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The Pen Addict 666/transcript

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The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode: 666
Title: Diametrically Opposed
Release Date: May 21st, 2025
Hosts: Brad Dowdy

Myke Hurley

Guests: No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page: Episode 666
Audio File: Audio Episode 666
Podcast page: The Pen Addict 666
Length: 5959 min <br />0.983 h <br /> minutes
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  • From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 666. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by Brad Dowdy. So we talked about this before the show. We went about this in two different ways. So Myke clearly went about it in this way, which I was unaware was about to happen. This way!
  • I went about it a completely different way where I got all this out of my system before we started. I told Myke that I've ruined my YouTube algorithm with Motley Crue searches. And if you know, you know. But I was just blasting, blasting Motley Crue before the show just to get this out of my way. Out of my system. And then Myke comes in with that. It could not have been better. Myke was sitting on that. Look, I have to represent my adopted family in Romania. True, true. Right? And like, I have to rep the daddy, you know?

Introduction and episode theme (Episode 666 and its significance).[edit]

  • Oh, that was amazing. Yes, so welcome to episode number 666. Number of the beast.
  • That was great. Oh my gosh. This is going to be a good show. I already felt like this was going to be a good show. So it's, as we were going through the show notes, this is literally like a one-to-one follow-up from last week's episode, this show. Yeah. Which I'm here for because, you know, we, I personally have gained much more information and knowledge from, in the span of a week since we recorded last. And I thought last week's show was fantastic. And I actually have a lot to say in this week's episode, mostly from product testing. But, before we even get to that, we have a ton of epic follow-ups. Why don't you hit me with, hit me with what we got here. Nathan wrote in and said, Yeah, it's, it's a thing. Like, it's good and bad, right? It's good in that, as I mentioned last week, I want this, right? I want, the last thing I want you need to do is to stop experimenting with ink formulations.

Discussion on decision-making and paradox of choice.[edit]

  • On the other hand, is how do I choose, right? So someone linked last week, Rattler Jen, shout out to Rattler Jen last week. And I meant, I meant to mention this, like the paradox of choice, like this is like a more is less situation. It was like, you stare at that rack. And at some point, your eyes just glaze over. And it's like, okay, I'm just going to go now. Right? It's like, how do you grab one? How do you make a decision standing in front of that? And what is uni doing to help, you know, help you make a decision? Like, are they doing anything? And that's what, that's all I would like to see is uni to help you make a decision when you're staring at 50 hooks of not just the singular, like take the, the vision elite, for example, but vision elite also comes in BLX, right? Which is the black ink formula. So there's just infinite depth below the, the main line of uni's products. And yeah, at some point you just go, wow, that's a lot. How do I make a decision? And that's what I'm trying to figure out. It's one of those things where I tend to try and have faith that the people making these decisions know what they're doing.
  • And that, that often, not often, that often enough, I'll say is, is becomes clear is not the case, right? With like, there are, there are other corporate things going on that makes people, that incentivizes bad decision making. But I like to try and assume that the people making the decisions have more information than me. Like I try and take that as my starting point. Yes. I generally do that too. And so if I assume that, then the assumption I'll make here is the same assumption I made last time, is that uni believe that by having so many models, they are essentially like capturing all of the business, right? Like I think that in so much as like, they don't even, maybe, I don't know about this case, but I can imagine a lot of stationery stores, they don't even really care if you know it's them.
  • Right. That like, they look at all of these products that, you know, they expect somebody looks at all of these products and they're like, look at all these pens, like all these different names of pens. And I'll choose the one that I want. And they just have something at every price point, like Samsung, right? They do this, that there is a Samsung phone at like every price point possible, but you just don't know about them. Right. Because they have the ones that they show you the big flashy ones, but then they have them at like, every like $50 or even closer price point, all the way down to like $200 or something. And they just offer like everything. And yeah. So I think that's what some, that is the strategy of some companies. And if you've got your logistics right, you can manage it. That would be my assumption. Cause I don't know. Cause basically my thinking is why would you keep doing it? Right. Right. Why would you have all of these? And then like, as we were talking about last week's show, here's more sub brands. Like I figure there has to be some reasoning for why they would do that. But maybe I'm wrong and I'm being too kind. I don't think so. I think you're right. And like at a minimum it's marketing, right? It's base level marketing that this exists, even if I'm not making a purchase today, this now exists and maybe I'll go look at it some more. So, yeah. So it's good. I want, you need to continue down this path. I'm just looking for a little bit of guidance for someone who's staring at this for the first time or second time, you know, someone who's been in someone who found an Onyx at the office, because that's a kind of, kind of a classic office pen and then figuring out where do they go next? Because I think there is like a line there. There's like a progression in their products. So anyway, good stuff. This thing that Nathan has suggested like shouldn't be happening. Right. There shouldn't be like a uni display with like 40 pen models. Like it should be a little bit smarter than that. But that's that is a very complicated thing to do. It's like offering the right products in the right places is what I'm saying. Right. Yes. Because they're not selling the same amount of all of these things in this one location. So like being a bit smarter with that. But maybe they are. Maybe I have to stumble. Maybe they are. Yeah. Qelpenguino wrote in and says for the question about reducing a stock stub nib. I can't give a nib mice this perspective, but I can say that I have had it done and was happy with the result. I bought a used Franklin Kristoff that shipped of 1.5 stub and brought it down to about 0.9 line and have had no problems. Okay. Yeah. That's good feedback. And like I, my observation or comment on this was it's absolutely possible to do. Am I going to be happy with the visual of it? Right. I think it will work. Like I have no doubt that it will work and that a nib meister can do it and it's no issue at all. Am I going to be, and this is, and I'm just only talking about me personally. Am I going to be happy with the visual of that? And if they can shave that down and manage the feed size and everything and get it down to the proper thing. And that's good. I, I would actually like to see this in person. So, you know, maybe that's something I explore the next time I've been at a pen show. Maybe I get this done myself and see if I'm happy with the results because going from 1.5 to one is a big, big jump for me visually. So I want to see, I want to see how that, how that goes. So yeah. But that's good. So I would like to see this. If you have this done, if you see me in a pen show, and then maybe I will explore getting this done for myself because I have plenty of 1.5 stubs that I would like to be narrower. So there we go. All right. You want me to handle this last one? Yeah, go for it. Yeah. Yeah. Cause this is something I emailed directly. I got on this. So via Matt. So Matt said, I was asking about the Conklin EF nib issue on the last episode. I was thinking along the same lines as there being an issue with the nib. I did a little bit of self-testing because I noted with the Perkyo. So this was a comparison between the Kaweco Perkyo and the Conklin EF and only having problems with the Conklin EF. So I noted with the Perkyo that the ink was extremely wet as well. So I did the following, the original inking. So in the Perkyo, Matt used Private Reserve Infinity Violet. Seemed very wet in this pen. And then on the Conklin, Matt used Organic Studio Nitrogen. So immediately my red flag went up right here. So this is why, where ink matters and information matters when we're talking about things. Organic Studio Nitrogen, while it is a great ink, it is highly aggressively super sheeny. This is an extreme ink. And testing this in a Conklin EF nib is probably going to give you a problem. Or I won't say probably. It is a huge variable that can go a lot of different ways in this. And I would immediately take this ink out and clean it out and try it again. So guess what? Matt did. So she said, this is the one I struggled to write with the Conklin with the Organic Studio Nitrogen. It seemed to snag the paper. We're seeing what type seemed like an unnatural amount of pressure to lay any ink on the page. I tried switching inks and that seemed to have helped the issue. So there you go. So, and I basically replied back to Matt as like, boom, there's your answer. Like nothing wrong with Organic Studio Nitrogen other than that is an ink that requires properly set expectations. Right? So we can use all the extreme inks we want. We can use all the shimmer ink we want. We can use all the pigmented ink we want. But you need to change your baseline expectation of what could happen with this ink and this nib combination and this paper combination. And if you're having a problem like out the blue, like from the first fill with Organic Studio Nitrogen in a pen, I'm looking directly at the ink. But you also have to have that information going ahead. Maybe, you know, Matt was not aware that like nitrogen could be like really extreme and tough and challenging for some nibs. Right? Maybe people, you know, just read how great this ink is and it is. But not aware of the downsides. Some inks have downsides. Like if you're buying, you know, Diamine Meadow, you're not going to have a lot of downsides. Right? Just a basic standard straightforward ink. You know, if you're buying Pilot Blue, you're not going to have a lot of downsides. There's a certain level of ink where you just have to be aware of it. Like nothing wrong with the ink, but now you've introduced more challenges into play when you're testing and trying out ink. So there you go. I thought that was good feedback from Matt because as soon as he said that, I was like, well, that's it. Well, that's your problem. Yeah. Like, and again, nothing wrong with the ink, but it's not going to work anywhere, everywhere with every nib. And you need to just, it's an awareness thing that is hopefully something we can help out with here on the podcast. All right. You ready to get into it, Myke? Oh, I am. I tested a lot of paper this week. Okay. I was a very, very fortunate boy to get in several new paper goods. After last week's episode, I said I had ordered the iWriter notebook, so let's tackle those first. Okay.
  • Number one, shout out on the shipping. These came from Japan. And what did it take? A week, maybe? You know, I paid for it, right? You know, it was 30, 40 bucks in shipping, which is my expectation. Like, it's the proper shipping, but I still would have expected two, three weeks. Am I going to get dinged for something else? You know, some tariff or something. To tariff. I'll just say the word. I don't care. Like, it's, there's no beating around the bush. Am I going to get dinged? Like, you know, the total price was low enough. It should fly under whatever thresholds, but you know, you still never know. You just don't. Who knows today? Right. Who knows? Yeah.

Detailed review of a specific notebook and its features.[edit]

  • So, I got the notebook in hand. Now, we both have the notebook. And I have way more to say about this notebook than I thought I would. Okay. After receiving it. So, first, I need to make a correction slash apology. Uh-oh. I understood the feature of this notebook incorrectly. And you'll see why. Except it was basically a lack of reading comprehension on my part. Not putting two and two together without having the product in my hand. So, I kept talking about how the lines on the page were like the letterpress style. Where there's an indention on the page. There's not. But what throws you off is the cover is. Right? So, the cover of the book is indented. But the pages themselves. The lines are like you would see a watermark in, you know, a standard sheet of paper. Like, if you have a loose leaf, nice, you know, crown inlaid paper. Right? You hold it up to the light and you can see like the producer's mark. So, what I did was these lines which I thought were basically indentions. Which, that's the type of letterpress print paper that I'm experienced with with Plotter. And I put a link in the show notes. Or I will put a link in the show notes to show people what I'm talking about. That's what I thought we were getting here. In this page. But it turns out it's a watermark within the page. So, the page is essentially flat. Right? Flat and smooth. The page. And I was mistaken. So, I want to apologize for an incorrect description of that. So, that's good and bad. So, sticking on the lines for a second. This is ostensibly a blank notebook. Because you cannot see the lines well.
  • I don't find the line watermark to be a feature. If that makes sense. It's just there.
  • But is it? Like, you can't always see it. Yeah. Like, it is possible to see. Right? Yeah. But, yes, I agree with you. Not in most circumstances. Like, you can see it when you turn the page. Like, you really see it then. You know? Right. When you're writing on the page as a normal notebook. Right? Where there's, you know, another hundred pages down below this. You can't see the lines on the page. So, they're not guidelines. You almost need a backing board if you want a real guideline for a line page. Right? Just like a watermark. If you're seeing, like, a brand logo. You can't see that generally when you're writing the page. But if you pick it up and the light catches it in the right way, you're like, oh, look. There's the watermark. Just so in this case, it's like, oh, look. There's the lines.
  • In my testing, there's no way I could stay on the lines. Like, without, like, craning my neck.
  • Trying to get the light to hit it in the right spot and staying on the line. So, I would, if you're going into this as a, this is going to be a great lined notebook for me to use. You're going to have a challenge unless you're using, you know, one of those light boxes to write on. Which would be a terrible experience. Right? It's, it exists. It's there. But if you're looking for line guidance and, like, that's a mandatory thing for you, it's going to be frustrating, I think.
  • The first thing I noticed, I'm rewinding now. I just kind of wanted to continue it, continue that since we were on the watermarking part. Rewinding back the packaging, like you said, like, elite. It's so extra. It's really good and really extra. But what I found to be the most extra, number one, this book is thicker than I thought. Yeah. Right? So, it was, if you take, I always like to refer to, like, the classic A5 Leuchtturm, right? 192 pages or whatever. It's, what, a good third thicker than that? I don't have it side by side. It's, like, the same amount of pages, I believe. I meant to look this up before. I'll find the page count. Find the page count for me.
  • 144. 144. Yeah. 144 pages. 144 sheets. Yeah. So, 288 sides. So, what they do is they put in, they chose the nuclear option for the cover binding. So, the covers are ultra thick, like, cardboard. I wouldn't even call this, like, a card stock. It's basically, like, a backing board. And it's awesome. Like, it's really awesome. The binding is super clean and nice.
  • This is a binding style that I like. Which I don't like. Yeah, it's, like, exposed. I don't like the exposed style. It's essentially where you're seeing the threading that's used to pull the pages together. And then there's sometimes a bit of glue on the edge. There is a name for this. I don't remember it. Yeah. And then there's, like, a tape over. Yeah. There's no cover over it. There's no tape over it. Like, the paper is exposed to the world. A lot of companies use this, I think, honestly, as kind of like a, kind of maybe being a bit mean here. But it is a cheat to get lay flat.
  • Yeah. There are ways to get lay flat binding where you have a cover. But it's hard and it's expensive. This is an easy way to do it. Yeah. Which I like. So, I have a second notebook like this. I like Midori's notebooks. It's becoming more and more common because people want lay flat and they don't realize how hard lay flat is to achieve with a cover. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I mean, yeah. I guess lay flat's never been a thing for me. Like, I'm good either way as long as I have good paper and good performance. It's a big deal now in marketing. It is. Oh, it is. Like, it's like you, if you're going to market a notebook, you need to be able to say that, right? Yeah. And, like, that's, like, almost, like, the starting point these days. I agree. I agree. It's becoming table sticks. And the thing is, it's very, very hard to do. Yeah. So, I like the binding. I think it looks great. I like the cover stock. It is so dense and thick. I like it. Some say that is a good descriptor of me as well.
  • So.
  • It's dense, but we like him. Yeah. It's dense, but we like him. Okay.
  • Okay. So, everything, you know, good, good build, good quality, good style, good design, bad. I think the watermark is. It's an uppiece. I don't know the right word. Yeah. It's unnecessary. Like, it does not. It. The watermark adds nothing other than to be able to say, this is what we did. And, like, technically, that's cool, right? I think from a technical aspect, hey, this is kind of cool. But from a usability standpoint, it doesn't mean anything. So, let's get into the testing. And this is where I was mostly anxious to try this notebook for obvious reasons, right? Because we like to use our things. And you had had one, and you said, yeah, it's kind of mid for fountain pens. Like, some was good, some was bad. You didn't like the texture. You have, like, you felt like there was a texture with a nib. Yes. So, I started throwing ink at this, and I genuinely like this paper. I don't understand. I don't understand. You will understand. As soon as I say this next part, you will understand. Okay. Because then I had to go do some research. This reminds me of bank paper. Okay. And I like bank paper. So, what bank paper offers, it's a firm page, right? Like, it's a firm, crispy page, right? There's no depth or give to the page. It's very fine and firm, crispy type of paper. And it has a slight texture when you use pens on it, even standard pens or, like, fine liners, which I used, which also translates to fountain pens. Some people very much don't like bank paper because of that. Right. I happen to enjoy it. And I didn't see any feathering, any bleeding, no show through. So, there's a lot of ghosting, right? The ghosting level, we're almost in Tomoe River ghosting. Yeah. Which is a bit, I think, is pretty unfortunate. Yeah. For what this product is because it's like the whole conceit of it is, you know, we have these lines and they're so subtle. But then, you know, they disappear. But when you turn it over, it's like, well, I can see where the lines are because it's where there's not writing. You know, it's like, I can see on the other side. It's a funny thing. If you're adamant about using both sides of the page and for a notebook this expensive, you should be able to use both sides of the page, I think you're going to have a bad time. Even with light color inks, right? If I used, if I wrote completely on both sides, which I will for my final review when I review it on the blog, I'll actually have writing on both sides just so you can see the difference. It's not great for that. Like the ghosting is for real, even with like lighter colors, like you can really see through it, which is kind of interesting because this is not a thin page, right?
  • It's just how the page performs. But on the top layer, like where you're writing and looking at the page, I thought the inks handled very, very well. The colors were good. You didn't get a ton of shade or sheen, but you got a little bit and which is good for fountain pens. It's kind of like bank paper is similar. Um, the performance, I thought, I thought the performance was great. I was surprised. I was pleasantly surprised, put it that way at the performance because I expected worse and it was actually really good. I threw, threw a lot of ink at it in some areas and I threw some extra fine lines in some areas to see, you know, how, um, sometimes like an extra fine nib doesn't work as well as a medium nib on papers with a little bit of texture, right? You feel it too much or it makes it not enjoyable. So that's, that's a downside again, why people don't like bank paper, but I happen to like bank paper because my lines are true to the nib or tip size that I'm using in a pen, right? Which is a challenge for some other papers, um, in the past, like Cosmo or Light, like your lines would be wider on the page. So again, this is a really interesting notebook. I am on board with everything for the price. Like they charged a premium. I feel like they delivered a premium product. I think it's very usable with fountain pens. This is weird to me. This is really weird to me. The lines are like, yeah, that's why I want to talk about it. So, I just, I mean, I know like you're saying you have like experience with a different paper. I was like, I can't even imagine what that paper must feel to use. Like I was so turned off by this notebook. Like the, it looks and feels incredible, but to use it is really like not good for me. Like really, really not good. I need to send you some bank paper just to, just to test. Sure. Um, because bank paper is, you know, you bank paper is one of those where people will take sides. Like people can use it and love it or people just can't use it because of the texture and the feel of it. And I, one who can use, I'm mostly relating this to bank paper. So, when I do my final review, I will definitely have a bank paper side by side comparison. Um, just from comparison sakes, put it this way. I would use this notebook as like my primary desk notebook. Um, I would prefer it not to be blank. Like I, I'm not even calling this a line notebook. I'd prefer my blank is better than line notebooks, but I would prefer, you know, like a graph or dot grid. Um, I genuinely, but like I could totally use this as my, so, uh, different in our opinion about product. Yeah. I would literally never use this product. Right. Right. Right. That is wild to me. So, you need to bring it to me. Yeah. Yeah. You can have, you can have it. I'll bring it. I'll bring it to you. I don't want it. Yeah. So, it is, yeah, we're pretty diametrically opposed on this one from a, from a performance perspective, like all the other stuff. I think we agree on like the design and feel. Oh, it's fantastic. Um, I know why it won the red dot. Like it's easy for me to see that. Like, but I, I just don't find it to be a satisfying product to use. Yep. Yep. So, um, I'm going to need to write more on it. I'm going to need to write many, many more pages. I'm going to need to do some more comparisons, uh, with other papers that I feel are similar. So, uh, specifically bank paper, which is going away. So, I looked up this paper. Uh, I was like, man, did they actually use bank paper, even though it's going away? Which I doubt, I didn't think they would because that is already watermarked with the Mitsubishi three diamonds in the bank paper. Um, bank paper is also watermarked the classic, um, and that's obviously not in here. So, this is a brand called Araveal, um, uh, which from Takeo paper. So, I actually kind of want to find out some more about this paper. Okay. Um, because I'm, I'm compelled even though you're, uh, not to buy it. So, um, so yeah, there we go. I will have much more on this paper. Um, when I do, I'll do a proper review of this, you know, give me a few weeks, a month or so to mess around with it. Like I said, I bought two, I'll give another one away and then I'll have another one coming from Myke one day. But yeah, I, I, I did not expect this. I didn't expect this because we're usually pretty well aligned, but I see something in this paper that speaks to me, which again, like does not work for a lot of people. People refuse to use bank paper for the reasons that I like bank paper. So, okay. Well, at least I don't feel like I'm completely out of it then, but like, I feel like people that don't like bank paper will feel this way about this product. And it's clearly a taste thing. Maybe like I'm more sent. I'm just more sensitive. Again, this might be a thing where the way that I write is more of a problem, right? That like the way that the fibers interact with the nibs because the way I hold my pens could potentially be causing me some issue. Yeah. It's not a smooth paper, but it handles ink. Well, if you want to put it that way, it's how I put it. So, so this means that this product is definitely not for everybody. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings for a professional website, grow your brand and get paid all in one place. With Squarespace, you can make the most of Blueprint AI. This is Squarespace. Squarespace is AI enhanced website builder that will let you quickly and easily build a site bespoke to your business. You just input some basic information about your industry and goals. Plus, we already know and love Squarespace for their professionally designed and award-winning templates. However you start, you'll have beautiful design options, no experience required. What I love about Squarespace is once you do get started, however you get started, whether you're using Blueprint or choosing for one of their templates, everything is then customizable to the way that you want. And it's so easy to do. You don't need to know any code. You can drag and drop stuff. You can easily add elements to your pages. You can change fonts and they have tons of options. It's colors, layout options. You can add logos and graphics. It's so easy to do. And it's the main reason I've used Squarespace for as long as I've used them is it makes the design of the website a fun and engaging experience where I feel like I'm able to get out of it what I want rather than feeling completely stuck. You can also do things like let's say you want to create content and you want to put video on your website because you want to show art or like maybe you have like something you want to show for your business. You can upload video content, organize a video library and showcase it on beautiful video pages. You can sell access to your video library by adding a paywall to your content as well. So this is perfect for online courses, exclusive tutorials and premium workshops. But go and try this out for yourself by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch your site to the world, just use the offer code penaddict at checkout and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict. You'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of Relay. All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week.
  • Yes.
  • Mountain of Ink. You know Mountain of Ink. Long time shout out person. Long time shout out. Multiple reasons I wanted to shout Kelly over at Mountain of Ink now.

Shoutout to Mountain of Ink and its contributions.[edit]

  • Words, Myke. You got it. You got it. I know you can do it. Number one, happy eight year anniversary. So Mountain of Ink has been around for eight years. What a great website and resource for all of us who are into this stuff.
  • So I wanted to shout out Kelly for a wonderful eight years of and very, very vital blog in our community. Secondly, I wanted to say, Kelly, I see you because after the eight year anniversary post, the literal next post, review number 2771, Myke, if you're not familiar with Mountain of Ink. That's how many ink reviews there have been. Kelly reviewed Van Demon's Standing Ovation, which I...
  • Celebrate me!
  • I wanted to say, I see you working, Kelly. I appreciate that very much. So I... And also, some of you may know the famous Young Jeezy song, Standing Ovation, where he famously says he's your favorite rapper's favorite rapper. So Kelly is your favorite inker's favorite inker. I don't know if that really works for here, but we're going to go with it. So thank you, Kelly, for eight awesome years. You deserve that standing ovation. All right.
  • Staying on paper. The very paper-focused this episode. Accidentally paper-focused. It just kind of happens that way. I reviewed a product called Notsu.
  • They're a note card maker.

Introduction to Notetsu note cards and their qualities.[edit]

  • And I got these. I wasn't familiar with the brand. I went to the Atlanta Pen Show, saw them at my friend Joe. The gentleman's stationer has been carrying them on his site. He had them at his table. And he had a little sample there of the cards. And I was like, oh, these look really good for fountain pen inks. And I tested them out. And they were. So I bought a set. And these are... At least the set that I reviewed are the to-do list style of note card. So this is a three-by-five card. It's got a to-do list on one side, just like a running list. And then on the back side, it has two sections into notes and sketch. So I like the layout of the cards. Importantly, for purposes of this show, the cards are great with fountain pens.
  • They handled ink really, really well. So I wanted to... Everyone's always looking for a note card ever since our not cards went away. That's one thing. Like, I don't praise myself that often. We made a banger of a note card at Nock. And we can't get the paper. The paper got discontinued years and years ago. So, like, I couldn't even do a follow-up if I wanted to. The paper doesn't exist. And I haven't gone down the rabbit hole that Myke has gone down to find good paper.
  • You know, for products like note cards. So the Notetsu, I wanted to test. I always test the note cards that come out. You know, whether it be the classic Exocomptas or, like I mentioned, the Foglietos. And there's been various products come and go, including Not cards. These are great. And if you don't like the format, they do make standard dot grid cards. Yeah, the format that they have is a double-sided format. You have to do on one side. And then on the other side, it's a portrait card, but it's split along the middle. Top half is in the lined notes. And in the bottom half is a dot grid. And they're pre-scored so you can fold them. From my perspective, these are doing too much. These cards, like, don't do everything. You don't need to do everything in one card. It's too much. It's a lot. What I would prefer is similar to you. I like the different sections. I don't need the headers on the backside. Just split. If you want to split my card in two with two different formats, knock yourself out. But I'm good. I lose too much space with notes and sketch in the header portion of the card. I would actually like to try just the plain ones. Like, these are good and functional for someone who's going to use them at a desk. They come with a box that, like, has this little magnetized system so you can, like, stack it on each other and put the card up. Like, so you can get a visual on your to-do list.
  • I like the sections, but I would – there is a little much going on. I will admit with that. But also, I meant to put this in the notes, in the review. The little dots they use to check off your to-do list are way too small. Like, they're not functional because, like, most systems, they do – they kind of tell you how they intend you to use it. And, like, for your partial or your active items, they want you to color that dot in half. And, like, it's almost impossible. It's so small. Yeah. So, like, if they're going to do that, like, just make a bigger little dot. I know why they haven't, though. I can see why they've not, right? What do you mean? Well, the logical thing would be to put that, like, that little check mark on the left side of the line. But clearly, that's where their margin is. So, the only way they can make it work is they'd have to cut into the line. And then the actual amount of space that you have to write would be significantly decreased. Like, that's why it is this way. But I agree with you. I think they need to go back to the drawing board on it. Like, it's tiny. Like, honestly, like, if you're going to do this, you shouldn't suggest that people should half fill it. Because, like, it's impossible to do. For someone who writes small and has ultra micro pens, it was hard for me to. I tried to color the little half dot. And I think I did it. Like, you can see it in one of my pictures. But it's, like, it was kind of funny to try. I was like, yeah, I'm not even going to bother. I'll just, you know, if I'm going to use it, I'll just, like, scratch it off and complete it. There's no half-stepping with this little diamond thing they have going on here. But anyway, I wanted to bring this up because people are always, I always get emails like, hey, you don't make not cards anymore. What's a good card? And, you know, the list usually stops at Exacompta. But these are a good option. And I'm happy with the performance on these for everything I threw at it. Worked really, really well. Very cool. Do you know what the paper is? Or is it, like, not said? I don't. Probably not said, right? It's not said. And holy cow. Every time I pick up one of the cards, I think I'm picking up two cards. They are thick. Yeah. But, like, they handle ink really well. So it's probably, like, a cover stock. Like, we used, at Knock, we used, like, a hundred-pound cover stock for a card, right? You need some stability with a note card. That's why it tends to be really hard to get something that works well with fountain pens. Yes. Because you would not typically marry those qualities together. Right. There's a lot of companies, a lot of the Japanese companies will make small, like, they tend not to call them cards. But they basically make three by five, like, packs of three by five. And they're sheets. They're paper sheets. They're super thin, right? It's just, it's kind of not really the concept that I'm going for when I'm looking for a note card or a index card. So.
  • Speaking of concepts, what about the Sidekick Pocket Notebook? Have you heard of these, Myke? I'm very familiar. Yeah.
  • You sound nervous.
  • I could be more nervous is what I'll say. Yeah.
  • Well, you're not nervous because you know you built something good. And I'll just tell you, you did. Thank you. So I got the Sidekick and the IA Writer Notebook on the same day. Yeah. So I just unboxed them yesterday to review at the same time. That wasn't my intent. But if I'm going to use one pen on one page and I wanted to, it's nice to have just something, like, very different to test at the same time. Same pens. You get the same feel, right? The same concepts on from one page to another. It was interesting with the Sidekick when I was going back and forth. I'll get into the specifics on the Sidekick that you already know here in just a second. But it was interesting going back and forth how rough the IA Writer felt. Every time I would go to the Sidekick, I was like, dang, this is smooth.
  • Brad, I have to come clean. I was lurking in your Twitch yesterday. I watched. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I already knew how you felt about the IA. I figured you did. I was like, there's no. When I saw that notification, I'm watching this. I was sitting there. That was when I was sweating. I was sweating yesterday. I was sweating today. Because I will tell it how it is. I know. Myke knows I love him. But if the paper doesn't work for certain pens, I'm going to say it. Your reputation is on the line. You can't just pick me up. Yeah. No. Guess what? It worked with everything I threw at it. Even the super inky hooligan pen that I have, it's this medium nib, and it's got this awesome ink flow. It throws so much ink on the page. I used it on the IA Writer. So it's the line. We'll put a link in the video to what I did. There's a line in there. It's called Taranishi Soda. So I just wrote down the inks I used in this because I had to write something down. It handles ink so well. And like you said, can you give the paper spec again? It's like a recycled paper. It's a 100% recycled paper. Yeah. It's called Accent.
  • It's produced by G.F. Smith here in the UK. Yeah. So I could not believe how good it was when I first used it. Yeah. Because, and I forget all the time that it is not the Munkin paper that we use. Yeah, Munkin links. Munkin links. They feel very similar to me. So no feathering, no bleed, way less ghosting than the IA Writer. It's unfair to compare the two. They're not comfortable at all. Yeah. But I was just, I happen to do them side by side, but you flip over the backside of the page and yeah, you can see the lines through the backside of the page, but it's really not that bad. You could use the backside of the page here if you wanted to. The one thing it doesn't allow for, it's a flatter page, right? It's not like a coated paper. So your inks aren't going to shade as much and you're not going to get as much sheen, but the color is good. I'm very impressed that you can tell those features. Like this really shows you're not, but yes, it's uncoated. So you can, um, you get proper color, right? Like if I used, I use like Robert Oster blue lagoon, I have an expectation of what that color is going to be when I put before I even started on the page and that expectation is met. So you get proper color range. You just don't get extras. Like if you have an extra shader or an extra sheener, like you might not, you're not going to get the full benefit of that. But that's also like a, that's a fountain pen people's paper that, you know, kind of leans into that stuff. This is not, this is a universal usage paper and it's great for fountain pens. So from the fine to like the ultra wet medium curves of a tile, like it all worked well. The, um, pencils. I always like to do a pencil test because that's also how you can tell about coating on paper. If you get some type of tactile feel from graphite and like, this was very like stable for graphite. Like it's not too smooth, not too rough. Um, it's just kind of like right in the middle. So yeah, it, um, overall super, super impressed with the paper quality. I actually used it for my show notes today, which I haven't been using. Um, like this is a good, like you and your stupid correct product names. It's a good sidekick. Like it literally fits next to my laptop and doesn't like, it's hard for me to use something like the I writer standard a five when I'm on a laptop with a microphone next to my desk and on the right side, you know, having a notebook that I have to reach over the left page, even though I don't have to, some notebooks I use both sides, you know, I'm further and further away from my writing as someone who will talk and write at the same time, like into a microphone. Um, this sits right next to my laptop and I knew it was going to be good for show notes today because now it is in the range that I need it to be, uh, in the proper area on my desk to not make me just have to fumble over trying to write something. Yeah. This was like, obviously the sidekick notepad we made to sit between you and the keyboard, right? And that was its idea. But there were a lot of people was like, I don't want that. Like I don't work like that. I want something next to, and I have an idea for a different, like a bigger notebook, which would do that kind of like a five size that I want to do someday. Um, but the, until that point, I think the pocket serves this perfectly. Um, cause also top, top bound, um, which I failed to mention that's top bound perforated pages. Yeah. Top bound perforated pages. So I will probably, I, I think about how I use products a lot. I will, I don't know that I'm going to use the backside of the page here because at some point I'll start tearing pages out right on a top bound perforated notebook. These are usually like ephemeral type pages, right? That's how I design it too. Yeah. I'm not putting something here to keep, right? So I flipped over my ink test page, right? That's around the back. But after a few pages, I'm not going to, I'm not going to keep this entire notebook intact. I will use and destroy this notebook. And you can, you can, and I do kind of, and I wouldn't do this as a sidekick notepad, but with the pocket, I keep, I, I have like taken notes like a notebook. Like I've got like four or five pages going. Like I was doing this yesterday. I was in a call and I was taking pages. I'm just flipping them over and I will eventually tear those out and take them. But it's like, you can kind of do that a little bit more. This product allows for it a little bit easier, but it's not the way it's intended to be used. It's like you write, tear out and you're onto a new page. That's like essentially the thing that is not for everyone, but it's what I want to build because there are lots of notebooks that do it the other way. So for people that want it the way that we like it, which is like you kind of, the pages are ephemeral. This product serves that purpose. Yep. So final results on the, all the ink testing, like literally no issues whatsoever. So very happy with how it performed. Ultra smooth page too. Really, really like the smoothness of the page. So it's good stuff. Well done, Michael. Thank you. You just used the grid one. I just used the grid one. I have not opened the lined and the task. What's the other one? The task. I think you're a dick to do. Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm going to, I'll probably end up doing a review and I'll just have like each out there. Right. And I like that it comes in a two pack.
  • The packaging was great. When I, everyone enjoyed the packaging. We use that on all of our Sidekick products now. So I had been, this is something that changed in the last year or so. It's, we call it book wrapping. That's what the, that's what the manufacturer calls it. Um, and so we started doing that on the big guy. Uh, and then on, we do on the little guy. It's the same paper and it's got the same foil stamping on it. Uh, I liked that you kept the logo to put in your journal. I thought that was cute. But yeah, it's the same paper the cover's made from, which is all GS Smith color plan. Um, and I really like that the, the stamping is actually a pigment stamp. Um, that goes onto each of these. So it's not clear. It's actually like somewhat color matched. It's color matched best on the orange and the yellow. The blue is a little off, but I actually kind of like it cause it's different. Uh, so yeah, I'm really, you know, I'm really happy with this product and I really wasn't sure what people were going to think of it. And I think it has probably been our most positive launch. Like people are very positive about this product. Um, and the people that get it seem to really dig it. So I'm very, I feel very effused, uh, by, by how this one has gone down. Last little small detail that I mentioned when I was reviewing it, and I haven't mentioned yet today is the cover scoring is ridiculously good. Yeah. It's just so pliable. Like it's what you would, you don't want to, you don't want to have to break in your cover scoring for a top bound notebook. That was so, um, that's really noticeable. We, again, like we didn't, this is the great thing about this product is I didn't need to do a lot of development on it because we'd gone through all of these specs on the sidekick notepad. But when we were making the sidekick notepad, this was a big deal for me of like, I do not want the customer to be dealing with their own like folding in any way because I want it to be just right. And like, and I, the, the tolerances that we have on that, on the way that these covers flip is, I think is incredibly good considering what's going on. Um, and so, yeah, it was, uh, an easy thing for me. Do you like the, the thick cover, like backing on the cover? Oh yeah. No, I, I think it's mandatory. Like I wouldn't want a similar color. And I also like that, um, it's the same color match as the color. So a lot of top bound notebooks will have the front cover, um, the scoring, and then like a tape over of a standard cardboard and yours match the, um, the aesthetic of the whole thing. So that's like a noticeable point. It's like one solid unit, not like a tape over, uh, flip. And this is one of those things of like, why are our products more expensive? It's decisions like that. Yeah. It would be so much cheaper for me to use a recycled gray board, which is what was recommended to me. But instead we use the same paper. We use just a much thicker piece of color plan, um, to, to make it sturdy, but also continue to look good. Uh, so yeah, I'm really happy that you like it, Brad. Genuinely am. Because, you know, I know I'm never getting a gimme from you. And so, uh, I genuinely appreciate it when you like it. Because there's the thing where like, you can do the nice thing where you can be like, that looks really nice. Like it, and, and, you know, you've built it really nice, but to get the, this also feels nice to use like that's that one, that one can't be a gimme. So yeah. Yeah. No gimme's here.
  • This episode is brought to you by our friends at Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet have your favorite brands like Pelican, Lamy, Sailor, Kaweco, Pilot, Namiki, or a trip. The list goes on and on and on. You, if you want a brand, they've got it. And if they don't, they're probably going to add it because they're adding new products every month, every couple of weeks of doing new deals as well. Whether you want to pick up a new rollable for yourself or a bottle of ink, wherever you're looking for a carrying case to take your pens on the road, no matter what it is, Pen Chalet have got it. And they have all the accessories you want and all the product types you're looking for. They sell international with great shipping rates and they do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality pens and they give a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Take yourself to PenChalet.com slash PenAddict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash PenAddict. And you'll save 10% on anything you buy over at Pen Chalet. You get a code there. You'll also see exclusive offers for listeners of this show. What have we got, Brad? One of my favorite pens of all time is in the special section at a really, really good price. So the Kaweco Collector's Edition Perkyo in infrared. So it's this crazy red pen that I reviewed. I fell in love with this pen. And they charge, so the Perkyo lineup from Kaweco is their entry level pen and it's a full size pen. So like in the past, their product started with the sport size, which is a small pocket pen. The Perkyo is a full size plastic barrel pen. And then they made this special edition and they charge like twice. They charge like double for it, which I thought was a little bit odd. But now like this pen is at like the normal Perkyo price and it's like a must buy. This is one of my favorite pens. It's a great deal. It's so cheap. This is a very inexpensive pen. They also have a bunch of Ferris wheel press inks on sale, which I usually don't see. So those who are into ink, like Kelly from Mountain of Ink, love Ferris wheel press inks. And you can get some good deals on a lot of different bottles of Ferris wheel press. And I'm still looking at this Endless Captiva fountain pen, which they had on here before with the twist piston, kind of like a torque filler mechanism that looks really, really cool. Oh, and a bunch of Ferris wheel press pens on here too. Cool. I didn't see that. So yeah, go check them out. A lot of pens, a lot of inks and definitely some great deals over at penshalet.com.
  • Yeah, go take yourself there right now. Thanks to our friends over at Penshalet for their continued support of this show and all of Relay. All right. A couple of little short notes, Myke. I could have put this in the follow-up section up top, but the Ohuhu pen, which I mentioned when I was looking at the red dot winners from 2024 when we're referring to the IA writer. And this was a Copic style alcohol marker that looked really cool, but I had never heard of them, didn't know anything about it. And previous week's shout out, a friend, a June Thomas emailed me to say, hey, number one, thanks for the shout out. Thank you, June, for being awesome. She also couldn't believe that it had been like a decade since she was last on the show.
  • Said that the Ohuhu is very, very legit. And there is a video, which I have not watched because I probably just won't. I'm not into these markers. There's a video called Who Killed the Copic Marker by Jazza, who has like 6.68 million subscribers on YouTube. So they must be a very popular artist. So I went and kind of browsed around them, but they did a comparison with the Ohuhu and the Copic. And guess what? Ohuhu. Ohuhu was the winner. So if you're looking for that type of marker, alcohol-based marker, maybe something to check out. So I can't vouch for them. I haven't used them. I'm not generally an alcohol markers user. I've used Copics, like the Fineliner products, but alcohol marker hasn't something I've gotten into. But yeah, take a look if that's something you're interested in. Because like, honestly, the Copics have gotten really, really pricey. So the Ohuhus are something to look at if you're into that.

Pilot collaboration with Herald Boney and related artwork.[edit]

  • Next up was something I saw from Pilot on Instagram. And it's this new collaboration. So a couple of things about this collaboration. One, it's with a company called Herald Boney. I have no clue if I'm saying that right. It's a Japanese company that works with disabled artists and does different like promotions with them for, you know, different art, different creative aspects. You know, they have a whole roster of artists that they work with all, you know, just, you know, disabled artists and putting a shining a light on them. So they took six of their artists and they each designed a pin barrel for the Pilot Juice Up multi-pin. And these look super cool. They're very different, like all like unique styles. And this reminded me one, I have not reviewed the Juice Up multi-pin yet. Juice Up. And it looks very good. It's like for a three barrel pin, for a three barrel multi-pin, it's reasonably thin. It doesn't look too much wider than like a stock pin, which is something I enjoy about the three barrel pins, three ink color multi-pins that they don't get too wide of a barrel. And then two, these colors are so cool. Like the art, not just the colors, but the artwork is super cool. I couldn't, I can't decide like which ones I want. So maybe all of them. Um, they're probably like, I think they're around 10 bucks. They're not much more than the regular, the standard, like the base color Juice Up multi-pin is like eight 59 bucks, something like that. So these may be slightly more, they come in a, a more, um, like a prettier packaging, uh, like a bigger box and things like that to show off the artwork. But I think this is really cool. And it's a neat collaboration to see. Um, it's a company that I was not familiar with in Harold Boney or, um, you know, or, or what the, what the work is that they do. And I thought that was pretty cool. So I spent some time reading about them, uh, yesterday and it was really neat. So go check that out. We'll have a link in the show notes. If y'all want to go check out, uh, the art. Yeah. You may have even seen the art somewhere before, like they work with hotels and all kinds of different people, um, or different brands to, uh, get this art out into the world. And it's kind of, kind of a spectacular thing. So last new product from the notes section, field notes, summer edition, Myke is a river alive thoughts.
  • It's really interesting to look at. Um, yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating piece that they've made once again. Uh, one of them I'm a little confused by, maybe, uh, you can help me. Um, one of the packs looks like it's a picture.
  • Picture. So. You mean like the, the gray one? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Um, what did they say about the gray one? Uh, this was, I think this was just like a, um, like an etched piece of art. Right. Um, almost like a, like a, it was almost like the base print of some of the patterns that eventually got used for the print. So it was like two different colors of the print. I found it very strange that there's a pencil on it. Like it was really weird to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
  • So like, yeah, it's like the, it's like the base carving for what eventually became the prints that you see on the other. Right. Colors. So yeah, it's, uh, it's, it is weird. It's what's weird. And I think what you're seeing is it's a photograph of the print with like things on it. And why isn't it just like the stock print? Yeah. Yeah. So I get that. That's the one missing this one for me. Like I don't, that doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. So it's a storytelling piece that I'm kind of with you that didn't, that kind of like throws me off. Right. It takes me out of it as opposed to, could we just have the Leno cut imagery that is then that in, in the same match in the same layout, why isn't it the same exact same layout as the other two books? The other two books have the, you know, like the closeup. They're the same, they're different colors, but you can tell they're like from the same print generally. And they look like they're, they have some texture, like some letterpress texture to them. I don't know that they do. I can't, I'm trying to like work it out by looking at the specs, but they look like it. Yeah. And then there's that other one where it's not confusing to me. Yeah.
  • Yeah. It's throwing me off. It's like a magazine cover. Yeah. So, okay. I've got it here. Like four color application and sculpted emboss.
  • Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's odd. It's odd. It is. I'm, I'm thrown by it cause I love the other two. And then I really like actually just showing the, like the raw, like lino art. Yeah. Um, but it's odd to be a photo. It's like, it's, it's at the different, it's a very different approach for them. And I can see what they're going for is respecting the art piece. Yeah. But it just, it doesn't completely land with me. I'll say. I feel you. Um, I ordered this one. This is the first one I've ordered in a while. One of the things that always sells me is number one, really cool and colorful colors. Like I, I definitely prefer the two color covers. Um, but number two gray grid, like just, that's like one of my top, top tier grid colors. Um, gray grid. So I ordered this probably, what's the last set I ordered? Um, probably they, they did a foil stamping one last year. I ended up ordering about one set a year and then like, I'll catch up. Like if I need to order like one or two other ones, um, do it. So I ordered this one. I'm anxious, uh, to, to get it in hand and see what it's like. Um, I just, I, if I use these all day, every day, man, I would be back in the sub subscriber list, but, uh, I've just got too many other notebook options right now to like really, really go for it with these, but man, I like them. They're good job on these one. These, I think they're going to do well.
  • All right. I think that brings us to the end today. So many notebooks today. Whoa. Lots of paper, lots of paper. Um, paper is very difficult to review on the blog. I've talked about this before.
  • Um, yeah, you're describing just like, yeah, like it's, it's hard to say. Like I can tell you so like some technical aspects and like something like really fails, but it's actually hard to differentiate the good from good paper versus good paper. It's like, can't you see this? Can't you see the difference here? It feels different. It feels, and it's, it's, it's tough to explain. So it's good. That's why we love this stuff. There's so many little things that we can pick out. Like we could, I, we could circle back to like both the notebooks that I talked about today and, and say, you know, different things about them. So it's good stuff. You know what I was just about to say very strangely, I don't know why I was going to do this. I was about to say like, you know, to get where to go on the web. And I was about to say stju.org slash relay. Now I don't know. I don't know why that popped up into my head. Like I'm my, maybe I saw something on my desk, but I don't, oh, play buttons right there. So maybe I saw that. And that's what took me way too early. Uh, yeah, as Kate says, it's basically September, but it isn't yet. Is it too early? Yeah. I don't think it's too early. I actually have already started travel planning, which is a quiet thing to think about at this time. But here we are. Uh, actually go to relay.fm slash the pen addict slash six, six, six. If you would like to get the show notes for this week's episode. Uh, if you want to find Brad online, go to pen addict.com spoke design.com. Last week I did this too, right? Where I said, what's happening to me in the outro now? Well today I, you at least had a reason to, because I brought them up several times. Fair, fair, fair. Go to twitch.tv slash pen addict, or you'll find Brad streaming three times a week. If you want to find me online, you can find my shows here on relay and you can also buy my products, including the sidekick pocket by going to cortex brand.com. Uh, thank you to Squarespace and pen chalet for their continued support of this show. And most of all, thank you for listening until next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.
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