. And that's a pretty good time frame to get into it. And to lead this off, we have a fountain pen list I wanted to share from Alex Belth at Esquire, who just published this a couple days. Well, right at the end of the year. So this was Esquire's Beginner's Guide to Fountain Pens. Now, disclosure alert, I provided a lot of feedback to Alex for this article.
• And, you know, spent a couple hours with him on Zoom, just kind of going over. He wanted to do a good job with this article. And he's not an expert at this, right? So shout out to him for like really leaning into this, like asking like all the right questions. He talked to like all the distributors, you know, that are involved here and was really learning about them. And I was just basically what he said. I'm just the his his fallback to make sure he doesn't do something dumb, like or say something, you know, just really like that doesn't make sense to fountain pen people. So and what was even funnier is when he reached out to me, I was like, why do I recognize this name? So Alex was one of the OG baseball bloggers back when I was baseball blogging back in the early 2000s. So needless to say, we hit it off very well. So anyway, I wanted to go through his list because he had some very he was adamant about a few things. And that's kind of what made me think about this list was his very first entry level beginner pen. He is all about the Pelican Twist. And you know what, Myke? He's not wrong. Have you ever used the Pelican Twist? I don't think so. It's a legitimately great writer. I have a review on the blog of the Pelican Twist. I'll find you the link. I'll get it. If you don't while I'm doing this. And it's one of those pens that I don't know, you shouldn't ever buy. Like you wouldn't even think about buying. Oh, this is one of those training pens. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just really fun. You know, it's essentially a kid's pen. Yeah. But it writes so well and is so fun to use that. Yeah. It's like he was he was a little bit concerned. He's like, I have to make this like for the Esquire audience, but I don't care. I love this pen so much. I'm putting it in. It was great. So I respect.
• Yeah. He's like, we're just he's like, I'm just doing it. Right. Then he has, you know, like the Lamy All Stars in there.

Analysis of pen recommendations by price points

• TWSBI Eco is in there. So he kind of did it in some price points. You know, best option between 50 and 100 dollars. TWSBI back 700. You know, that's totally fair. Right. That's a that's a weird price point, which we'll get into here in a minute.
• You know, he was a huge fan of pilots pens. So he has the E95 in here. I think later on he has the 823. He has Opus 88, which I think is a good pull for someone who's not into this stuff at all. Like he's he's into it a little bit like, you know, fountain pens and writing. But like most people, most out most Esquire readers are probably not familiar with Opus, but they make a legitimately good pen. So it's cool to see that in there. The Bennu he was excited about because of how sparkly and shiny they are. Like that's a brand he had never heard of before. And he got, you know, talking with distributors and stuff and, you know, luxury brands is is here in the U.S. has been his distributor. They sent him one to check out and he was kind of blown away with that. The Pilot Falcon was another one. So the Grail pens list. Blimey 2000. Duh. Like that's going to make it in there. Sailor Pro Gear. Those are just all like super solid choices. Visconti Homo Sapien is in there. And then you get into the the Esquire pens. Mont Blanc 149. Like mandatory. Like this should lead. This should be on the that's the cover pen for the Esquire audience. And then the high end stuff. He went for like an ST DuPont, which makes some really fancy, like really beautiful stuff. And the Pilot Custom and Rushi. So a shockingly solid list from a magazine, which we don't always get. We usually get more of a random, like superficial type of, you know, very obvious list. And Alex wanted to do a little bit more than that, which you can see with the inclusions of things like the Bennu and Opus and, you know, things like that. And the Pilot Falcon and the Pilot Custom and Rushi. So shout out Alex. I enjoyed working with him on this. And I think it turned out turned out really, really nice. So I'm curious what Esquire users like literally know. No qualms with this list like whatsoever. So really good stuff.
• So that got me thinking about my own list and the top five pens. Did you have any comments on the Esquire list before I move on? Probably not. I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
• I like that they did a job. You know, like I like that they did the work, especially because it's from what you're saying. It's obvious that it's not this person's world. So considering that that's the case, they're obviously good at doing what they do because they put together a decent list.
• Yeah. Right. So let me behind the scenes wise, and I'm obviously don't know all the details.
• We see a lot of these lists from a lot of these sites and articles, and you're wondering how much time and effort was spent into this. And some of them look like they spent zero, five minutes, you know, on Amazon and, you know, just figuring something out. I know when I've worked with Wirecutter or New York Times or whoever was putting together articles like this, in this case Esquire, Alex literally spent weeks researching a shopping list for fountain pens, which you don't expect for a large magazine like Esquire, which you don't expect. And, you know, because he felt that if he didn't do right by fountain pen people, it would not go well for him. And not a lot of, like, big media sites may think the same way. They're just going to put together an, you know, Amazon affiliate link list and without much thought, right, or much testing. Like, he literally had all of these pens in hand to test, right, to go through because he was showing it to me when we were on Zoom and stuff. So, yeah, it took, like, weeks to just put together this list. Now, if you said, Brad, I want you to write this list for Esquire, it would probably take me. I could probably do it in a few hours. But that's kind of, like, the beauty of having someone like him do this who doesn't know anything. He got to learn all this stuff and took that experience and asked questions and got the right people, you know, with, like, all the distributors to talk about their pens and learn about them and then put together a list. So a little bit behind the scenes. I found that to be interesting because this could have been much more auto-generated, but there was a lot of time put into this. And I just say that from knowing how long that I've talked to Alex about it and how many people he had involved. He, like, literally talked to everybody in doing this. So it was pretty good. Pretty good. So I don't understand how traditional media works.
• I don't understand how that was a cost-effective project for anybody involved. I mean, obviously, the affiliate money is good, right? Sure, sure, sure. But still, it's just like that to me is, like, I'm really pleased that they did it that way because that is, I think, the right way to do it if you're going to have someone do it. But it's just like I don't understand how that was, like, a cost-effective exercise. Yeah, I thought about that a lot while we were going through it. So, yeah. But, hey, it was interesting. It was an interesting process. It was kind of eye-opening how hard Alex worked at this and how much he wanted to get it right. And it was kind of cool. Like, I would get emails. It's like, is this the right wording? Am I going to get yelled at? He would always ask me. He was very worried about the context of, like, am I saying something dumb for found-pen people? It was great. It was really interesting behind the scenes. So shout-out, Alex. Really, really fun project to help out with. So, all right. So, like I was saying, this got me thinking about the top five lists that have lived on the Panatic site forever. They don't get updated often. I know when I talked about the last update a couple years ago, you know, how little change there can be in some of these categories. So, between this Esquire list and the past few days of thinking about this in a stream yesterday where I'll talk about one of the topics that I brought up. It's, we talked about inks. And I was trying to, thinking about how do I look at this top five list and what do I need to do? So, this is just the beginning of me thinking about the changes that, I don't know, maybe are coming down the pipe for the top five list. I don't know that I have. I would like to rethink the categories a little bit. I think I have them in a good place. I changed just, I changed the first few fountain pen categories. And that's where we're going to start today with the fountain pen categories. With this last update from pure price points to the first two lists being the beginners list, which I mean like absolute beginners. Someone's buying their first fountain pen or you're buying a first fountain pen for someone. And then the next list. So, you go from, you know, the starting point. And if you're interested, you looked at what's next. And then after that, you start looking into price brackets, right? So, the beginner list, the original top five, or the current, I should say, top five beginner pens list is the Platinum Preppy, the Pilot Metropolitan, the Kaweco, excuse me, the Pilot Kakuno, the Kaweco Perkyo, and the Faber-Castell Grip. So, I look at this list and that's in order. So, Preppy one, Metro two, Kakuno three, Perkyo four, FC Grip five. I look at this list and Preppy is absolutely locked in at number one without question.
• And then after that, it's like all bets are off. I think the Kakuno should be there and I think the Perkyo should be there. And the Metro should probably be there by default. So, what else would go in there? And I'm not just thinking about the last two years of products being launched. I'm thinking about has something, you know, been around for 10 years that has really, you know, done a good job or 20 years. It's like I don't know what real change would look like in this list and not just change for change sakes. So, I was looking at this list compared to the next list, which we'll get to in a minute. And one of the pins not listed is the Kaweco Classic Sport. So, one of the things I'll reiterate several times as we kind of go through this exercise is why this list exists. This is a recommendations list. This is not my personal favorite list, right? So, this page is built for someone to be sent the link and be recommended some products that, you know, I can vouch for, the community can vouch for, you're going to have a good experience with, that aren't my specific, you know, my specific list for my personal use could differ greatly. Right? So, that's the context to kind of keep in here, keep in mind.
• So, could I recommend the Classic Sport blindly to someone? And I don't know. I don't know. Like, maybe that needs to go into the next list, which again, we'll get into that in just a second. Yeah, I think there is a question too. Because it's a little bit weird. Like, I'm looking at these and a lot of the beginner pens, they are actually focused towards children. And that might not be the right selection of products. Right. So, like, the Pelican Twist that was in the Esquire article is really what kicked this off. It's like, that will never be on this list. That does not mean it's not a good pen. But it's not super far away from the Cocoono and the Puccio. It's not. It's not. But they're more traditional, right? That's where you get in trouble with, like, recommending something with, like, the Twist that has such a weird grip section. Right. The Lamy ABC, which is my favorite. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great. So, like, my point in talking about this is just to kind of get the ball rolling in my thought process. What's different here? And I'm looking for y'all's feedback too, right? If you have, like, really strong feelings about any topic on this list, email me. Hello at Peninect.com. I'd love to hear from you. You know, and I did get some feedback on inks, which we'll talk about later. So, moving from that beginner list, the next list is literally called the next list, right? So, this is the list that I, the theory is you've discovered, you like the Platinum Preppy. You can use a fountain pen. You like that you could put purple ink in your Metropolitan or whatever pen you're picking. And, okay, what's next? What else is out there? So, this is where the TWSBI Eco comes in, the Lamy Safari, the Lamy Studio. I went straight to the Kaweco AL Sport. I didn't even put the Classic Sport here, which I think it probably needs to be there instead of the AL Sport, just from a price perspective. And then the TWSBI VAC 700. All of those are under $100, but I really didn't consider the price on these, just assuming that they'd be sub $100, right? That when people are making the jump from a Platinum Preppy, they're not going straight to a $250 pen, you know, most of the time, right? So, they want to go, oh, well, I want a bottle of ink, and what would be good to use with that, you know, TWSBI Eco, right? Something good with that. You get a lot of, in this group, you can get a lot of different nib sizes, you know, maybe not a ton like in the Kawecos, but, you know, they have up to broad and extra fines and things like that. But this is a tough cat. I'm going to say this a lot. This is a tough category because, and the reason why this category exists is because the $50 to $100 category has always been really challenging for me to pick recommendations from. So, you know, that's why this ranges from like $25 to $30 pens up to like $80 and $90 pens because I think they're all kind of the valid, hey, here's my next fountain pen. This is the real introductory into, this is really, you're getting into the hobby once you start shopping here. And honestly, for a lot of people, you can stop shopping here, right? This can be the end for a lot of people and be very valid for an awesome like fountain pen writing experience.
• So, we have those two kind of lists that work together, I think. And, you know, I'll be thinking about what can go in there. One comment I want to make here, because I think I will get a lot of comments on it and they're very valid.
• The other bit of context is when I'm making a recommendation, I'm generally recommending products that are easy to require and are bought through retail with support systems in place for any issues that might arise. And the reason I'm categorizing it like that is because brands like Jen Howe and Moonman and some of the other similar types of pens are really, really good choices for this list. But they're not widely available through like supported retail networks. You can get them a lot through Amazon, right? Or some company, some retailers are starting to carry Jen Howe more. And if we start to see that more, then I'll start to consider listing them more because they are really good quality for the money. But until they have more of a representation in broader stationery retail, I'm not including them in the list. But those could go in like I have honorable mention sections or like note sections for each of these lists. That's where I would put something like the Jen Howe's and Moonman's and some of those other like good quality pens that aren't very expensive.
• But that's why you may not see these listed directly in the top five. Yeah, I feel like it's not really beginner friendly if you can't buy it. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm not. Yeah. And I want you to have support too. Like I do think about the support system for beginners and people getting started in there. So that they're able to reach out to someone when they have an issue. Well, and also if you have a pen that lots and lots of people own, there's going to be a lot of content created about it, right? So if you're struggling to understand how to fill the pen, you could search for it on YouTube and someone's made a video. Where pens that are a little bit more obscure or newer, there might be less of that content available. Like to kind of like talk about the support section of it. Yep, yep. So I think we'll start to see even more and more integration of those brands into some of these lists because they are starting to gain in popularity and usage. So at least I'm starting to see it. And that's all in this like beginner list and in the next list. So those are good places to play in. Then we get into the first price bracket. And that's $100 to $200. And this whole bracket probably just needs to be shifted from like $150 to $250.
• Because there's not a lot between $100 and $150. And there's a ton between $200 and $250. So I might rework this entire section. Because I don't know. Like I can't name a $100 to $150 pen off the top of my head that I would recommend. And I'm talking about standard retail pricing. You know, like sure, you could maybe find a... Like I have the Pilot Custom 74 on here. It's like $168 or something like that. Could you find it like under $150 somewhere somehow on a sale day or just whatever? Sure. But as a general rule, you know, that's my number one in this category is the Pilot Custom 74. Then I have the Platinum 3776, which is about to price itself out of the $200 range. The Lamy 2000, which has priced itself out of the $200 range. The Leonardo Memento Zero, which is still there in the upper 100 range, along with the Diplomat Arrow. I think looking at the names on this list and already having to eliminate the 2000 and pretty close to eliminating the 3776, I already think I'm going to change this to 150 to 250 because then you can put in the Pilot 912, you know, maybe one of the Sailor models, at least in that range. And then the 3776 can stay. And that's just kind of how the market's gone. Like I knew that back when I made this update that we were already losing a lot of pens out of the $100 to $200 range just from market forces, right? The prices of these pens were just going up. The 3776 and the 2000 primary amongst those. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to move this list 150 to 250 or like 150 to 300, something like that. Because really, I'm not even today. I didn't even put it in the show notes. Like there's another like higher end, like 200 to 500 list I have. Like that's like wide open. Like that could be a billion different things. And it stops mattering at that point. At that point, you don't need a recommendation. You know what you want, right? If you've gone through this list from beginner to next to this, you know, $200 range, you've learned a lot about your tastes and desires. And there's less information you need to make your own decisions, even though information is good, right? You're starting to like really figure out, oh, do I want, you know, a bigger nib or a different filling system or some special finish or fit or, you know, a custom pen or a maker pen, those types of things. You really just kind of start to spread things out here like greatly once you get past like the $300 range. So we'll see. I'm definitely going to change the bracket for this. So I don't have all the answers. But yeah, this list is going to change the most in looking at these three fountain pen lists. So we'll see. It's always difficult to think about this because I always feel like I'm forgetting something. But it's like, yeah, maybe I'm not. These are pretty good choices that have like stood the test of time. And it's like I want to have as much change as possible just for the hashtag content. But like that's if it's not correct, then why change? Like if these are the right answers that I feel are the best recommendations. You know, we'll see. We'll see. So there we go. That's the fountain pen section. So we'll hit some more here in a second. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. When you go out to eat, you want to have options of food. You don't just want to go to the same restaurant all the time. Maybe you want Italian. Maybe you want Thai. Maybe you're looking for some sushi. You want some Japanese. But imagine if you could only get food from one place. That's what it's like to use services like Netflix about ExpressVPN. You only get to watch content available in just one country. When you use ExpressVPN, you can change your location, which can change where streaming services think that you're located. 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You just open the app, select your location, tap a button to connect, and refresh the page to get access. One of my favorite things about ExpressVPN is I can do it in the inverse. When I'm traveling, I can connect back to the streaming services that I have at home by changing my location in ExpressVPN. It works super fast. HD streams, no problem, no buffering, on hotel Wi-Fi even. Fantastic stuff. So make a smart choice and stop paying full price for services and only getting access to a fraction of the content. Get your money's worth at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That is e-x-p-r-e-s-s-v-p-n.com slash penaddict to get an extra four months of ExpressVPN for free. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of this show and all of Relay. Yeah, I was laughing this morning because we're in the F1 offseason and I saw ExpressVPN was in here. And I remembered when I was in London, I just hopped over back. I did it backwards, like you said, went back to my US F1 subscription so I could actually watch the race replays because I was not able to watch it. Otherwise, boom, seamless. And it was just great. I just got the biggest kick. So, yeah, love it. Love it. All right. Inks, Myke. Could there be change here? I don't know. This was one I wanted to get some of the wisdom of the crowds to at least get me thinking about what people are inking these days. And I was on Twitch yesterday streaming and I told everyone to give me their three favorite ink brands. Just, you know, what are the favorite ink brands you're using these days? If you want to chime in with your three favorite, Myke, please go ahead. Pilot, Sailor, Robots, though. Yeah. So, this is a highly unscientific listing. Diamine, one. Sailor, two. Pilot, Orozuzuku, three.

Discussion of popular ink brands and accessibility

• And then, so that's kind of, that group separated from everyone else. Then your next tier group was Birmingham Inks, which is a big US maker. Waring-Owl, which has become a Korean maker that has become exceedingly popular. Robert Oster, Colorverse, G. Herban. And the shocker was a company called Octopus Fluids, which is one that I really, really like. They are a company that has been in the color making, like, print world. Right? They make colors for different, you know, processes and things like that. Well, they've made inks for a while now, too. And they've just kind of, like, ramped up their fountain pen ink catalogs that they've been popular. So, that's kind of like a quick, and I don't know if that was 10, but that's probably, like, your top 10. Then you have other brands like Venta and, you know, Pelican, KWZ, some other things. I got some votes. But, yeah, like, the top of the heap is pretty clear on inks, but it's a very broad category. Right? There's almost no wrong answer here other than we've had the ability over the past decade or two to see who has continued to make great inks that withstand the test of time. And that's going to be your Diamines, your Pilots, your Sailors, right? I think Sailor is going to be number one. So, right now, my list is Robert Oster. This is in order of my current top five recommendations. Robert Oster, Diamine, Iroshizuku, Sailor, Akramon. I think Sailor is going to be number one for sure.
• I think Diamine is probably number two. And then I think after that, it's wide open. It's probably Iroshizuku, then Robert Oster, and then, you know, maybe one of the other popular ones. Maybe wearing old sneaks in there because of in place of Akramon. But it's probably more likely going to be something like Ishii Herban.
• Again, because we have to meet the requirements of easy access, right? Octopus Fluids, not the easiest thing to get. Akramon, I only put them on there because they are in, like, one or two retail shops that you can get them from. Like, that's a very tenuous spot. You know, they're not widely available. They're available, but you got to look a little bit. So, we'll see. There'll be some change in order of this list, I believe. But the top inks are still going to be the top inks. Actually, it's probably Colorverse. Probably going to make that number five spot. So, we'll see. Something to think about. But we are in the ink heyday right now. We are swimming in inks in a good place. Lots of great makers. Lots of fun stuff. So, this is a list that would deserve two lists to have Brad's personal favorite inks that don't include any of these recommendations. Right? And that would be ten more inks, you know. Like, there's brands like Dominant Industry and Kala and Anderillium and all these other brands that could be in there. So, it's good stuff. We're in good place with ink. Paper's a lot tougher. Paper's always the hardest. On this entire top five list, I think paper's the most challenging thing.

Evaluation of paper brands and their qualities

• The current list. And this is just paper brands, right? Because there's so many. Even brands can have different paper styles and paper types and paper qualities and all these different things. So, I did it from a brand perspective. And my number one is Midori, followed by Moromon, Life, Leuchtturm, and Kikuyu.
• I think Midori, Moromon, and Life probably stay just like that. I think this is one where I have to be careful because of my bias towards Midori.
• And also saying it is the best recommendation. So, I need to think about that. I need to see if I can separate. My number one in this instance is harder to separate and make sure I'm doing justice to the list.
• Because maybe it's Moromon or maybe it's Life. But you put all those in the hopper and spin it up and whatever comes out, you're going to be pretty happy, right? It's not that big a deal. Leuchtturm, I don't know what to do with. And as well as Kikuyu. Mostly because formats. They're both known for their own. Leuchtturm's your classic Moleskine hardcover A5 replacement. Kikuyu is your campus notebook.
• Right? With the thinner, bigger notebook pages. I'm wondering if Rodia needs to be back in here. Rodia has been on and off this list for years. Rodia's challenges format. Right? They're pretty much only in pads. Right? They have had the web notebook in the past, but they used a different paper for that and it's been horrible. So, I think that's kind of why they fell off there for a minute. Or do I just lean back into like, hey, Japanese paper is the best paper and put a brand like Stiology in there. So, it's papers tough and a challenge. Which, again, because of access.
• Right? We can have all of our favorite specific unique papers. You know, I've got my washi paper. I've got a Hobonichi plain notebook I'm using. You know, all these types of things. But are those really good recommendations from an accessibility standpoint for someone who's just wanting to try a good paper? Or, you know, is it easy for them to acquire? Like, we get pretty in the weeds pretty quickly with paper, I feel. So, standard pens.
• This is a popular category that hasn't seen a lot of change over the years. And I call it this. This is not. I have a different list for like micro gel ink pens. Like the very specific Japanese style micro gel ink pens. The standard pen category is if you walk into a grocery store, what's on the shelf and what can I choose that's good. Right? What's in the office supply shelf at, you know, a brick and mortar retailer. So, that's what I mean with the standard pens. Not like the Pilot Hitec C, you know. That pen's not going to make this list. That's in like the micro gel pen. It's too specific. So, if you walk into the store, what can you get that's good?
• For years, there's not been much change here. I have the Energel at number one from Pentel. Pilot Precise V5 or V7.
• Uniball Signo 207. Paper Mate Ink Joy Uniball Jetstream. So, I think the Ink Joy has faded out. Paper Mate has not really like stepped up their game with that brand, I don't think. And then you have something like the Zebra Blend, which has made a change and made some impact on the shelf. That needs to be thought about in this list. I think the Sharpie S Gel is probably up on this list too. I think Uniball has messed up the 207 lineup, the Signo lineup, because there's too many options. They need a refinement in the different, like the three or four different styles of the Signo 207, 307, 207 Ultra. All these things, they've made a very confusing choice there.
• They need to dial that in somehow. And I'm hoping the Jetstream Light Touch will one day make its appearance on the store shelf. I don't know if that's going to be this year, maybe next year. So, that's not on the list, but that's something I'm watching for. If that does, that'll definitely go ahead of the standard Jetstream. That actually might put it at number two.
• I don't know that anyone's going to beat the Energel for now.
• And then we have things like, you know, the Pilot G2. That's a perfectly fine and usable pen that's not even getting consideration from me for recommendations, because there's so many good other options here. So, this is one to think about. This will have a little bit of change. Yeah, so, store pens are in a pretty good shape with the Zebra Blend and the Sharpie S Gel, giving competition to Pentel and Pilot and Uniball.
• So, that's a good place to be right now. So, I like seeing that.

Review of top mechanical pencils and potential updates

• Pencils, mechanical pencils. We had a whole Ticonder October feature, and I did my updated top 10 mechanical pencils list. This is the existing list for recommendations. It was Rotring 600, Pentel Sharp, Uniball Kuretoga, Tombow Graph Shaker, and the Pentel Carry. I think the Pentel Carry probably goes out. That's a pretty tough recommendation, to be quite honest, if I'm thinking about it. It's such a unique pencil that you have to be looking for something just really, really random if you're going to land on the Carry as your choice, especially for someone buying their first pencil or, you know, wanting to try a new mechanical pencil. You're probably never getting to the Carry. That would be the fountain pen category of next, right? It would go in the next fountain pen category. It's like, all right, I love pencils. Now, I need one that can, you know, go in my pocket and has a cap and a clip. So, Pentel carries its own category, I think. So, what goes in its place? Maybe the Pentel Smash. I want to see them have it more widely available. That's the only thing that's kept the Smash off the... out of the lineup for a while now. As much as I love it, it's just not available that much. And they've dabbled with other colors and other additions in the past few years. But, I don't know. They just haven't fully leaned into it. Probably because they already make some of the best mechanical pencils in the world. And the Smash is, you know, maybe not even a top five pencil in their own in-house category. So, you never know. Last category. And there's other categories I'm not covering on this show because we don't have all day. These are kind of the main, the primary categories, I think. And the ones that I'm thinking about changing. The wooden pencils. Mitsubishi 9850. HB in the number one slot. Blackwing 602. Tombow Mono 100. Tombow 2558. And the Faber-Castell 9000.
• I don't see much change in the top four. I think the 9850 is number one.
• I think the 602 is probably number two. The Mono 100 and the 2558.
• They're pretty close. Like, they're definitely both top five pencils. After that, like, basically the five slot could be one of about 20 pencils. And, you know, I just, it's probably not the Faber-Castell 9000.
• That was a pencil I was using there for a while and had a pretty, it's a stock. The Faber-Castell 9000 is a very easily accessible pencil. Right? That's another challenge with these. Like, the Tombow Mono 100 is not as accessible as all these other pencils on here. But it's available. Like, online retailers. So, I need to think about it from that perspective.
• And see what might move its way into this list. But there's so many fun, unique pencils that don't make this list that I don't exactly know what the change is. I think that's the challenge that I have and why the Faber-Castell 9000 is on here because of availability. And it's, I mean, it's a great pencil. I don't, I think it's a step down from the first four on the list, is my point. And is there something more available and more in line with the first four pencils in this category?
• We'll see. We'll see. So, that's what I'm thinking about. If y'all have any feedback on what you want to see for this top five update that I'll be working on. Like, this isn't going to be a quick update. This is, you know, in the next few months, I'll start, you know, kind of picking and choosing categories to update and probably do some follow-up, you know, in a few months and see where I landed on. So, if you have any feedback, send it to me. Hello at penodic.com with some, you know, just put top five notes in there and, you know, say, Brad, look at this. Or, you know, I've really found this to be useful. Or, you know, whatever y'all are using and thinking about that I should consider for these lists because this is, again, this is a recommendations list. So, I'm looking to find things that a lot of people like and have good track records and will be good products for people to use. All right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. They are the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell your products, services, the content that you create. Squarespace has everything you need all in one place and all on your terms.
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• I can tell. It went downhill really quickly when you started this ad reading. I'm losing it, but I'm going to get there. I can do it. I'll do anything for Squarespace, all right? I'll do anything for Squarespace because they are the absolute best place to put your projects no matter what they are online. You know what's actually funny for me? When I'm just talking as normal to you, it's fine, but as soon as I start reading, I'm like, oh, I can't breathe anymore. Yep. It's a pacing thing. Yep. With Squarespace, you can easily collect payments with their invoicing system, which might be something you didn't even know existed. This means you can spend more time focusing on growing your business. You can invoice your clients and get paid for your services. You can turn leads into clients and proposals, estimates, and contracts. Plus, simplify your workflow and manage your services business on one platform. You can also keep track of the stats that matter to you with their analytics and measure your end-to-end online performance with powerful website and seller analytics, getting insights on top traffic sources, understanding how your reach is growing, tracking your sales metrics, and learning where to focus new engagement. It's all the data you need to scale your brand and business fully integrated and clearly displayed. Brad and I have used Squarespace forever, like basically for as long as we've been doing anything on the internet now. They are the place to go. My number one most traffic page, top five pins page, Myke. Of course. On Squarespace. And you know what? I bet it's those integrated SEO tools that help you get to that too. Yeah, buddy. Yeah. Go over to squarespace.com and you can sign up for a free trial and start booting your website today and you'll see just how easy it is to do. And then when you're ready to launch it to the world, go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. You can save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict when you decide to sign up and you'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and relay.
• Can you handle a few STPA, Myke? Or do I need to read these questions? No, no, no. I can do it. I can do it. All right. I'm here for a reason and the reason is this. Ryan writes in and asks, I'm an avid fan of the Pilot Fountain Pens, but there is always one part that bothers me, the stickers that they put on the pens. No matter how careful I am, I always leave some residue on the barrel. What is the best way to remove the residue without damaging the barrel?
• Ryan's my new best friend, Myke. Why did he do that? I'm over here. You can't see me, Ryan, but I am raising the roof, as they say. Yeah. I am raising the roof on this question.
• No stickers on pens, Myke. No stickers on pens. I guess I conceptually get it. And I don't know if it's like an after effect from the 50s and 60s and 70s when you had a bunch of pens and a display counter for people to come shop and you needed a quick visual to see, okay, is this a medium nib? Is this a fine nib? I'm not sure that we need that today because not only will Pilot put a sticker on the pen, they'll put a little tab on the clip and then you have the label on the box, right? We're very clear, very clear what the nib size on the pen is. Not to mention it's stamped on the nib, but you know, who needs to look at that?
• So Ryan, I have opinions about stickers on pens. I will get even more emails on this topic than anything else we've talked about today. I just go very slow. I peel them off immediately when I can. I'll just go very slow and then I just use, you know, like thumb friction, just trying to roll around the little residue into a little ball like you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say this, which is why I love all of y'all listening to the show. You know exactly what I mean when I say that until I get it off. If it's really, really, really not coming off and if you have, like I wouldn't do this on like a fancy pen, like with some really, really, you know, like an Arushi lacquer, but I would take the like slightest, I mean, the most slightest drop of a product like a, like a Goo Gone or a Goof Off. Like there's, there's a generic type of product. Yeah. Is that what it's called? I don't know. Goo Gone. I don't know. There's a Goof Off. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know, they all try to copy each other, but like I, like the smallest, like pin, pin head size thing and that'll wipe it off real quick and then wash it off right after that. But hilarious. I mean, I use Goo Gone. I've never heard of Goof Off. I think that that is hilarious. I think there is a Goof Off. There is. I'm looking at it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• Unbelievable. Love it. So I would, I would be very intensely like watch what I do if I use that stuff on pins, right? Because like some of these, like I don't want to vouch for anyone's pins using that. But like if, if you're super careful, like I've done it, but like I wouldn't do it on. I would, I would use like just very, very simple soap and water if I had to do anything. Warm, warm water. Any kind of chemical. Yeah. I use warm water and just soap is probably pretty good, but that tends not to get the most sticky stuff off because then you have to use like a paper towel or something and that just makes it worse a lot of times. But, you know, most of the times you're not going to have to deal with this. You know, people aren't putting stickers on Arushi pens for the most part and just really like painted pens and things like that. So just, yeah, it's annoying. I hate stickers on pens. I have a little sticker graveyard on the back of one of my notebooks that I'm working on right now for like, you know, it's mostly standard pens, right? Let's be honest, but Pilot does have those circular stickers on their barrels. So, you know, next time I'm going to see them hopefully next week in Philadelphia. I'm going to ask them. We're going to have a conversation about this. Stay tuned, Ryan. We're going to get some, we're going to get some real information about stickers on pens from Pilot and why they continue to do that. Joseph says, what are some good inks for a five-year Hobonichi? I mainly want water resistance as opposed to strict permanence. I want this to be complete and intact through spills, splatters, heavy rain, and in a non-waterproof bag or with kids around. I do not want to deal with slow drying or smearing like I have seen from some archival solutions. I'm not stuck on fountain pen inks or particular ink types, but I likely do not want a single pen ink for five years either. Platinum desk plus carbon is one safe answer? It is. You know, a lot of listeners right now are yelling platinum carbon black, you know, at the podcast and I don't disagree with that whatsoever. You just might get tired of black, right? Like, I love platinum carbon black ink. I just had it inked up in my platinum 3776 UEF nib. It is a flat-out amazing ink, one of my favorites. I need some color sometime, right? So, what do I do if I want permanence but not really the hassle that sometimes comes with these permanent inks? Platinum's Classics ink series has six six different colors that have permanent archival qualities that perform beautifully, have quick dry times, have great colors. They're mostly they're designed as a color plus black ink. So, there's like a lavender black, a red black, a green black, a yellow black, a brown black and one more that I'm missing. So, they're really great colors. You know, they're on the darker side of the scale obviously being mixed with black but they're permanent and they're really easy to use. they behave very well and they have unique colors like turquoise in which you don't see a lot in iron gall and they're well behaved, easy to clean, quick drying, they don't smear. And then, the last ones I would recommend are the roaring clinger, salix, and scabiosa. Those are almost dry inks that are archival. I think they're iron gall inks. Those are some of the best performing, just classic looking. So, salix is your blue black and scabiosa is kind of like this dusty purple. Spectacular, top tier performing inks that are not going to give you any trouble. So, all of these inks are not going to give you any dry time or smudging or smearing trouble and have fun, interesting colors. You're not going to get the brightest oranges in the world in permanent inks without using a pigmented ink which could be more problematic than the inks I'm recommending. that's probably a good 10 inks to start thinking about and start from there.
• Oh, I will say one other thing, Pilot stock inks, they're not, I don't know that they're going to handle heavy rain but they're not marketed as waterproof or permanent but Pilot Blue and Pilot Black withstand spills, right? If you just want like a basic ink that's easily, easy to get and you can get it in cartridges and things like that. It's, it will handle like your basic waterproofness without being a pigmented or iron gall ink.
• And Kat asks, long time listener, first time asker, I've been bullet journaling since 2016 and my style and needs have evolved over time. I'm now planning on using a traveler's notebook but I want to start a separate memory keeping journal that will last me the year and I can keep on the shelf. What recommendations do you have? I'd like hard or hardish bound, dot or lined and fountain pen friendly. I'm leaning towards sterling ink for the cover but the Midori MD paper has my heart. I'm so torn. Before I got to the end of this, I was like, well, you have to use Midori for this, right? Because having these separate journals is what the traveler's notebook is really, really good at and, you know, they're not very large, you know, and they're compact and you can separate each journal for each different thing.
• But, the Midori, the way they design their product lineup has, you know, just taking your basic A5s and A6s, have really, really nice options, standard traditional sizes, good formats on the inside, great paper, and you can get covers for them. Midori also does thinner stitch bound books that aren't as easy to find, and I forget the name of the exact product lineup, they did like an anniversary edition, but I think they're pretty regularly available. That's more like an A5 size traveler's notebook where traditional traveler's notebooks are called A5 Slim and Midori actually does a full A5 thinner notebook. If you can find those, you're going to be like all the way in, but otherwise, I would just maybe do A6 Midoris or A5 Midoris. If you want something thinner,
• you know, with not as many pages, like the standard bound A5 Midori still, you know, like it's pretty thick, like 100 and something pages.
• Look at the Kukuyos, which you can still get in A5s and A6s, but they're thinner. I don't know if they're going to be the style you want, and they're definitely not hardcover.
• So yeah, I'm trying to think of like something good that's,
• if you're going to use several notebooks at a time, you're more looking at like the stitch bound books, like your travelers, but see if you can find the Midori stitch bound ones, because they're really nice, and I think that might be your exact answer you're looking for, and I think they're pretty available. all right, I think that's going to wrap it up for this week's episode. If you would like to send in your follow-up feedback or questions, it's very easy to do so. Just go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send them in there. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com. You can find him at Spoke Design and over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me here on Relay and my products at cortexbrand.com. Thanks to our sponsors this week, Enigma Stationery, ExpressVPN, and Squarespace. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.