The Pen Addict 87/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	87
Title:	Putting A Pen Out To Pasture
Release Date:	December 31st, 2013
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 87
Audio File:	Audio Episode 87
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 87
Length:	4242 min <br />0.7 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 87 of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by the Santa of Sharpie, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, yes, stuffing all the stockings with all the pen and paper goodness.

Myke Hurley: Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Did you have a good Christmas?

Myke Hurley: I did, sir. I did. Did you?

Pen Gifts

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, real good, real good. It's funny, for Christmas, you know, you'd think, you know, being, you know, the pen addict and all and being into pens and paper as much as I am, that's all I would get for Christmas. But I don't ask for any of that stuff for Christmas, nor do I get any of that stuff for Christmas. I think I get so much of it during the year that, you know, at Christmas time, you know, I don't want to, you know, I don't know, just want something different for a change. So, yeah, for Christmas, I get pretty much zero pens and zero paper every year.

Myke Hurley: I think as well, for me, I think people are just, hmm, they're just hesitant to buy that stuff because they know that I love it so much that I don't want to get it wrong.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no, I would have to tell someone specifically what to get. And I don't have a problem doing that. It's just that I don't. And, you know, and I guess it's just because I'm, you know, every other day of the year, I'm using all those things. And, you know, I guess it's just not something I really think about at Christmas time just because it's such a normal, everyday thing for me. It doesn't seem like a good fit for whatever reason. But it's funny, it's all of our listeners and followers, it's cool seeing all the stuff that they got for Christmas. And, you know, they were posting it out on Twitter and sending me emails and things like that. And it's really cool to see people getting excited about, you know, getting a new pen or a new paper or anything like that. That really makes my day. That's pretty awesome.

Myke Hurley: That's why we do this thing.

Brad Dowdy: That is, that is. Speaking of why we do this, apparently we do this now to get drunk, right?

Myke Hurley: It would appear so. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So our friend John Hume, who had the, the pen addict podcast bingo card from last week's episode, has stepped up his game. We now have the pen addict drinking game. And I would like to say, John, you're a masochist. This is, this is pretty intense, pretty intense set of rules here for the drinking game. You want me to, you want me to read this and see what the listeners think?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, do it.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So if you're, when you, when you finally download this episode, go to the show notes. Myke, tell them where the show notes are real quick.

Myke Hurley: 5x5.tv slash pen addict slash 87.

Drinking Game Rules

Brad Dowdy: All right. So we'll have the PDF of the pen addict podcast drinking game official rules, December 2013 version 1.0.

Myke Hurley: Presented in beautiful Futura.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. He wanted to make a point that we, he, I think he was upset when we didn't mention that on the bingo card that the, the font was in Futura, which is, is beautiful. And looks fantastic. And is our favorite Dufffield notes font. There you go. Um, all right. So number one, all, all players begin the game with a drink of their choice and their favorite pen in their hand. Putting down the pen at any time equal equals drink all remaining alcohol. So he goes big right out the gate. You put your pen down, you're finishing your drink.

Myke Hurley: I just want to state before we carry on. For anyone that is currently playing the game, the reading of the rules does not count as any of the instances of the words being spoken.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Cause you wouldn't make it through the rules. Yeah. You would be, you would be on your back. You would be in trouble. Or in the bathroom. One of the two. Um, number two, the following words incur a single finger of alcohol be consumed by all players. High tech C, jet pins, Kara's customs, Kickstarter. Number three, the following words incur a double finger of alcohol to be consumed by all players. TWSBI 540, rock, knock co, retro 51, caveco, Lamy 2000, Rodeo Webby. Number four, field notes. After any mention of field notes, all players must throw a curse in the style of Aaron Draplin himself and consume four fingers of alcohol. You people would make it past the first five minutes of the show.

Brad Dowdy: Nor would I. I'm a lightweight. I'll admit that, man. Yeah, I'd be done in five minutes. We'd have to go raid the liquor cabinet or something during the episode to make it even to step four. All right, number five, Myke makes a lusty noise. Players must copy the aforementioned lusty noise, down their drink, and replenish their glass. Failing to do so incurs a penalty of writing with their wrong hand to duplicate Myke's handwriting for 24 hours. That's just a brilliant penalty.

Myke Hurley: It's just not fair to me.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that's just beautiful, John. Well done on that one. Number six, Orochizuku. After any mention of Orochizuku, players must drink four fingers of alcohol and speak in a Japanese accent for a minimum of five minutes.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, who knows what accent I would be speaking in at this point in the game because I would be just completely out of my head by this time. All right, number seven, Brad promises to review something. Drink four fingers and forget that you did it for a month, then come back to it and remind everyone you forgot about it.

Myke Hurley: I heard the mute there. Obviously, Brad is carrying over a Christmas cold.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'm still under the weather a little bit. But yeah, that one got me. So, you know, he was on your handwriting. He's on my promises to review. So that's fair play right there. It's balanced. All right, number eight, vanishing point. Make all your alcohol disappear. No spilling. Number nine, Lamy Safari. Make an animal noise of your choosing. If possible, one that you would find on Safari. Consume two fingers of alcohol.

Brad Dowdy: Lastly, number 10, overseas pronunciation. All players copy the presenter approach aloud, even if incorrect. For example, Kaweko versus Kaweko and drink two fingers of alcohol. And he has the standard warning at the bottom. Players participate at their own risk. We accept no responsibility regarding damage to persons or property whilst enjoying this game. That's just amazing.

Myke Hurley: It's just, it is incredible work.

Brad Dowdy: It is. I like just to come up with that. And the way, just following John on Twitter and him putting this together, he did that in like no time flat. Like coming up with the ideas and everything. It was pretty impressive. But yeah, he is a little bit masochistic on the drinking amounts there. I would be gone right past, somewhere right past the intro.

Myke Hurley: I would struggle, I think. Yeah. So thank you, John. That's very, very awesome of you. If any of you out there do play this, I would love to, we would love to know. Same with the bingo board. If you're playing the bingo board, send in pictures, let us know.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So did you get your, what are you ready to play? Are you playing the drinking game? Luckily not. Okay. Because it's about to get ugly right out the gate.

DDC Notebooks

Myke Hurley: So yes, I did receive my standard issue DDC factory floor field notes, notebooks. I received numbers 298 to 300. Nice. Very nice. Very nice. Yes. It's so weird to see plain paper.

Brad Dowdy: It is a little bit, isn't it?

Myke Hurley: But they're nice. I like them a lot. Yeah. I love the colors. The colors are really cool. I love the, the, the, the, like the inside cover where it's got the little DDC stamp all over it. That's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I did like that. That was one of my favorite, um, favorite additions to that cover. So now the real question is, are you going to use them?

Myke Hurley: Uh, I will use two of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Same as every, same as every, uh, color for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Cool. Good. Good, good, good. And I've been seeing a lot of people using them so far and they've been getting good feedback. It, it is different having the, uh, the blank pages and I don't know. I kind of, I kind of like them for a change. I'll probably use that next. Um, once I get done, I just cracked open the, the cold horizon, which we'll talk about in a little bit. You've been on me to get, uh, to get that going. So I've done that and then I will probably get on to a DDC after that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm going onto DDC after I finished the cold horizon.

Brad Dowdy: So you picked up, uh, well last couple of weeks ago, no last week and last week. Well, yeah, not a couple of weeks ago, last week, man, it's the end of the year already, isn't it? This time is like flying. Last week we had, uh, Mr. Myke Dudek on and we were talking about road rings and different, uh, different models, different ones that you and I like just from, you know, eyeballing some of the pictures, some of the ones that he had that we like, you know, especially the fountain pens, the, uh, 600 fountain pen and the lava finish fountain pen and things like that. So did you, did you go off and do something crazy?

Myke Hurley: So after the, after the show went off the air last week, um, the dude stuck around for a little bit and we were just, you know, just gassing. And I was started to troll eBay looking for a, uh, Rotary 600 lava fountain pen, which is the one that's kind of, um, it kind of looks like, uh, lava right after it's dried. So yeah, it's like a rough finish, rough looking finish, but it's, it's like kind of like sparkly, you know, kind of looks like granite a bit.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, there you go. That's a good, good explanation.

Myke Hurley: Um, and then the dude actually pointed me to a very specific eBay seller based in Lithuania, I believe. Um, I think was the one that he, he pointed me towards cause he'd found this deal for me. So I purchased it. Uh, I also, uh, purchased a converter and it arrived today. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: So you got the, the lava fountain pen.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. Already since last episode. Yep. Cause it's coming from Europe, right? I know, but still, I mean, you're just, you're just like, I, you're just like pulling the trigger left and right. I'm, I, I, him and haul over things. It's like, uh, maybe, maybe not.

Lava Fountain Pen

Myke Hurley: This is a pen that I've wanted for a long time and I've searched for and didn't really have any luck finding a decent deal on it. But I got a good deal on this one. Um, so I'm very, very happy. Yeah. Well, let's hear about it. Break it down. Well, the first, the funny thing that happened was the converter arrived like three days ago. So I've just been having this like converter just sitting around on my desk, which I thought was just quite amusing. Basically I, I, uh, over like the days leading up to and after Christmas, I bought myself this and I bought myself a new watch. Oh. I bought, um, I think it's called like a Seiko's. Seiko. Seiko. Seiko. Yeah. And I bought some watch bands, some NATO watch bands for it. Um, cool. I like this. I should probably put those in the show notes too.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, do it. Cause I like those and I'd like to see those. And I know, uh, my not co partner, Jeff, uh, rocks some NATO bands.

Myke Hurley: And, uh, so I, I did that. And basically on one day I was like, um, I had two packages at home. I was like, yes, it's going to be the stuff I wanted. And I had one watch band and the converter for the pen. That's hilarious. The real things that arrived. Um, so yeah, I, I haven't really had a lot of time with the 600. Um, it's visually just stunning, just stunning. Like it just looks amazing. I'm very, very happy with it. Just as a piece to own, you know, just one, just to have, just for it to be one of those pens that I own, I'm happy with it. It's heavy. Um, and I wonder how after extended use I will feel about that. Um, it's definitely heavier than a lot of pens that I own. Yeah. Um, but it's, it's balanced pretty well. Um, if you put the cap on this, I feel like my entire body is going to fall over.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You probably have to write with it unposted, huh?

Myke Hurley: Which I always do anyway. You know, long time listeners know I don't like that. The cap mechanism is really strange. You have to kind of line it up because you know, it's got like the hexagonal, right? Right. Cap will only fully close if you line up the corners and stuff. Yeah. Which is kind of good in a way. Like even though it means you have to take a, you know, a bit of extra care when you're, when you're posting it.

Brad Dowdy: Um, yeah, it's kind of like down in a twist, isn't it? Yeah. It is kind of like that.

Myke Hurley: But in a way that's how I would kind of want it to be. I would always want it to be flush like that, you know? So it's always level. Um, the nib is incredible. Like it's super smooth. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And these come with a medium nib generally?

Myke Hurley: The one that I have is medium. There were, there were a bunch of different sizes, but it's, it's a good medium. It's not like a, it's not an inky medium. Um, I've obviously filled it with Hiroshisuku. Yep. Um, I've decided that the Fuyugaki, the orange is my favorite ink now.

Ed Jelly: Oh, I still got to get that.

Myke Hurley: I just like an orange ink. I just think that's kind of cool. Um, and I, I, I've seemed to be using it in, uh, in all of my pens now. I just, like I was thinking I would put like the blue Compaque in there and I was kind of like, no, I'm going orange. Nice. Um, so yeah, I'm really, I'm, I'm sure I have more to report because it's now going to be the pen that I use like for the, for the time being. Um, I'm going to have this and the Pelican, um, in my, uh, Tashenberg Leiter. Um, I will be sort of keeping them in the pen loops and, uh, and I'll report back over the next couple of weeks. But thank you to Mr. Ed Jelly and Mr. Myke Dudek for, uh, pointing me towards this pen and, uh, helping me get one of my own, which I'm very, very happy about.

Ed Jelly: I'm jealous. I'm going to have to, uh, I'm going to have to step my game up and, and, uh, get one myself.

Myke Hurley: But with tales of happiness come tales of woe.

Ed Jelly: Oh no.

Myke Hurley: So I, I want to tell a little bit about the sadness of when it, when a pen breaks.

Ed Jelly: Uh oh.

Myke Hurley: So my beloved TWSBI 540 ROC.

Brad Dowdy: Do you realize how many people we've put in the hospital so far? They're playing the drinking game. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Uh, I'm fully aware of that, but you know, this is what people sign up for.

Brad Dowdy: Sorry. I didn't mean to hijack you, but this, this is going to be scary. So go ahead.

Myke Hurley: It's had a bit of an accident. No. So you know, on a TWSBI you have like, on the cap, you have like the acrylic and then the silver band. Yes. The, I was, uh, screwing it up and it just came away. Just snapped clear off.

Ed Jelly: The silver band part.

Myke Hurley: So the silver band was attached to the pen and the cap just came off in my hand. Um, which is devastating. So I've, I've glued it back together. Um, with some super glue.

Myke Hurley: Although, you know, now I, now I have a bit of super glue residue on the cap, which is extremely upsetting. Yeah, I know. And now it's been retired. It's, it's going to go and it's going to live in a pen case now.

Ed Jelly: Oh man. It's sent off to the farm.

Myke Hurley: Because I love this pen so much that I'm concerned that I would lose part of it. So, you know, like let's say I clip it to something and then the cap, like the cap stays on the book or whatever, but then the whole pen just goes away. Or, you know, I've got it, or I've got it in a bag or something and then the cap comes off and it just mangles it. So I actually brought home my, um, my case. What case do I have? Um, the display case. Um, what's it called? You know what I'm talking about. My brown, my brown zip case opens up.

Brad Dowdy: Oh yeah. Lit Labs.

Myke Hurley: The Lit Labs Tefer case. That's it. I'll put that in the show notes too. Um, it's, I brought that home today because I wanted to just change out some of the stuff that I've got in there because I've, you know, I've taken out a bunch of the Retro 51s in there and I've put a couple of, a couple of different pens in, um, just so I've got a wider selection in that case now, just because why not? Um, so now it's going to go back into work and then the, uh, the RSC will live in my desk drawer at work. Um, and then sometimes I will use it, but, uh, it's terribly sad. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's had an accident and, and yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So let me, let me clarify real quick. Did it actually, did it actually snap? Oh yeah. The plastic is broken.

Myke Hurley: It just came away. Like it just clear snap. Basically the, the join just snapped. So, um, there, it was all intact. Like it wasn't like it snapped into pieces, but it just broke clear away from the, the silver ring. Wow.

Ed Jelly: Man, I hate that for you. I know you love that pen.

TWSBI 540 ROC

Myke Hurley: Now I know that the Twisbees had had problems with cracking in the past, right? Which, so I expect they probably, that wouldn't happen to a newer one, but obviously this is an older pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. There is a reason that there is a 580. It's because of the 540 did have some problems, but most of it was in the section and around the feed area. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I think what it shows is that after extended periods of time, the plastic weakens. Yeah. So that's what's happened because I wouldn't say I'm heavy handed, but I make sure that that cap is on tight every time. Yeah. So obviously I have weakened it to the point where it's just snapped.

Ed Jelly: Mm. Mm. Mm.

Myke Hurley: Like I'm not, I'm not putting it in a vice, but. Sure. You know, I, I, I like to just make sure that it's, it's on tight enough.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And the, the Twisby's actually, the caps actually screw on pretty tight. I mean, you can really tighten them up being the, with the plastic threading, you can, you can cinch it in there. Pretty good. Well, I hate that for you. That's a, that stinks. I know how much you like that pen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's actually, I'm pretty bummed out about it because it's a favorite, you know, it's not, you know, it's not just a pen that I like. It's like I use, was still using it every single day and now I can't really. In the same way.

Brad Dowdy: Hopefully, hopefully your rotating lava will, you take a look at that and, you know, hopefully some of your, your sad thoughts will go away.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I mean, you know, the Pelican is, is, is doing me good.

Myke Hurley: That's, you know, that's been excellent. I've been using that every day too. And I've been, you know, really, really loving using that. So there we go. Cool. I'm just about to put a link to, to Occult Pens in the, in the show notes. Okay. And I wanted to mention something again. I think that we were talking about after the show went off the air last week was that they refund the VAT if you're shipping outside the UK. Is that right? Correct. That is correct. So it's just something worth noting that the, the pens are going to be cheaper if you're, if you're buying outside.

Ink Colors

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So like when I ordered, um, I ordered the Pelican blue black ink that's not available in the US and I ordered the Colt Pens deep dark blue ink. So when I ordered them, you know, I put them in the cart, the VAT is added in there. And then by the time I'm done processing through my cart, that's removed out of my purchase once it realizes where they're shipping it to. So that's backed out and it's, it's totally reasonable to order from them.

Myke Hurley: I just thought that was something worth noting because, you know, we talk about them a lot and maybe some people feel that maybe it's a, a UK only supplier.

Brad Dowdy: But no, definitely not. I don't, I wouldn't hesitate to order from them and I'm actually going to order them from them again soon. Cause I want to try the, uh, the deep dark purple, uh, Diamine ink as well, which they just came out. And since you're putting Colt Pens in there, when we talked about their Pens for Kids thing, um, I don't know, it's been a little over a month ago. They, uh, they ended up just blowing away, obliterating their goal for Pens for Kids. So I just wanted to bring that up. We never followed back up on that.

Ed Jelly: And, um, I know, um, you know, talking to them, they were appreciative of, appreciative of us, uh, mentioning that. And, uh, and that was a real good, um, real good event.

Brad Dowdy: I was happy to support that they did. So, um, we'll put the link to that, um, show notes that actually updated their page. It says target smashed. So they're sending 21,000 pens on the way to Africa. So thank you to everyone who supported that. That's pretty awesome.

Myke Hurley: That is awesome. Well, and guys, I was happy to, to not only do it here, but I went and bought some stuff and sent some, sent some, uh, pens to, to people that need them. Awesome. More than me anyway.

Myke Hurley: Right. Shall we take a quick break?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's do that. Cause I got a couple of, uh, topics I want to talk about and, uh, we'll go from there.

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Brad Dowdy: Awesome. So I did a review last week, I think it was. Was it before Christmas? I don't know. Last week, two weeks ago, of a pen that's an entry-level pen to the market called the Pilot Kakuno. And I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong too, so we'll all drink to that. But it's a pen I saw out on Instagram a bunch here in the past few months, probably since the summertime. I was like, what is this pen that keeps appearing? And all of these people that I follow out on Instagram, it's this really simple, cool-looking pen. It was from Pilot. And doing some research, it's actually made for kids to learn how to write with a fountain pen. And it's very much marketed towards kids. Based on the packaging, some of the design elements we'll talk about, and things like that. But it just really struck me, especially once I got it in hand. I got one from JetPens when they got theirs in just a few weeks ago, a couple weeks ago.

Brad Dowdy: When I got to use it, it just really struck me as an awesome pen. I got it the same week that I got the Keras Customs ink in to test the prototype with. And I used the Kakuno more. I mean, it is just, it's the coolest pen. And for the price, I thought it was amazing. And the nib, you know I love the Pilot F nib. And there's just something about this pen at this price point.

Myke Hurley: It's got a little smiley face on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's got a smiley face on the nib. That's actually the one downside I wrote about. Oh, I like it. No, I like it, but some people may not like it. But actually, when you're writing with it, you can't even see it. Like, I couldn't see it at all. But I did take a close-up picture of it. But yeah, it's totally marketed to kids. Like, you know, a lot of fountain pen companies will have a pen like this in their lineup. Like, Lamy's got one called the ABC, which you can, you know, assume is made at school-age kids. And, you know, most of them have some type of molded or shaped grip to help them grip the pen in the proper way and to hold the pen at the proper angle so the nib hits the page. The smiley face is actually there, Myke. So the kids know that when they see the smiley face, they're holding the pen the right direction. So if they've never used a fountain pen before, they know they have to see the smiley face to be able to write well with it.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I see what you mean. I was like, it's upside down, but I know what you mean. Like, you have to be able to look at it. Otherwise, the pen's backwards. Yes. You're scratching the, you know, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But all these things aside, I'm going to use the heck out of this pen. And I'm going to have multiples of it because it just, like, it uses the same Prera nibs and same Pilot Penmanship nibs where you can switch out for the EF or the Pilot Plumix nib where you can switch out the calligraphy nib. And it also takes, you know, the CON20 converter or the CON50 converter. It takes the standard Pilot cartridges. It's just got a lot going for this pen. It's very simple in the design, but I think that's why I like it. Like, I like the Lamy Safari. You know, it's a very kind of utilitarian design, but something about it just really speaks to me as a pen user, which I guess goes back to why I don't necessarily like the big, gaudy, flashy pens and don't necessarily like gold on my pens. You know, the more subtle, subtly designed pens really speak to me. And I think this is going to be a pen that does real well in the market for people that are looking for their first fountain pen, even, you know, adults. I wouldn't say this is marketed for kids at all. I'll use this pen all day, every day just because it's a good pen and it doesn't look, you know, it doesn't look like a, you know, a kid's crayon or something like that where people are going to look at you funny for using. But, I mean, I think it's going to compete with the Lamy Safari and the Pilot Metropolitan without question as one of the best beginner pens. And I think I might like it better than both of those, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: Just because I like that nib. It comes with an F nib or a medium nib. Where the Metropolitan, I think it only comes in a medium nib as your only option. You can always switch them out, too. Just like the Prera and the Cocuno and the Metropolitan. They all have nibs that you can swap around and get something better to your liking. But this pen is going to, I have high hopes for this pen. So I'm putting it on the line here that this is going to be a super, super popular pen for the price. And once you get it in your hand and feel how well it's made, and, I mean, it's just a lightweight plastic, you know, hexagonal barrel pen. But, man, it is good. I don't know what to say about it other than I'm pretty much in love with this pen. And, you know, it's not one.

Myke Hurley: I can tell. You really like it.

Brad Dowdy: I do. It feels great in the hand. Like when you're holding a pen, you know, you can just tell how much you'll like it. And I don't know, something about it has really struck a chord with me. So, you know, I'm interested to see other people, if they get one and what they think about it, maybe. You know, I'm completely off my rocker and losing my mind. But, you know, it's funny how Pilot's doing a really good job on the entry level, right, with the Metropolitan. It's still got to be, I mean, one of the best bang for the buck pens around. And, you know, I still may recommend that for most users, you know, around that price range. But me personally, I would use the Kakuno a hundred times before I use the Metropolitan. The Metropolitan just didn't work out that well for me the way the section was designed. And this pen's different. It's closer to a Lamy Safari, but about $10 cheaper than a Safari. And it writes fantastically. And it's got all the options where you can use a converter and cartridge and put any ink in it you want. I don't know. I think they'll be doing some. I guessed in my post that, you know, I think Pilot's kind of got a blank slate with this pen. Unlike, you know, some other pens. Kind of like they did with the Metropolitan. They introduced several different colors at first. And now they've come back and added on different colors and different patterns and things like that. And I think we'll probably see that with this pen because it's really good. And especially if they're going to market it towards kids, it's going to – I think we'll probably like to see some cooler barrels and some bright, shocking barrels. But this pen lives on my desk at work right now. So I use it there all the time. And it's a great pen. And you all should definitely check it out if you're looking for someone. You may already be into fountain pens or, you know, and may want to, you know, look for something else different and, you know, higher up the price bracket. But if you know someone that's interested and even slightly in trying a fountain pen, this might be a good starting point. It's going to be one of my most recommended fountain pens, I think, especially for beginners here in the coming new year.

Myke Hurley: Cult pens carry it too.

Brad Dowdy: Cult pens carries it.

Myke Hurley: I haven't got any fines in stock, so I might pick on the medium.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And they come in – all the barrel colors are gray. And then the caps have – there's like six different cap colors. I got the lime green. There's lime green, orange, red, blue, gray, and pink. Did I get them all? Something like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But I can see them doing all kinds of different things with these barrels.

Myke Hurley: I might get myself a lime green medium. Cool. It's fun. It's a fun pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think you'll like – this is a pen you don't have to worry about, right? I mean, pop an ink cartridge in it and just go. Throw it in your bag. Keep it in your car. Or, you know, it's not a pen. It's not an expensive pen you have to keep track of all the time. You know, like I said, I leave this laying out on my desk at work, and I know no one's going to take it. And if they did, you know, I wouldn't be upset over it because, you know, maybe they'll actually probably return in five minutes once they realize they opened the cap and saw it was a fountain pen. No one would know what to do with it anyway. But, yeah, check it out. I can't recommend this pen enough, and I'm really happy, and I'm going to get a few more so I can swap out the nibs and play around with it a little bit.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: Very cool. Now, you've been on me for a couple weeks. Yep. I'm going to open up my Cold Horizon field notes because you were a little bit concerned with how your fountain pens were performing in your Cold Horizon. Is that right? That's correct. Yeah, so what's the problem you're having?

Myke Hurley: So I feel that when using the Cold Horizons as compared to previous editions of field notes, that there is more bleed from fountain pen ink than on other editions, if that makes sense. So the Cold Horizons, the paper is maybe taking too much ink through or something, but there's something going on there is my hypothesis. So I have asked you if you would corroborate this for me.

Brad Dowdy: It's interesting. So I did this last night.

Brad Dowdy: I did some, just a quick test with the pens I had on hand. The photos aren't that great. It was with my phone in the office, and they didn't come out like super clear, but you can kind of tell. So I had, I just used what I had on hand. I had my new Cold Horizon that I just opened up, and I picked the one with the blue paper. Which one are you using? Because I'm curious if there's a difference.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is what I was going to say too. So I'm grabbing mine. How will I know what one's what?

Brad Dowdy: There's blue, green, and gray.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, it's just the paper stock.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm just looking in the back.

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if you can tell by the word. I mean, just what color is the paper? Oh. Can you tell the shade? I mean, it's real subtle.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's difficult for me to tell.

Brad Dowdy: Without the other ones next to it, you probably may not be able to tell, but...

Myke Hurley: Well, I'm getting the other ones now.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. But anyway...

Myke Hurley: Oh, I honestly can't tell. I really can't. Looking at them, they look far too similar for me to discern between them. But the book itself is the middle one. So it's not got any of the dark blue on the cover.

Ed Jelly: Okay. I think mine is one of the end ones.

Ed Jelly: It actually might be the bottom one.

Brad Dowdy: But anyway, mine's got the blue page. And I found a couple interesting things. And I'm sorry. I compared it to the Drink Local Edition. So that's what I had on hand. I had the Drink Local Edition, which I had like one page left to fill out. So I did this test on. And then I had the new Cold Horizons, which I just opened up was fresh out the package. And I just used whatever the handful of fountain pens I had with me that night. And they're pretty representative of some fine nibs and some calligraphy nibs. And we'll have the links to the pictures in there. Not that you can totally tell from the pictures, but you can see a little bit. But what I found with the Cold Horizon, Myke, was interesting. I felt that the paper itself, almost the opposite of what you found.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Fountain Pen Nib

Brad Dowdy: I didn't think it bled as much. I thought the paper felt tighter. Like my lines didn't bleed as much. You can actually tell the most in the picture that I have with the Kakuno.

Brad Dowdy: You can see that the F nib, the Kakuno F nib with the Pilot Blue Black ink cartridge looks basically normal-ish on the Cold Horizons. And then you can tell it bled a little bit more. The lines are thicker on the Drink Local picture. Yeah. So I didn't see as much bleed on the top of the page. But what's funny, when you flip it over to the back, it looks worse.

Myke Hurley: That's what my problem is. It's not the page. It's the back. Yeah. There's something that's happening where, and as well, I'm writing in an orange ink, right? So it's more visible. But I am confident that there is more, well, I can see it, you know? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. This is, I can't really, you know, I can't prove this until I can show it. But so I will do the same, and I will put, I'm going to do this right now. I'm going to compare two books with the Pelican that I've been writing with. You can hear me rustling around now. I'm going to do it with Drink Local and Cold Horizons. Yeah. And then I will put that on Instagram.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. But, I mean, regardless, it's not super great fountain pen paper to begin with, right?

Myke Hurley: No, I mean, it's always unfair. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's not a complaint. It's just something that we've noticed.

Myke Hurley: And even then, like, it's still usable. Like, I'm, I, this, Cold Horizons remains one of my favorite editions. But it's just, I had this observation and just wanted to make sure that I was correct.

Brad Dowdy: But, yeah, I actually like the feel of writing on the Cold Horizons better than the Drink Local, which I found surprising. But I wonder, this is going to sound silly, and maybe I'm the only one that thinks in these weird, creepy ways. But, you know, do you think the paper breaks down after being carried around in your back pocket for a long time? Hmm.

Myke Hurley: I noticed it straight away.

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Cold Horizons Book

Myke Hurley: Oh, this is, I've actually just opened to my last page of this book as well. Nice. Have we got anything else that you want to talk about while I'm writing this craziness out?

Brad Dowdy: No, but I think, I think what we'll do for next week, and we'll talk to, I'll hit up some of the users and kind of get some of the, some of the users. Jeez. It's like I'm at work. Some of the listeners. And we'll talk, I thought our pen and paper resolutions episode from last year was really good. And people wanted to revisit that last year, I know. So I think let's, let's do that for next week. And we'll talk to the listeners, get them to tweet at us and email us what their pen and paper resolutions are for the upcoming year. And we'll talk about planners next week and see what, you know, what planners are out there. Everyone knows I've, I've got the Hobonichi and boy, Hobonichi's put on the full court press on the, in the blogosphere. They're getting that out there. So that's good to see. And we'll talk about some other planners that I know get really good reviews. And so we'll just kind of talk about getting ready for the new year and maybe even a wishlist what's on our purchasing radar for 2014. So it'll be a 2014 looking ahead episode next week. And we'll get some, some listener input for that.

Myke Hurley: Sounds pretty good to me, man.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome.

Myke Hurley: So I'm taking these pictures right now. Okay. I'll just throw them in the show notes so people can, can see what I've got here.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, thank you so much for listening today, everybody. And, uh, for listening throughout all of 2013, this is the last episode of the, do you know, there's definitely bleed for on both.

Brad Dowdy: You can't let this one go, huh?

Myke Hurley: It's definitely worse on the cold horizons.

Myke Hurley: I hope that everybody else will see that. You have to excuse my terrible photography and all the shadows that are in the images. But, you know, there's nothing I can do about that with the situation of which I'm in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, so one last thing before we wrap. Yeah. How drunk are you?

Myke Hurley: Well, like right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Well, I, I have been drinking, uh, just vodka, you know, straight throughout the whole episode.

Brad Dowdy: And, uh, you don't even bring a glass, just the bottle, just set the bottle right there on the desk.

Myke Hurley: I fell asleep about 20 minutes ago. Um, this is just my sleep podcasting now.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: John Hume, we're coming for you. Yeah. All right, mate.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Thank, thank you. Have a good one. Have a happy new year. Yeah. And to you, uh, should we try and do a whole year of the show next year? You know, as opposed to, to this year where we took a break. It was this year. We took a break, right?

Brad Dowdy: No, it was last year. Was it last year? So have we done a full year? It was 2012. We went a whole year. Solid year.

Myke Hurley: Oh, congratulations to us. Yeah. We must be approaching an anniversary at some point soon here. Yeah. Where are we? Let me go back to, to, I'm sure that we've got to be getting close to a, like, uh, yeah, February 9th will be two years of the pen addict. Wow.

Myke Hurley: That's crazy. That is crazy. Well, anyway, I will have to say goodbye to everyone. We will say goodbye. Thank you so much for listening to, oh, Brad's gone. Brad's just left. So that, that's it for him. I felt like he was going. Oh, now he's calling me back again.

Myke Hurley: Hi. What did you do? I didn't do anything. Huh. This is all staying in the show, by the way.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, awesome. So we're still live.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking about the fact that you'd left.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I, I did. Cause I did. I could, I lost you. It was like your, uh, it was like you were magically, you know, downloading something you shouldn't be downloading and killed our connection.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I know what's happened. It's because I was uploading images. It's happened again. But anyway, I'm going to say goodbye. So thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. Thank you for being with us all year. We'll be back next week for our first episode of 2014. I am Myke Hurley. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad is at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And he writes over at penaddict.com. If you'd like to contact us, new way you can do it, go to 5x5.tv slash penaddict. And just press the contact button that you'll find right at the top of the page. That will generate a lovely email, which will fly over into the beautiful Brad's inbox. And then he will be able to take a look at that and we'll be able to add it in for the show. So that's a really cool thing that you can do for us. It's just another way you can get into contact. So thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. We'll be back next week. Say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.