The Pen Addict 691/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 691 |
| Title: | This Is a Stuff Show |
| Release Date: | November 13th, 2025 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 691 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 691 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 691 |
| Length: | 7474 min <br />1.233 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 691. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, enigma stationery and factor. My name is Mike Hurley, and I have the pleasure of being joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. What's up, Mike Hurley? How are you? You know, Brad, I had Jason Snow here last week. Correct. And we were hanging out in the studio, and he was remarking about how many pens there were everywhere. There were pens everywhere, he said. He said he thought there'd be pens everywhere, but he was surprised about just how many pens were everywhere.
Okay. And I said to him, you know, I love them. I love talking about them. I don't buy as many anymore, right, because I'm very happy with my collection of stationery. I don't need to have all the new stuff like you, and I get to ask you questions and act as the listener, right, so they can get all the information out of you. Yeah. We actually got feedback on that, on your purchasing habits. Oh. And it was actually a good feedback. Yeah. So people were like, yeah, Brad, you're the one that's into this stuff, and Mike's, you know, part of the show and, you know, really does a great job doing all that.
But I noticed Mike hasn't bought many pens recently. Maybe he should buy one pen a year, and that should be a thing that y'all, like, work on. God, that's, I like that idea, but that's too much pressure right now, because there are maybe three pens in today's show that I may buy. Yeah, so. This is a bad one for me, Brad, and I think you know. This is a bad episode. If y'all want to just play this episode, start the episode, just hit play, and then walk away until it's done, it might save your wallet, because this show is a problem.
Yeah. For me, for you, for a lot of people, this is a stuff show. Yes. It just, and they're not planned, right? This just so happened that everyone is releasing stuff right now for the holidays. Yeah, we didn't plan it, but everybody else did. No, no, we didn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the time of year. Yeah, my point being, I don't remember it being this much good stuff in the past. Yeah, it's not just there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of good stuff, and I'm excited to talk about some of it, and maybe before the end of the episode, make some purchases, we'll find out.
Yeah, and this is just a big episode anyway. We have a lot to catch up on, lots to talk about. So, let's get into it, because we are definitely going to run long today. I can feel it in my bones. Yeah, I do have some follow-up from our wonderful listeners. It's mostly about the top five lists. So, Tomas wrote in and said, I just listened to the latest podcast where you discussed the issues of the $100 to $200 bracket. Have you considered changing the bracket to reflect current prices and inflation?
It feels like all the prices have increased, and perhaps it should now be $100 to $250. In the UK, the Platinum 3776 and Pilot Custom 74 still fit in the £100 to £200 category. Inflation and currencies and all that kind of stuff. I think this makes so much sense, Brad. I do too, and I've thought about it. The issue, which is in my head, let's be clear where the issue lies, it's between my ears, is that a $110 pin is vastly different than a Pilot 3776 at $230, right? Those are kind of not the same category anymore.
Where in the past, there was a massive group that was coherent and cohesive. And I think that's the only thing I personally haven't been able to get past, is the cohesiveness of the brackets to have a range from $100 to $250. If my range was $100 to $250, I would not list a pin under $200. Okay. Just straight up. I could list every pin that I wanted in $200 to $250. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, I see that. And so, people are looking for... People don't want to spend that much, right? People would rather spend closer to $100.
Heck, it's really an above $150 category is what it is, I think. I don't have to go back and look at the math and the numbers, but people are looking for that $100 pin. That's a really good... For people who aren't super deep into this stuff, that's a huge, huge marker for people really stepping out to spend $100 on a pin is insane if you really think about it, right? We've talked about this over the years. Wait till you get to that old four-digit.
The old four-digit. So, yeah, I think while this is a good feedback and concept and something I've thought about, I don't think it would technically work for what I'm trying to accomplish because it would just backload the whole list at $250 because that's where the good stuff lives. I agree. That's where the good stuff lives, and I made the point in... I haven't updated it yet, but in the $200 bracket, I didn't even have time to put that in the show notes today. We have so much, but that's sitting out there
that I haven't updated on the site yet. But you'll see in the notes that this is essentially the new $100 to $200 price bracket to Tomos' point. Very good challenge. We also have Tom who wrote in and said, as someone newer to fountain pens, I would like to submit for the $100 to $200 list, the Diplomat Viper. Its recommended retail price is $125, but you can usually get it cheaper, and it might be a pen person's first metal body pen and or hooded nib experience. I got one recently and have been loving it,
plus the magnet cap seal is a wonder. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so this is a great pen, and I would actually put it in the sub-100 range because I've never... I rarely see it above 100, right? It's just the way the price, the MSRP prices get discounted at retail, puts it in like the $80 to $90 range. Sure. And we have a review of that on the blog if you want to grab that link. It's a great pen. I've already got it. Yep. That is definitely in that $50 to $100 category with the Lamy Studio,
you know, some other pens, some higher-end, upper 80s, 90s dollar pens where you have to start thinking about, like, am I happy with, like, the TWSBI Eco Lamy Safari category, and then I want an upgrade, but I really don't want to go all in in, like, the $200 pen. So, yeah, the Viper is a good call-out.
And also, we had Derek, who wrote in and said, I was listening to you talk about the paper products for your top five lists. Have you thought about separating the lists into two or three separate lists, like hardcover, softcover, and loose paper? I think there may be some overlap. Some companies do multiple really well. This is a good point, because when I was writing the... So, the list is called Top Five Paper Brands, right? So, it's just kind of an all-encompassing. List. It's not broken down like Top Five Softcover,
Top Five Hardcover. And it's interesting because I think most people who are into stationery, but don't listen to this podcast, think of a good notebook as being the hardbound, classic, Moleskine style, right? Like, oh, this is a nice notebook. Hardcover equals nice notebook, right? And I think that's a fair thing for people to think about. But, you know, us pen addicts have a greater concept of how paper actually works with a wide variety of pens. I would consider this, because my challenge was everything I'm listing here
is a softcover. It's still the best paper. These are the best brands. The best brands do mix in some hardcover. Like, Life has a hardcover book. Mormon has a new hardcover lineup. That would probably be number one on the list, but ahead of, like, Leuchtturm. It'd be like, Mormon hardcover number one, Leuchtturm number two, and then you're getting it. The problem with hardcover is then you're getting into some really niche items, niche items that are harder to find. But the paper category is kind of tough that way anyway.
So this is, this is the valid, valid criticism here in trying to answer for what the people are looking for. And I think a lot of people do look for hardcover. The start at hardcover and then everything else.
Tell me about the Pilot Custom NS. Yeah, so I was mentioning that last week as we were talking about the top five 100-200 pens list. And I just happened to see that on Instagram, like, the day before. I was like, what is this? And I was like, oh, that's cool. And it's like 100 bucks and it seems fine. And I was enamored by the colors and it looks interesting. And it turns out this pen has existed in the Japanese market for a while, which I was unaware of. Jet Pens actually has, like, a stock color of these.
And seeing that as opposed to, like, the new models that I was all, ooh, look, fancy. It makes them definitely not as interesting for the price. It's like, how is this different from a Metropolitan price? And I think that's the feedback we got, right? Like, totally, like, agree with where does this actually fit in the product lineup and how does a $100 steel nib pilot pen make sense when you have a Metropolitan and a Prera? And I don't know that it's going to be worth it, like, value proposition-wise.
Yeah, Jacob wrote in and said, this is very interesting, but if the steel nib is the same as Cocoono, Metropolitan, and Explorer, Prera, I'd be disappointed. Maybe the NS means Neo Steel? I don't know what Neo Steel means, but... Yeah. So, I'd be, maybe I'll try one of these if I can get my hands on, like, one of the new ones just to, like, go, yeah, like, it's not worth the, like, two or three times the cost. It's, like, literally the same nib that you can get for $25, $30, or $60 if you want the Prera.
So, yeah, it's, the more I dug into it, the more I realized this has actually been a thing and it's Japan only and it must not pose a lot of value because it's not really getting a lot of run. Neo Steel might be referring to a fictional item in Escape from Tarkov, which is a video game. Or Starcraft. Oh, okay. Seems like it's used a lot in gaming. Nice. Gamers rise up. Game gang rise up.
I saw some links in the show notes and I tried to read this Instagram post and honestly, I couldn't make it all the way through. Yeah. Can you explain to me what's going on here? Yeah, so this is the portion of the show where Mike's like, really, do we have to talk about this? No, you know, I find this story interesting, but like I just, it's a good story. So, this is the, we spoke about this a long time ago, like way back on episode 675, so this is months ago now, about Estabrook just like showing off
a new product called the Niblet and then there being a bit of controversy about the fact that it appeared to be a ripoff, a white label or something of an existing product made by a company called Fine Writing who are from Taiwan. Taiwan. And they make a product called the Niblet. Yeah. So, equally poor naming, but we're, we're going to forget, we're going to not focus on that today like we did last time. So, why this resurfaced this week? Panquette, Panquette, Panquette, I said it wrong. Panquette,
sorry. Fine Writing's product is the Panquette which is rough and the Estabrook is Niblet which is also rough. Yes, yeah, equally poor. Okay, so this resurfaced because the Fine Writing Company, I think, was sick of hearing it from people and made an Instagram statement. Yeah. The problem with their Instagram statement is they didn't go far enough. It doesn't really, it just, no offense, but it's like, it's people waffling, like you're just saying stuff. There isn't really information. Yes. So, they emailed me
after the episode 675, tried to clarify some things, they did clarify some things, but even the things they told me back then, they didn't lay out in this new post so I was just left like throwing my hands in the air like what, like what am I supposed to do with this? So, the problem is it just resurfaced the whole drama and the drama is really in a nutshell, to state this as simple as possible, this is third party manufacturer drama. Yeah. That FWI and Estabrook have to deal with their manufacturer
to solve this problem. So, FWI and Estabrook are using the same manufacturer and it's a matter of design ownership that all these three parties are going to have to deal with and that's it. Like, that's what this is. you know, who knew what, when, you know, is company A allowed to, is the manufacturer allowed to sell this product to other people? Who owns this design? All this kind of stuff that is really like out of scope for any of us here. It's a third-party manufacturer problem that these three companies
are going to have to get together and figure out. It seems like, I'm sure that we brought this up as a possibility of what is going on here, which is that the manufacturer of this product is essentially stealing a design and offering it to another company without telling them where it came from. That's how it seems to me, is what is going on. So, I'm not, like, we need to rescind the stealing of design piece. Let's not say stealing, let's say heavily influencing a different design, la la la la la.
No, they all use the same manufacturer. Yeah, but someone came up with the design, right? Yes. Who? FWI says them. Yes. Esther Brooks says, their manufacturer says not that they had the right to sell them. When I'm saying stealing, someone's saying stealing, right? Someone's saying it, whether it's me or not. FWI. Yes. FWI. Right? So, FWI is saying, we made this design, gave it to the manufacturer. Manufacturer has now stolen it and has offered it to Estabrook. That is, like, essentially what is being said here.
This is incredibly common. Incredibly common that this kind of stuff happens. And so, I'm not surprised about it. It happens all the time in tech. Yeah. Yeah. And people are saying, like, the comments I got a lot of yesterday when we were going through this was that Estabrook should have known and I said, absolutely not. No, don't, you can't put that on them. Yeah. You can't. I find this kind of stuff so frustrating, like, where, like, people are, like, you know, someone links to a content creator,
but it turns out that a content creator has some bad thoughts about other stuff and you're like, you should have known. It's like, how much research does anyone do into, like, you research everything anyone's ever done on the off chance that they may have been bad once in their life. Like, I don't put it on Estabrook, but then once Estabrook know about it, what they do about it is the important thing, like, how they handle it from there. And I actually don't really feel like we have much of a knowledge as to
what is going on here. And I think it's at the point where they're going to have to say something. Like, they're going to have to, I hate this, that there's now, like, required social media rebuttals from each other, but I actually do think in this case, Estabrook needs to say something. And they're going to stand, Estabrook's going to stand on business because I've seen some of the documentation behind this. And they just need to come out and have some type of post.
Yeah, but this, I tell you what though, Brad, no one wins. No one wins that. No one wins that. Because the realistic thing is probably, my expectation is the majority of Estabrook's customers, they don't even know this is happening and neither do they care. And like, now we're going to get into a thing where people know right. It's just so stupid. This is so annoying. But for everyone, this is annoying. I feel bad for everyone in this scenario. Like, I feel bad for fine writing and I feel bad for
Estabrook because they're now both in a thing they don't need to or want to be in through what appears to be problems that neither of them asked for or caused. Yes, that's correct. So, this brings to light the real problem that people have is the cost disparity of the two products. Yes, I mean, that is, yes. And valid, but it's actually two separate business models and I think we need a quick explainer and I'm not validating one price over the other. I'm just explaining to people how this actually
works and why you see a price disparity, even though the immediate feedback is, well, that's ridiculous and the price, I'm not paying $100 more for the same pen. And you're not wrong, but let me do a little quick distributor math example for everyone. This is something we've hashed out many, many times on the show to tell people how the pricing gets set for products. So, as quick as I can do this, let's take a $100 retail pen because that's going to be easy for me to do math on, right? So, the consumer
is buying a $100 retail pen. If that pen comes from a company who is contracting out to a manufacturer and then selling that pen directly, that is one price point. If that company is selling a much more expensive pen that they've ordered from the same manufacturer, but they're a distributor business, not a direct retail business, there's levels of price increases that are being allocated for. Because you have to price in the cut that everyone needs to take at the end of the day. Yeah. And in a distributor
example, there's like two more cuts that need to happen, right? So, this could be the same product and it could cost the same and that's what got exposed here is a direct-to-retail company versus a distributor, right, that has to get the product to the end consumer. So, that's where you're seeing these pricing increases. And you may say, Brad, Estabrook is selling it on their website, but they also sell it in stores. And so, Estabrook has to charge you the same amount of money. I mean, this is why
Estabrook have their own store as well, by the way, because they make so much more money when they sell it to you directly, because they price it the same. That's not a problem, that is just a reality of the situation. But there are existing businesses out there in the world that, I mean, they are the institutions that exist, and they need to make their money too. That's the whole point of them existing as a business. And so, yeah, this is what happens. So, let me get to my example. I got myself so I
did it to myself. So, just laying the groundwork. So, a hundred dollar, a consumer sees a pen on sale for a hundred dollars. Okay, if that comes from a distributor, the quick math that you do from a distributor's perspective, and this is not black and white, there's a lot of gray area in this, but you take one quarter of that sell price, and that is the cost of the product that the distributor paid to have it made. So, in this, my example, a hundred dollar pen, the distributor paid a manufacturer
$25. That was the cost of the product. So, now, a distributor has to take that pen and sell it to a retail clientele, right? A big network of retailers. Included in this next markup step is all of the packaging design, all of the shipping. They're paying double shipping here because they're paying shipment to receive the product, and they're paying shipments out to retail, and then all of the marketing that goes behind this, and then they're selling this pen to those retailers for $50, right? So,
in that $25 profit range is all of your marketing, all of your packaging, all of your shipping costs, all of your administrative costs, and then the retailer pays $50, and guess what? They double that price too. So, the retailer actually makes the biggest bulk percentage rise, so the retailer is going to sell it for $100, and they paid $50, but... The retailer is taking the biggest risk. But the retailer is taking the risk, and the distributor gets the biggest spread. They get to sell all the pens out to
retail, right? So, it works out that way because it comes from a singular source. So, then that retail price now has also room for discounting as well. So, yeah, that's why you see a product like this to where FWI can say straight from the manufacturer and sell it to you is one price, and then all the machinations that happen from a distributor getting a product made, and all the price ads that you see in there. And you still may think it's too high in this particular case of the niblet. totally fair,
but just understand that this is not a one-to-one price comparison between the two products because of how these businesses are set up. Also, Estabrook and FWI, they are operating in different territories. Yep. The economics in those countries will also be different, and that will also set the price differently. Yeah. So, a lot of times the distributor might make the lowest cut of the product, but they do the highest volume. Yeah, that makes it up in volume. The distributor gets 100% of the pins,
right? And then they, guess what, Mike? Distribute out those pins to the retail market. So, the retailers get the biggest cut, but they're selling 20 pins where the distributor has to sell 2,000. Right. It's wild, really, that, like, I mean, maybe it shows the power of a distributor like, who is it though? What is their name? Kenra. Kenra Industries. That they can actually have their own store, right? Yeah. Because they are eating into the business of their distribution partners by having their own store.
Yeah, it's a little odd. But it shows the power. Like, if they didn't have the power that they have, right, like, the size that they have and the scale that they have, or they weren't successful enough for the companies that would become a problem. But clearly, like, it doesn't eat into the business that much and people are happy to keep buying and stocking the pens. But it is like a funny thing where it's like, they can do it too, but it seems to have potentially not devalued Estabrook as a brand
with their retail partners and like the retail stores. Yeah, so to put a bow on it, this isn't a justification of what anyone's charging, it's just reality of how businesses are different and they're set up differently, which is why you see disparate prices, like in this case, a very extreme difference in price. But this is like the issue of an old-style business model in a new connected world. Yeah, yeah, and this is why it's going to end up being a third-party manufacturer problem for this whole
thing. They have exposed a lot of things here by doing this, so this is not over, but I honestly, it's not that big a deal, but this is two companies and their manufacturer need to hash this out. That's pretty much it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace will give you everything that you need to claim your domain, showcase your
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support for the show. A thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. Can I give a Squarespace shout out real quick? Squarespace shout out quick. Of the week. Shout out to their customer service. I had an issue with the blog this week where basically the front page wouldn't load. It was like a weird CMS, CSS issue.
And, you know, opened it. I was like, yeah, this is weird. Like, I don't, I haven't changed anything. I don't really mess with my templates. I don't have any custom CSS. So I opened a ticket, you know, got on their chat, talked with a person. They said, yeah, this is weird. Let me escalate. They opened a ticket. The engineering team got back to me via email, said, we're looking at it. This is weird. And then, you know, after they looked at it, they came back with a solution. It was something on their end
that they were still working on and sent me the engineer sent me a video. It was like, here's a walkthrough of what you need to go change. And it was just like a little quick setting change. And he sent me a video of it. Whenever it clicked it, boom, website back. And like, that was it. It was great. It was a really good customer service experience. So yeah, that was cool. The customer service stuff is super good in that regard because there are lots of different systems that you could use or maybe
ways you do it yourself and you get stuck and then that's the end. All right. So that was my little ad on there. All right, Mike, we got our shout out of the week. We're calling this week, Mike, we're changing the name. I needed you to do the jingle. I needed you to do the jingle, but I need you to do another jingle. Can you do Twisby of the week for me? Yep. Twisby of the week. So this cracked me up. This cracked me up. This happened on Twitch and I forget who said it to me, but we were talking about the new
Twisby Cosmo Onyx and they said, hey, look, it's a new week. It's a new Twisby. I said, oh, my gosh, it's the Twisby of the week. I'm stealing that for the podcast. So that was a good friend of the show, Rob, called it Twisby of the week. So shout out, I want to give credit where credit's due. Unfortunately, it was to Rob, but that's another story. And it's a shame. Twisby Cosmo Onyx, Mike, we've talked about a bunch of Twisby's. They are on some kind of weird heater here where literally it's like every week
they're doing something, some new release with this, these like marbly looking materials. And this is finally the one where I'm going to get one. You know, I don't, they released so many pins and I like them, but I don't have to, you know, I don't really have to like buy every one because you just wait for the next one. Like this is how you solve FOMO is you just wait. Um, and I've waited and I've succeeded in waiting to find the exact one that I wanted. And, uh, I think this Onyx with the, the Onyx trim on
the Cosmo barrel looks great. And, uh, I'm going to get this one. So, um, shout out of the week to Twisby, which is very strange to say, but, uh, it's, it's more of the, the Twisby of the week because, um, don't worry. Like I'm, I'm, I give sailor a hard time for this and we're going to get into that too, uh, here in a little bit. But, uh, I think Twisby does need to chill out a little bit. This is a lot, uh, in the past two or three months, it's very aggressive releases from them. Uh, so maybe, maybe chill out.
Uh, I don't know. I guess they're getting into the holiday season, which is like literally the whole next section is me talking about new products. No brains are chilling out right now. Mike has a shout out to, uh, I saw when I was on Instagram, adding this link to the show notes, I saw a post from spoke design, uh, or is it spoke to E-sign? Like it's like one of those docusign services. Oh yeah. Yeah. Not sure. Our new model seven mechanical pencil has nine tip slash grip options to choose from available
November 14th, which as we're recording is tomorrow. So you have a new model of the spoke pencil. coming out. We actually have three new models of the spoke pencil coming out. Um, I was going to actually going to save this till next week. We will talk about it next week. We will, but I just wanted to hype you up right now. So yeah, yeah. Go over to the spoke design Instagram. That's where we do all the, like the, the launch deets and you'll see two of the three, uh, designs have been updated. So we have the
lead stream, which is our, takes our click stream pen converted into a pencil with a neat new grip. We have the model seven, which will be the most popular one. This is a continuation of our very, very popular model for design, which is the mechanical pencil that everyone loves. That's what I have in front of me right now. So I'm excited. Yeah. So this makes it more modular. And then that's where the link you showed today, um, with the different grips, you're going to be able to pick and choose more
than you have in the past to build a pencil for you. So, um, yeah. Hashtag skew explosion design back in. So I'll have a lot of pencil assembly in my future. So, uh, look forward to your shipping streams for that. So, yeah, it's really cool. And we'll talk more about it next week. We still have one more pencil to announce. Uh, I don't know if that's going to be this week or next week. Like this is a lot right now. So we'll see if this one squeaks one more squeaks in. Um, it'll be our first pencil with a
clip will be the next to, to tease that one. I just don't want to say for sure it's coming this week, but these other ones are and we're ready to rock. Love it. All right. So, um, lots of products I want to talk about, um, including let's lead, let's lead off with this Lamy. Lamy. So this one crossed my desk last week or this week, I should say. The Lamy CP1 is one of their classic designs. It's a skinny in the past. It's just been like a basic black fountain pen. Um, and I think they do a roller
ball edition. they're doing a, an aquamarine, uh, color, like a blue gem tone, aquamarine color. That's kind of matte. It's not like shiny. This looks so freaking good. I like, I'm upset. Like this is something I would have done if I was working for Lamy. I'm clearly not. This would have been on my list because this, the CP1's been out. I want, I want to say decades. I could be very wrong. It's been out for a while and it stayed the same forever. It's just been singular. And now this is a very simple barrel,
just a cylinder, right? Not a lot of difficulty to anodize something like this. Let's do more Lamy. This is awesome. Like I love seeing this. I am, I'm totally getting one of these pens. This is going to be an expensive week for me. Um, so yeah, this is right up my alley. I like seeing Lamy dabble in some of their classic designs and continue to, it's, it's a simple color change. Like I'm a simple man. I don't ask for much. This is what Lamy should be doing. This is, this is not, this is not game
changing, but for Lamy it's, it's new and different and interesting. And I applaud them for it. And I, I would have, uh, this would have been on my list as a design, design, uh, lead at Lamy. So what, what do you think about this? This pen is probably not for you. It's a really thin pen. Um, and it's kind of oddly priced in the grand scheme of Lamy's things. It's still only like 60 bucks, but compared to like some of the other pens, like it's maybe not a 60 month, $60 pen. But now that it's blue Mike, it's
totally worth $60. I mean, I like the color. Yeah. You know, this isn't, yeah, not for you though. Like you're not allowed to get this one. This is, this is not a pen for everybody. No. Hmm.
But it fits in like some of the slim pen holders and things like that. So it's a really cool pen. It's a, it's a, it's an OG Lamy classic that has just sat there unchanged forever. So, um, Kaweco is, I titled this one the Kaweco I can't have. Yeah. Um, this one was kind of a jaw dropper for me, but like in the best way possible. I saw this on Instagram. So MT is a, it's pretty much the OG washi tape manufacturer. Um, they're kind of the leader in the space for like washi tapes there. They've been around
for a while. They've done some of the best work and apparently they're having an event, uh, coming up here soon and they're doing a collaboration with Kaweco to make special MT additions of the sport. You know, I'm a massive sport fan, the small plastic barrels. They have a couple little, you know, basic like washi tape designs, dots, lines, grids on the barrels and the little MT logo. It's great. They're so cool. They're just great. I think the best design is honestly the white ballpoint pen. It's cause it's black,
it's white. It's a white barrel with the black like tape lines on it. I just, I've always liked like the black and white pens is my thing anyway, but it just looks like they put washi tape on the Kaweco. It's just great. Yeah. And I agree with you actually that the design sings more on the, the ballpoint because there's more space for it ultimately. Yeah. So what it looks like these are, it looks like an event exclusive type of thing. I'm sure this is a big event and you go and you can order, you're allowed to
order like one pen or one set of pens. They chose good colors too. Yeah. Colors are good. Colors are good. And what's funny is you go to this event and this is all translated. So correct me if I'm wrong and you know more than me, but you go to this event, you order the pen, but you don't get it. Then you get it between January and March of next year, which I thought was kind of funny. And they have all these product pictures here. I was like, huh, I thought maybe I could get it then at the event, but nope.
Uh, at least that's the way I read it. Um, man, that's going to be an expensive week. Mike, the tactile turn deep sea. is one of the best releases they've done in a while. It is, I'm a big Cerakote color fan, right? And normally the Cerakotes are solid and you can do, there's some manipulation you can do. And tactile turn has done a really neat pattern on this pen with the Cerakote. And this is one of their seasonal releases. So like every quarter they do one, um, where it's open, like the sales are open, like
if you want it, you can buy it. Um, but then it does go away after a certain amount of time. And this is the, I think the first one they've done with their switch mechanism. Mike, I don't know if you've seen this. I don't know if we talked about it before. I've seen it before. It's literally like a light switch mechanism. Yeah. Um, I've gotten to play with it before. It's very fun. I kind of preferred over like a traditional bolt, but I mean, yeah, I would just kind of fun. over bolt. I don't like bolt
mechanisms. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not a fan. They have to be right for me. Yeah. However, I know this, this is going to sound weird, Brad, but you know, you know me. I understand how this works mechanically, this switch, right? Like how it works. It's backwards in my mind.
So you want it engaged with the switch up? Like a light switch. Oh, I see. Okay. Right. You turn a switch on switch goes up. So pen would be engaged. If I want to disengage the pen switch down, turn it off. That would really get me. Like I, I feel like I would be very like freaked out by this. Yeah. You are not wrong. It would be, it would be the aesthetically wrong choice for a pen, but you are not wrong. You're also right. Um, it would not look, it would look broken on, if it was on the pen and the,
the tip was engaged and the switch was up. Uh, I just think it's like technically too difficult to do what I'm asking for. Yeah. I don't know. I would imagine. Yeah, probably. So this is great. I love this design. Uh, it's really cool. Like a little diver's helmet on the clip. Um, yeah. Fun. Very nice. Speaking of fun stuff, Mike, if you were looking for fun stuff, stationery, where would you go? Enigma stationery because they offer unique items made from their own in-house designs along with top brands
and hard to find imports. That's some of my favorite stuff at Enigma. Their newest additions include great options for the gift giving season, like new products from Blue Q who design and manufacture items that combine utility and whimsy, such as high quality totes, pouches, and more. Another new arrival is the Peanuts 75th anniversary collection in collaboration with Esther Brook, bringing Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and more to desk, to your desk with pens, cases, and accessories. Whether you're jotting
down notes, sketching, or planning your next big adventure, this collection will make every moment a little more joyful. What have you found over at Enigma stationery that's tickling your fancy, Brad? The most tickling is the Random Crap Zipper Pouch. And let me just tell you, not only is it a great name and a great design, I got gifted one of these. Someone gave me one of these, and it lasted at my house one day before my daughter stole it, because it is that cool. I like the Lunch Money one. I know you spoke about
this before. I love the Lunch Money one. Yeah. So I literally had Random Crap Pouch stolen from me by a kid who's barely into stationery, because it's that cool. Makes sense. Like, it's legit cool. So like, yeah, I'm all on that. I also like the different Eric Small Things collaboration calendars. So this one is the Shinipon daily calendar, which I think is something that I need to look at. So it's a big, it's one of those desk calendars, you know, with like 365 pages on there. Oh, this is adorable.
And just super cool designs. Like, you know, it's not necessarily like something you're like you're going to write on, but it's just, it's a touch of joy and color. So like, I'm way in on something like this, right? Just from like, from like a desk, um, desk perspective, right? Just to have you like your accessories and your style. I think it's just really, really cool and cute. So yeah, great stuff over there at Enigma. So you can go and check all this stuff out for yourself by going to enigma stationery.com slash
pen addict. And you can take a look at all of their latest stock. If you want free US shipping on orders of $50 or more, go to that website enigma stationery.com slash pen addict and use the code pen addict 25 at checkout. That is enigma stationery.com slash pen addict to get a free gift and free US shipping on orders of $50 or more with the code pen addict 25. Thanks to enigma stationery for their support of this show and all of relay. All right. If I'm going to give TWSB a hard time, we got to go back to the
OG of over releasing product sailor. Yeah. Just this week, Mike, we have four new pens from the Waka poetry series, which I'm not familiar with, but it's like a spring, summer, winter, fall type of theming. And then like some poetry. I don't really know the, the background of that. I think the pens look cool. You know, they're very artistic barrel. Classic Japanese Waka poetry found in the Kokin Wakashu compiled in nine Oh five. Wow. Or the Shin Kokin Wakashu compiled in 12 Oh five. Waka poetry elegantly
expresses nature and emotions and often focuses on themes like the changing seasons and love. So I was, one of my favorite podcasts is The Rest is History and they, they did a season on like Japanese culture, kind of like going back through history. And they talk about how poetry was massively important. Like people would, would write poems to each other. And, and that was like a really important thing, communication. And, and in wooing Brad as well. So. Oh, nice, nice. Well, these pens will help you write your
poetry and woo if, if you're so inclined. Um, that, yeah, they look cool. So this is a, uh, 14k nib version. So this is the progress. Hang on a second. They look cool. Yeah. These are stunning. Yeah. Okay. What are we talking about here, Brad? Oh, I suppose they're unbelievable. These things, they're so beautiful. Well, I'm going to give you a problem. Yeah. I know what the problem is. The next link I would like to share. So that wasn't the only series this week that sailor released. There's two more
value models. Um, so they launched this style of kind of like wavy acrylic designs several years ago with a white and I think a green and a blue or some type of, some type of swirls. Um, this time these marble patterns, Mike get out of town. I know. Like this is, this is better than walk a poetry. Like both of these, like these are awesome. I don't agree. I love these. Uh, I think the, the walk a poetry ones are more, are much more beautiful. Yeah. I like the orange. So the, um, the Valio is there's like an
orange pinkish swirl and then like a purple bluish swirl. So my thing on this, Brad, I've seen this before. You know what I mean? Like this I've seen before the walk a pot. I've, I've never seen a pen that looks like this before. Yeah. Like they are, they're just stunning. Problem is did some Googling, uh, expensive buddy. Uh, phone out on cold pens, 340 pounds. Brad, that's like a million dollars. I think for the walk up poetry. Yeah. Or the Valio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the Valio will probably be upper fours.
So here's, here's a pro tip. It's the 21 K version. Oh, so this is the, this is the large, the Valio is the large version and the walk of poetry is all the, the, um, oh, they're big. I thought they looked big. They're not big. They're in relation to sailors product lineup. They're the, the larger size of the two. So they're both the pro gear shape. This is the pro gear large and the other ones, the pro gear small. Oh, so I can hang on, hang on. You're messing me up here with large and small. So regular and slim.
Yes. Okay. Yeah. When you say large, I'm like, do you mean, I know pen, what are you talking about? No, the 1911 L it's so it's a long running thing with me. On cold pens, the Valio, the, they said the orange pearl one here, cheaper. It's cheaper. What? How much? 330 pounds. Wow. Yeah. There's, there's only have the older models. One of those 300. So like they have purple, green, blue, and orange. So you're leading me into what I was going to say. If you like the sailors, just wait, they'll get discounted.
So this has been sailors thing over the last couple of years is they just unload the models. And then like a year later, they heavily discount them because they've provided it. That's the trick. You never know. And if you miss out, sometimes you just go, huh, I guess I missed. And I'll wait for the next one because tomorrow is a new day for sailor and TWSBI Mike. God, these Waka poetry are just so beautiful. What's your favorite? Okay. So what's your favorite one? The pink one. Let me pull it back up.
Spring. Oh, so the first one on the front end. Yeah. I like the, one of the blue ones. Yeah. I think I'm, I think I'm a summer. I think I'm a summer. It's my choice. Summer boy. Summer boy. Summer babe, Mike. All right. We are not done with new products, but this last group, they don't need to full a dissertation. Although I am prone to doing that anyway. So I'm calling this the speed round of the new products. Okay. number one, sailor food day to man. And so these have become popular over the last few
years as an entry level food day nib pen. It's about a $20 pen and sailor has done the 30th anniversary version. So they've just done, you know, barrel and barrel embellishments, uh, different colors. So if you're someone who likes this style of pen with the turned up nib, um, this is just a fun, fun thing to check out. And I haven't seen, they haven't, they don't really do much with this product lineup. It's usually just like a green barrel and a black barrel. So it's nice to have that option. If you're so inclined, these
look incredibly cheap. So I hope that they are reflected in the price. So yeah, the, um, the standard ones are $20. Okay. That's good then. Yeah. I don't know what these are. I'm sure there's a little bit of a premium for this one, but it can't be much more, but yeah, it's a, it's a $20 pen. Um, the pilot air step is actually a brand new product from pilot. So they're dabbling in the auto advancing lead mechanism category, but doing it at a very entry level price. Like these are like $5 pencils. Um, and the concept is
that there's not a traditional knock on the back, but as you write, it has that kind of spring loaded pipe on the front end that auto extends the lead. It's not my favorite mechanism like the, um, zebra or the Pentel or ends. Like I don't really like that mechanism. And you need does has a Kura Toga auto advance one. I'm more of a traditionalist on the advancing mechanisms. I like the twist of like the Kura Toga and I like some of those, like, you know, keeping the tip sharp or mechanical pencils.
I'm okay with not having the auto advance, but I'll try this because it's so inexpensive and I like that it is inexpensive and they've made like an inexpensive looking barrel. It's like just like a plastic cylinder barrel, but in fun colors. Like I like this style of pencil. So it's interesting and it's a brand new category for them. What's not new is Pentel Smash. They have some new colors. I like that they have broadened their reach of the Smash into other markets outside of Japan. There's historically been
great Pentel Smash colors released in the Japanese market and several years ago they did a batch for the U.S. and now here's another round two for, well, not just the U.S. outside of Japan. I love the Smash. Smash is a fantastic mechanical pencil. Something it's one I rate really highly. I got to say these colors are just average compared to like some of the other like limited edition Smash colors I have, but like I could go for the pink and black one, you know, little bring back the Barbenheimer from a
year ago. Like I could probably go for that one. So that looks good. Two years ago, man. Two years ago. Yeah. Two years ago. Last is kind of a combo meal. So Zebra Sarasa clip. They did a coffee set with various shades of brown, like a five ink color set with coffee themed. So they have like the kettle and the cup and then they just have latte. And what's the other one? Macchiato written on the barrel. I don't necessarily love that. All the little writing on the barrel. I absolutely hate the writing.
Like I like the designs. The word latte on the pen and macchiato. It just, just abysmally bad. It's not great. The iconography is fun on the other ones, but it's like, how do you do a latte? I don't know. Just write latte on it. It's like, okay, I'm not sure that we really thought this one through, gang. Yeah. They could just do the more curved cup and I don't know. They could have done a better job, but I like the colors, right? I'm here for the ink colors. They's like five shades of different browns and
golds and things like that. So this one, while that one's just kind of basic, this one kind of blew my mind. I had to like double and triple read this. This is also a zebra Sarasa clip set. And you look at the picture, you see a black red blue pen and then four shades of like orange and yellow. I'm like, what, why is this a set? Like, why is this a set? But it actually, it's a study set. And if you flip through, it's basically a kind of index card, like hidden feature, right? So it comes with like these
different, I don't know, like plastic sheets that hide some of the, it's like a red sheet that hides some of the ink on the page. So you can quiz yourself. It's basically for students, right? So you can write down a question in the dark ink and then write down the answer in the orange or yellow ink. And then when you're ready to go back and quiz yourself, you put the red sheet over the question. You can still read the question in the dark ink, but it hides the answer because it's like matching the color.
Like this is not like, this is not anything new, but you know, there's been products like this for years, but zebra selling this as a little set, which I thought was kind of funny when I saw that, I saw that land on my Instagram. Out of context, it was very strange. So what is going on with the orange? It really confused. I had to like dig into this when I was like, what? I don't understand what is happening. And then I finally got to, I finally got there with the, with the little sheets. So anyway, it's like,
I don't know that you're talking to orange fans over here. We love orange, but like, what are we doing? Putting that in that makes sense. Yeah. Like the, the, the collection of colors was, it's very odd. It's like, we could just do like one, like one orange, I think would work like in this set, but then there's like, just couldn't design. It's basically the, the range, the coffee range, but like more confined into four pens. Like it's like not a lot of range in these, in these products. So anyway, I thought that
was funny. All right, let's do one final sponsor and then we'll get into some Ask TPA questions to finish out today's episode. Today's show is brought to you by Factor. I don't know about you, but fall feels like a little bit of a reset time. Everyone's getting back into busier routines. Kids are going back to school. And when you add that to shorter days, finding time to cook can be tough. That's why so many people love Factor. Their chef prepped dietitian approved meals make it easy to stay on track and enjoy something
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What? Chimichurri filet mignon. Okay. Citrus moho shredded chicken and coconut rice. I don't even know what that means. It's so exciting. Potato leek mash and grilled chicken. Now we're talking. Oh, yeah. Garlic rosemary chicken breast fusilli. Like, how do you even pick? This is just, you know, like the best lunches you could have. You know, you have zero. We're eating over here at the Pen Addict household. Be eaten. Yeah. We're factored. You'll be eaten. Like, I'm gonna hide these from the rest of the family.
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Relay. All right. You want to hit some ass TPA? You know I do. First comes from Ken who says, I'm looking for a 9x7 exercise book cover recommendation. I have found to my surprise that cheap square ruled exercise books typically used in schools are excellent for fountain pens. I like Sylvine or Hamlin 5mm grid. I'm looking for a cover that makes them more suitable to use in a professional setting before potentially buying them in bulk. I'm sure there is something suitable out there. However, search results are
crowded out by simple plastic covers or covers for textbooks or novels. What I think Ken should do because you know this is a school book is to do what I used to do in school and buy some wrapping paper and make your own car.
Is that professional though? Yeah. I guess it depends on the paper. Professional wrapping paper. Just do it seasonal. Seasonal wrapping paper. Or you can get wrapping paper that looks like leather you know pretends to be leather and you could just wrap it yourself you know. Yeah. Yeah. So the challenge here is of course the dimensions right. So the dimensions are kind of like you mentioned like your school books like your composition notebooks are in this range but it's not necessarily a standard that
you're just going to go out and be able to click a bunch of options. options. So when you have these it's not necessarily like a highly specific but it's not a highly specific size but it's not something that's widely just easily easily where I can just point you to you. Oh yes go go grab one of these and you'll be good to go. You go to Etsy and you're going to have to find someone to custom make you something to fit the right size and right scale and then you can get the style that you want. You know you can get some
leather some faux leather some fabrics whatever style just look for that dimension and see who's making things and then reach out to them. I wish I could just give you a link to click through and say here's all the choices in the world and maybe someone someone would know better than me for like a nine by seven. But as Ken has said he's found like you don't find anything if you just search for that and go oh here's this brand and they do these nine by sevens or covers for nine by sevens right you're going to have to get you're
going to have to dig in to get a little custom custom made action going in on these and that's if you're just wanting like something this specific of a color of a cover you're just going to have to get into like a specific maker to make you some.
Justin writes in and says I would love your recommendation for a notebook. I've been using Midori MD for years but I like seeing ink colors better on white paper. Iroful shows off colors great but I don't like the paper feel and feedback as much. Would the Midori MD cotton give me the same paper quality but lean more white instead of ivory? I basically want a Midori MD with white paper. Does anything like this exist? P.S. I'm listening to the outro at the end of each episode Mike and I appreciate your efforts.
We got a few people Brad wrote in to let me know that they listened to the end of the episodes. Oh just just wait. We have end of the episode content today that I'm holding for you. Oh good news. Good news. Good news. Good news. So to Justin the answer is no. The Midori MD cotton is not going to give you the same paper quality but lean more white instead of ivory. It's not as good of a quality of paper. It's fine but it's a little bit more absorbent. I've done a review. If you go look at my MD review the
the paper is slightly more saturated. It's not when you think of cotton you think it's going to be terrible. Uh it's actually really good for fountain pens but it's not going to give you that color range you want with a white base. Um the best thing I've used recently is unfortunately the notebook I keep raving about and that's why I like it so much. It's the Life A5 but I ordered it from Hachimanjia because they Life's standard paper is more cream ivory colored. This one's a more almost stark white
base. It's not quite stark white in that same Midori style soft cover tape binding gray five millimeter grid. It's it's glorious. It's worth ordering from overseas but I don't know what the tariff situation is. Um like the Rhodia is great for showing off ink. I prefer the Rhodia Ice versions because the stock Rhodia with the orange covers the purple grid or the purple dot depending on the format that you like is really really dark. Like it almost gets in the way of your lines. But the ice the Rhodia Ice is really
really good. It's a gray graph or a gray dot depending on what you prefer. And that's awesome for fountain pen inks. Um it's going to show it off really really well. So um yeah I would look at like the Rhodia Ice versions to get something that shows off ink and has a starker white color. So that's probably my my best bet for that. Uh Steve writes uh no we do DigiBird writes in. I'm going to get Steve in a second. DigiBird says that I got a Kaweco pocket brass ballpoint that uses a D1 refill. The refills I've used from them have
been disappointing in terms of hard starts, dry feeling overall and a lackluster red color that I need to put in it. Do you have any red suggestions for a nice vibrant rich red that flows well? Does Jetstream do the D1 in red? Question mark. Um Jetstream is my D1 refill of choice. They do black and blue. Let me see if they do red. Uh because I don't know offhand. Uh they do. Uh yeah. Uh yeah they do D1s in red and 5mm and 7mm. I'm looking on Jetstream. Uh excuse me Jetpens. Jetstream Jetpens. One of the two.
Um yeah like your your choices are limited um for this answer. The only other option and I'm only saying this because people might see it out there and go oh yeah this is exactly what I want and I'm going to tell you not to buy it is Zebra's D1 gel ink refills. You're going to get a nice red gel ink and then tomorrow you're going to replace the refill and then you're going to use that refill up today and then the next day you're going to replace the refill and they're like twice as much. So as much as I love the Zebra gel
ink D1 refills you go the ink gel ink is not made for that small of a refill capacity. You just burn through it like you've lit it on fire and it just goes. So go with the Jetstream D1 refill that's going to be your best bet especially for a color like red. It's still it that's I think that's the only choice to be perfectly honest. Steve asks I'm a reporter and a pen and paper addict. I usually use a 4x8 spiral bound reporter's notebook and a rollerball or ballpoint but two of the three major reporter's notebook makers have
gone out of business and I'm searching for a replacement. It needs to be compact enough to hold in hand while writing standing up and generally affordable. Any ideas? Yeah.
I'm looking around. I'm trying to see if I can get this one that I just ordered. So Morimon does a really interesting shape that is that would it's not marketed as a reporter's notebook and I'm trying to find it real quick. They do so many different size sizes and shapes. I'm trying I want to get get the correct answer for you. So I'm going to vamp and talk and say that I love Morimon products so much. Here it is. The problem is you're coming to a show that's not necessarily going to give you the cheapest option.
Yeah. I'll give you the best performing option. So this is the N186. So it's and I'll give Mike the link to this. I got it. Show notes. I got it. It is. Let me give you the shape here. It is 6.3 inches by 3.9 inches. Right. It's funny because they call it a landscape notebook. They do. But it's a grid paper. So you would just use this vertically. So I'm going to use this notebook vertically. I just ordered one of these and I am not going to use it landscape. You just it's grid. So it can be in any orientation.
Right. And it's a flip top spiral bound flip top. It's got insanely good quality paper. Right. So, you know, and if you're just using rollerballs and ballpoints, a lot of you can find a lot cheaper options to use. That would be something fun to look at. Again, it's not cheap. It's it can be these are going to be expensive at what eight bucks a pop. And then you have the I don't know what the field notes made their reporters notebook stock. Yeah. Which is a little bit longer. I was going to recommend it.
And it's called the front page. The front page. What is the cost on those? $16.95 for a two pack. So essentially the same price. Exceptional quality. Really good with fountain pens. At least the ones I've used in the past. I mean, not that you're using fountain pens for this. Those were designed by a journalist. Right. To have the proper size and feel. Again, premium. I don't really know a less expensive like bulk option that you could get. This would be something that like wisdom of the crowds would be good.
If you have like a bulk option reporter style notebook that's, you know, long and skinny and able to use and durable enough to be used like standing up, held in hand, like traditional notebook style. The ones that we've recommended are kind of pricey. So I get that. But dang, they're good. They're so good. So. Yeah. The field notes one is what I would have jumped to. Yeah. Because. Yeah. I mean, they're a brand that continues to be successful and they know this and they've made it a part of their
permanent lineup. So it's probably something you can rely on for a while. Yeah. And it's actually made to be the thing. But yeah, it might not be the shape that you're looking for. Yeah. It's a good shape. It's it's longer than the Mormon like vertically, like taller. Yeah. So. And last question comes from Mark today who asks, I asked you about getting a grind done on a Sailor King of Pen. I love the pen, but the nib is a fire hose. I have a two part question. One. Why do you think Sailor doesn't make
anything finer than a medium in the King of Pen size nib? And two. A nibmeister can reduce the line, but can they reduce the wetness of a nib like this? The KOP nib is is a special little bird. I think it's just too big, right? Like. Yeah. It's too big and too soft, which is why Sailor doesn't make anything finer than a medium, because given the what would you call the size of that nib? Not the volume of the nib, but like that the area of the nib. Yeah. For a 21K nib of that area, which is insanely large, you cannot help but
have the tine split when you write. Yeah. So you need a medium or a broad tipping to manage that line, that tine spread when you're writing to essentially have the line act normal. You're going to have a worse time with a finer nib on that pen because it's still going to spread. You're not going to get necessarily what you want unless you have the lightest, most feather touch ever. And I think you're still going to have a challenge, right? It's a, it's just the size and softness of that nib is why they
don't do it. Could a nibmeister do it? Yes. I don't know that you're going to enjoy it. Right. Because I don't know how much they could reduce the wetness of that volume of feed. Right. So the volume of feed and the area of nib are working against everything you want the KOP nib to be. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it's actually probably risky. And I would want to find if anyone's done this and find some test to use before I ruin that nib because that is insanely, that would be an insanely
expensive mistake. To do with the king of pen. I, I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm thinking like you just don't want to go get this done or what a nibmeister even do it. I think this actually might be a candidate of getting turned down for what you want because you're going to have a bad time. They're trying to protect you. Right. Yeah. And themselves. Right. Because it's like that you're asking them to do a thing. They do a thing and it's bad. And then it's like, well, yeah, now what? Yeah.
So like nib softness is the enemy of a fine line. Right. It's like you have to like I've got needlepoint gold nibs and then they're okay, but I would rather have a needlepoint on a steel nib because it's not going to move. Right. And then I get the results of a needlepoint. So, yeah, like it's, it's a challenge. So. All right, Mike, can I, can I take us out this week before you do the full wrap up? Yeah. Okay. All right, Mike, we got some feedback from. Okay. Hey, cake. In the last episode. So this is episode 690 feedback.
I got an email here says in the last episode, Mike mentioned something about people not listening to the end of the podcast. This reminded me of something that Brad may not even be aware of. There was a period of time when listening to the end of the live broadcast meant hearing some extra audio from Mike. After Brad would leave the recording, Mike would stay on and sometimes say a few things. Yeah. This is all new to me. At some point, I decided to start writing these down. Oh, no. I went digging.
Oh, God. I went digging around and found my notes. So here's what I wrote down from that time period from the end of 21 to the beginning of 22. I want to make this just abundantly clear so people understand what is going on here. So we record the show live every week, right? And people are listening live in the discord. I am streaming my microphone and your audio, right? So they hear it. When you leave, I have to turn off the stream. And I did this for a while. Sometimes still do. There might be a reference or a song
that we've referenced and maybe I'll sing a little bit to the audience or something and then cut it off. So, yeah, that's the thing that I have done and used to do more. So let me put these on the record, Mike. This is amazing. Amazing feedback.
So I'm not going to they list out all the dates on these and I'm not going to list out all the dates. I'm just going to read the saying. So these are these are these are post show comments from Mike. Everything in life has an ending, including this podcast. Wow. Jesus. Okay. Hello. I was having a bad day that day, I guess. Next one is in a whisper voice. Stone paper sucks. Stone paper does suck. So I'll say that one loud. The next one is pens. Yeah. The next one is pens. Those are back to back episodes.
What I probably did there is sometimes I'd say things like that, like long and that cut halfway through. So I'm like, pen. Yeah. The next one, which I appreciate, I have never heard. I didn't know this was a thing, by the way. This is all new to me. The next one is who can be mad at Brad? And so I appreciate that. Then we have OK by now. And then this parenthetical before what you said in a British Southern US accent, jet pans. Jet pans. Jet pans.
The next one, also parenthetical, very well enunciated pens. Okay. Then we have butter smooth. Butter smooth. Next is also this is not a removable sticker. It's a single wrap around the pen. Who let this out the door? That could be for a lot of things. We've talked about that a lot. And remember, this is the 2021 to 2022 time frame, which is good for the next one. Scribble forever. Yeah. So classic there. The next one is just pens said said quickly. The next one is long pause than singing and it's gone, gone, gone.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is great. How many more are there, Brad? Two more. Two more. Okay. Next one is take me back to the ball game. Yeah. And then the last one on this list is that guy's a real joker. That guy is a real joker. And then there were no more. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Love the podcast. Thank you, Matthew. That was amazing. I don't know where that's coming from. Right. Like, is Matthew listening live? Are they recording the live stream and listening later? Who could say? Look, this is just one of those
reminders that you can't do anything on the internet without somebody paying attention to it. I never really assumed that anybody would be recording these secret messages. So good. If you would like to get the show notes for this week's episode, find them in your podcast app. It should be in there. If it isn't, get a new podcast app. Honestly. Yeah, really. If you're not showing the links, what are we doing? I can't live without show notes. I yell at other podcasts how I have show notes without links.
What are you doing? Oh, so bad. Or like when they just put it in the show notes, it never do. Relay.fm slash penaddicts 691 is where you can find that. You can find Brad online over at penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me at theenthusiast.net, cortexbrand.com. Are you doing anything for Black Friday? I might do some penaddict stuff for Black Friday. Spoke, we've never done a discount, so we're just going to keep trucking along. I'm thinking about it. I think I'm going to do it.
Yeah. I think I'm going to do some penaddict shop stuff. We'll do probably after Black Friday, probably starting either like the Saturday. I don't know. Probably starting Saturday or Cyber Monday. We'll do a short little penaddict shop thing. At Relay right now, we're doing a holiday season annual discount. So you can go to giverelay.com if you want to get a membership to a Relay show for 20% off for a year. Go to giverelay.com and you can find out more about that. I'd like to thank Factor, Enigma Stationery
and Squarespace for the support of this episode. But most of all, I'd like to thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.