The Pen Addict 94/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	94
Title:	The Pen Ambassador
Release Date:	February 19th, 2014
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 94
Audio File:	Audio Episode 94
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 94
Length:	4949 min <br />0.817 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 94 of The Pen Addict on 5x5. The Pen Addict is a 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 Willy Wonka of the pen world, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, that is cool. I like that.

Myke Hurley: You are very much that kind of guy. Making things, collecting things, being an eccentric man about town, all that sort of stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Are you my Veruca?

Myke Hurley: I mean, anything you want, really. I prefer to be a Charlie, but if you need me to be a Veruca, then... You know, it's kind of interesting, right? Because the story... I mean, I don't know how many people know this, because I don't know how far Roald Dahl books reached. So there are a series of Willy Wonka books. Mm-hmm. When the last one, I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head right now. They're actually called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by the way. Yeah, right. And then the books are Charlie and the something. So like Charlie and the Glass Elevator was the second one. And I think there may have just been two. But at the end of it, Charlie takes over the Chocolate Factory. Spoiler alert. Cool. So that's kind of like I am your Charlie, you know? I'm slowly getting to the point where I take over the Chocolate Factory.

Brad Dowdy: I like it. I like it. That's all the good stuff we make.

Myke Hurley: I don't even know where to go from there. Yeah.

Pen Podcast

Brad Dowdy: Is this a pen podcast? Should we get on track?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, let's do that.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I got a good email from last week from Tim Drowdy. He made sure to pronounce his last name, because it's very similar to mine, although spelled completely differently. In an email he sent me, he sent me a good email on a couple of topics that we talked about. First is the Everyday Carry show. So let me read a little bit of what he says. And I thought he made some good points. So he says, over the past couple of shows, there have been a few discussions that have spurred me to write this email. Firstly, on the EDC show, I know you touched on the fact that pen addicts and EDC folks have different opinions on what EDC means, what happens when you're in both camps. And I think that's something that I can relate to, and I think probably a lot of listeners can relate to. So he says, as an EDC nut, I want a pen that I can trust will write in almost any condition. As a pen addict, I want it to be a good writing experience. That's my reason for carrying a Jetstream-filled F701. That's the zebra pen we talk about a lot. This will get me through the tight spots in the grocery line or the garage. Sorry, Fisher, no space pens for this addict. He says, but that isn't the whole story. I don't think you will ever discover a pen addict by only what is in his or her pocket. You need a bag dump, too. You need to understand what is being carried in the pen cases, what notebook or planner is being used, and even what apps are on the guilty party's phone, tablet, or PC, and why those specific choices were made. That is where you will find the true nuances of the pen lover. Would you rather leave the house with your Leuchtturm or your iPad? Which do you take to a meeting? Which do you think about more? How much ink is in your Twisby or how much battery is left in your iPhone? Pen addicts know the right answer. As a tech nerd, too, the answer is all of the above. I know. I have issues. So I thought that was a good point, and that's something I think about, too. It's not just for the EDC side of the ledger, for the pure EDC side of the ledger. It is just about, you know, the pen, I think. You know, is it durable? Is it going to write in any situation? You know, is it, you know, small and portable? Things like that. But I think on the pen addict side of the ledger, where you're worrying more about the writing experience, I think the other parts come into play. Like, well, what are you writing on? You know, what are you carrying your pen and paper in? And it's kind of this whole, I don't know, this whole area that I think about a lot. And, you know, I like carrying, you know, my bag. Like, I have my dome paper mountain briefcase, Topo mountain briefcase that I love. And, you know, my Notco Brasstown pen case goes in that. And there's a Rhodia dot pad in there. And my Hobonichi planner's in there. And there's a field notes in there. And this is all the junk that I carry that's, like, totally overkill. But you know what? If I left the house without that stuff, I'd feel naked. Do you ever get that feeling? Like, if you don't carry certain things? It doesn't have to be a lot of things. But, like, even just, like, a pen and a piece of paper. If you go out, say you're just going out to the store and you don't have those things, do you ever feel like, I don't know, you left your wallet at home? You know, I get that feeling if I don't have certain things with me to write with.

Myke Hurley: I don't carry a notebook in my pocket anymore. So I don't really have that feeling so much. I don't like really not ever having my bag with me. And when I have my bag with me, I have all the stuff that I need. You know, I have a couple of pens and I have a couple of field notes and my iPad. Because they go in my Rotofod and Tashingberg glider. Right? They go in there. So I'm pretty comfortable with that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I think that's the point. You know, I think that's the point that Tim's getting at is, like, for us pen addicts, it's not just about the pen. It's about the whole shooting match, right? I mean, if we care that much about the pens that we carry, we're not just carrying any old junky paper to write on. You know, we've thought about the paper that we're going to write on. And then we've thought about maybe the pen case that we're going to put our pens in. And then maybe about the bag that we're going to carry all this stuff in that we've been suckered into buying. You know, by this dang show, you bunch of enablers.

Brad Dowdy: So Tim's second part of the email, which is what I really wanted to get into. And I thought he made a good point. It was about when we talked about how to carry pens in the cold weather.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we got quite a bit of feedback about this and the airplane, actually. Maybe we should talk about planes after this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So we got some feedback on that. The question was, the Twitter question was, and I forget who asked this last week, but was, how do you carry your pens and inks in cold weather? And both of us said don't. So we got some flack for that. So let me read what Tim said. He said, secondly, I wanted to call you out on last week's comment about cold weather carries. I live in Canada. If the only answer to the question about how to manage pens and inks in cold weather is don't, then I may as well start looking for the Pencil Addicts podcast, because I would only have the use of my pens for about eight months a year. He says, believe me, I know cold. I also carry fountain pens. Last week, I received a new bottle of J'herbon Pearl Noir via mail. It was negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit. No problems. Carry your pens in your inside coat pocket. Request inks be held for pickup. Vendors that know how to deal with cold weather will take a little out of the bottle and still include it in a separate vial so that there is room for expansion. Yes, U.S. vendors too. I feel that the issue of how to handle pens in cold weather is no more stressful than whether you should use a converter instead of a cartridge. Neither things are a problem if you're smart about it. You wouldn't leave a can of soda in your car overnight when it's freezing. Why would ink be any different? That's the common sense aspect of it that we've talked about. It says, I don't want to leave the impression that living in the Canadian prairies is akin to living at the North Pole. I know what negative 40 feels like in the winter, and I know what 100 degrees feels like in the summer. I enjoy my pens in both. We have heaters and air conditioners. He said, sorry for rambling. Thanks for keeping the podcast awesome. Keep it up. So, yeah, I mean, he's got a point there. You know, and I definitely, you know, that's probably a lack of experience on my part and maybe your part too, to where we really haven't had to deal with like super extremes. Yes, it gets cold here, but not like wicked cold like he's getting in Canada and things like that. So common sense plays a lot into it. And, you know, Tim does go through a few extra steps to ensure that all his pens and inks are taken care of. And I definitely appreciate that feedback to get some perspective from someone who actually has to deal with it instead of me who is wearing flip-flops as we do this podcast.

Myke Hurley: Should we talk about planes very quickly in the same sort of idea? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So we kind of mentioned never take your pens on a plane and a few people got in touch and they're like, I'm fine, you know. Basically, at different pressures, fountain pens can react peculiarly. Your mileage may vary on that one. I think is maybe the best way of sort of putting that. Sure. You know. Yeah. I would advise. There's definitely some variance. Yeah, I would advise don't because the one time that it happens is so much more of an effect than the thousand times it doesn't happen to you.

Myke Hurley: But, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think the key, the few tips that we got were to definitely keep them in an upright position at all times.

Brad Dowdy: And I've always heard to keep the, if you're using, you know, a converter or even I guess it would go for a cartridge too, is to ensure that the ink is full. So there's not, I don't know, so there's not a lot of room for it to expand into other areas. But I don't know. I don't have enough. I'm not a frequent flyer enough to be willing to test out all these theories. But people, most people seem to not have too, too much of a problem with it and flying with, I think the one email we got, the person was flying with like five or six fountain pens loaded up at once and say no problems at all. So that's good.

Myke Hurley: I just, you know.

Brad Dowdy: But, yeah, what you said is exactly right. It's, for me, it's the one time that it explodes and makes a mess is not worth, you know, the ten other times where I can control it by not doing that. Yep. So. All right. We got some new products releasing. And in our show notes, I was a little, I guess, explicit in my description of what I felt about this. But for those playing at home, we're going to go with bleeping Twisby and their bleeping prototype pictures. I didn't write bleeping in the.

Myke Hurley: No, you didn't.

TWSBI Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: But I and I use bleeping in the kindest way possible because it's awesome what they do, what Twisby does. But, man, there's such a tease. It's a tease. It's like why even follow their Facebook page? Because all they do is tease. So they put out this, they got in a run last week after not posting anything for weeks where they posted several new products on their Facebook page. So one of them, the first one that I wanted to show, talk about, Myke, is the Twisby. They're calling it the PP036 Precision Fountain Pen.

Brad Dowdy: And we'll have all these links in the show notes. 5x5.tv slash pen addict slash 94. Did I get it? Yeah, you got it.

Myke Hurley: Yes. Good man.

Brad Dowdy: I never think about that before I say it, and I always hope I say it right.

Brad Dowdy: So, and if not, you can just go to Twisby's Facebook page and you'll see them. They're plastered all over it. This pen looks fantastic, sort of.

Brad Dowdy: It's, I'm guessing it's a, it's an aluminum barrel pen. The design looks great. It looks like a hexagonal barrel. The design looks awesome. With the cap posted, it looks kind of ridiculous. It's really large. It's really large. But it looks like the cap also threads on the back of the pen, which is a problem with, you know, aluminum, with metal barrel pens, right? And you, it's hard to get a good feel when you're just sliding on a metal barrel cap, posting a metal barrel cap on the back of a pen. And it, it's not necessarily flush. So this one looks like it has a threaded cap on the back end of the pen for posting, which looks great. It just looks like it makes it gigantic. It makes, it looks like it makes a really huge pen. But it's, it's really good looking. I mean, they've done a good job. But, you know, it's like, do you even bother talking about this if it's not even going to exist?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And that's my challenge with the Twispies fountain pen page and why I use the, the colorful, colorful language. Because it's like this tease of this product. And it's like, it may never see the light of day or it might be two years down the line, which a lot of the times it does. But, you know, I do appreciate the fact that they're sharing and sharing their ideas and getting some feedback. And I'm sure that's a good resource for them on Facebook to kind of go through these things, right? What do you, what do you think about them showing off like prototype pictures? Just, hey, look what we did. We may not ever make this, but what do you think? I guess it's kind of like the, the new cars where they, you know, make the prototype cars, right? That never go to market, but they're using it to learn about new manufacturing technology and things like that.

Myke Hurley: I have no problem with them doing it as long as it's clear what it is I'm looking at. So like car manufacturers say, blah, blah, prototype or concept, you know, and I'm cool with that. Like it's not an issue as long as I know that that's what it is. If I don't know, then I kind of get a bit frustrated. I'm like, are you releasing it? You're not, you know, give me an idea.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And actually on that one, it's really not clear. I don't think the, the PP 036. I don't know that they're, they are super clear. Is this just a prototype? I mean, TWSBI does say it's a piston filler. I don't know the price yet. So that makes me think that, Hey, we're going to make this pen, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That seems like, you know, but it also doesn't look real. Right. This one. So it looks like it's been done in like CAD, like it's like a computer aided design. It's just software. So yeah, that might come out, but it might be 18 months away.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So it's cool. I definitely appreciate TWSBI, you know, putting this stuff out there. I believe me, I'm not dogging them at all, but it's when they load up their page, like they did yesterday with all these new things that you don't know whether they're real or not. You just kind of get your hopes up and then they're kind of dashed when it's just a, just maybe a prototype. So this other one.

Myke Hurley: They call it the IROC. I-R-O-C. So that obviously stands for something like Republic of China.

TWSBI 540

Brad Dowdy: Right. So I think the way this one is going to be is a limited edition, like the pen that you and I enjoy so much, the 540 ROC. Yeah. Which was, you know, just a, it's a basic 540 plastic barrel. I think this one's going to be, there's an article on Fountain Pen Geeks where they, they dug through the comments and found a little more. I think this is going to be like a really high end pen. So I'm, I don't know what the material construction is and it might even have a gold nib. I know it's gold colored on this picture, but I think it actually might be a gold nib because they were talking about on Fountain Pen Geeks that the price of this pen is going to be like $350. So this is going to be like a top end, um, TWSBI, you know, something really high end that they're exploring, I guess. I mean, I'm, I, again, is this really going to exist? I, I'm guessing so, but I don't know for sure, but it's cool to look at. I, I mean, this isn't a pen for me. I, I don't necessarily like the aesthetics. If it was solid black, I'd like it. It's got kind of a floral pattern on here, which they've done exceptionally nice. Um, I just don't, you know, it's not something I'd necessarily spend $350 on.

Myke Hurley: No, no, not for me. Um, and then the last one, this next one, the closest to coming to real and it's really

Brad Dowdy: sweet. And it's going to be the 580 with the aluminum piston that we talked about, um, a few weeks back where they posted the colored aluminum, um, TWSBI 580s. This one, the picture they just showed is the clear one with the silver aluminum. Um, it's got an aluminum section and aluminum, uh, piston filling mechanism. It looks awesome.

Myke Hurley: It looks really sharp. I hope they released the color ones at this at the same time, but they do say it's, they're thinking about calling it the 580 AL. That that's what they were asking for sort of advice on what, what people thought, but they did say it's going to cost $60.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's great. That's an awesome price.

Myke Hurley: I'm really excited about that one.

Brad Dowdy: I am too.

Myke Hurley: So that will be in the image as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. So that will be, um, pretty much a day one purchase for me. You know, whenever that one comes out, I'll buy it. Like I still haven't bought the classic yet. I just haven't been in a rush to get that one. I didn't think it was, I mean, it looks great and I will definitely own one. I just haven't been in a rush to get this one. This one I'll go ahead and get, because I use the 580 so much and this looks like a sweet upgrade.

Myke Hurley: So I've looked at the bottom of the post. They're going to go with 580 AL and it will be within, out within two months.

Brad Dowdy: Great.

Myke Hurley: So there you go.

Brad Dowdy: Great, great, great. So hopefully, um, we'll see if they do the, um, with the colors, um, like, um, that, like they pictured, you know, a few weeks ago where they had, uh, what red, blue, orange, green and purple, which they all looked really good.

Myke Hurley: Orange. Want the orange.

TWSBI Facebook

Brad Dowdy: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So anyway, um, I guess my point of bringing all this up is, uh, browse temp Twizbee's Facebook timeline at your own risk. Yeah. Right. So you're going to see some stuff on there that's really awesome, but it may not ever come to fruition. And some of it, it's going to.

Myke Hurley: There's no point in saying this because every time they do it, we talk about it on the show. So.

Brad Dowdy: They do a really good job of design. I know.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. You might as well just go and follow it anyway, because we always talk about it. So you can't avoid it.

Brad Dowdy: I know. It's like, Hey, check out all this cool stuff, but ignore it. That's not really fair. Is it? No.

Myke Hurley: We're just as bad. Actually.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know. I'm totally guilty. I know. That's why, that's why I wrote it in the show notes as I did is because, uh, it's, I say I'm frustrated, but it's, it's, it's faux frustration, right? I'm just, I'm not frustrated at them. I think it's great what they're doing. And, uh, I just think it's funny because they, they do do, they do post a lot of things that, you know, may not ever exist and get us all, uh, get us all hyped up because you and I are both fans of the product. And when you enjoy a product as much as, uh, as what Twizbee does, you get excited when they post out new stuff like that. So anyway, that's cool. Definitely go check out those pictures. If you haven't already seen, I know a lot of you, um, have been posting them on, on Twitter and getting me to look at them and things like that. So I know a lot of you are aware of that page, but check it out if you're interested. Now, something else cool happened this weekend was the LA pen show, which is, I think between someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think between the LA pen show and the Washington DC pen show, I think those are considered the two big pen shows in the U S every year. So like all the big heavy hitters go to these are don't miss those two shows because they're so large and so popular. So, um, one of the, uh, people I follow on Instagram, her name is a castle gym. She's very nice. She sent me some actually, actually sent me some, uh, Ackerman ink samples, um, in the past. So I follow her Twitter feed and I saw over the weekend, these pictures from the LA pen show start, start popping up and she ended up having about, I don't know, 20, 25 pictures in her feed. So for anyone who hasn't been to a pen show or at least a large pen show, she did a great job of capturing, you know, kind of like the feel of the room, all the different vendors there, all the different products there. And then she took pictures of a lot of people we talk about on the show, like Brian and Lisa Anderson. There's a picture there of Myke Masayama. She's got a great picture of Myke in there and on and on. So if you're ever wondering about a pen show and haven't been to one or wondering about, you know, some of the people that I talk about and have met before, she's got some excellent, excellent pictures. So we'll, we'll have that link in the show notes. So make sure you check out her page. Um, did you get a chance to look at any of that, Myke? I'm just looking now. Yeah, it looks like it was a real busy, uh, real busy room when she was there. So it looks, it looks quite packed and quite full. Oh, and, uh, Brian Gray from Edison pens. He's got a picture in there. So she did good, did a good job.

Brad Dowdy: And it looks like, uh, you know, at one point there's a, she's got a picture of a line out the door to get into the room, I guess in the morning. So it looks like it was a pretty popular show. I'll have to listen to Brian and Lisa's podcast this week to see what they thought about the, uh, the crowd and the business level at the, uh, at the LA pen show this week. So if anyone else went, I got, uh, I did get a couple emails from another couple other people that went, I saw, I saw a bunch of tweets and a bunch of pictures on Instagram. Let me know. Um, let me know what your experience was like at the, uh, at the pen show. Shoot me an email or get in touch. I'd love to hear it because, uh, I'm getting anxious for the Atlanta pen show in April. And this, uh, this doesn't help when I see all this cool stuff like this happening and I'm not there. I want to be there, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Me too. Well, I really want to be there, be in LA, man.

Brad Dowdy: That's cool. I know, uh, our friend, uh, Keegan from one star leather. He went, he sent me an email. Get this. So Keegan went, he said, Oh, I tried out these. I got to try out a Nakaya. I got to try out the sailor, the black luster that you, that you bought recently. I tried out this. I tried out that. I didn't buy anything. I gave him some grief. I was like, how is that even possible?

Brad Dowdy: So Keegan, I'm calling you out on that. Come on. Come on. Keegan. I replied back to him. I was like, what? You, you went and you didn't buy anything. So, uh, I gave him some grief. So y'all give Keegan some grief. If you, uh, if you talk to him, he went to that and he needs a bumper sticker. I went to the LA pin show and didn't buy anything, something like that.

Myke Hurley: A t-shirt. Yeah. I went to the LA pin show and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Brad Dowdy: So bad job by you, Keegan.

Myke Hurley: Crazy.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Crazy, crazy. All right. I got, um, kind of a short, maybe interesting slash ranty topic I want to talk about this week. So, uh, why don't you talk about our, uh, our fine friends at Squarespace.

Myke Hurley: Man, if there's one thing I love, it's a ranty topic.

Squarespace Sponsorship

Myke Hurley: Very good at those. I enjoy those. So I want to take a moment to thank our friends over at Squarespace for bringing this episode to you. Squarespace, they are the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own website for a free trial and 10% off. Go to squarespace.com and use the offer code Tallyho2. Brad, are you still there? You probably muted yourself to take, to take a quick drink. Yep. I want to talk to you this week about Squarespace, if that's okay. And I didn't tell you that I was going to do this because people have heard me talk about how Squarespace were always updating their platform with new features, new designs, and more support. How they have beautiful templates that you can get started with. It's all drag and drop. They have 70 dedicated employees on their customer care team. They have robot responsive web design all built into all of their templates. You can do loads of stuff. But I want to talk about e-commerce because I was talking about this on Command Space this week with Brett Terpstra and he kind of mentioned it. And I said that you'd spoken, you know, me and you had spoken about this. People have heard it on the show in the past. But you're going to use Squarespace Commerce for NotCo, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. And I actually listened to that episode with you and Brett last night. So I did hear you talk about that.

Myke Hurley: So you're going to go ahead and use, when the time comes to open a store, you're going to use Squarespace Commerce. Why did you decide to go with Squarespace Commerce?

Brad Dowdy: Well, basically, it seemed the simplest with the most tools available, I guess, if you will. It had everything that we needed, that I felt we needed to build the shop. You know, it's got, it had inventory management. It's had, you know, different ways of presenting the products with multiple products. And, you know, for something like us, where we're having to choose different colors and different sizes, it's all just, it seemed really easy to put together. And then, even since we've chosen to go with that, they've added on additional things like having more shipping integration and having more accounting integration, which is all stuff that I don't have experience with. So having them kind of lead the way and point me to the right tools I need to, you know, to set this shop up and have it be successful and, you know, not cause me headaches on the back end, really. And that's what it's mostly about. I think all of the front end stuff, you know, obviously looks great. And that's probably the things you see the least as a consumer. But for someone who's actually using it, all the back end tools that you have, I think that's what, that's kind of what set it apart for me in looking and shopping around and trying to pick and choose which e-commerce platform are we going to go with.

Myke Hurley: Thanks for that, buddy. Sure. Squarespace Commerce, as Brad said, it's the system you can plug right in. It's the system you can plug right into any Squarespace site to allow you to natively and easily sell physical or digital goods. A great new thing about Squarespace Commerce is it's now available to everybody across all plans. It used to be only on their business plan. Now, if you want to set up a shop and sell things in just minutes, you can do that on any Squarespace plan.

Myke Hurley: As I said earlier, you can try out Squarespace for free. There's no credit card required to do so. Now, if you decide to sign up, it starts at just $8 a month and includes a domain name if you sign up for a year or more. Make sure that you get 10% off and support the show by using the offer code TALLYHO2. And just one last thing. If you are an engineer or a designer, well, Squarespace are currently looking to hire 30 of you by March 15th. This means that they're going to be bringing potential candidates and their spouses to be New Yorkers for a weekend completely on them. So if you want to hang out with the crew over at Squarespace and have an opportunity to take a really awesome job, go over to beapartofit.squarespace.com. Thanks so much to Squarespace for supporting 5x5 and The Pen Addict. Thanks for helping out there, buddy. Sorry to drop that on you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you dropped that on me out of the blue. That was unplanned, but I was ready for it because they make it easy. And actually, we'll do this again here in a couple months once we actually do go live and I'll have more time to dig into the nuts and bolts of the commerce platform.

Myke Hurley: Me and Stephen were playing around with it. He had a bunch of prompt stickers that he wanted to sell. So he set up a store last night, which was open for a few hours until we ran out. And it was so easy. Yeah. We got an email every time anybody sold one. And the email had all of the information that you needed. So we could basically create the shipping information and labels and stuff. And it would do things like we put in the amount of stock that we had, the inventory. Right. And it would email you alerts as we were running down. Be like, oh, you only have three of these left. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's important for us where we're not selling a digital good that has infinite purchases available. We're selling pen cases that there might only be 50 of and you need to track those things. So yeah, we're excited about getting it going.

Myke Hurley: And it's like super easy to restrict countries because obviously to keep the cost down, we were only shipping to the US and the UK because I had a few here too. Right. So we're able to just from like a list, just select the countries that we wanted. And then you don't end up losing out on, you know, somebody from out of Mongolia wants a sticker and then we're paying like $20 and you've just blown all of the money from the rest of the stickers.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So yeah, I really look forward to getting that going for more reasons than just testing out the Squarespace commerce platform. Good stuff. Yeah. So I want to touch on the pen blog of the week real quick before I get into them. Yeah. I like that we're doing this. This site is called Blystift.

Myke Hurley: No, I just meant that we're doing this. This site is cool, but I just think it's cool that we keep doing this. I think it's nice.

Brad Dowdy: I do too. We've done it two or three times and we've gotten really good feedback on it. I'm real happy with being able to spread the love around, if you will. But Blystift is a gentleman named Matthias. Do you know what Blystift means, Myke? It's German for? Lead pen. Lead pen. Yeah. So I actually had to look that up.

Myke Hurley: I cheated. Sorry.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's German for Rotterfaden Toschenbegleiter.

Brad Dowdy: But no, back when I first stumbled across the blog, I did have to look it up. I was like, what does this mean? So I knew a long time ago, it's German for pencil, essentially. And Matthias does a great job of really digging into different pencil reviews. And recently he got what made me want to point out this week. And I always feature him in Inklinks because he does such a great job. And he always tells me thanks every week. I put him in there. He always sends me a comment. He's like, oh, thank you so much for putting in the link. He seems like a really nice guy. But there's this project that Pelican started. I don't know exactly when it started. You'll have to read about it in Matthias' post. But it's called the Pelican Wanderlust Project. And they're basically sending this box of Pelican products around the world. And he was one of the ones to receive it. So he goes through what all is contained in the box. And he does like an ink review. The ink comes with it. And he's supposed to do certain things, testing the inks, writing letters, and things like that. So definitely y'all check this out. And not just for this post, but for all of his posts that he does. He does some really great photography. Does some really interesting posts about pencils and finding different pencils and hard-to-find pencils and things like that. And like a lot of the guys that do the pencil blogs, every time I read them, I always want to get more into pencils. So that's on my list. The who knows maybe list. But I find it fascinating to read about. So thank you, Matthias and Blystift, for being awesome. And I call it the pen blog of the week. But this time it's a pencil blog of the week. So definitely check him out.

Brad Dowdy: All right, Myke. You ready?

Myke Hurley: Ready.

Pen Innovation

Brad Dowdy: So I've been using a phrase that I need to stop using. Because it kind of annoys. I annoy myself when I say it. But I've been saying it for the past few weeks. I caught myself saying it on the last podcast, I think. I've been saying, have pens been solved? Like, has this certain type of pen been solved? Is there any more? Is the answer always the same when someone asks for a recommendation? Or what's a good pen? Or, you know, different things like that. So I got to thinking, are there certain pens that have been solved? You know, what... My frustration is...

Brad Dowdy: Not so much have pens been solved. But where is the innovation at? As far as gel ink pens and ballpoint pens and rollerball pens. You know, is there... Are there new products coming out that I'm not seeing? Are there new products coming out that aren't new products at all, but repackaged? Are my expectations too high? That I should see all this change? Am I jaded in the state of the general pen industry?

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, I just wanted to talk about a few different pens and a few different pen categories. And just kind of discuss it with you and kind of get your thoughts too on, you know, what... Are we done innovating with like gel ink pens, for example? Right? I mean, for people who aren't necessarily into the Pen Addict podcast and the blog, I'm kind of not talking about all of us. Right? I'm not necessarily talking about me and you, who are... You know, we know if there's a certain need that we have, we can probably go find it. But I'm more talking about the everyday user, the office user, just, you know, teachers, you know, doctors, whoever. Using pens, going to the store and buying pens. Are they just getting stuck in whatever, you know, marketing that Pilot's throwing out there? Right? For like the Pilot G2. Pilot markets it as America's number one selling gel pen. So, I can't remember a store shelf that didn't have a Pilot G2 on it. And it's been the same Pilot G2 for a decade. I mean, the exact same pen. And so, does Pilot have any incentive to change that? And should I care? You know, am I barking up the wrong tree here, wanting to see Pilot mix things up a little bit and come out with something new? Am I asking for too much? Knowing that I can go somewhere else like a JetPens or any other Japanese importer and get something much cooler and much better than that. I don't know. Am I barking up the wrong tree here, Myke? Am I even, is this even a topic worth discussing? Am I just, or am I just going to end up frustrating myself?

Myke Hurley: I don't know, man. I feel like it is just a root of frustration. Like, I don't think, to say that something's ever going to be solved, I don't think is correct. Because you never know what's going to come next. And I think we've spoken before about, like I've said this a couple of times, like how I always feel like I find the perfect pen for now, but I don't ever stop looking. Because no pen is, I said this a couple of weeks ago, right? No pen is the perfect pen for me. Right. Because I know that there can always be a better X about it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I think that's where my frustration lies. It's number one, yeah, I want to stop saying, have pens been solved? Because I don't think so. And it's kind of a stupid statement. But I find myself saying it over and over again. So I thought if I get it out, maybe I can stop myself from saying it because it's kind of a stupid phrase. But it's frustrating when you go into a store and it's the same thing and it hasn't changed for 10 years. I mean, it really hasn't. I mean, it may be longer.

Myke Hurley: The way that I see it, though, it's just a totally different market. Yeah. Those pens are sold to different people. Those pens are sold to people that wouldn't buy our pens and our pens are sold to people and we wouldn't buy the pens that are sold to regular people. Right. Does that make sense?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, I mean, you know, we talk about, you know, what pens are available on the store shelf. And I think that's a totally valid topic. And because I want people who are new to the podcast to at least, you know, think about the pen that they're buying. They can actually make a good decision, even, you know, just go into Staples or OfficeMax. There's some good choices in there. But that never changes, I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, like if I'm sending someone to Staples who hasn't ever tried out a pen, I'm always going to tell them if they want a jelly pen, I'm always going to tell them to try the Uniball Sino 207. That's my favorite jelly pen that they can find from a store shelf. And then that conversation is over. Right. But I don't know. And, you know, maybe that's good for what they're looking for. And, you know, that's all they need and, you know, that they can explore from there to see if they wanted something else or not. But, you know, that answer hasn't changed in years. And I don't know if I'm just being silly. And wanting that answer to change, I guess, is what it boils down to. I don't know. Wanting something new in that gel pen shelf, you know, what can be new. That's why, you know, I get excited over silly pens like the Pilot Juice, which is essentially a G2, but it's got archival ink properties, which the G2, the regular G2 doesn't have. And it's got cool colors, which the regular G2 doesn't have. So, you know, and it's a pen that costs $1.60 or whatever it is. So those kind of things excite me. But then when it doesn't translate to the public, I don't know. I get a little frustrated. But I shouldn't, I guess, is, I don't know. This is like a psychiatry session for me. I'm laying on the couch, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I feel like that's the way. I mean, ideally, though, what do you want? Do you want people to, like the average user, the average person, we talk about this a lot in the technology world, do you want them to be using these sorts of pens? Like, you know, what is, the G2 is really good, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: No, I do want them to be using these pens. And I guess my goal would be for them to discover that there's more out there. But that's kind of a pipe dream. And, you know, these things in the stores are kind of the gateway to that. You know, it's better than the generics that they're getting at the office that are just, you know, no-name brands, you know, stepping up to a G2 or a 207 or a Pentel Energel. You know, that's way better than any stock pen you're going to get in an office. And then finding those things. And I think my frustration is that's the end for most people. They're done. We're done. Got my G2. We're good. And that's, like, barely scratching the surface from my perspective. But, I don't know. Like I said, maybe it's just a pipe dream of mine. I need to be the pen ambassador or something. Yeah. I need a TV commercial.

Myke Hurley: Hi, I'm Brad, and I'm the pen ambassador. Let me tell you about the Pilot Juice.

Myke Hurley: Do you know what, though? I think part of the problem, if we look at something like the Pilot Juice, is where do a lot of the best pens that we buy come from?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, I know. I mean, they're all Japanese.

Myke Hurley: Like, companies don't, are potentially not taking a risk on consumers.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Like, maybe people would want to use a, I don't know, Sakura Pigma Micron if they were available in the stores for them to buy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I know, I know. And, you know, it just, I see, I don't know what shows I was watching, but Paper Mate, of all people, has been running this Ink Joy commercial here in the U.S. And I've seen it over the past month on various channels. And I'm like, oh, man, that's such a horrible pen. And all the marketing dollars they're putting behind this pen is just like, oh, you've got to be kidding me with this mess. So, I don't know. But, I mean, ballpoint pens are the prime example. Ballpoint pens are done. I mean, if you're not using the Jetstream or the Acroball, I mean, there's nothing else that can really hold a candle to it. There's good pens. And there's pens that people will enjoy and use every day. They're not as good as the Jetstream or the Acroball. Those hybrid inks are way better than any ballpoint. So, what's the point of even going to the store and looking for a ballpoint pen is kind of my struggle. I don't know. I guess I don't want to say I'm getting, I'm not getting bored with, like, the standard gel rollerball ballpoint pens. But, I don't know. I just want to be able to, I want to be able to see Uniball come out with a new product that I can champion. And that hasn't happened forever.

Brad Dowdy: Does that make sense?

Myke Hurley: They're just not a brand that you want, that you should be paying any attention to, really. I guess. They don't do what you want.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I just want it to be, I just want more people to get into this great hobby of ours and find cool stuff like we do. And, you know, get enjoyment out of, like, when we first found, when we discovered, like, the Retro 51. I mean, it really knocked our socks off. I mean, for lots of good reasons. And, I don't know. I want people to be able to discover these things, too. And there's, there's not a lot of opportunities for them to do that. Unless they're as weird as we are in search for pens on the internet, which actually a lot of people still do.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: And I think, I think that's part of my transition into fountain pens a little bit. You know, I'll write more and more about fountain pens and less and less about traditional pens. One, because there's not as much change in the traditional gel, rollerball, ballpoint pens. And fountain pens, there's almost infinite possibilities. Right? Between not just brands, but between combinations you can do with nibs and inks and things like that. It's like fountain pens are the Lego of the pen world. I mean, you can do so many things. You can create your own pen that's perfect for Brad or perfect for Myke. And I think that's kind of the enjoyment I get with fountain pens. It's not just the writing experience. It's the customization aspect. So, I don't know if fountain pens are actually spoiling me because of that. And I get frustrated, you know, when I have, when I'm reviewing, you know, just another ballpoint pen that's not going to hold a candle to, you know, a jet stream or something like that. What's, why should I talk about just another ballpoint pen? I guess. So, I don't know. Just some thoughts I wanted to throw out there. No. And I.

Myke Hurley: It's interesting to think about. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And, you know, I've been trying to think about, you know, from a reviewer's aspect, I'm able to, you know, take a ballpoint pen that I get from jet pens or something. And it's good that I can review any pen and compare it to any other pen I've ever used. You know, I think that's one of the advantages of, you know, pen blogs, you know, is someone like myself or anyone else, Ed or Anna or anyone who's been doing it for any length of time, you know, they have kind of a knowledge base where they can take a new pen that they get and say, it's like this other pen. And it does this better than this other pen. It does this better than, worse than this other pen. And you kind of get that knowledge base built around it. But at some point, it all becomes the same thing. At some point, the gel pen's the gel pen. And this gel pen doesn't write as good as the Sino 207, so don't bother. I feel that I'm getting to that point now with basic pens.

Brad Dowdy: You know, if I review a ballpoint pen from, you know, Manufacturer X, and it's just average, there's not a lot to say about it anymore, I guess. It's an average pen. You probably shouldn't buy it. Buy this. And that has become more frequent, I guess, is what I'm getting at. If a pen doesn't live up to the standards of the top pens in their category, it doesn't exist. I don't know. I think it's an expectation thing on my part and a lack of innovation. And I'm not really frustrated by it. I mean, I enjoy reviewing, like, every single pen I get. They're all different. And, you know, they're all good and bad in their own ways. And I'd really like being able to share that information. You know, I like saying that you should buy this pen or you shouldn't buy this pen. And here's why. I enjoy that aspect of it. But the challenges are when every pen is the same now and there's not a lot of change. And I think maybe it's just me a little bit getting a little jaded or antsy about I want that next big thing. And maybe there isn't a next big thing. Maybe I just need to enjoy more of what we already have kind of thing.

Myke Hurley: That's a very harmonious way to end that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Enjoy what we have, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: I know. Because what we have is good.

Myke Hurley: You better believe it.

Brad Dowdy: And maybe, yeah. And maybe I shouldn't be frustrated by all the good things that we have. Because, believe me, I want to champion good pens. And there's a lot of good pens out there.

Myke Hurley: There is something kind of cool about being part of a little club, though.

Mass Market Pens

Brad Dowdy: It is. Oh, believe me, I totally enjoy that part of it. But, you know, I think this comes from kind of the fountain pen angle. Now that I'm getting more into that when I thought I would never get into it, period. And people ask all the times why fountain pens instead of, you know, just, you know, a regular gel pen or whatever. And, you know, it's always been kind of hard to put into words why. But I really think it's that whole customization thing and just the change. Like, I can have one pen and unlimited bottles of ink. And I could change it every day if I felt like it. You know, it's kind of cool to be able to do that. And you can't necessarily do that with a gel ink pen unless you buy all the different colors or whatever. But I don't know. I'm getting into rambly states. I think it's more of a it's not you, it's me kind of thing that I've been feeling here recently. And so maybe I maybe I should just enjoy more what I have and embrace.

Brad Dowdy: Embrace the mass market pen.

Myke Hurley: Embrace it.

Brad Dowdy: That's right.

Myke Hurley: Welcome it with open arms.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Spread the word.

Myke Hurley: I think we've come to the end of this week's episode. Yeah. Would you agree?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I could keep rambling, but I don't think I'll say anything new.

Myke Hurley: If you want to catch the show notes for today's episode, go to 5x5.tv slash penaddict slash 94. If you'd like to catch up with Brad online, he is at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. He's also writes over at penaddict.com. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. We'll be back next week for another episode of the Pen Addict podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.