The Pen Addict 92/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	92
Title:	Awinkening
Release Date:	February 7th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 92
Audio File:	Audio Episode 92
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 92
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 92 of The Pen Addict. My name is Myke Hurley. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. And I am joined, as I am every week, by the deconatory of dough and paper, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Well done, sir. How are you today?

Myke Hurley: I am very well. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. So you're all refreshed and ready to go. We had a little side trip, pushed us back until Thursday, but I know you missed me on Tuesday, didn't you?

Fountain Pens

Myke Hurley: Always, always. I was looking at my fountain pens, all sad.

Brad Dowdy: Made you all teary-eyed.

Myke Hurley: Where's Brad?

Brad Dowdy: It feels funny when we don't record on Tuesdays.

Myke Hurley: I feel like I don't know what day of the week it is right now.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I totally lose track. I totally lose track. But anyway, we're here. We got a good episode planned out for you today. And we got a few items of feedback I just wanted to touch on. And actually not even feedback or follow-up, but new products that I wanted to talk about. And as you mentioned in the intro, Dome Paper is on my radar with a pretty sweet new product. It's called the Winter Session Plus Dome Paper Three-Hole Binder Pouch. Now, if you're not looking at it and you're just going off by the name, you're like, what is he possibly talking about? But Chad Dome has started, I guess last year when he kind of revitalized his product lineup, he introduced a binder and loose-leaf sheets for his Dome Paper line, right? And he has come along now with another combination or collaboration. Collaboration, yes. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. Like the Topo Designs bag that he did that I own, which I still use every day. It's my favorite bag. I don't know, maybe ever. Topo Designs Dome Paper Mountain Briefcase. He's come out with a collaboration with Winter Session, which he also did his pen holsters and the leather memo book covers. So this binder pouch, what it does, it's like back in your elementary school days. You used to have your three-ring binder, and then everyone had that janky little, it's almost a Ziploc-looking clear little pouch that you'd hook into your three-ring binder. Well, this is taking it up to the adult level, to say the least. This is a super nice, it's like a waxed cotton pouch. It's beautiful. I have no use for the three-ring binder aspect of it, but I don't know. I might just have to order it because I think it's cool, and Chad's collaborations are always awesome. I don't know exactly what I'd use it for other than just mass storage of stuff, but it's really beautiful. It just kind of caught me off guard the other day on Instagram is where I found it, and it had been out for a little bit. And yeah, it looks good. So check it out if you're reliving your school days with your three-ring binder. I know you carry a three-ring binder every day, Myke, right? Yeah. Or a trapper keeper.

Myke Hurley: Always. Under my arm at all times.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Is that a My Little Pony trapper keeper? Sure.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. Of course. We have little ribbons and stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Cool.

Inkless Pen

Brad Dowdy: Well done. Well done. Another new item that I got all kinds of tweets and emails on, and maybe I should let you pronounce this, or we need to get Federico Vittici on to pronounce this, but I'm going to go for it. Okay. It's the Peninferina Cambiano inkless pen. How did I do?

Myke Hurley: That will do, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You didn't sound impressed.

Myke Hurley: It's pretty much there, I think. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I think that was pretty much it. That was rough. That's a, for a tough name, it's an awfully beautiful pen. But what it is, it's an inkless pen. Like I've reviewed in the past, I've reviewed one from Jack Zagori called the Beta Inkless Pen. And it's basically, it's just a metal tip pen that leaves a line like a pencil. So it doesn't require sharpening or anything like that. But it leaves kind of like a pencil line. It's made to never dull. It's not a sharp line. It's like a rounded tip. But there's no, gosh, what do you call it? There's no breakdown of the tip at all. It shouldn't last you forever.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't wear in any way.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it doesn't wear at all. And a bunch of people sent me this. And this is the first, the ones I've seen in the past. And the one I review are very, what would you call, very industrial, like not real, not awesome design. Just real basic design. This one is fancy. I mean, it's got like a wooden, I don't know, it's like an aluminum casing with a round of like wood in the middle. And just the like little small conical tip for the inkless part. I wish they wouldn't, it's really more of a graphite-less pencil than an inkless pen. Yeah. But that doesn't sound as good, I guess, as the inkless pen does, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, a bunch of people sent me this as well. And I remember I responded to one person about it and said, you know, they were like, oh, this must be right up your street. Because Pin Inferina, they also, they're most well known, I think, these days for their contributions to Ferrari. Okay, I didn't know that. They helped design some Ferraris.

Myke Hurley: But they, so people said, oh, you're going to love this. I was like, well, it actually doesn't have a lot of, it will not have a lot of the qualities that I love in a pen. Most of the things that I love in a pen, you will not get from this. Like the way the pen feels to write, ink stuff, you know, all of that, all that greatness. You, you won't get any of that. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. So, having, haven't used something, a similar product before, it's, it's really performs like a pencil and feels like a pencil. and the line is it's not very dark we'll put a link in the show notes to my old review and you can kind of see what an inkless pen looks like on the paper it's a wide line, it's not very deep it's not something that I ever latched on to and actually looking back at my review now there was I got two of them I got like a full sized pen and then I got like a little mini inkless pen, that one's actually more convenient because that's something you can throw in a car or throw in a backpack and it kind of goes along with the topic we're going to talk about today which is everyday carry pens it's the kind of pen that you never have to worry about as long as you keep track of it if you're getting any type of situation you're always going to have something to write with you don't have to worry about your ink refill freezing or running out of lead in a pencil but it's not the most awesome writing experience, it's more of a utilitarian type thing and kind of an as needed but yeah, this pen in Farina is very beautiful the only thing they don't have is a price and I opened up their press release and they don't list a price in that either

Myke Hurley: because you probably can't buy it and if you can buy it you can't afford it

Brad Dowdy: yeah, I can't imagine this is going to be

Myke Hurley: I think it's one of those scenarios that the fact that you're looking for a price tells you that you actually can't buy this pen

Brad Dowdy: yeah, maybe it just comes with the purchase of a Ferrari if with their

Myke Hurley: do you know what it probably does? or just any because they design cars for a bunch of people but they're probably most well known for their Ferrari work

Brad Dowdy: yeah, that's pretty cool

Myke Hurley: I don't like it personally it just looks like writing with a really, really expensive pencil which I don't get

Brad Dowdy: yeah well, I like the design but I just oh yeah, it looks fantastic yeah, I would just never have a use for it I don't have a use for the old ones that I have really because when you have every other writing option under the sun this isn't going to beat any of them right

Myke Hurley: exactly

Brad Dowdy: so so I've gone off the deep end I think I alluded to I don't know last week or a couple weeks before about my ink problem that I'm that I'm in the midst of my ink gosh, I don't know what it is I'm

Myke Hurley: awakening awakening awakening

Brad Dowdy: awakening

Myke Hurley: awakening

Limited Edition Inks

Brad Dowdy: my awakening the call of the limited edition is I'm bad about that kind of stuff apparently

Myke Hurley: I think it's such a bad idea to buy a limited edition ink

Brad Dowdy: oh yeah I know it is because if you love it it's gone that's exactly right

Myke Hurley: bad idea buddy

Brad Dowdy: it's a fatal flaw in the whole thought process but that didn't stop me from spending way way too much money on four bottles of sailor ink and I mentioned I think I did mention it a couple weeks ago that I bought them from Aesthetic Bay out of Singapore well I got the first review up it's called it was a sailor gentle limited edition autumn 2010 Okuyama it's a maroon ink it's very pretty

Myke Hurley: there's something in it that I love about the fact that you love a gentle sailor

Brad Dowdy: I mean you know a sailor is always at the top of my wishlist Myke that's one of the best show titles we've ever had back in the day and yes I love a I love a gentle sailor and this ink is actually shockingly good and which I'm glad because it cost me a fortune but it's weird it's my large written review didn't come out very well it's hard to I probably need to start scanning some of my ink reviews to see if I can get a better color

Myke Hurley: that would actually be a really good use for your doxy

Brad Dowdy: yeah I know I need to do that and it would be I don't know I just need to try it to see if it'll come out better but you can tell pretty much how the how the ink is it's kind of a medium maroon it's not too dark it's not too light it's not too pink it's not too purple it's just a real solid color it behaves extremely well and then the dry time on it when I did like the little dry time ink test it didn't smear at all like in five seconds on rhodia paper there was no smudging so I need to I need to double check my sanity on that I was like did I do this right and apparently I did because it didn't smudge on any of the the ink test and that was the most impressive thing about it

Myke Hurley: what's the one two three about

Brad Dowdy: um what do you call it that's how many times I've written over itself what's the word for it so one pass two pass three pass

Myke Hurley: right okay

Brad Dowdy: so one one pass of ink then passing over itself again twice then three times so just to show the darkness of the ink if it goes over itself

Myke Hurley: beautiful color

Brad Dowdy: yeah and then on the the instagram picture which actually probably shows the color better which I put at the bottom you can kind of barely make it out there's like a little bit of a green sheen on it like a lot of blue inks especially brighter blues you'll see a red sheen on it on some of these red inks you get a green sheen out of it and you can barely kind of see it in the uh in the other picture which that was on that was um the top picture was with my normal camera a nice uh you know panasonic um you know point and shoot nice decent camera and the bottom one is with my iphone and on um off-white hobonichi paper and that picture actually came out shows the color better I think and that was a that was a sneak shot of my new uh fire and ice franklin kristoff model 40 pocket which is pretty awesome so jealous

Myke Hurley: i just won't buy it because i'm still too scared about doing the strange feeling thing

Brad Dowdy: yeah it's actually pretty normal i was scared i was pretty scared um but anyway back to these inks i got four of these bottles so this was the first review i did and i have another one coming up soon and uh i'm gonna keep going through these and uh if you used all four of them no i've only used two of them so far and this one i've still got inked up i love i'm very happy with this and i've been using this ink at work and and things like that so i this one i will definitely use the other one is really awesome but i think there's something else that's almost identical to it so it may not be worth it in the end so that's a that's a teaser you'll just have to wait for the review of that one so this one i'm happy with the purchase worth the money the second bottle that i tested it's completely awesome it just may not be worth the money because you can do just as well elsewhere if you will so we'll leave that tease for you sounds good yes sir so that's all the kind of the follow-up topics and i know we got a we got a big topic today and we got a pen blog of the week i want to get to so do you want to talk about our friends today

Squarespace Sponsorship

Myke Hurley: yes let's take a moment to thank squarespace for sponsoring this episode of the pen addict as they have sponsored so many squarespace they are the all-in-one platform that make it really easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off go to squarespace.com and use the offer code tallyho2 that's t-a-l-l-y h-o and the number two let me tell you some very quick things about squarespace so they're always doing great stuff to make sure that their platform's up to date they're always adding new features they have fantastic new designs all the time and they have a really great support team they have 70 dedicated employees at squarespace that are 100% dedicated to their customer care team they deal with support for you they're there 24-7 squarespace take care of all the nasty stuff they take care of hosting take care of seo they give you a responsive web design with beautiful templates that look fantastic on any device but what I want to say is if you've been holding off for any reason about starting your own pen blog this is the place that you should go and try it out squarespace is really easy to set up they walk you through it they help you get it started and you can make the site the way that you want and with a free trial that I mentioned and I'll tell you more about that in a moment it gives you some time to play around with it yourself you get the full squarespace experience and you're able to see if it's the type of thing that you want to do squarespace plans are really affordable and again I'll tell you about those in a minute and they give you everything that you need all in one place if you sign up for a year with squarespace you get a free custom domain name too they can help you out setting up email accounts if that's what you need and they can integrate with google apps and stuff like that but they can also help you out with other email solutions if you want they have ios apps so you can publish to your site and view your statistics they have two different apps for that blog and metrics are the names of the app and they can help so that's that way you can publish from your ipad you can publish from your iphone obviously you can publish from your web browser too but it's just a really really great one stop shop for everything you need to put a website online so if you've been holding off setting up a blog of your own and you've been listening to us and you heard us a couple of weeks ago talk about pen blogging now's the time so go to squarespace right now go to squarespace.com and you can sign up for free for a free trial so you can check it out you don't even need to enter a credit card when you do this you just do name and an email address and a password that's all you need to do to set it up and if you decide to purchase squarespace plans start at just $8 a month which is nothing and as i mentioned before you'll get a free domain name if you sign up for a year or more so that's a really good part of it too so you don't even need to pay extra for that and make sure that you get 10% off and help support this show so you can get 10% off whatever you do and if you buy for a year then you'll get 10% off the whole year as well which is awesome so to do that you want to use the code TALLYHO2 that's T-A-L-L-Y H-O and the number 2 so thank you so much to Squarespace for supporting 5x5 and the pen addict

Brad Dowdy: you know what Squarespace surprise implemented last week did you catch that that it made a lot of people's day

Myke Hurley: oh RSS statistics yes so you now know how many people subscribe to your blog for RSS

Brad Dowdy: yes my tweet was hallelujah

Myke Hurley: were you happy was it everything you'd wish for

Brad Dowdy: oh man yeah it was everything I couldn't sleep that morning when I went to bed I was so excited well yeah it's like oh my RSS subscribers are back

Myke Hurley: yeah because I know that you were upset when that got taken away I think they just I think they had a blog post about it that said they would have just been working on it and they finally got away to do it properly and eat reliably

Brad Dowdy: yeah well what the issue was is a lot of people myself included wanted to get away from feed burner right because with all the Google just hacking products away left and right you know we were scared to leave our feeds over there and so I just at one point I cut it over to Squarespace but I could never tell how many subscribers I had I kind of had a general idea just doing some some back of the napkin math calculations but now I've got it got it on lockdown so it's perfect it works out well I got a question for you this is unrelated to pens and just hearing you do the Squarespace ad I think that was like maybe your best ad read ever

Myke Hurley: oh thank you

Brad Dowdy: and you know I heard you talking with Lex Friedman I don't know a week or two ago and you know we're talking about how Lex does the you know he's done his own podcasting advertising company you need to do your own podcasting advertising read company

Myke Hurley: oh this is all proprietary software my friend

Brad Dowdy: yeah I can know do you know who Billy Mays is

Myke Hurley: no

Brad Dowdy: have you ever heard that name all right in the US he was like the king of the infomercial and with him infomercial is a lot of times a derogatory term right it's just kind of junk and janky but with him he just like he just owned it you like heard this guy's voice and you knew that this was Billy Mays and it was awesome it was gonna be awesome and he just had this whole thing he died too soon but you're like the Billy Mays of the podcast ad read where you read you read the ad and everyone knows that's a Myke Hurley ad right there that was it for me sorry I've totally gotten this off off the rails but back on the rails I want to talk about the pin blog of the week I feel like we need we need music for that it's the pin blog of the week that works this week I want to talk about my good friend my good online friend Miss Mary Collis from the pin cup she is do you ever talk to people online Myke that you have never met in person but you just know like through through the internet and by how they handle themselves that they are just legitimately nice people and yes yeah I can just tell from all my interactions with Mary over the years that Mary just seems like legitimately awesome she just seems very cool very nice very down to earth you know she's always she's always got energy you know when she's talking about you know pins and everything else so I want y'all to go check out from the pin cup if you don't already she does extremely put me to shame thorough interviews interviews excuse me reviews with awesome pictures incredible handwriting and just real thorough refills on all kinds of pins she's been doing this for a couple years now I remember when she first started she was emailing me but I guess it's been a couple years now that her blog's been out there it's a must read for me she does such an amazing job on every single she never phones in a review I will give her that she's it's just loaded with pictures with details with handwriting examples and y'all should definitely go check her out so if you're not aware of her blog we will have it in the show notes and you should check it out and awesome job Mary so y'all definitely check it out because I don't miss it when she posts I love her posts

Myke Hurley: perfect alright

Brad Dowdy: so we got a we have a topic that actually when I thought about doing this topic about everyday carry pins I kind of had to go back through I was like have we ever done a show where we just like dedicated a full segment for everyday carry I know we've talked about it off and on constantly over the years but never I don't know that I've ever dedicated any like huge amount of time to it and what prompted that was I was on a podcast this past weekend called Gear Geeks Live and it's with my friend Tony Scullambrini who writes the everyday commentary blog and he is a big everyday carry guy he reviews knives and flashlights and of course pins and other things that you know a lot of people who are really into this everyday carry thing get into and it's an awesome read and he's a real good guy and he asked me to come on with a couple of his friends that he does the podcast with so I got to thinking they were quizzing me kind of about some everyday carry pins and some things that I liked and some things that I carried so I thought that would make a good topic here because I actually find that talking with Tony and his friends on Gear Geeks that their definition of everyday carry pins is one thing and then the listeners and readers of the pen addict their definition of everyday carry is not completely different but it's definitely different than the guys like on Gear Geeks and that and then that submit to like everyday carry dot com I'll put that in the show notes Myke there's a site called everyday dash carry dot com that's been around forever and a guy named Bernard started it and I used to talk to Bernard all the time when he started his blog and he kind of went on hiatus while he was in school but it's back now and so everyone should check that out too for some some cool EDC suggestions but when I think of everyday carry pin I think of like a singular pin that I can leave the house with throw it in my pocket that's going to be durable it's not going to break it's not going to pop open it's not going to leak ink all over me when I take it out to use it it's going to work immediately without any issue and a lot of times some of the products might have a multiple use so the definition of everyday carry pin that's kind of what I think but you know some people don't take it too far some people just simply say well this is the pin I want to write with today and this is the pin I use primarily so I'm going to take it with me and that's a completely valid like everyday carry aspect and you know looking at how the guys that are into the traditional EDC world which is you know the knives the flashlights the pins everything you carry in a pocket pocket dumps all those things that you know all these guys are into they're looking for like a more serious almost like a tactile pin tactical pin excuse me where you know it's metal for the durability and you know the the refills are like a Fisher Space Pen refill where it can write anywhere which is you know a great quality for a pin and it also a lot of times the looks are very important to where you know the stainless steel color has to match you know their their knife handle and their flashlight color and things like that when they're just putting this whole kind of kit together to whereas you know our listeners are not necessarily looking for that level of everyday carry product they're looking for more the functionality of the pin you know when I was talking to our listeners on Twitter this morning I wanted to hear everyone's everyday carry suggestions and it's really more of a writing experience choice as opposed to a pure functionality choice I guess for everyday carry am I making sense when I'm I'm trying to explain the slight differences between how kind of these two two groups are looking at this everyday carry thing

Myke Hurley: yeah so what do you so I guess depending on how you perceive the question do you see something as a utility type pen as in that's the everyday carry or do you see it as what pen do you like to use everyday

Brad Dowdy: right

Myke Hurley: that's the difference

Brad Dowdy: right and you know and some of them you know there's there's several pens that kind of combine the two very well but there's a lot of times if you're going for the utility side of thing you give up necessarily the beautiful writing experience right and if you go for the great writing pen you might give up some of the say durability of you know the utility side of side of the ledger so you know I've got a I've got a bunch of pens here a lot of them that kind of lean towards the utility side the the durability and the functionality and just you know the pure just structure of the pen that's going to take a beating and you're still going to be able to write with it and you can throw it in a pocket or a car or a backpack and never have to worry about it so I have a bunch of suggestions here and most of these are really popular pens that people have talked about a lot over the years but they're really popular with the everyday carry community probably the single most popular pen and a lot and a pen that probably a lot of pen addict readers have because it's it's very reasonably priced and it's easy to find it's the Zebra F701 this I think between it and the second item on my list which is the Fisher Space Pen those are the two single most popular pens you see when you hear people talking about just traditional everyday carry the Zebra F701 is I think it's only about seven or eight dollars and it's a fully stainless steel barrel with a knurled grip it's got a retractable um retractable cartridge so you know deployment pen deployment of an everyday carry pen is a key right a lot of people don't want an everyday carry pen with a cap because they'll lose it you know if they're out and about you know especially if you're working outside you know like in you know landscaping or any kind of outdoor work or job site you don't want two parts to your pen but you don't want some plastic barrel pen that's going to snap and crack every time you set it down or get stomped on I mean this Zebra F701 could probably get run over by a truck and you'd be okay and it's got a retractable mechanism um the thing that people do with this F701 it's interestingly not very compatible with other ink refills and the ink refill isn't awesome for this one it's good it's definitely usable but there's pages and pages and pages on everyday carry forums about hacking the Zebra F701 it's probably the single number one most popular everyday carry pen um that you'll see and if you haven't checked it out you know if you're not familiar with the Zebra F701 I mean they're available at Walmart like my local Walmart carries this pen it's very common um you don't have to look too hard to find it and um you it's definitely worth owning one to at least just throw it in your car your backpack and you'll have it it can withstand pretty much everything you you throw at it the one thing it doesn't have what this next item has is the Fisher Space Pen it has the refill the Fisher Space Pen is so popular strictly because of the refill

Fisher Space Pen

Myke Hurley: this is my this is my pick for an everyday carry by the way

Brad Dowdy: okay so you have you have the Field Notes version yep which that model is the base model Fisher Space Pen that actually everyone's familiar with that's when you see Fisher Space Pen the model you have is the model I always think of it's just the straight bullet design um where it uncaps kind of from the middle and you post it right on the end it makes more of a full size pen to write with um it's an amazing pen and why it's so good is the refill it doesn't write spectacularly it doesn't write like a jet stream it's a ballpoint same with the Zebra F701 I didn't mention that it's a ballpoint refill and a lot of you'll find a lot of these everyday carry pens are ballpoints just for durability reasons they'll tend to not clog up and have as many writing issues as you know a rollerball or gel ink pen will but the Fisher Space Pen is so good because it's essentially I call it a write anywhere pen I mean it can write on wood it can write on you know dirty paper that you've left out in the dirt and you know not get all kind of junk up in the pen it can write upside down it can write you know like if you're marking on walls or something like if you're in construction or building you can use this pen just to kind of mark up anything and that's the huge selling point about the pen and the way the pressurized refill works that ink's just going to come out as soon as you start writing and it's not real messy it's not you know an elite writing experience I actually prefer and a lot of people prefer the fine refills over the medium refills that come with the Space Pen so that's obviously a hugely popular one what I recommended for the guys on the Gear Geeks live podcast were two other pens that are a little higher in the price point but from a durability aspect they're amazing one is the County Comm Embassy Pen which I've talked about several times on the podcast that's kind of my traveling pen it's loaded with the fine blue Fisher Space Pen refill it fits those Parker style refills which is what the Fisher Space Pen is what it has and it's got a little cap that you can put on the back of the barrel so it fits right I have the black aluminum aluminum County Comm Embassy Pen

Brad Dowdy: about three years now and I still carry it constantly

Myke Hurley: it's too much knurling for me yeah but it's not

Brad Dowdy: rough at all it's very smooth

Myke Hurley: yeah just from a design standpoint

Brad Dowdy: yeah from a design standpoint well in the hand it feels pretty awesome it's a very weighty pen

Myke Hurley: yeah

Brad Dowdy: you do know where it's at like it's actually too heavy for say like a front shirt pocket carry you know that's one thing to consider where like the Zebra F701 it's not overly heavy the County Comm Embassy Pen is so like if you clipped it to your pocket like in your front shirt it's going to kind of sag so not everyone wants that so the second one I recommend it kind of solves that problem is the Max Madco retractable this is one of those few pens that wasn't on my radar that knocked my socks off when I was able to review it I still haven't purchased my own I borrowed this one from someone I have to get one of these pens it's extraordinarily well made it's about half the weight of the embassy pen just that's just guessing it's a much more lightweight pen but it's still it's still a very durable I think it's aluminum barrel too or is it titanium I think it's aluminum but it's a bolt unlike people don't like the county comm yeah so

Myke Hurley: people

Brad Dowdy: don't like the county comm because it's a capped pin it's not retractable the max madco is it uses a bolt mechanism and it's stellar I need to go ahead and put my money down for this one ! it's just beautifully made it's slim but it's full sized and it's lightweight but it's durable it's kind of got everything going for it the retractable mechanism the bolt is very sleek so it's not grabbing into pockets I don't like large bolt action pins where the bolt sticks way out and can grab your pants pocket or shirt pocket or get in the way of your hand when you're writing so this is a

Brad Dowdy: I really need it

Myke Hurley: I want to point out that all of these pens Brad's reviews for all of them and you can find a list of them in our show notes for this episode which you can find at 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 92 now

Tombow Air Press

Brad Dowdy: those two pens replace this next pen on my list because I was a huge fan

Myke Hurley: this just looks crazy this pen to me

Brad Dowdy: do you not own a Tombow Air Press no no okay for some reason I was thinking at some point you got one so the Tombow Air Press is a pen I've had for a while I've actually gone through one or two of them two different ones it's like the Fisher Space pen in that it's a pressurized ink refill but it comes with a really really nice built in clip and it's retractable so it's kind of got those things that the Fisher Space Pen doesn't the Fisher Space Pen is just like a smooth bullet you can buy a clip but it's an add-on so it moves around and it's not retractable although there's a couple retractable space pen barrels you can get but they're not as nice as the regular bullet the Tombow Air Press encompasses all that into one nice package and I've carried this pen

Brad Dowdy: changes in your car and you click the pen and you start writing with it and it's going to work so it's a very good pen for an everyday carry just kind of a stash it and forget it pen if you will like if you need a pen in certain situations like a car that you don't know what the conditions are always going to be that's a great place to have something like a Tombow Air Press it's not something I use for everyday writing but it's something I use for everyday utility if you will it's there if I need it and I know it's going to work so those are my main traditional everyday carry pens so as good as utility as those pens are they're not necessarily the best writing experience so I look at something like if I had to pick just like the pen I actually carry the most just on its own just like if I'm going out to the store and you know I'm just taking my keys and my wallet and you know maybe a notebook and a pen I'm probably taking the Secura Pigma Micron now that's not what people would think of as a traditional everyday carry pen it's certainly not great for outdoor environments with the plastic tip it's not going to work very well but it's cheap enough to where I can replace it it writes well it's got pigmented ink so I know if I have to sign a document or whatever sign a receipt I know my signature is going to be really good so that's kind of mine and either the secure Pigma Micron or any of the various uniball jet streams those are kind of my two basic everyday carry pens if you will that I know are going to work good they don't necessarily have the full functionality of something like a Fisher space pen refill but they're cheap enough to where if they break down or I lose them or the barrel breaks

Brad Dowdy: do you have a Fisher space pen do you just have another pen that you just pick up and carry when you're going somewhere or use for anything

Myke Hurley: I always have a retro 51 in my backpack

Brad Dowdy: just

Myke Hurley: because I know that it's always going to be good but I wouldn't consider that an everyday carry

Brad Dowdy: right yeah I don't know that I necessarily would either that's one that I always

Myke Hurley: have that's more on the utility sorry the feel than utility

Brad Dowdy: yeah

Myke Hurley: even the Fisher of space pen I actually don't carry that around every day anymore because I kind of just have both of my pens in my Tash and glider and I use that every time every time

Brad Dowdy: so you're still carrying that that's been working out well for you

Myke Hurley: every day that's awesome and I use it more as well like I've been traveling recently and so like I've had somewhere to put my documents and stuff because it has those plastic wallets so I put my documents in the plastic wallets it's where I keep my iPad it has my iPad on me all the time and I'm currently carrying around the Twisby Diamond Mini and I'm also carrying around the Karis Customs Inc because Dudek and also so Dudek had sent me a bunch of DMs to tell me look just do it take it around and I was still like and then Dan Bishop emailed me and he was like just do it sorry Dan it was kind of he didn't really say it was towards that effect and just kind of look he's going to get another one soon take it out with you he'll get over it type thing so I've been carrying it around and I love it by the way I'm really really enjoying it it's a great pen

Brad Dowdy: very cool so I threw in a couple other things that I do carry from time to time on the pencil side of the ledger the rotary 600 which is just the classic all time great engineering metal barrel pencil with the knurled grip I think that's an awesome everyday carry pencil and on the fountain pen side and I think you're going to see this coming up in the vast comments that I've gotten from our Twitter followers the Kaweco AL Sport I think is probably the single top everyday carry type fountain pen you know it's got that aluminum barrel it's got the real tight threading on the barrel so you can throw this pen in your pocket and you're not worried about it coming apart and ain't getting everywhere it posts well when you take the cap off it writes amazingly the Kaweco nibs are always outstanding for me so the AL Sport is probably that and the vanishing point are probably the number one everyday carry fountain pens I would think

Myke Hurley: I have two sort of things personally the way that I consider everyday carry I don't think any fountain pen fits it

Brad Dowdy: yeah I agree with you in the traditional sense of the word that's why I've kind of set it down here at the bottom as an afterthought almost right

Kaweco Clip

Myke Hurley: my problem with the Kaweco is the clip situation because I think an everyday carry pen should have a clip so you can clip it to something but I have found the clips that you add to be to not be very reliable like I had a clip on mine and it just comes off yep that's no use what's the point

Brad Dowdy: agreed completely but I actually like carry I just throw this pen in my jeans pocket and I have carried it in my shorts pocket I have no problem carrying this one in the pocket but I do agree with your sentiment that a traditional everyday carry pen like in the traditional classification probably should have a clip because you want to be able to attach it to things and not just your shirt pocket or pants pocket something like that so yeah I am with you on that but from a lot of the pen addict perspective these are the types of things they're carrying and I just wanted to show the different answers that we get when you're talking to the different groups say the traditional everyday carry pen pocket knife flashlight that type of carry is looking for one type of pen and then the people that listen to our podcast and read the pen addict have a lot of different things for some reason I didn't think about this even when I wrote down Rotring 600 I asked this morning before I went to bed I said hey we're doing an everyday carry podcast what does everyone carry what's your everyday carry pen just to get a gauge on the community what they carry the first word from the very first response I got from Julian K who's been a follower for a long time he's a country made of yours Kuro Toga that didn't even register on me and that came up a bunch of other times in the same conversation one of them called it God's pencil the Kuro Toga Josh Berkowitz on Twitter the Kuro Toga came up over and over and over again I was like I didn't even consider that one for some reason I don't know if it's the barrel there are so many good

Myke Hurley: ways that this is a perfect everyday carry genuinely because pencils write on more surfaces yeah

Brad Dowdy: I totally agree with it for some reason I personally overlooked ! I

Myke Hurley: wouldn't have thought ! I wouldn't have thought it either but it's a perfect choice because it's also extremely durable because it's just plastic and it's kind of hollow it's a really good choice actually the only thing is with it being a mechanical pencil the lead is thin and too much abrasion could break the lead I think that could be your only problem and if it breaks too much it becomes frustrating to write with

Brad Dowdy: right aside from the Kaweco AL sports there was lots of calls for the classic and the sport the plastic barrel same design plastic barrel which I can understand there was a few pilot high tech C's which I think that's a terrible everyday carry pen pen I mean besides the fact it's one of my personal all time favorite pens it is way too finicky to be taken out and about and writing anywhere everywhere type of thing you don't want to get stuck with that pen not writing which has happened to me so I don't even care I mean I carry them everywhere with me just it's not made for that necessarily what else we got a few of the Kickstarter pens you know in the more traditional EDC sense you know the one called the pen project you know the carous custom retract you know I think it's a good call you know it's the aluminum barrel it's retractable it takes a lot of different refills same with the tactile turn mover for

Myke Hurley: me though an everyday carry pen should be small

Brad Dowdy: I

Myke Hurley: think which is

Myke Hurley: it should be pocketable as well as to be thrown in a bag I

Lamy Safari

Brad Dowdy: got a lot of Lamy safaris it's a little too large

Myke Hurley: it's too big again it's a fountain pen it's also a little flimsy

Brad Dowdy: it's a little large but someone mentioned Adam Young mentioned the Pilot Pettit One it's a fountain pen but it's really small it's about twice the width of a space pen or maybe three times the width but it's about the same length so I don't know that's an interesting choice yeah lots of retracts what else we got oh okay this pencil wasn't on my radar and I still wouldn't choose it over the Rotring 600 but the Pentel carry now I didn't put a link in the show notes but I've reviewed !

Brad Dowdy: compact size it's called the Pentel carry sharp I believe I'll have to look it up and get you the link or you can pull it up that's a really good call Justin Ranallo on Twitter that one I thought was really cool good one to bring up and lots of Twisby's lots of Twisby minis Uniball Jetstreams Zebra F701 so this is good Pentel

Myke Hurley: sharp drafting pencil

Brad Dowdy: no what was it called carry k-e-r-r-y

Myke Hurley: k-e-r-r-y I was spelling carry

Brad Dowdy: yeah sorry

Myke Hurley: there goes an alarm clock

Brad Dowdy: oh my word time to wake up

Myke Hurley: wow

Brad Dowdy: time to make the donuts

Myke Hurley: oh dear that's set for tomorrow morning oh gave me a heart attack my alarm clock is so loud is it tomorrow morning already it might as well be oh

Brad Dowdy: thought maybe it was UPS oh this is awesome the the Pentel sharp carry link is broken on my site

Myke Hurley: that's not I've got it here

Brad Dowdy: okay you got it yeah oh I just hit one internal okay good so yeah that's a good call on the pencil

Myke Hurley: yeah

Brad Dowdy: and uh lots of pilot vanishing points you know that's a good durable fountain pen I actually hesitated to put that on there honestly because it's a little expensive and you know you kind of got to be careful about those things you know I don't want to just like totally butcher it and destroy it but you know that's that's maybe just me not everyone thinks the same way I do the Midori brass bullet pencil which Andy Wilfel sent to me I think is a good call it's a durable woodcase pencil holder but it goes into a compact size I really like that pen pencil it actually comes in a ballpoint pen version but the pencil version is the way to go plus it's one of the coolest looking pencils out there I think and then you know a couple people said hey what about paper and I didn't really have anyone come up with anything besides field notes and don't paper memo books I didn't see anything interesting some people use you know just some standard you know some general stuff but nothing like earth shattering as far as paper goes which I guess is okay I mean I think the field notes and don't paper are pretty well integrated into people's back pockets by this point right I don't know what else you're going to do there to be perfectly honest I mean there's obviously things but when we're talking everyday carry I think you want to count it being on your person right I don't think you necessarily were talking about a larger notebook that you'd have in a backpack sure you're carrying it every day but this is in the more utility type aspect where you just had one pin notebook your keys your wallet and you just put them all in your pants pocket I think that's the type of thing we're looking for here I think that's about goddess though I think it's a good conversation because it can go so many different ways like Tony on the Gear Geeks Live his everyday carry pin is the Prometheus pin which I'll have to look that up on Kickstarter but it's a large I think I'm going to say titanium pin it's a little much in the looks department for me but it's cool looking but it's not cool looking enough for me to lay down I think it was about a hundred bucks or so to purchase it I can't remember but it's got that durability aspect to it he's going to be able to take that pin anywhere and everywhere it's going to take a beating and it'll be able to handle anything you throw at it so there's pretty much two different groups at least in our world from an EDC perspective and I thought it was a good conversation to have just to throw out some of these things because there's a lot of overlap between what products people are using for EDC and it's also nice to see what people are carrying that you may not have thought of I definitely appreciate everyone chiming in today on Twitter and app.net got a bunch of feedback and definitely keep them coming I want to hear if there's things I missed I totally whiffed on the Kurutoga and as soon as I saw it that's a great call for

Brad Dowdy: if

Myke Hurley: you want to catch up with the show notes go to 5x5.tv I am I Myke on Twitter I am Y K E and Brad is at Dowdy is D O W D Y I S M if you like to catch up with Brad's work online go to pen addict dot com if you like to get in touch with us you can also go to our contact form our contact information by going to 5x5.tv slash pen addict you'll see a big button there just press that and you'll be able to send us a note thank you so much Brad for being here today thank you all for listening to this week's episode of the pen addict podcast until next time say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad