The Pen Addict 703/transcript

From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 703. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke Hurley, and welcome to our 2026 F1 livery rankings. All right, at number one, we have Haas. Number one, we have Haas. You know what? It's good. Yeah. It's good livery. It's solid. Solid. Number two, Myke. Okay. This is a controversial list, probably, but it's my list. It's the streamer's list. The hacked, washed streamer. Williams, number two.

I like the Williams. I wouldn't number two it, but I like it. Mm-hmm. Number three, Alpine. Oh, you're so wrong. Unbelievable. Blue and pink fam here. Unbelievable. Blue and pink fam here. Number four, Red Bull. Shocker. No, you know, the Red Bull. I usually have them lower. Red Bull's good, because they've been it shiny. However, when you see, I don't know if you've seen it on track, Brad. It's not so shiny on track. Don't know what they're doing. It's not so shiny. It's not as good on track. Number five, McLaren,

and that's with a plus one for orange. It's not that good this year. It's mid. Matt, I've got to say, you are just, like, completely orange-pilled, because there's no need to put it up that high when there are clear, better ones. Like, it's fine, you know, but, like, they didn't do anything. Yeah, I put no thought into this. I literally did it live on stream yesterday. This was the list. Number six, Audi. Yeah, solid. I love, love the Audi. I love the Audi. I think it is one of the, honestly, one of the best liveries

I've ever seen. I'm actually mad they've already changed the side pod, so there's less lava red now. I don't care. Like, it looks sick. I know. I love it. Number seven, Ferrari. I like the Ferrari. I like it better than last year. That's a high rating compared to last year. Yeah. Number eight, and this makes me a little bit sad, the Merc. I think the Mercedes is way better than you're giving it credit for. Yeah. I can't quite get there. Well, that's one that could change on track. There's a lot going on. It could change on track. There is a lot going on on the Mercedes.

It is, especially on the back. But I like it a lot. Yeah. Number nine, Cadillac. Yeah, they didn't bring it, did they? What if we did two? Yeah. What if we did two? Hey, I got an idea. Hey, so do I. I have an idea. Why not both? They failed by not having a splash of color on their livery, a stripe. They have the burgundy red and a gold in their badge. They need a stripe. So number 10, Aston Martin. Sucks. It's such a let. They have such, so they're graded on a scale based on their past five years of liveries. And this one fell

flat. I think their first one was really good. It was like shiny, had loads of like the yellow in it as well as the green. Yeah, they've fallen off. Yeah. Number 11, Red Bull. Excuse me, RB. Yeah. The Baby Bulls. It's, I usually rate them highly, especially from the Alpha Tori days when they actually did something different. Yeah. Last year's was really good. They've fallen. Last year's was fine. It's kind of like pulled back from that. I liked the all white last year. Yeah. This is basically like we're falling in line with like the basics

now. And therefore, there's no elite, elite livery and there's no horrible livery. They're all right there in the middle section. They're all like B plus liveries. Well, I would say the Audi is elite, but I know that that is a controversial take. Like it's so much that there are people that definitely agree with me and then there are people that definitely don't. I don't think anyone is kind of like in the middle about that one. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And that concludes. I try to do this as fast as possible. I love it. Thank you so much. I have no idea. This is a surprise for me.

I'm so excited. I thought you're going to cut me off maybe and was like, yeah, this is a pen podcast. We talk about color and design. I want to do this. Like I want to do this content, but no one will let me. You know what I mean? I just want to talk to you about it one all the time. Are you excited for the season? Oh, yeah. It's the I was just thinking, you know, I watch all the testing and do all that stuff. The first race is going to be a mess. It's going to be so bad. Oh, I can't wait. Yeah. In a good way. Yes. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be just seeing all the troubles. An engine will explode in the first race. That is my bad. It's going to be bad. Something. So an engine, an A car is going to explode because I think, well, there are five engine manufacturers. That's too many variables. Yeah. I can't wait. And last year it took rain and Isaac Hyadjar not getting out the formation lap to make it an interesting race. This year, it's just going to be off the chain. It's going to be fascinating. It's a shame. I mean, just for us, it's a shame it's in Australia. I actually really like Albert

Parker's track, but it's just on so early. It's so like I have to watch it on delay, but I'll be fine. Last year it was fine because I was awake at four o'clock in the morning last year because my baby had just been born. True. So it was great. The beginning of the season all being like in like in like Australasia was fantastic for me because I was able to watch it all. Yep. Loved it. All right. So to get into the actual pen podcast that we're recording today, the pen I use to write this down. I don't even remember. I use the Midori MD notepad.

I have the little square notepad. That's just for like scraps of paper on my desk. And someone asked me this yesterday and like I literally did this off the cuff. Oh, I know what I use. I use the Uniball 1F, which is good because we're going to talk about this today. So I want to do a little follow up on what we're using. And this is a double follow up from the Creative Refills podcast I was on, which we shouted out last week. The Plotter podcast. I basically built a kit to use with my Plotter Narrow, which is my work plotter. So that's

my primary one. And I've noticed I haven't, I use fountain pens like kind of for the scheduling part, like my weekly schedule I put out. We'll talk about what I, one of the things I used this week for that, but for just kind of like the day to day, I'm going to grab a Secura Pigma Micron. I did a test for myself recently where I tried the O2 size, which is 0.3 millimeter. I prefer the point, the O3, which is 0.35 millimeter on the Micron. So I'm actually going to switch to the O3. That's not confusing. No, not at all. The O2, I think I talked about

it on a recent, recent show. The O2 is just slightly more fragile than I want, right? The smaller the tip on these, these types of pens, they can get really fragile. So O3 is kind of the sweet spot in fineness and durability for me, but I thought it might be too. It was not. The aforementioned Unibial 1F, 0.38 millimeter, black gel ink. It's fantastic. And the Pentel P205 fluorescent orange, which I've talked about a bunch recently. So no need to belabor that, but I have this little kit and it's just like fineliner.

How do you keep that kit together? Literally sitting on my desk next to each other. Oh, they're not in like a pencil case or... So I have been using my superior labor. It's called the Pen Wallet or it might just be called the Wallet. It's not a very common thing. It's the one I picked up at Wonderpins back when we went to Toronto together. You may or may not recall that, but that's what's in the picture on my Instagram. I mean, that's not in the picture on my Instagram, but I will share a picture of it. It's about the size of the Plotter Nero. It's just kind of a cool

case. I kind of keep those in there. But I don't move around that much, so they're pretty much just on my desk. But they have prime territory on the desk, literally at hand. There's at hand tools and then there's kind of stashed tools. These are at hand, if you will. Yes.

Mike's just like, I'm just totally going with whatever. No, I will. I agree. I like that. I have the same. I literally have dozens of pens at my desk, but there's only a little handful. Yes. I have right now, I have like a pen holder thing that's got like 12 pens in it, but I've got another five pens right in front of me because these might be the ones I need at any moment and that has to be there. They're at hand. Yep. But the at hand pens are the primary tools that I'm using. I have a few. I only have

three fountain pens inked up. I just did a cleaning, just to kind of get down to like some of the core ones that I'm using recently. The most recent is the Franklin Kristoff model 46 in Olive A. It's kind of a translucent olive green. It's beautiful. And I was gifted recently a bottle of ink, the Mont Blanc Star Walker Polar Green ink. It is like a nuclear green and it's very legible and I like it. I didn't think it was going to be as legible as it is. So we have a couple of examples of me writing with it. Super enjoyable. I'm actually shocked at how much I can

read this and how much I'm enjoying it. Pilot Custom 74 Teal is kind of just like solid as a rock product. It's one of those like I inked it up weeks ago to kind of rate it. I do these Panatic ratings for Panatic members where I rate specific products and it basically just outkicks anything. anything, right? I don't understand why I enjoy it so much, but I just do because it's a basic plastic pen. Like I actually, when I was writing it up, I actually kind of dogged it. You know, I was like, just to be clear, this is a gold nib on a plastic stick, which is not untrue, but it just works. It

feels good. It's solid. It's beautiful. You know, I like looking at it. I do have a nib grind on it. Still pens to their component parts like that because you end up with just the same spot always. Exactly. Exactly. It's precious resin, Mike. There you go. Hand milled by artisans. Artisanal precious resin. Yes. But yeah, it's, it's, I think the nib grind like sets it even apart from a pen that I enjoy already to just a pen that I really want to use. And I used a Pilot turquoise cartridge in there, which is not

something you hear about very often, but these are the cartridges that they will often market with the Pilot Parallel. This is kind of where you've gotten the purple in the past, right? It's a, they often say like Pilot and mixable, but they're just basic good fountain penning cartridges. And this is how you get Pilot turquoise. You can't buy it in a bottle, but you can buy it in like a six pack of cartridges and they have, I don't know, six or eight colors, right? For the Pilot Parallel. So just your standards, orange, green, purple, turquoise, things like that. Last one, Sailor Pro Gear

Mini Mouette is the official name. I call it the seagull because that's what Mouette means, I believe. It's just a great small pen with an extra fine Sailor nib and a Sailor Nano black ink cartridge. Like this is basically my Uni 1F 0.38 millimeter black gel ink pen in a fountain pen version, right? It has this tiny, tiny fine, great black ink line. Sailor Nano black is a wonderful black ink, dark ink. It's just great. It's great. That's like the kind of the three fountain pens I've been using the most here

recently. So everything else got cleaned recently. So I thought it was a good time to just break down kind of what, what stayed the course. And I just love these, love these pens. And, um, yeah, it's kind of good of a good breakdown of everything. It's like one of each almost, you know, without even, I didn't, without intending to do that, like, but that's kind of how I use things anyway. Right. I want to have one of kind of everything around and in use, whether it's a pencil, gel ink pen, the only thing missing now that I look back at the list is like a ballpoint, but that's

okay. I have enough. That's kind of the, the micron will kind of take over from like a jet stream ballpoint from time to time. Those things swap out where the gel, a gel ink pen will always kind of stay. The micron might swap out. It might be jet stream time. So something like that. But anyway, that's kind of what I'm using. What are you using? Well, I want to say that, that, um, Mont Blanc ink looks amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Like really, really amazing. Yeah. It's again, better readability than expected and not just by a little bit. It's like eminently readable,

like no issue at all reading this on the couple of papers that I've used it on so far. I'm using it in my plotter this week and it's great. So, so I went to the Mont Blanc website and I saw at the bottom that they had a Muhammad Ali pen. Oh, I think I've heard part of their collections thing. Great characters, they call it. And then I wanted to see what else they had, um, in that category. And I was taken to their collectibles page and I sorted by price. Now this is in pounds. All right. Okay. You've made all the mistakes just for the record. This is a pen called the high artistry,

a journey through Chateau de Versailles limited edition. Number three. This pen is available only in boutiques. I want you to just guess how much money a pen could cost. I'm going to go. This is in pounds and pounds, 49,000 pounds. Yeah. Okay. You want to try again? That's low. You're nowhere near buddy. Are you serious? I'm dead. Does it come with like a little palace of Versailles like play set? I mean, that would be sick. It probably should. I'm trying to like shockingly little detail here. Uh, for, for this. So the king says,

Mont Blanc takes a tour, stunning journey, bringing the magic of the Chateau to life. This edition draws gaze from the spectacular hall of mirrors. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. The jury artists have transposed the majesty radiating from the heart of the palace onto this limited edition by skillfully applying faceted enamel inlays to enhance the cap and barrel of the solid gold writing instrument. Um, breathtakingly fine miniatures depict, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Um, since I'm not close, we'll go with 124,000 pounds.

You are not close. Come on. This pen, this pen on the Mont Blanc's website. Now, again, you have to obviously order in the boutique. Costs 842,500 pounds. Come on, man. I would have never gotten there. 842,000 pounds, Brad. 842,000 pounds. What are we doing? No pen in the world should cost that amount of money. What is happening? They have other ones that are like $346,000. There are multiple pens here that are a six figure cost. Unbelievable stuff. Yeah. I don't even get a play set with this. Like I want to, I want to like Versailles garden with this.

I don't get it. Like a display set. I'm looking at it now. I would even looking at this. I still wouldn't guess it. It's, it's lined with diamonds though. Like I'm assuming those are real diamonds. Is that, is that what that is? I mean, this is the thing. It doesn't say.

Isn't that incredible? I have, I have held a million dollar fountain pen before, which was a diamond encrusted fountain pen done by Aurora. I did an interview with, excuse me, it wasn't Aurora. Yeah, it was Aurora. They were traveling through LA to go hand deliver the, the pen to somewhere in the Middle East, some salt or something. Oh, I remember this now. Yeah. And I got to, I got to. Yes. I remember this now. Wow. That was like 10 years ago nearly. Oh, easy. Easily. Yeah. So now that's like a $3 million pound fountain pen probably. Yeah. This is crazy.

Yeah. I think it's like all these diamonds that it's got hundreds of diamonds on it. That's crazy. Unhinged. Okay. Right. Oh, I just wanted to, I was just going to look at the color of the ink and then I got lost. Never to be found again. Just to blow y'all's mind, this ink is expensive and it's $50, right? That's a pretty expensive bottle of ink for like what we do. Where does the Starwalker name come from? I know we've spoken about this before. They do a series, kind of like a space, not, not space series, almost like a Northern Lights type of series.

Yeah. Yeah. And there, I think it actually the Starwalker is now that I think about the Starwalker is older. The Starwalker is the lineup with the clear dome on top of the pen instead of the snow cap. So those are under the Starwalker lineup to where it does not have the snow cap and they do different features under that dome, if you will. And this one happened to be like kind of a Northern Lights type of one, but they've done the Starwalker for years. How's that? It's just a separate, it's a, it, I think it was designed as a less, a lower price lineup, right?

Still very expensive, right? But not as expensive as the classic 146, 149 lineup. I think they were like the tier below that. I could be very wrong. I'm not a Montblanc expert, but I do recall them being priced lower. But now when they do the special editions, like all bets are off, right? This green ink came from this, this polar, polar one. So I just, the name surprises me. Like you would just figure Lucasfilm just had that completely locked up. Yeah. It's not Skywalker and it's, I purposely. Oh my gosh, yes.

Ignore what I'm saying. You know what? But still. No, I'm mixing in with Starkiller, which was the original name. But it's also Star Wars Skywalker. Yep. Star Walker is in the context. It's very close, but I guess it's not close enough. That's funny. And that's, that's why I wrote it in the document in like the camel case that they do. Like that's how Montblanc does it. Yep. So Star and Star Walker is one word, but with a capital W in the middle. Yep. And polar green is one word with a capital G in the middle.

That's how they did it on their site. So that's how I copied it. Intercap, I think that's cool. But yeah, I like. Intercap. The name Star Walker is good, but it's so funny that I just keep reading it and see Skywalker, Skywalker, Skywalker. Totally. Over and over and over again, even though I'm saying it correctly. It's definitely a trick. Yeah. You know, like a mental trick. Yeah. And it's lightsaber green. Yeah. All the, it's literally the Star Wars product. But Lucasfilm is going to have to sue Montblanc and that would be a fun case to follow.

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All right, Mike, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week. From the pen cup, my good friend Mary always does the most thoughtful posts. You know, puts me to shame. I'm talking about on the penaddict like, ooh, this pen bad. And Mary's like, this is how these tools change my life. I'm like, yeah, that's the good stuff. But Mary cost me some money this week on a product that she was raving about and a product that I've been very curious about. So we're going to hold that thought. But you should go.

We'll have a link to this post from the pen cup that Mary wrote, which was great. There's a certain product in here, Mike, that we're going to dig into later in this episode. So let's blame Mary for what's about to transpire later in this episode. Okay, I'm looking forward to it. Right. So I have a list of stuff, too. Yep. That I've been using. I don't have a top 10 list or anything to do. Although I did, I guess, distract the show with a $840,000 Mont Blanc, which will happen from time to time. I mean, I literally did a livery thing that was not in the show notes.

Exactly. So I have a selection of things. I feel like I've done a little bit of a tour today of the stationery that is available to me here at the studio. Vastly different set of things. Mostly pencils, though, because that seems to be the way that I live my life these days. I'm going to start out with the Unikuru Toga, but specifically the Donald Duck version that I bought years ago that I don't think is available anymore. But you need to, they're always doing collaborations, Disney being one of them.

But I love it. I have a, I think I have a Donald, a Mickey, and a Minnie. They did like a three. Yeah. They did three of them, and I bought all of them because I thought they looked great. So question, a general question. When, let's just keep it stationary world. In stationary world, when they do Disney collaborations, why is Donald always the best one? Because Donald is.

Like, the Donald Duck, like, accessories and things I see just come out so much better. I guess maybe because we see Mickey and Minnie so much more frequently, like at a higher ratio. But the Donald ones always just hit. I love Donald. They're just always executed. Donald's my dude. Like, he's my number one, you know. I'm a big Donald Duck guy. Yeah, and this one's no different. Like, the Donald Duck ones just hit. Yep. I got some great Donald stuff. It was Donald's, like, anniversary recently. Like, a bunch of characters are having anniversaries, right?

Because it's kind of like around the similar-ish time. It's been like big milestones, like 70, 75 years, that kind of stuff. Wow. And they did a bunch of great merch, and I bought some of it, and it was so good. Yeah. Studio Neat Mark III. Unbeatable mechanical pencil. Just beautiful. What color do you have? I have a couple of them. I have one in white and one in green. Okay. I think I have the white one. They don't do the white one anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that was from the launch. So, my white one was the Kickstarter campaign.

And then I recently got the green one, which I love the green one. Oh, that's a good color. Yeah. They have orange, but I think this pink might. This pink is pretty strong. Red, gold, and silver. I don't have the orange Mark I, but I have the orange cane, the knife, and the orange that they use is really nice. Yeah, I have the orange Mark I literally sitting right here. Right.

Well, they do. Well, it depends what orange Mark I you're talking about. This was the limited one. This is not that orange. This is the fluorescent-y one. Yeah, this is the Cerakote, like, crazy orange limited one. Yeah, sorry. The orange, the standard orange, more of like a burnt orange. Correct. Correct. You're right. And then I obviously used a fountain pen today, and the one that I chose today is the Sailor Pro Gear Japan Blue, which was a special edition that Wancho made, which is like a really weird pen in a bunch of ways.

It's regular Pro Gear sized, but uses a Pro Gear slim-sized nib, and it's covered in a hand-hammered steel. Yeah. It's just a killer pen. This pen is unbelievable. Yeah. Like, you did so good with this pen, because I've gotten to try it. You let me, like, when I've seen you in the past. Yeah. It also has a magnet cap, if I'm not mistaken, right? No. Is it magnetized somewhere? No. It just snaps. It's just got a good snap. It's a snap. Yeah, there's like a tiny little- Oh, no, maybe it's threaded.

I don't know. Well, okay. It's threaded to the grip section, but there's a snap on the back. Okay. Maybe that's what it is. Yeah, it doesn't sleeve in, because, like, that's the design of the pen. It wouldn't work. To see all this handiwork. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a good pen. It's a great, it's really great. I love this pen. I mean, it's still available, and I think it's limited now. Maybe it's just available in the fine. I have mine in a medium, obviously. But, yeah, this was one that I fell in love with when I saw it years ago.

Oh, yeah. You instabbed this one. It's just so different to other Pro Gears, because it's really heavy. It really is. And Sailor, traditionally, when they go outside of their traditional shapes, they don't always hit it. They did on this one. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. But I think it's, I think this is only available through Wancher. I think this is like a collab that they did. Yeah. Really, just a superbly good pen. I love it. And then I've been, right now, what I'm using right now is a trusty pairing of my yellow Sidekick pocket and my yellow Leichterm Driggerfell number two.

Nice. That is a good pairing. Yeah. I'd say, yeah, that's kind of like a perfect pairing. That's a very, very highly rated pairing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't know what color is my favorite. Driggerfell, all of them is pretty much the answer. I like the green one a lot. I like the yellow one a lot. Yes. So I use a Build-A-Bear version that I have where, you know, you can put the parts together. Yep. I have that one. And then I just bought the neon green one that we talked about, the four neon colors that they did.

But they're only in the pens. They're only in the pens, so you're using the pencil. Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. I still don't completely understand why that pencil is so good. It also kind of isn't. It just is. Yes. That's part of the deal. Yeah. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. No. The ratcheting mechanism for a pencil, like, really shouldn't be a thing because it's almost, you can use it one-handed, but it's kind of almost like a two-handed deployment of the lead. And you don't really want that.

You just want a traditional knock. But I don't know. I mean, and also, it's like. It's the feel and size. The grip section is weird. Like, to me, there isn't really a good natural place to hold this pen or pencil. It's small. It's very small. It's strange. But boy, do I love it. Like, I love it. Same. Yeah. There's something about that one that really gets me. It's special. It might be better than the pens, and I love the pens. Yeah. Just in what it is. It's so weirdly good. Yeah. I don't get it.

That's one product I think about all the time because it just, it's like, this shouldn't be this good. And it is. I keep trying to, like, knock it somehow, but it's just that good. I can't believe how much I love that pencil. I think one of the things I really like about the pencil is that they didn't sacrifice any of the looks of the pen to make the pencil. Right. Right. And what's funny is, like, you know, I'm prone to buying multiples of all kinds of things. You know, I just got a new pen because it's neon green.

I don't need another pencil. Like, I'm not grabbing another pencil, but I'll keep buying the pens. But I don't know. That pencil is a really, really good product. Really good. Yeah. All right. Cool. All right. Let's hit this new release from Tactile Turn. What do you think about Abstract? It's their newest seasonal release. They do, like, a quarterly release. I'm actually curious what you think. I think it is very bold and, like, visually interesting.

For me, they were on a real kick that this one does not live up to. I think that's fair. And I think it's one of those things where that is just the way it has to go sometimes. Like, you can't... Exactly. You can't consistently go up. It's not... Right. It's not how things work. And, like, this is really good. But it's... Yeah. It is a dip from some of the kind of more, like, nostalgic retro gaming ones and stuff that they've been doing. Sure. I mean, like, the deep dive they just did with the on-off switch, like, their switch mechanism.

Exactly. This... That's like an S-tier type of release. Yeah. So, you have to follow that up. Yeah. When you're doing these quarterly releases. I think they killed it. I actually love this one because I like this aesthetic to, like, this should shock no one that I really like this one. I think where this one wins for me is the color that you can choose the color of the finial. But here's my problem. I want one pen and four finials. You want to be able to switch them out yourself? Yep. Yeah, I see that.

But that's... Well, Brad... To be clear, that's a Brad problem. Have you considered four pens? Have you considered that? I don't know. Yeah. Because, like, these are four, obviously, great colors that work together. You know, they're reminiscent of those Bauhaus colors that I like in products. Some products, like, you know, like, past Leuchterms or past Black Wings, you can get that all in a singular, you know, like, a singular pencil or a singular notebook with, like, multiple hints of these colors in the same product.

But I would have loved... Like, a step up, to your point, would have been one pen, four finials. That would have been in line with, like, just, like, pushing the needle every time you do it. But you can't do that, right? We talk about that with Field Notes. Like, not every release is a banger. This one's a banger to me. I actually might prefer this one over the Deep Dive, even though I'd say the Deep Dive rates, like, way higher than this one for most people. And it's also conceptual, like, it just worked really, really well.

Even though, as I said before, I don't like the direction of their switch, the off is on and on is off, but that's just, like, mechanics. Yeah, I do also think this one is really cool and visual and fun and striking. But to me, it's just, like, it doesn't have the same level of, like, kick that some of their other stuff has had. And which, if you've perfectly mentioned, is the Field Notes problem. They're all good, but some of them are, like, so good. And the thing, Tactile Turn has been on a... Oh, these are so good for months now.

Like, they've really been on, like, a good, good, good run. Generational. Yeah, it's a storytelling challenge, not a product challenge, right? The products are elite. Field Notes, Tactile Turn, whatever. You know, Studio Neat, right? But you just have to... Not every story is perfect for everybody, right? And that's the challenge you're up against as a creator. Yeah. Did you see the keyboard? That's... If you scroll down this page, did you see this? Yeah, I think I've seen it. That's cool. I like that one.

I couldn't use that. It would drive me nuts, but... It's upsetting, I think. Yeah. If I'm being honest. What do you call this art, that artwork? It's not the same type of artwork. What it reminds me of is the... I just call it the Borderlands artwork. I don't know what it's called. Yeah, it reminds me of AHA's Take On Me video. Sure. Not the pen, the keyboard. I think the pen is standalone different. It's just kind of a matching colorway. So anyway, I thought I'd point that out. You're the keyboard guy.

Yeah, it upsets me. You know, I have a thing about Tactile Turn, which I think is so cool, which is like, that looks such a big deal. I literally watched a video last night on YouTube that I subscribe to. I can't even think of the guy's name right now. And he was just doing like his EDC. And he had two tactile products. Yeah. He had a knife and a pen. Just completely out of the blue. They're a big deal. I love it. Makes me happy. Like, you know, I remember when they were starting out, you know, and it's just like,

they're just one of these brands now that has transcended the hobby, you know? Exactly. They're just like, everyone will buy these products because our products are so good and we're so inventive and like, we really speak to an audience. And what I like is that like, the audience that they speak to isn't the obvious audience as well, like, they don't make like 12 different camo pens a year. You know what I mean? Like, where like the obvious like EDC kind of like people that I think buy a lot of their

products, they could lean into that way harder. Or it's like, here's like 25 different versions of these stars and stripes. You know what I mean? Like, you could just really lean into that, but they don't. And I, obviously you should have an element of that. But like, they also like, hey, here's two different retro gaming console inspired ones. And this one's inspired by pirates and this one's inspired, you know, I just, I love that. I like that they're like subverting a little bit of like who they would necessarily be expected

to be. Right. Exactly. So I put a link, the guy, just the video that popped in my feed was like a five month old video about EDC. The guy's name is Josh Finn. I didn't, didn't, I don't know him at all, but I put that in the show notes for anyone interested. But, um, and you can scroll and find there, it's all like crazy, like gear stuff. So yeah, good stuff. Enjoyable videos. But yeah, he's like, he popped out the, the tactile knife company. I was like, oh, sick. And like, like, I know those guys.

And then like a couple segments later, he's like, and here's the pen that I live in. Like, and it was just like one of the standard bold action, like a titanium ones. So good stuff. Mike, where else can we find amazing pens? I'm so sorry. Oh, sorry. So the knives that's, they have a different brand name for that. I think it's just tactile knife co. Yeah, it is. It is. And it's a different brand. Different websites even. So I have a Ultim handle. Yeah. Blade that they sent me. That is absolutely sick.

It's definitely one of my favorites. Yeah, but you just want a knife in the name. Different category a little bit. I mean, they're obviously adjacent in, in concept, right? Carry tools, right? High quality carry tools. But like, I don't know. But they do some wild stuff on the knife stuff too. I just don't follow them closely. They also do a lot of like cross product stuff. Yes. Right. So we're going to have the knife version. I think they had a, they do a carryology one, which is a site that I follow pretty, pretty, pretty well over the past, I don't know, a long time, decade or something.

They have like collaborations with them. They do all kinds of great stuff. So yeah. I need to get over there one day. Next time I get to the Dallas Penn Show, like I have a standing invitation to go hang out with Will and see the shop and everything. I just haven't made it over there yet. Go there and let me know. I think that's so cool. I think they're a really cool company. Agree. They do cool stuff. I'm going to get to what you were mentioning now. This episode is brought to you by Penn Chalet.

They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, pen holders, inks, carrying cases, refills, converters, and everything you could possibly wish to live on your desk, in your pocket, in your bag. They have your favorite brands and they are always running discounts over at Penn Chalet. Every month you're going to find new styles of pens added and every couple of weeks you're going to find some new deals and new discounts. They do very fast and reliable customer service.

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Brad, why don't you let me know what's exciting to you over at Penn Chalet right now? Do you know why I rate the Alpine livery so high, Mike? I said it. Blue and pink. Blue and pink is the way to go. I know you're a green and pink guy. Green and pink is the ultimate combo, but you know. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. But blue and pink just kind of hits different for me. And they have this Bennu Loves Little Lark. This is one of the really interesting, almost like hand-painted style fountain pens at a crazy, crazy price.

It's kind of perfect for, you know, upcoming Valentine's Day. It's perfect for year-round use. I think the Euphoria is my favorite Bennu shape, not just because I made my Penn Addict pen in that shape. But I just really like the shape. The price is unbeatable, so y'all should go check that out. Staying with the pink theme, Mike, I don't think we talked about it last week, but it was on my list of all the pink and green things. The Pelican World Festival pen is a brand-new kind of pink and white and gold, gold-trim pen in the M200 shape, so the small shape with the steel nib.

It's just really beautiful. They did something different this time. And I'm not a huge, huge Pelican history fan, but they have, so I don't have, like, the knowledge, but they have, like, this debossed flower petal on the barrel. Just, like, a singular debossed petal. And I don't recall Pelican doing that before. And I think it's kind of neat. I don't know. Would I have liked to have seen, you know, 20 of those across the barrel? Maybe. But I kind of like the statement of the singular cherry blossom on there.

It's kind of cool. It's to the point where I don't get it. It's like, what are you doing? And it's like, I love this, I think. But it's fun. Lastly, this is always a popular release from Retro 51. Every year they do the rescue pens. They have a dog rescue and a cat rescue. So they have these new designs and, you know, portions, proceeds go to, like, dog and cat rescue, you know, partnerships that they've had over the years. These are always, always super popular when they came out.

I think, Mike, as a dog person, I think the cat one is the winner this year. There doesn't, there's, there's, everyone's a winner in charity focus pens. The dog one's very cute. I think the cat one. I think the cat one wins. And I'm a dog person. Because some of these cats are junkers and they're so good. I don't know. It's just super, super fun. It's what you want. It's what you want. So go check those out. Pinch LA always has, like, the newest and latest, like, from Retro 51. They are on top of the Retro 51 game.

If you're into those pens like we are and want to see what's going on with them, like, that is kind of like the first stop you should be making. So take us over to penshalet.com slash penaddict. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com slash penaddict. Check out these amazing deals. Get the code you need to save 10% on anything at Penshalet and support the show. Thanks to Penshalet. The image you just linked in our chat of the rescue cat. I don't know that you intended this, but this cat is having, like, he has got his dream bubble, right?

He's got, like, a chat bubble over his head. And it's just the fish bones. Wouldn't he be dreaming of, like, a fish he's going to chomp? This cat, he's dreaming of the moment in which he has finished eating the fish. He is a chonker. That's the best. This is the guy I'm talking about. And I'm like, some of these cats are chonks, and that's great. This is the one. So when you go to Penshalet, you'll see it. It's the hero image. You'll see the big chonker, and he's thinking of the fish. He's a very concerned look on his face about just bones.

Well, because he's like, when's the next fish coming my way? Because he's all about that life. That was such a good picture. Oh, my God. Okay. Let's talk Pentel Multi 8, Mike. Are you familiar with the Pentel Multi 8? Would you be surprised if I told you I was? I would not. Okay. Well, I'm not. I'm not familiar. I'm not familiar. I would not because this is a product, and I'm going to describe this for other people who are not familiar with it. This is a product that's been around for a long time, and it's a very – in the pre-social media days, this is a very visually striking product, right?

Even before we were inundated with just visual bombardment all these days recently, over the past couple decades. This is a product that's been around for a while. What it is is an eight-cartridge pencil, color pencil, okay? So picture a wide-diameter barrel up top. It holds eight LEDs of different colors in the barrel, and then you have a knock that essentially activates a clutch mechanism to drop down the color. Or say I want blue, so I just turn the clip over to blue, and then I hit the mechanism.

It releases the clutch and drops down the blue. So it's not like a mechanical pencil where you click, click, click, click to eject the LEDs. It's a clutch. So yeah, that's something – just like people have seen the Bic four-color pen, this is the popular pencil version of that for color pencils, color LEDs. I've avoided this product purposefully for as long as it's existed because I have an aversion to thin color pencil LEDs. I'm going to use the term LED even though these are not LED, right?

Graphite, whatever. This is just kind of like the general terminology, you know, pencil LEDs. The reason why I have an aversion to narrow color pencil LEDs is because the ratio of clay needed in the formulation to make a firm enough product not to be destroyed when the tip hits the page is higher than if you had a single wood barrel color pencil with a wide, you know, color LED inside. Right? Does that make sense? Yeah. So like these finer color LEDs, these are not like your regular pencil LED graphites where they can manipulate those graphites to be firmer or harder or softer.

And you still have the feeling of graphite on the page. Color pencils don't give you the feeling of graphite on the page, but I prefer some type of tactile feel on the page. Not, I'm going to feel kind of that, for lack of a better term, that traditional graphite feel with my color pencils as much as possible, knowing that it's not completely a one-to-one comparison because of the formulation, right? These have to be formulated to not break and not shatter when you hit the page where graphites can withstand that a little bit better.

So that's my longstanding. It's like, I don't need this because I'm going to hate these cores, basically. And it's an eight-slot pencil. Like, that's just a lot. Like, that's just too much. A lot of choice. Like, what? Yeah. Like, I don't know what's going on. Even though if I'm going to take these out to, let's say, color in a coloring book, yeah, I want all the colors, right? Like, give me all the colors. So, anyway, I broke down because of the aforementioned post by Mary, and she used this in a portable situation, if you will.

She was out. She had to be somewhere and was going to be doing a lot of sitting and waiting. She brought a smaller-sized coloring book and this singular pencil and used that to, you know, free her mind, clear some time, you know, have fun, right? Enjoy it. I was like, dang, this looks so good. Like, this looks amazing. So I bought one. So I was like, fine. This is what it doesn't take much for me to randomly buy products that I had formerly had no interest in whatsoever. But I did. And for starters, this is an expensive product individually.

Like, the one I bought, there's three different versions. I have a link to JetPens. I bought the most expensive version, which I'll explain why in a second. So this is the Multi 8 LED holder. All the LEDs are 2 millimeters. And the one that I bought also comes with four additional colors that you can swap in and out, right? So I have eight colors loaded in the barrel. Then there were four additional colors, plus replacement LEDs for all the initial colors. So eight LEDs in the barrel and then 12 more LEDs in backup, in reserve.

So that was the $36 version. You can buy them with just the eight LEDs. That's like $30. You can buy a couple of different barrel types. You can buy one with a pen insert. It looks like seven pencils and a pen. Like, all kinds of different things. And I don't know. I just went with the full coloring setup, right? This was the most coloring on this one. Yeah. So it was $36. So that's about... I was putting it in context with color pencils. I basically have 12 colors, right? Color pencils. So I paid like $3 a color, right?

Yeah. And a lot of the more expensive or the more quality single pencils are like $2 or something like that. So it's still a little bit more costly. So anyway, it's an expensive product.

So my whole conversation around this, that's just like the lead up and I've rambled a lot already. But I was basically... My goal with every product that I test is why. Like, why does this exist? How should it be used? Who's using this? Who is it for? Or does it meet those goals of what I think it's intended for? And I'd say my challenge with it so far was I just tried to color with it, okay? So I took this as... This is going to be my coloring book pencil. And that was the testing I went into it, okay?

So given that, how does this product work? And honestly, it was a little frustrating to use. Because one, the way you switch the leads, not only is it like a clutch mechanism, you also have to impart your own gravity to drop and release, return the individual leads to their home. Okay. So I'm clutching it out, right? So I'm pointing it down. But I have to stop it somewhere, right? So I'm either stopping that on my other hand or on the page, right? So it doesn't run all the way out. It still works like a clutch pencil, not a mechanical pencil.

Yes. And then when I want to switch, I have to turn that upside down, point the tip at the sky, release the lead back in, and then turn it back down. Like, it's fine. It works really well, right, for its intended use. But it's a lot for, if I'm sitting here coloring, I'd rather have 12 pencils laid aside. You've got a lot of action that you need to... Yeah. A lot of little manipulations to go through. Instead of just throwing down the yellow pencil and picking up the red and going, right? I have to do this little back and forth dance to swap these out.

That's fine. Like, if you're in a situation where you need the compactness of this, it's great for coloring. Secondly, the leads. One nice thing, which I didn't know when you buy it. So since it is a clutch, with normal single lead clutch pencils, you can just shoot the lead straight out onto the desk or onto the floor, right? Each little lead, I'll have to look and see if it's even in the imagery. On the back end of them is a piece of metal. Yes. I see that in the refill pages. That stops it. Yeah.

Yeah. It stops it. That's cool. Yes. Like, that is so smart. So it prevents it from just, like, throwing it on the floor. It still doesn't prevent it from extending its entire length. Right? Yeah. I would say... There's no staging of the lead. It's just a self-protecting... That is cool, but I don't... To me... It's cool because they have to protect themselves. Yeah. Yes. I just feel like that is a lot of manufactured work. Yes. That is expensive to do this. That's why this is expensive. Those little metal bits on the end of these, it's kind of wild to figure out the design of this.

It feels like a lot of effort. Right? Yeah. Like, really a lot of effort. So, speaking of which, since I bought the ones with extra colors, well, purple was not originally installed in here, so I wanted to take out red and install purple. There's a little twist on the top of the pencil that you have to line up accordingly, so it actually widens the opening to allow you to fully eject the singular lead with the metal piece and swap the other one in. So, it's like a staged type of thing. So, it's a whole little dance you have to do to swap out the colors.

Yeah. It was frustrating to color with, admittedly. And this is also a me problem. For the changing? Yeah. I wanted to switch colors constantly, right? If I'm doing, like, a coloring book, like, I generally use all the colors in weird spots that you wouldn't think they're going to go. You know, if I have grass on the page, all the grass isn't just going to be green, right? There's going to be blue grass and there's going to be pink grass. Just that's how I color, right? I did just see a little video clip of it, and then maybe I couldn't have conceived it properly before.

But the selector, moving the clip around to choose the color selector, that is a really nice touch because they have the hole in the clip. So, it's like a window. That's really nice. It's insanely smartly made. Yeah. It's quality. Like, it feels good. The taper into the writing area, and it's got a little groove grip section. As a physical product, it's fantastic. Like, they really executed well. Because unlike a, let's take a four-color multi-pin, they can't taper the front end that well because they're not dropping the entire refill into the vertical space, right?

Mm-hmm. This is, what this is ostensibly doing is dropping the refill into the singular vertical space where a four-color multi-pin, it's using the sides of the barrel to shape the refill out of the tip of the pen. Yeah. Right? So, you have to design that in such a way where those pen tips don't come out at an angle. This isn't, this doesn't have that problem because it's a clutch, and it just, it just kind of like goes into the area where it needs to be, and it's straight, and it's kind of nice.

So, my frustrations lied in coloring. But I think, and listening to other people who have this, a shocking amount of people have this pencil when I was talking on Twitch about it. Where the benefit of this comes in is more in that multi-pin category to where so many people use this for journaling and for notes in that it's basically their highlighter, their marker. They can use the different colors for different things, and I can totally see that being a huge benefit to this pencil. And I think that is somewhere where I could see this as basically a marking pencil, right, as opposed to a coloring pencil.

A notation, a highlight, a mark, you know, any type of embellishments you want to do in your regular day-to-day. It kind of encompasses like that highlighter marker type of thing in a singular multi-color barrel. And for that, I can like really, really get behind. So, I haven't done anything with that yet. I haven't attempted to like mix that into my workflow because even though I'd use a multi-color workflow, I don't know that I have the type of setup that would benefit from this. But so many people raved about it for that situation.

And in that type of situation, I can see this being like a really good tool for someone to have. For like a straight up coloring book situation like I was trying to use it for, I think it was a little bit overly. It was a little bit too much frustration for enjoyable coloring, right? But as just a tool for your regular day-to-day notes, I think this might be a pretty great product. So, something to look at. Now, when I've used colored leads in lead holders before, I found them to be really soft. Yeah.

So, the problem overall, and this includes color pencils, single barrel color pencils, is the formulation of the leads. There, I found that my favorite color pencils have like a texture in them to make them not feel plasticky, right? The end result of whatever formulation, whatever company is used to have some type of feel on the page that doesn't feel sticky or plasticky, right? And then when you get into these even finer individual leads, like these are two millimeters, they end up being, you know, lighter in color, right?

Your orange isn't as orange. Your yellow is barely legible, right? Because of the composition of these cores. And that's always a challenge. There is a mechanical pencil lead that feels pencil-like and has insanely representative colors in the Uniball Emote lineup, E-M-O-T-T. I've reviewed them before. It was shocking how good the colors were in a 0.9 millimeter lead in the emotes. Where this Pentel Art Multi, these are two millimeter lead, so twice as wide. The emotes are the best. If you need a color pencil lead and for just like a singular color pencil, those are fantastic.

Everything else is poor, right? Like one of the products that I love the most visually is the classic blue-red pencil, right? It's a two-sided wooden pencil, red on one side, blue on the other side. They're great for marking, great for sketching, great for notes. The problem is the colors are so bad, right? They just don't deliver a vibrant red or a good blue. And you can find color pencil brands that do have these great colors. Or you can find, try something like this that's got, I don't know, I think the Multi 8, the colors are mid, right?

They're not as good as like a standalone color pencil. But I've definitely used worse as far as like the clay composition. But that's what you're talking about, the softness of the color. They're like not a non-saturated color. You don't get like, you feel like you're having to jam the pencil onto the page like for it to show up like a green, you know? Like it's just too light. But this one's okay. I think the colors are okay.

I just think it's more of a tool type pen as opposed to like a coloring type pen. Pencil, I should say. And I don't know. I'm glad I have it. It makes me question a lot of things. I'm glad I'm trying to, I got one to figure out how to use it. I don't know that it's going to be my coloring pencil. It's portable, right? You get eight colors in one package. It's not overly big. Because it tapers so aggressively towards the tip, which is nice. I don't know. It's really good and really bad. Like it's, that's the kind of products I love talking about because there's so many good things about this.

And then there's some super frustrating things about this. And it was nice to hear people's ideas on how to use this. And active use cases that I haven't tried before. I haven't thought about before. That's, this makes for some of my favorite products to, to at least talk about, if not use. Yeah. Very nice. If you would like to see the show notes for this week's episode, you can find them in your podcast app of choice. But you can also go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 703. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com.

And you can find Brad streaming at twitch.tv slash penaddict three times a week. You can find me at theenthusiast.net and at cortexbrand.com. Thanks to Squarespace and Penn Chalet for their support of this episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.