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The Pen Addict 400/transcript

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{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 400
| title = Pen Addict 101
| date = March 4th, 2020
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/400 Episode 400]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_400.mp3 Audio Episode 400]
| length = 78
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 400, and it is our Pen Addict 101 episode. Today's show is brought to you by Warby Parker and ExpressVPN. Here on The Pen Addict, we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools we love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by the knock of all knowledge that is Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow, that was wonderful, Myke. Thank you for doing that. Can you believe it's been 400 episodes?

== History of The Pen Addict Podcast ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I cannot. This is quite a day for us over here, as we have gone into episode 400. We've been recording this show for just over eight years now. We're going to talk about that. Over the course of this episode, now what we're actually planning on doing today, what this episode is, is with any podcast that has amassed the amount of episodes that we have, that actually has lots of information in it. Like, it's not just a news podcast, right? You can listen back to this show. You can go back three years and find something that is of interest. For people that are coming into the show that are new listeners, we get asked quite a lot, where should we start? And so we have decided that for episode 400, we're going to give a jumping off point to new people. So hello, if you are new to The Pen Addict. This is indeed, as you have guessed from the name, a podcast all about pens. Mostly fountain pens, some other stuff. We're going to talk about exactly all of that throughout this episode. We will also reintroduce ourselves. Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Myke Hurley. I am a podcaster. I've been podcasting since 2010, so actually going to be a decade coming up real soon. This podcast is a part of, currently, the Real AFM Podcast Network, which I founded in August 2014. And I've been podcasting full-time since November of 2014. And more recently, in 2019, I co-founded a company called Cortex Brand, which produces, and the reason that is of interest to the listeners of this show, is because we produce products, physical products, like the Theme System Journal. So I am now in the business of making notebooks with a purpose. So I'll include some links to those in the show notes. But the most important person here is Brad Dowdy. This show is named after Brad Dowdy. It's not called the Brad Dowdy. It's called the Pen Addict. Brad Dowdy is the Pen Addict and has been doing this stuff for a very long time. So, Brad Dowdy, please take it away.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it has been quite a while, Myke. I started, for all of our new listeners, I am the Pen Addict. I go online by the Pen Addict pretty much anywhere I can get a hold of that name. And my blog is penaddict.com, which I started all the way back in the year 2007. November 29th, I believe, is the exact date. And it has been a wonderful journey that has led into the awesomeness part of what you hear today in episode 400 of this podcast. I've had various dalliances throughout the years as the Pen Addict has become more than a blog. It has become part of my life and then eventually my job, which, you know, they always say, you know, never turn your hobby into a job. Well, Myke, for me, they're kind of one in the same. And I'm super glad that it's that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You have a jobby like me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have a jobby. So part of my history takes me through a little bit of an employment bump in 2011. I worked for a company called JetPens. If you're new to the show, they're my favorite Japanese pen retailer here in the U.S., which is where I'm based. Myke failed to mention he is in London. We do this podcast via Skype across many time zones for your listening pleasure. At one point, I worked for JetPens when I was doing the blog. And, you know, I still always had a day job, but I did some marketing work for them back in 2011. In 2012, Myke, we started this podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' After a guest episode. So I was doing a podcast, which is now defunct, called The Enough Podcast with our friend Patrick Rohn. And we had Brad as a guest on that show. And I got on with Brad so well and thought he was so interesting and such a great explainer. I was like, I want to record that show with that guy. I want to make a show with him about pens. Because, you know, we've both been interested in pens and paper for a long time. Brad kept that interest up longer than I did and kind of with more passion than I did. But I wanted to get back into it and thought that Brad would be the perfect person to host a show with. And so I asked him and then convinced him over time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So you asked me and I told you no.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. No one would listen to that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No one will listen to this. And then Myke saw something there and he kept pressing me and twisted my arm enough to where I said, okay, let's give this a shot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it took about a year, I think, to convince you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not sure that long. But, yeah, I think it took a while. And then once he finally convinced me, I figured we had about 10 episodes in us. Like, and then we'd be done. That would be all the pen stuff we could talk about, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who knew? Who knew what we were actually getting into at the time? So it's been an awesome run. And there were some other highlights during this time. I started a company with my friend Jeff Brookwicky called Knock. We make pen cases. And we went through a Kickstarter project that we discussed many times throughout the pen addict's history. And then kind of the big turning point for me personally and professionally in 2016, January 1st, I quit my day job to do the pen addict and all the other work I do related to the pen addict full time. So that was a big deal. And we'll have a few links in the show notes to some of these historical landmark times of our podcasting and our existence, at least on the stationary internet. And then most recently, I've partnered with another friend, Brian Conte, to launch a product called Spoke Pen, which we did just last year. So in the 12 years since I've started the pen addict, I have done lots of things. And I'm just passionate about pens and stationary and all the things that go along with it. And I think it's shown. I think it's worked out, Myke. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You would like to think so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Because we're still here. We're still here. And we're still getting new listeners all of the time, right? So that's why we want to do this episode, to give you a little bit of history, give you a little background about who we are, what we do. And we're going to continue on with that today and giving you kind of the 101 breakdown of a few of the things that we have discussed over these 400 episodes. Like the podcast history, Myke. Yeah. Why don't you help me out with this section? Our podcast history is generally compact, but it has some good stories contained within, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So the pen addict has long surpassed any other project that I've done. I often say this, but my relationship with Brad is one of the longest relationships of my life outside of family because we've been working together for longer than I've known my wife. We have been working together for longer than any of my other working relationships. This is the only podcast that I am doing that I have been doing since basically the beginning of my career. We started on a network that I created in like 2011 called 70 Decibels. That was where the podcast began. Then we then moved the podcast to 5x5 when we started working there. And then when me and Stephen Hackett, my co-founder, decided to create our own company, RelayFM, it moved again. So it's moved three times. So if you are going back through the course of history of this show, you will hear references to companies that either don't exist anymore or that this podcast is not a part of anymore. But that kind of explains its life. One, there's a couple of interesting moments in the show's history, which are just good for posterity's sake. In August 2012, Brad decided to take a break from the show and from everything. You took a break from The Pen Addict completely because you were going through, I believe, a pretty difficult time in your working career.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And we weren't sure. Kind of at the time, we said like the show is done, but not over, you know. We weren't sure what was going to happen. And then Brad returned in November of that year, which is always funny to me that it was only like four months or something. Because it feels like when I think back that it was a very long time, but it wasn't actually that long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Number one, just the time that it happened seems like forever ago, which I guess in the internet timing, I guess, you know, eight years ago is forever ago. But it was definitely weird. I went back and listened to that entire episode this weekend as I was preparing for this show. And, you know, I could definitely hear it in my voice. And I think at the time, I don't know if you thought I was ever coming back. I didn't know if I was coming back. I had stopped, basically stopped writing the blog. It became, you know, too much work with the mix of real work, you know, my day job and life and all these things. It just became too much at the time. So I just, I'm not a person that can do less. I'll either do it all or I'll do nothing. So I had to turn it off completely, essentially, during that time. And that's when I figured out that I really love doing it. And I miss the pen addict and I miss writing. And I miss the podcast at the time, even though we were only 28 episodes into it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is also so wild to consider that it was so early on in the show's life.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It could have ended right there. Like, could you imagine? Like, I don't like to think about it in those terms, right? So luckily, I am built for this. Like, I'm built to love stationary and talk about it. Like, that's what I want to do. So it was an easy choice once I had a little bit of a break, came back. And we've been flying ever since, I'd say. Wouldn't you say?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would. One of the important things in this show's history is our Kickstarter campaigns. So we had a wild idea as we were approaching episode 150 of the show back in 2015. That me and Brad, you know, we were becoming increasingly saddened by the fact that we had never met in person. Because at that point, like, I was traveling to lots of conferences and stuff. But they were never things that Brad was attending. They were more technology focused. Because my other podcasts and I do are more technology focused. So all the way back then, we decided for episode 150 that we would get together at the Atlanta Pen Show, which is Brad's home pen show. And we would record an episode of the show in person. And the Kickstarter campaign was an incredible success. We funded very quickly. There are many episodes. Basically, every time it's a Kickstarter, you'll get me and Brad crying on the show. This is very possible we'll cry before the end of the episode today because that's just what we do. And then the Kickstarter campaigns have continued to be a thing that we do every single year. We're approaching our sixth campaign this year. We always visit Atlanta as part of this. But we've also been able to go to the DC Pen Show, the Toronto Pen Show, the San Francisco Pen Show. And we went to Chicago as well to record an episode with the crew over at Field Notes. And we may be going to Dallas this year for our sixth episode, for our sixth Kickstarter campaign.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you remember back in episode 150, the room we recorded the podcast in? Because that was our first time recording. We did not have a studio audience. I remember that episode vividly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like I can't remember some of the podcasts that we had in front of an audience. But during that time, we just got basically like the shell of a hotel ballroom and set up some tables and cameras and, you know, the Hackett Brothers audio AV team. And that was it, me, you, and Ana. So that was pretty crazy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I remember one of the things I remember because these are shot on video for the Kickstarter campaign. We give out video versions to the backers. Because I remember how bright the lights were the first time because I've never recorded in front of lights before. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because they were so close to us because we didn't have a crowd to deal with. A couple of other podcasts, you know, with 400 episodes, you could point out a million different things in the history of the podcast. But two things I wanted to point out. One, our very first guest. Did you know this before I put it in the show document?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I don't know if I would have guessed it either.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know that I would have guessed it either. It was Myke Rohde, our good friend from Sketchnote fame. Episode 17, very first guest of The Pen Addict. I think he's been a return guest since then. But we've had, we've just had tons and tons of guests since then, which is fantastic. And then the person who is our most recurring guest and the official third host of The Pen Addict podcast, Anna Reinhardt from The Well Appointed Desk. Her first appearance was all the way in episode 54. I was thinking it might have been sooner. But just since then, I mean, she's been on the show, I don't know, 12, 15 times. I didn't even bother to count. It's a lot. So we love Anna. She's our bestie. And she always travels with us on our Kickstarter campaigns. And she's just awesome. And that is one of those friendships that comes from this podcast, which is such a valuable thing. You know, 400 episodes in. You know, that's certainly the thing I'll remember the most is the friends we made along the way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's so beautiful. All right. This episode is not all just about The Pen Addict. Like, I hope that now we have given you kind of like a primer as to who we are and what we do. But now, after this break, what we're going to do is talk about the products themselves and give a kind of a glossary, an overall like set of terms and basics that you might want to know if you are starting to get involved in this hobby. But today's episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. Warby Parker was founded by four friends of a rebellious spirit and a lofty goal to create boutique quality eyewear at a revolutionary price point by allowing you to buy your glasses online. Their free home try-on program makes it so easy. You order five pairs and you try them on for five days with no obligation to buy. Shipping is also free and includes a prepaid return shipping label. So super simple. Just go to warbyparker.com slash penaddict and you can take their quiz right now and order your free home try-ons today. Warby Parker glasses start at $95. That includes prescription lenses and an anti-glare coating and anti-scratch coatings all included as well. I've been wearing Warby Parker glasses for about a year now and I absolutely love them. I couldn't find, I was looking for like a specific look and I could only find them with Warby Parker and I was super happy. But their whole system, the home try-on system is fantastic because you're able to try on glasses, show them to your loved ones at your own home. You're not kind of being looked at or judged by any store assistants. And you can also try those glasses on with your own clothes as well, maybe mix them up a little bit. So you get to see like how are these going to look on a daily basis. Super important. And now they have Scout by Warby Parker, which are comfortable, breathable and affordable daily contact lenses made from a super moist material that resists drying for lasting hydration and comfort. You can order a trial pack that includes six days worth of contacts for just $5 and then also receive $5 off your next Warby Parker order. And this is great for every pair of glasses that are sold. Warby Parker distributes a pair to somebody in need. You can learn more about Warby Parker at warbyparker.com slash penaddict. That's warbyparker.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Warby Parker for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We are going back to the beginning, Myke. This is the new episode one of the Pen Addict Podcast where we explain to people who are just learning about the Pen Addict Podcast, who are just learning about good pens and good stationery. What are the things that they're looking at and looking for when they're trying to make a decision on what pen or pencil or paper or fountain pen ink they like? So consider this the glossary. I think we're going to go through several basic topics. Now, I want to say we're going to cover a lot. We're not going to cover everything. But these, as many of the people who have listened to all 400 episodes will have learned already, these are the topics that come up the most. These are kind of the general buckets of pens or paper or what have you that we mention the most. And we want to take this time to explain just the very, very basic stuff once again. How does that sound?

== Introduction to Types of Pens ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that is absolutely perfect. All right. All right. So what we're going to do here, I'm going to fire out some phrases to you and you can help explain them to our audience. How does that sound? Sounds great. So let's start off with like your typical pens, the pens that you're going to have the most access to, the stuff that you're going to find in your local staples, your local WH Smiths. Let's start with like ballpoints and rollerballs, actually. Let's talk about these together because I think it's important because a lot of people, including me, gets these two confused all the time. What is a ballpoint? What is a rollerball? What makes them different? What makes them similar?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' To this day, these terms get interchanged. Sometimes accurately, sometimes inaccurately. The overarching issue is that nearly all standard pens have a ball in the tip of the pen, which is how the ink transfers from the ink cartridge within the pen to the page. There's a little ball on the tip. So people will refer to this type of pen as a ball point, but that doesn't mean it's a ballpoint pen. Ballpoint pen refers to an ink type. A ballpoint ink is an oil-based ink. This is your most basic, most common type of ink you find in the pens you find at the bank, at the school. The most basic, it's a very dry ink. It's usually just in blue or black. Sometimes you'll get a red in there. And sometimes if they're not a good quality ballpoint, they'll be sticky or a little bit messy when you write. But the good thing about them is that they write anywhere on all types of paper. Like paper type doesn't matter. The ballpoint pen is going to write. You know, the situation you're writing in, the ballpoint pen is going to write. Think of your standard bit crystal ballpoint or your paper mate click ballpoints or your paper mate stick ballpoints, I should say. Anyway, this is the most basic, standard, generic pen. It usually has a ballpoint ink in it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' These days, ballpoints have improved in their ink technology. You know, back in the day, you used to be able to smell a ballpoint ink when you wrote with it. It had this weird kind of not really attractive smell. And nowadays, you don't really get that anymore. You get lines that are a little bit cleaner. You get fancier types of inks and ballpoint pens. You can get them in new colors. But that's at its most basic, the ballpoint pen. The difference between that and a rollerball is nothing physical. It's just the ink. It's still a ball tip pen. But rollerball inks are a liquid ink. It's not an oil-based ink. So rollerball inks tend to go on a little bit thicker. They are generally darker, especially colors like black and blue. They're going to be darker in color than your ballpoint ink. But being a liquid ink, they're also prone to performing worse. So take your standard office paper, whether it's your copy paper, your legal pad. This is the black ink that soaks into the page. That's what the rollerball ink does. It has to be done right. Like the most famous, the most popular rollerball, I think, is the Pilot Precise V5. It's also the Uniball Vision. It's also another good quality rollerball. And we'll get into some more specific rollerball types later as we talk about this. But that's the primary difference between ballpoint and rollerball is really just ink. And that's what you're going to find in all of these types of categories. So ballpoints are an oil-based ink. They're generally pretty dry. They can be pretty messy. They're not very dark. Rollerball inks are wet and dark. But if you find a good one and you have good paper to write on, people really enjoy writing with rollerball pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And there are these types of pens. We use them, right? All the time. Yep. Because they can be really great and useful. And also, sometimes fountain pens are not acceptable. Filling out forms, that kind of stuff, right? Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You can't do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. So we've established then that the rollerball's ballpoint is very similar, but just with some slight differences around ink. What is a gel pen then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the gel pen's the newcomer to the pen game, if you will. I think it started like in the 1980s. I think Secura was the first one to make a gel ink pen. And what it tried to do was make a better rollerball type ink. So this is a pigment. The refill is a pigment in a gel suspension. So what this does is it thickens the ink. It makes it not as liquidy. It makes it even darker than rollerball inks. And when you write with a gel pen on that same office paper, the ink generally sits on top of the page. It doesn't get into the fibers of the paper like a rollerball. So therefore, it doesn't bleed or feather or spread out on your page. It takes a little bit longer to dry because of that. But in general, it's the smoothest, most color accurate, you know, deepest, richest colors that you'll find in ink pens and probably the most variety of colors because of the way the gel ink is manufactured. They are able to process, you know, dozens and dozens of different color types, which is something that I enjoy in a pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can also get sparkly ones, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You can get sparkly ones. You can get a really neat white gel pen that, you know, you can use for artwork. The gel pens, I don't think, you know, worldwide they sell the most, but they're the most enjoyable pens to use. They're just more expensive than ballpoints generally. So ballpoints are always going to sell the most just because you can buy them in bulk for cheap for, you know, different office type situations and bulk situations. But the gel pen is the pen that once people discover, that's the one that usually says, oh, I like how this one writes. I will keep this one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I was just about to say that, like, when somebody, you know, if you use a gel pen and you really like it, like a gel pen can be a thing that helps you discover that you like pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I should say, like, the great example of this is the Pilot G2. Right. That's the world's most popular gel ink pen. And if you've ever used a G2, people who have never used a good pen, when they pick up a G2, they go, oh, I get it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They know something's different. And, like, you go back far enough in this show and you will find, like, our conversations about the Pilot G2 because it was my pen that I was using when we started this show. Because it was like, oh, I love this pen. It's a great pen. And it is a great pen. It's one of my favorites of all time. I don't use it anymore, but I love it. But the refill as well is fantastic. And people use these refills in pens that are made of, like, different materials. So you can swap the refill out and put it in something that maybe has a fancier-looking body. Right. Exactly. But there are other refills, right, that are very frequently used and referred to on this show. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So we use one of the ones we refer to as a Parker-type refill. And that's from the Parker Pen Company. They made a very popular pen called the Parker Jotter, which was their retractable ballpoint pen. And the refill had a particular shape. And they just made, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of these pens since, like, the 50s, 60s. I don't know, they might have even been before then. And that refill just became kind of the refill you used. And therefore, a lot of other companies built products around that shape of refill. The Pilot G2 became the modern version of that Parker refill. It's a different shape. It's a different size. And it's a different ink type. But it was so good and so popular that people started making things for just that refill. Those two refills are not the same shape. And to confuse things, the international refill market refers to the Parker-sized refill as the G2. So we'll see. We'll save that conversation for another day. But those are two completely different refills. But those are probably the two most popular refills on the market. The third one, at least in our world, the one that we talk about a lot is a rollerball refill. So this is interesting. These three refill types. The Parker refill is generally a ballpoint. They do make gel, but it's generally a ballpoint refill. The Pilot G2 refill is a gel. And then the Schmidt P8127 and the P8126 is a rollerball. It's a liquid ink refill. But it has become famous, at least in our world, because it's a quality ink that does not bleed like most lower-end rollerball types of pens do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But these are basically the three best in their class. And that's why you will see these pens, these refills, I should say, used a lot in Kickstarter campaigns. So people that are creating a fancy pen body that they want people to buy, they will typically gravitate around one of these three. Yes. As kind of like, this is what we're going to base our pen on. Because then we know people are going to be able to easily get their hands on the refill. We don't have to go straight back to the drawing board. And then they also are basing it around some kind of standard which people can get their hands on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. And also, these are the types of refills that other companies will make and mimic and copy. And so there's just tons of options in these three refill types.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But once you've got your pen sorted out, you need something to write on. And that's paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you've got a few different things around paper. One is the type of paper that you're using. And then you also have the size or the format. Format can be, you know, like, do you want ring bound? Do you want it to be... My favorite is stitched, which means stapled, which is one of the funniest things to me. Uh-huh. Because stitches and staples. But then you can actually get books that are stitched together with thread. And that's like a whole different thing. It's very funny. But the sizes are also really important. So you've got A4, A5, A3, that kind of thing. What's the deal there, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Out of all the things we discuss, and as technical as something like a fountain pen can be, I think paper is the single hardest thing to discuss clearly and give people a great idea of what we're talking about because there's so much variance. One of the things that I have talked about in these past 399 episodes is I believe in paper standards. I want to know what size paper I'm getting based on international standards. And we'll have a link in the show notes. And the best thing I can tell you for paper is go look at some of the links we put in the show notes. The A size paper is based on a one gigantic sheet of paper from the printing world that is 1189 millimeters by 841 millimeters. That's A0. That's the big piece of paper that comes shipped into a printing factory on a pallet, right? It's a big, huge piece of paper. Every A size after A0 is exactly half of the previous size before it. So you take an A0 sheet, you fold it in half, you now have an A1 dimension. You take an A1 dimension, fold it in half, you now have A2. So this gets down into the reasonable usage size, which for most people who would listen to a podcast about pens, the biggest size they generally will go with is called A4. That's, if you're not familiar with paper sizes, this is going to be ballpark around your copy paper size, like the 8.5 by 11 inch.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A4 is the type of paper that most people have had the most experience with. Yes. Because it's also incredibly close to, not exactly to, but close to both letter and legal. Yes. Pretty much they look the same when you look at them, even if there are some slight differences. But those are kind of, that is like your standard paper format size.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I think everything, well, I won't say everything. The majority of things that most people use in the stationary world revolve around the A4 size and then half of that, which is the A5 size, right? So the A4 is your full pad size and the A5 is kind of your half pad size that you see. A5 is basically the sweet spot. Yes. I think. A spot, A5, A spot. That's a new, that's a new term. That's not in the glossary. A5, A5 is kind of your desk pad, but it's not too big to where you just can't throw it in your bag or backpack to have on the go. It's a great note size.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Journals, diaries, typically around this size.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Your hardback journals that you see, like if you see a Leuchtturm at Barnes & Noble, that's an A5 size. Or a Moleskine. Or a Moleskine. Which is probably better. Well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So this is the problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is where we fight.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Then it becomes, A5 and A4, we've already mentioned letter and legal. At a certain point, they become referred to as just like a rough format size. Like, Moleskines are about A5 size. They're not exact, but they're about A5 size. Yeah.

== Paper Sizes and Standards ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this is where Brad gets upset, right? Because Moleskine is not A5. But if you look at it just, you know, in the world, it looks like, oh, it's A5-ish. And that's where I start to have problems. So I'm a believer in the true A5 sizes, and Moleskine is not that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this is, it's a tough thing to discuss. We're not even going to touch, we're not going to attempt paper weights. Because they're measured in what's called pounds, which is not a physical, you know, like a weight measurement. I mean, it's technically, it's a paper weight measurement, but you don't think of it in like, okay, Brad weighs a lot of pounds. It's not the same type of measurement. It's also measured in grams per square inch. So paper is extremely difficult to explain the details. What we focus on is more the size, the general sizes, like the A sizes. There's a lot of B sizes. You can go all the way. C sizes are somewhat common. There's F sizes out there now that are more square. So there's all kinds of things. But we mostly focus on the features of the paper. Like what does the paper feel? What, how does it perform with certain pen types? And honestly, it's one of the most important things to consider. If you're getting into stationary, as good as your favorite pen is, it's going to perform only as good as the paper you're using, right? If you're using even a gel pen, if you're using a Pilot G2 gel pen on your office copy paper, it's going to be fine. It's going to work well. If you use that on a different type of paper, say a rhodiopad, which I'll explain more in a minute, it's going to perform differently. So every little decision you make in your stationary, it's kind of like a chain reaction with the rest of it. You know, you take one pen from one page, it's going to perform completely differently. So the main topics that I like to discuss when we talk about the features a paper has, I want to know if the paper is coded or uncoded. And there's all kinds of terminology in the printer world on how the paper is finished, you know, whether it's hot pressed or cold pressed and all these technical details. But basically, coded and uncoded, you can feel it to the touch. Is it kind of smooth and glossy or is it a little bit rougher? Like these are honestly pretty close in feel, but you can tell a difference when they're side by side. And what a coded page does is it prevents the ink from seeping into the fibers of the paper as quickly. Now, you can get in there with like a, you know, a lot of ink on the page. It will soak it in like it's not rejecting the ink. Don't think that I'm what I'm saying is coded. This is like you're writing on linoleum or something. It's just a smoother type. That's good for your liquid inks, right? Anything that bleeds into standard basic uncoded paper, you're going to be going to use coded paper for. Now, the downside to that is it's going to take a while to dry, right? Ink dries on a page based on how fast it's absorbed into the page, right? So there's a balance you're trying to find with the pen types you like with the paper type that works the best for that. So, you know, a popular example of a coded page is a brand called Rhodia. They make probably some of the best notepads in the world. I would certainly vouch for that. I don't think that's an unfair statement. And I think a lot of people will agree in general.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Super good starter, right? Like if you are currently using Moleskine's or something like that or something and you want to improve, you want to like take the next level up. I really, really recommend Rhodia paper. They come in so many different formats. They have books that look like Moleskine books, but they also have pads that you can just use and you just tear a page out or whatever. And then once you've started down that world, you will be able to move into other areas. But I think that Rhodia have excellent paper quality, good pricing, and in every conceivable format that you're looking for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they're widely available. Like this is a worldwide brand.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, like I have walked into stores in the UK and have found Rhodia pads. Like you typically have to find like a stationary store, like one that carries stuff. But I've found like if you can find somewhere that carries Lamy pens, you'll find the same place will probably carry a Rhodia paper. And those two are like, and we'll get into those later on the pen stuff. But those are like really good, let's get an upgrade on my Bic and Moleskine lifestyle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The uncoated popular pages are like Leuchtturm, Moleskine, those types. They work well with fountain pens, but they're generally going to work better with your ballpoints, rollerballs, gels, things like that for the most part. You can use fountain pens with them. I have good success with fountain pens with them. It's just a little bit different dry time, a little bit different if you're using a lot of fountain pens and bright colored inks, the ink will look different, right? The ink might be brighter on a coded page than an uncoded page because the ink is sitting up on top of the page. The other thing to think about when you're buying a notebook is the format. Now, this is probably the easiest thing for you to get. You either look at the page and decide, oh, I like that it's blank. Oh, I like the lines that are going across it. Or you can have like a grid or a graph or you can have a dot. So the format is the most obvious thing. You know, it's not even something we need to explain. But those are kind of the four basic formats. There's a million other formats out there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I would be super surprised if everybody listening to this does not already know exactly what they want with blank lined grid or dot. Like, yes, you don't even have to really have experienced them to know what you want. Right. I am a dot or grid person, but preferably dot person because I like a little structure, but I like the page to a glance look like it's blank. That's my my feeling on these things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So for what's a very a very simple thing, a piece of paper, I think it's one of the most complex things to fully explain. But the good thing is you don't really have to go deep into that rabbit hole. There's a big rabbit hole there, but you can stay up on top ground and be just fine with paper as long as you're considering what you're using and how it works with the certain pen type that you choose.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Personally, I think that lined paper is like a crime. But, you know, you do you. I just don't. Lines just seems so strange to me, really. Like, I don't really understand why people buy lined paper. But, you know, if that's your thing, go for it. I think we're just all scarred from our school days. It just feels like a prison to me. Right. Like, you can only write in this one direction and in this space and enjoy it. It's like, OK, thank you, Mr. Lined Paper. So we've spoken about regular standard pens, right? We have yet to get to. Should we do pencils now? We can. Pencils is pretty straightforward. I think we should do pencils now. Yeah. That's what because after this, we're going to talk about fountain pens. And there's a lot in fountain pens. So why don't we talk about pencils? Pencils.

== Pencil Types ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you have two basic types of pencils. Your wooden pencils, which are the traditional pencil that you've seen for your entire life. The, you know, the yellow number two with the pink eraser, you know, that's your basic wooden pencil. And then you have your mechanical pencil, which has, you know, separate lead that you have to put into the pencil that is extended by a knocking mechanism on the back of the pen or a shaker mechanism within the mechanical pencil. So mechanical pencils can get fancy and complex or they can be very simple, straightforward lead delivery and writing mechanism. So the primary differences between the two is the wooden pencils are, are much more inexpensive because they're essentially, I guess, is disposable the right term. I don't want to say that in a negative way, but you, you use the entirety of the pen pencil and then it's gone. And then you pick up the next one and you use the entirety of that pencil. Then it's gone. Where a mechanical pencil, you keep one single pencil and you continue to refill it with lead. But, um, wooden pencils have seen a resurgence in the past decade. I love a really good quality wooden pencil. The popular brands out there now, um, Blackwing makes beautiful pencils. Karen Dash makes beautiful pencils. Viarco. There's a whole industry out there. Musgrave that makes wonderful wooden pencils that are way better than anything you've used back in your childhood or in school. Um, and they, there is a huge range with wooden pencils that you can kind of get in mechanical pencils, but there's a huge range of lead grades within the pencils. And I say lead, uh, it's not technically lead, it's graphite, but I like saying lead just seems to flow better when you're talking about pencils. Um, you can get a really, really firm and light, uh, lead grade, or you can get a really, really soft and dark lead grade. And you can get about, I don't know, 20 different grades in between, even more on some brands to, to, um, depending on how light, dark, smooth, firm, soft you want to write. So wooden pencils have great variety. Um, they're very out there fun to use, right? They just bring back these memories. Like this, it's like the purest analog writing, um, experience, I believe with, uh, wooden pencils, mechanical pencils. You can get very technical. You can get mechanisms that retract into themselves. So you're not poking yourself with the lead pipe that sticks out of them. You can get a lead that rotates within the barrel. Like the Urinubal Kuretoga is a famous mechanical pencil because it rotates the lead from a design and technical perspective. The Rotring 600 is kind of the, the cream of the crop as far as engineering type pencils go. This is what a lot of architects, engineers, and design students used, you know, back in the day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the classic look of a mechanical pencil as well. Like if you think of a mechanical pencil, you were thinking of this one or those colored barrel ones that like Bic, is it Bic made those? Like the plastic colored barrel with the black erasers?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bic made the one that actually looks like a wooden pencil, the yellow or paper made made the one with the, with the, uh, that looked like a pencil. Then Bic made the one with like the colored clips, like black barrels and colored clips. Yep. Yep. So, um, I love pencils. Um, I use them quite frequently. They live on my desk. Again, like this is the, this is the top level discussion. The things you can get into with pencils, like people devote entire blogs on all of these topics that we're talking about, whether it's notebooks or ballpoint pens or wooden pencils, all of these things have their own specific categories and niche markets and all kinds of things you can get into. So, you know, this is a way for us to say, Hey, there's a lot of awesome stuff out there that you can explore. And hopefully this will make you ask more questions about, Hey, what's a good wooden pencil. And that's when you, you know, reach out to someone like Myke or myself. Well, in wooden pencils case, me, uh, not Myke, but, uh, I love, I love pencils. So I, they are a wonderful thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll say at this stage, we're throwing out a lot of brands and a lot of products and there's probably too many to keep an actual list in the show notes. I'm putting some stuff in there as we, as we're going through today. But one link that I will point people to right now is your top lists, your top five lists. Oh, sure. Because if you think to yourself, Oh, you know what? I want to try out a mechanical pencil. Brad has compiled on, on the pen addict website, uh, a selection of lists of different categories. Like, um, you're looking at different, some, you've got some ink stuff, wooden stuff, mechanical pencil stuff, uh, ballpoint pens, multi pens, fountain pens, under certain value levels. And a little bit of explanation about them all. It's like a really great resource to go in and take a look at. Like if there's a certain category that you're interested in, Brad has already put together some, some recommended lists and by and large, like me and him agree on pretty much all of them. Some numbers we'd swap around, but you know, I feel like that, that the, the, a lot of the lists that you've put together are really great consensuses of, uh, of what pens should people should buy into certain categories. Yep. And it's currently being updated. Always updated. Always updated. So I will, we'll give a little stretch now. We'll, uh, we'll limber up. Let's talk about fountain pens. All right. What I think we should do here is go end to end and explain each part of a fountain pen because they're much more complicated. They have a lot more going on. So I think we should do that. I think first we should start talking about the materials that they're made from and then kind of explain each part and what it does. How does that sound?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That sounds good to me. And I would like to have a little bit of introduction to this as we still get so many new listeners that have only explored wooden pencils or gel pens that are interested in learning more about fountain pens. Don't let any of this intimidate you. No. It is actually very, very much more simple than what we're about to lay out in these next several minutes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But there is just more, there is more choice in this world, in this part of the pen world. So there seems to, so there are just more permutations of what you can go for. It's worth noting, if you go back to the beginning of this show, neither me nor Brad were using fountain pens at all. In fact, there is a quote, I don't remember exactly, but Brad Dowdy said that he didn't care about fountain pens. That was, you know, you can go back long enough in the show and you will come to that. And now we both use fountain pens predominantly, for me, almost exclusively. And we have lots of different types of fountain pen. And that's the majority of the discussion on episodes these days. We'll focus around fountain pens because there is a lot of really exciting stuff that you can get into there. So we'll, and as you hear us talk about these, you'll understand maybe a little bit more why. Because this hobby, the pen hobby, ultimately it becomes an idea of choice about you getting what you want. And there is no greater realm in this hobby than in fountain pens of being able to get exactly what you want.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I refer to the fountain pen market as the most customizable pen for you. Right? It's just, there's so many options and you can dial it right into the most perfect writing experience for you in particular.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like there are choices in mechanic, there are choices in wooden pencils. But you will run out of those choices quickly compared to fountain pens where you can just go forever. So let's start talking about what are the typical materials used to make a fountain pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The most common, far and away, huge percentage of the market is either plastic or acrylic. You know, those terms are interchangeable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Easy to work with, easy to shape, easy to make in bulk, and also easy to make in lots of really interesting and fun colors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So that's the thing you'll see at the very inexpensive, like less than $10 end of the market. You'll just see like your basic clear or, you know, smoke gray tube, you know, essentially for the barrel of the pen. And then it can go all the way up into just rainbows and swirls and wild acrylic materials that people are customizing and handmaking pens from. But really, that's just the most common. It's the most, you know, affordable type of material that is made in bulk, right? There's always caveats to everything we're about to say. But in the general sense of things, you know, far and away, you're going to see more fountain pens made out of plastics and acrylics than anything else.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My cheapest and my most expensive fountain pens are both made of plastic. Yep. And I'll tell you right now, the difference in price between my cheapest is like it's many hundreds X, right? Like it's, you know, it's a big, big difference.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a lot of X. Yeah. Um, you'll also find fountain pens in various metals. So there's metal is another, um, material that's, I won't call it easy to work with, but there's a lot of machine shops and large factories that work with metal barrel pens. Um, they're a little bit more expensive, obviously, just because of metal types, like the, the low end of the metal pens are going to be more expensive than the low end of the fountain pens. Everything above a certain price point at all gets mixed up into other, other things. But you'll find, you know, brass, aluminum, titanium, all kinds of pretty much any type of metal that is, you know, easily work withable by a machinist or, or factories is going to end up in a fountain pen. One of the classic styles of fountain pen barrels are made from wood. There's all kinds of wood types. I'm sure probably some of the early fountain pens were, were made with a nib, you know, stuck on the end of a piece of wood that you could use as like a dip pen. Right. Yeah. So wood has seen a rise over the years as we get more and more makers into this type of industry. You'll see less wood in the large brands, um, even though they still do make pens with wood parts like Lamy does. I know pilot has on occasion, things like that. Some of the brands we'll talk about later. Um, but you'll see that more in individual, smaller shops, smaller makers. Ebonite is a classic fountain pen material because it's easily shaped. Um, it can come in different dyes and patterns. It has, it's, you know, basically, I guess the term is vulcanized rubber, but it doesn't feel like that. It's a very, uh, firm material, but it lends itself to fountain pens because it's able to hold its shape. Well, it's easier to work with. It's not as easy as an acrylic to color, right? You can't get the most bright ebonite pens materials, but ebonite is also used as a base for a base material for, let's say, lacquer artwork to go over the top of, which we'll explore a little bit later. Um, and the last one I wanted to mention is celluloid, which is a different, it's in that kind of acrylic ebonite category, but it's just a little bit different consistency and feel in the pen barrel. Um, out of this list, it's probably the lowest use and it's more expensive because I think it's just harder to manufacture. But celluloid is popular because you can get beautiful colors and patterns out of that when you're starting to get into higher end or some vintage fountain pens. It's just a beautiful, beautiful material.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So these are what you'll find your pens to be made of. Typically there'll be some, some mixtures, you know, like a plastic pen may have some metal pieces to it. So you're looking at like, uh, you know, maybe it's a cap or maybe it's just a clip or maybe some bands. And when you have that stuff, when, when you have, uh, parts of the pen made out of a different material to the rest of the pens, it's referred to as the furniture of the pen, which is a wonderful phrase that I love so much. But if you have like a plastic pen and it has a silver clip and maybe a silver, we'll get into what this means in a moment, finial, uh, that is known as the furniture, the silver furniture, which is wonderful. So let's start with that then. What is a finial? Where does it go?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' On the top of the top of the pen and the bottom of the bottom of the pen. So the bottom of the barrel and the top of the cap are generally areas where manufacturers will do extra things, right? Whether it's having some type of etching or having some type of insert, it's just generally a place where extra artwork goes to make the pen look special. It could be just a simple, like, I don't know, a simple shape, like the tip, the top of the cap could be pointed, like, um, you know, or it could have a little medallion insert and, you know, that can go on the top of the pen or the bottom of the pen. And it's generally referred to as a finial.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you already mentioned it, but the majority of the pen is called the barrel. So what is, what is, what do we need to know about that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The barrel is pretty much what you're going to hold in your hand, right? It's kind of the important handwriting, uh, or it's the, the important comfort place for your handwriting. You want to have a barrel, the barrel can be wide, it can be narrow, it can have different, um, different etchings on it. It can have different shapes built in. It can be a little bit wavy, but that's the part that's going to hit your hand. And you want to, you're going to want to make sure that the barrel is comfortable when you're holding it. Um, and then for example, the cap will generally go cover up the nib of the fountain pen. And we're going to talk about all these things. It's hard to, it's hard to do this without do talk about the cap without talking about the other things that are involved with the cap. But I think the cap is pretty self-explanatory as well as the clip. So the clip is usually attached to the cap of a fountain pen and some fountain pens don't have a clip. And the clips, like Myke said, they can be made of all different kinds of materials. Um, and some people like clips. Some people don't like clips. Some companies make really fancy clips. Some people, some companies make very plain and nondescript clips. So it's just a place where manufacturers can, uh, take as many liberties as they want with the pen design.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The most important part, many people will argue with a fountain pen is the nib. So that is where all of the glorious writing that you see on Instagram comes from.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's where a lot of the money is, is taken up as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So there's all kinds of different types of nibs you can get. The primary, primary categories of nibs are steel nibs, which are the least expensive. And I'll go over the properties of each of these after I list them out. Then there's gold nibs, which is your main upgrade point and huge price jump point. And then there's titanium nibs. So there's nibs made of, of other materials. Of course, um, there's things like glass nibs and other categories, but for 90% of your pens, you're going to either have a steel nib, a gold nib or titanium nib. So let me explain a little bit of the difference. So steel is definitely the most cost efficient nib. It is generally firmer than gold and titanium. You know, it's just a stiffer material. It's a very consistent line that you get because of that stiffness. It's not as pliable or as flexible or as moldable as gold and titanium. And it's probably, you know, the number one universal type of nib. You know, a lot of pens are just going to come with a steel nib option just because of cost. Steel nibs can be glorious. They can be some of the best writing nibs you'll ever have. Um, one of the things we're going to talk about in the future, in future episodes, and maybe the, the, the secondary episode to this is, you know, steel versus gold, uh, and why you would make a choice between the two. But in general, it's a cost thing, but it's not a performance thing to be perfectly honest. You can feel the difference between steel and a gold nib, but based on your writing style, it may not make your writing look that much different for the increasing costs that you're going to, uh, have to take on to afford a gold nib. Now, gold nibs are fantastic in their own right. They generally start with a, the 14 carat gold nib, um, and then go up to the 21 carat gold nib. So there, so 14, 18, and 21 carat are the main stops in the gold quantity of the nibs. The 14 carat being, uh, more of a mix, uh, of gold and other materials, and then 21 being more gold in the nib. And that just means it's a softer nib, um, a little bit more flexible, um, a little bit more feel and bounce in the nib. When you're writing also at a much greater price point. So 14 carat gold is going to be, you know, 10 times as much as a steel nib and a 21 carat gold is probably going to be 15 or more times, um, expensive than a steel nib. You know, it's just whatever the market rate for gold and how these companies are, are handling their gold stockpile to make this. I mean, it's a rare material and they're making, they're making these parts out of it and you will see the price jump greatly from a steel nib in the same barrel as a gold nib. It's, it's, it can be, you know, hundreds of dollars worth of difference. Titanium kind of falls in between steel and gold. And it's also not used that much, but it's common enough to where I think we should mention it. Um, it's an interesting material. It generally has some flex and some give to the nib. It has, um, a price point that is interesting enough for people to test it out. And it's just for some reason, whatever that reason is, it's never become as popular as steel or gold. I think it's just a little bit of a feel issue for a lot of people. It can get squeaky. Yeah, it can get squeaky or a look, a looks issue, right? It's not as good looking to be perfectly honest as steel or gold.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks like an unpolished metal basically because that's, you know, kind of what it is a lot of times. Right. Um, and it doesn't, it can be, it's more expensive than steel, uh, typically less expensive than gold, but doesn't offer the sex appeal that a gold nib has. Right. Right. Right. And a steel nib in a lot of circumstances can actually look nicer than a titanium nib as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. And just to give people who are considering fountain pens for the first time, I'm going to give you just a ballpark price just to have in your head. And when we're talking about this for just a nib, let's say a steel nib would be $20, a titanium nib would be $50 and a gold nib would be $120. Right. That's just, just to give you a picture in your head of kind of what we're talking about just for a strict nib price. You know, there's obviously a million different things that can go into those costs and change those costs drastically, but just to give you a ballpark of, and something to work with when we're talking about pricing for those.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. Because you also, you know, as well as the actual nib and what it's made of, there are lots of different quality aspects to consider about how they're made and customized and that kind of stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. Now, if the materials weren't confusing enough, nib sizing can get very confusing because not all medium-sized nibs write the same. Mm-hmm. So, there's a thing in our industry where there's two groups of nib sizes and they're measured on a different baseline.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' European fountain pen nibs are probably what most people are introduced to first, what most people's fountain pen is sized with, and what most people's first fountain pen experience is. So, let's just say they range from an extra fine nib, which would be the finest line. Then they'll have a fine nib, a medium nib, and a broad nib for their line width grades of writing. Okay? So, your extra fine would be the finest line up to your broad would be the widest and wettest line. So, there's a difference in how the ink flows too. Japanese nibs will have the same extra fine, fine, medium, and broad, but every single one of them will write a finer line than their European counterparts. Mm-hmm. So, you have to know this if you want a medium line and you're used to, say, a brand called Lamy, which we'll talk about all these brands later, and you've used Lamy's medium nib, and you like a brand called Pilot, which is made in Japan, and you go to buy a Pilot medium nib, that line's going to write about half the width of your Lamy line. So, that's something you have to be aware of if you're buying a Japanese nib manufactured by a Japanese manufacturer, or, you know, in the case of Lamy, a German nib made in Europe. Those things are different. And that's one of the questions we'll get to this day of what nib should... I like to write like this, what nib is the best for me? That's a super common question that we get. So, it's a matter of trial and error and testing, and unfortunately, not all nib sizes are created equally. Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The nib itself rests in what is known as the grip section, and the name of this section of the pen is pretty self-explanatory. It's the place that you hold.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and we mention that because there are a lot of different things that go into a grip section. They can be straight, they can be tapered, they can be concave, they can be molded. In the case of Lamy, there's a ridge in the middle that will help you, theoretically, have a better grip on the pen to give you better penmanship. So, there's all kinds of different considerations that go into the grip itself, just from a shape and comfort perspective, right? It's depending on, again, this goes back to the most custom writing experience you can get is with a fountain pen, and right down to where you're holding the pen is going to feel different from person to person based on their grip. For example, I'm right-handed. I write with a traditional, what's called a tripod grip, like any, it's a pretty normal basic grip. Myke is left-handed. He would feel, his fingers would feel the same grip that I'm using in the same pen differently than I do, and is it comfortable for him? So, these are things you have to consider when you're making fountain pen purchases.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep, because there are many pens that, this differs for me and Brad. I'm what's known as an overhooker. So, I kind of hold the pen, I kind of circle my arm around the page, and the pen kind of faces back down towards me, which is a very peculiar thing, but it's a pretty standard left-handed grip. And so, yeah, but it results in a very, very different experience for the two of us from exactly the same pen. And this can come down to not just the grip section, but the performance of a nib,

'''Myke Hurley:''' and also it also helps equate to somebody's own preferences as to what they enjoy as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, so there are filling systems. So, every fountain pen, so you will probably be aware that a fountain pen requires ink, right? I think people know that. It's a pretty standard thing that people are aware of. And there are two broad ideas, like two major ideas as to how you get ink in a fountain pen, and then one of them has lots of offshoots to it. The two basic ideas are, do you put a cartridge in it? So, like a typically little plastic thing that you buy from a pen company that's already filled with ink, and you buy like a box of them, and then you just refill them whenever it runs out, right? So, you're just refilling it. That is a cartridge. Nice and simple. That's typically, again, how most people will experience their first fountain pens in most instances, because it is the easiest, the least messy way to deal with a fountain pen. But then, it's also the least fun. The most fun is to refill it, to have ink from a bottle, typically, that you are going to refill your pen from. But then when you get into the ink refilling world, there are then a bunch of different filling systems that you may come across.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so, like Myke said, cartridge is the basic. If you're starting, and you're just buying the most entry-level fountain pen, it's probably going to come in a package with a single-inch ink cartridge. You unscrew where the grip section meets the barrel, you take that cartridge out of the packaging, and you pop it right into the pen, screw the barrel back together, and start writing. So, that's your basic filling system. Everything else is going to require a bottle of ink. So, the converter essentially looks like a glorified cartridge with a little twist mechanism on the back, to where you unscrew the barrel, you put in the converter just as you would the cartridge, but it's empty. So, you twist this little knob, and the piston filler goes down, and you dip the front end of your pen, you know, where the nib is, and the grip section starts, into a bottle of ink, and then you twist it back, pulling the ink up into the converter. That's how people are getting all of these cool colors in their fountain pens that are not available in cartridges, right? That's the limitation that Myke was mentioning with cartridges. You know, you can get some wild, cool-color cartridges, but some of them are also specific to brands, and that's a whole, you know, that's the 201 level. We'll get to that. But for the basics, the converter just helps draw ink into the pen from the bottle. The advanced version of a converter is when it's actually built into the pen, and that's called a piston filler. It's, you know, expanding on the converter design to where the mechanics are actually physically built into the pen, where you're just screwing the back end of the pen barrel has the twist mechanism built in it, and the piston is built into the pen barrel, and it moves up and down the barrel as you're filling, and that's kind of considered, I don't know, one of the best filling mechanisms, right? Some people will only buy piston mechanisms. You know, it's, as you can imagine, it can be much more costly, much more expensive than filling, than using a cartridge or a converter. There is a cost consideration when you're talking about a piston filler. Same with a vacuum-type filler. It's similar to a piston, but it's more of a plunging mechanism. You unscrew it from the back, and then you kind of snap down the piston rod that is in there, and it sucks up the ink in a more aggressive fashion than a piston. This is a very interesting conversation, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Once you get into more advanced levels of fountain pens, people will use what's called an eyedropper filling, and it's not even a mechanism. It's really when you have a certain barrel type that is sealed off by silicone grease, and you just fill the barrel in its entirety with ink. So it's the highest capacity. This is the most advanced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This really is, like, you've got to feel very comfortable with yourself, and your ability is to pull this off, I think, because it is also the most prone to make a huge mess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's really an old type of mechanism, old type of filling that, you know, was probably around late 1800s, definitely early 1900s. This type of eyedropper filling system was in vogue at the time, and it kind of went away because it can be very messy, and at the time, you know, the consistencies built in fountain pens weren't as great as they are now from a manufacturing perspective. So eyedroppers give you basically the largest ink capacity, and for some people that's a very important consideration. So that is a lot of your consideration in the filling system is, one, you know, do I want to use an ink that's not available in a cartridge? And then number two, how much of that ink do I want to put into the pen? So a converter, it's going to be a smaller capacity than a piston filler, which is going to be smaller capacity than an eyedrop-filled fountain pen in general terms.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What else? Do we want to talk anything more on fountain pens today?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think we want to clean them, Myke. I know you're not interested in this, really.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a good point. I'm not interested in it. I just don't do it as much as you do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So cleaning your fountain pens is important. You don't have to overly obsess about it. What I always say about fountain pen cleaning is you have to be considerate of when your pen needs cleaning, right? So this is clearly the highest maintenance form of pen writing that you're going to do above, you know, your ballpoints, rollerballs, and gel ink pens. There is maintenance involved. And I think that's more, that's the biggest roadblock for people testing fountain pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's more than just refilling them, right? You do occasionally, if you want to maintain the life of your pen, you do have to clean it as well. You have to give it some tender love and care.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It is not difficult to clean a fountain pen just for your basic use. All you have to do is unscrew the barrel, you know, hold the nib section in one hand, remove the cartridge or converter, and run it underwater until it runs clear, right? If you have a blue ink in it, when it's no longer running blue. So you can shake out the nib, you know, in a paper towel. You just want to have some idea of how to clean a fountain pen, because what happens is the nib and the feed will tend to get dry. That's the exposed part of the fountain pen. And so where that liquid is, it will tend to dry up a little bit over time. And that will cause the ink flow not to flow as well. So it just won't be as nice of a writing experience. But if you clean it, it's like getting a brand new pen again. I use a couple of tools aside from just running the fountain pen nibs and grip section under the water. I use, oddly enough, a nasal aspirator, which is a little syringe bulb that you use. And it just pressure pushes water through the nib. And it just cleans it out faster and more forcefully. And I find that to be well worth any investment. Even if you only have one fountain pen and one bottle of ink, spending $1.50 on a nasal aspirator to shoot water through the nib when it's time to clean it is worth every penny. And will just make your writing experience more enjoyable. You can also use blunt nose syringes to kind of shoot water into a pen. Sometimes that's good for piston fillers, right? Because you'll clean out the nib section. And then you still have like a barrel that, you know, you normally can just run water through the piston, just fill it back and forth. But a syringe, you can kind of pop in there and pressure wash it a little bit, if you will. And then there are ultrasonic cleaners, which is a really, that's your advanced move. They're not necessary unless you're a very avid fountain pen cleaner into vintage pens that need extensive cleaning. It's not something you should really consider buying if you're a beginner. But I wanted to mention it because it does come up enough to where people ask about, do I need an ultrasonic cleaner to clean a fountain pen? Well, the answer is no. But there are extreme situations where people who have extensive pen collections do find them useful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Did we do it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We did it.

== Sponsor Acknowledgment and Brand Highlights ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' We did it. We got through it. That's fountain pens. Oof. Now, we want to talk about a couple of other things to round out today's episode, like some brands that we love and also some things that come up frequently on the show as well. Before we do, let me thank our second sponsor of this episode, and that is ExpressVPN. I think it is fair to say that we all want to browse the internet without the rest of the world knowing what we're doing. We all know about incognito windows. But did you know that even in incognito mode, your online activity could actually still be traced? Even if you clear your browsing history, your internet service provider could see every single website you've ever visited, and that's why you want ExpressVPN. They make sure that your ISP or anybody else can't see what sites you're visiting. Instead, your internet connection is rerouted through secure servers that ExpressVPN are offering to you. They're looking after them. Each server has an IP address that's shared among thousands of users, which means that everything that you do is anonymized and can't be traced back to you. It also encrypts 100% of your data with the best-in-class encryption, so your information is always protected even when you're using public Wi-Fi, like at a cafe or a hotel. That's where I use ExpressVPN the most is when I'm traveling. But the thing is, and the thing is great about this, it's not just like if you're up to something you shouldn't be, right? It's not what we're talking about here, but you deserve privacy in your life, right? Like we're humans. We're in this modern world. People deserve privacy. That's something that is like a fundamental human right, and so you can get that for yourself with ExpressVPN. It is rated the number one by TechRadar, Wired, The Verge, and more, and you can use the internet in confidence from your computer, tablet, or smartphone. Just tap one button and you are protected. Protect yourself online today and protect your online activity as well. Find out more about how you can get three months for free at expressvpn.com. That's expressvpn.com for three months free. If we're on your package, I'll give you that URL one more time. expressvpn.com. Thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, this next section, Myke, I included it just to talk about some of the brands that come up repeatedly in our first 399 episodes. Now, we're just going to give a little bit of highlight, a little bit of commentary on a few of these brands. This won't take too long, but I want to tell all of our old-time listeners, I promise I left your favorite brand off this list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, we did it purposefully to annoy you. So we'll start, we'll break these down, some of these brands into, like the pen brands, we'll break down geographically, and then we'll talk about some popular paper and ink brands. And we don't say these are the best, we don't say they're necessarily our favorites, but they are companies that come up a lot on the show and we think are important to know about. So in Europe, we have Pelican.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so Pelican is one of the biggest pen companies in the world. They are, for me, one of the pen companies that I measure other things against because they're really good at what they do. For example, in the fountain pen world, they have what I think is the best piston filler. For a lot of people, they have what's considered the best nibs. And they are just a classic design that is just world-renowned and well-respected. Aurora. Aurora gets into the Italian market and there's, I also have, we'll include Montegrappa in that as well. They both make very Italian pens. They can sometimes be like very loud, very unique materials. In the case of Montegrappa, very unique designs. And they're companies that as a pen addict, I watch a lot for what they're creating because they do a lot of interesting things. They may not always be for you. You know, just like Visconti is another brand there as well. They're all on the expensive side, these ones as well. These are all very pricey pens in general. They have lower end pens, but their forte is in, you know, the expensive mid-range to very expensive types of pens. On the opposite end of the ledger is another German brand called Lamy. We talk about Lamy a lot because they do very interesting things at a more normal price point for the vast majority of us and our listeners. And they have been around for a long time. They make really unique designs that have withstood the test of time. The Lamy 2000 is one of the most famous fountain pens ever made. The Lamy Safari is right up there with it, I would argue.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've probably seen the Lamy Safari in your stationery store.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. It's a very common, very easy, very accessible pen. The last one in the European section is Mont Blanc, which I mentioned them because even though they're not talked about in this show a lot, in the public fountain pen space, they are talked about often with reverence. And there's good reason for that. It is a luxury brand, so they're very expensive. But a lot of people's first fountain pen is a gift. And a lot of times it's a Mont Blanc. It was mine. Yeah. And people want to know about that brand. So it is a brand that comes up from time to time. I'm into Mont Blanc inks. They are a very, very good ink maker. I have one or two Mont Blanc pens. It's not a very common thing for me, but they do come up a lot. And it's a very, very good pen company.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They make some really beautiful stuff. And every now and then, both of us lost over a Mont Blanc product of some description. Absolutely. But they are, when looking at our overall market, they're overpriced compared to a lot of their competitors. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's another reason why, in the canon of the Pen Addict podcast, we'll discuss them as they relate to other similar brands.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because they don't necessarily do a lot of stuff that other companies don't do for cheaper. But they are, and I get it, that's fashion. You're paying more for the Mont Blanc brand, which is, in certain circles, very important.

== USA Market Brands ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes. Yes. The USA market, you'll notice when I list off a few of these companies, that is a very different type of list than the European market. The European market has very historical brands. In the U.S., we could talk about Parker's and Estabrooks and Cross and other things that were founded in the U.S., but those pens don't really rank in our world right now. They're good pens. They're perfectly fine. But they're not as interesting as some of the other brands we have in the U.S.A. This is more of a maker's list, wouldn't you say? I would, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, Estabrook are back. Sure. They were gone for a while and were kind of just vintage only, but that brand has seen a resurgence. But especially the brands that we talk about on this show the most, that are American, tend to have seen their life born on Kickstarter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Franklin Kristoff is the exception to that, and I guess Edison is too. Franklin Kristoff has been around for a while. Edison and Carolina Pen Company, all three of those brands make beautiful acrylic pens. They are pushing the envelope on pen design and what can be made with, you know, CNC machines and interesting materials and different things like that, that really kind of, they really lean into the customization of what a fountain pen can be, I believe. And then I also included Karas Customs on here. They weren't the first ones to make metal pens, but they kind of took off in that market, and there's been a bunch of other companies that have come since then.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They were one of the real early successes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They are one of the early Kickstarter successes, too. That was actually a Kickstarter success in that they've made a business model out of making unique metal pens and out of different materials. So I think it's, the USA market is definitely more of a maker space than a historical market, like the next one we have coming up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Japan. Japan. This is where the real history is, baby.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, well, the German companies are older, right? You know, they have some time, they have some years on them, but Japan will often refer to as the big three manufacturers in Japan, which is Pilot, Platinum, and Sailor. They all have 100 plus years behind them in manufacturing, manufacturing every part of their pens head to toe, and have really high quality, great standards. Japan is still to this day one of the stationary capitals of the world, and they just make really high quality goods. I've also included Nakaya in this list, which is an offshoot of Platinum. It's essentially Platinum's luxury brand lineup, where you get a lot of handmade pens, and it comes up a lot in this show, because I have a fascination with them as a brand and as a writing instrument, and it's one of my favorite brands.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, we both do. I just don't own one yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, yes, yes. One of these years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I've definitely come around to Platinum, because I was kind of a Platinum hold-off for a bit. So, I believe in Nakaya is again back in my future. Gotcha.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha. And like I said, we're listing these, because these are a lot of the brands you're going to hear the most. If you start today listening to The Pit Addict with this episode, and you start to dig into the back episodes, all the brands we're mentioning now are just the repeating themes that you'll hear. So, hopefully, this gives you a good baseline of what we're talking about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, saying that, when we look at paper, two companies we've already mentioned a couple of times in this episode, Rodia and Leuchtturm. Leuchtturm 1917 is the actual full name of the brand. These are the best products that you're going to be able to replace your Moleskine with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Correct. Correct. And then we also talk about a product called Tomoe River Paper, which isn't necessarily a brand, but more of a paper that other printers use, such as Hobonichi, which we refer to a lot. That's one of the best calendar agenda planner companies out there. And they use a paper called Tomoe River Paper, which is very fountain pen friendly. It's a very unique design. So, they come up a lot during the show, as do Midori and the Traveler's Notebook system. So, these are hugely stationary friendly notebooks, Midori and Traveler's. You'll see them just all over Instagram, all over different blogs and things like that. So, you know, the paper goods list could be, could take up this entire show if we named off all the brands. You know, like my good friend Chad Donut at Donut Paper makes a wonderful paper. And like we could go on and on and on about all the awesome paper makers, write and story supply and things like that. You know, maybe that's a future paper only episode where we explore all the paper goods. But these are the brands you'll hear coming up a lot in our talks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then we have inks as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, I made this little category as inks, as ink only, right? These are companies that generally just make ink, not pens. So, Robert Oster is one of my favorite ink makers out of Australia. Diamine out of the UK. Ackermann out of the Netherlands. Noodlers out of the US. Bungu Box, who makes in collaboration with Sailor out of Japan. And I think probably those brands are kind of, ink is kind of like paper where we could make this list and it would be infinitely long, right? It would just keep going and going and going. But as far as the conversation around these brands in the podcast, these are the ones that come up the most because they're good. Like, we talk about these products because they make interesting products and they've proven over time to be of a good quality. So, that's why these names make these very short lists is for those very, very good reasons, I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Bungu Box are probably the outlier there because they make customized pens, but ink is their business. And I also wanted to just make sure that we mentioned them because we do talk about them an awful lot on the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Correct. And that's how we got it started talking about them was the ink in the beginning. Yep. So, that does come up a lot. All right, Myke, you ready for some fun?

== Common Themes and Memes ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' There are some themes and memes that occur on this show. There are pens and companies that we will refer to very frequently. Sometimes seriously, sometimes as jokes. And it's probably worth knowing at least a handful of these frequently referred to terms. So, we will start with three famous Kickstarters. Two infamous, I would say, and one famous. The two infamous Kickstarters. One is called The Visionaire.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, Myke. So, we don't have time to go into all the history of all these projects. These are basically individual episodes themselves if we ever decide to recap all the drama that went on with these various projects. But The Visionaire was a pen that came out at a very strange time on Kickstarter where the pen Kickstarter was a thing. And fountain pens were starting to become popular on Kickstarter. And then this project appeared out of the blue from no one had any knowledge of before. Which is okay. That's kind of what Kickstarter is for. But the problem with The Visionaire is it was this very basic looking pen. And they were charging a very reasonable price. I think it was less than $40 if memory serves. And by the time we got note of it, it had already crossed like $100,000 or $200,000. It went all the way up over $300,000. And it was very quickly realized by anyone who knew anything about fountain pens that this person had no idea what they were doing. So we found the pen was just a basic generic pen that they were essentially buying off of one of the Asian marketplaces like Alibaba or Rakuten or whatever. Their product videos were shown filling the pen with India ink, which is not compatible with fountain pens. It will not flow correctly. And then the marketing around it has prompted one of the most famous phrases or common sayings that we use in pen attic history is this pen was important enough to sign your wedding certificate with or your birth certificate with. Right. So I got in touch at the time with the creator and we started talking because I was questioning like everything about this project. And so there's several podcasts. The first one we'll link is episode 64 where we first mentioned The Visionaire. And then there's several subsequent podcasts where I've talked to the creator of the project, trying to understand what's going on. And in the end, Myke took one for the team and backed The Visionaire. So why don't you talk about the pen itself real quick?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I have nothing to say. It's the most basic fountain pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a $2 fountain pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A scam it was not. But it was, you know, like there are scams on Kickstarter, as many scams. Oh, we're getting to that one. We're going to talk about the most scammy scam of all time in a second. But The Visionaire was just a very, very basic product. Very, very well marketed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So when you hear us mention, would you sign your child's birth certificate with that? It's referring back to this whole Visionaire debacle that really, I mean, just lined the creator's pockets with basically a resale of a fountain pen. So it was a travesty. But it wasn't a scam, Myke. This next one was a scam.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The scribble pen. Pen. This was a pen. It exploded onto the internet because the video is so good. Because what it promised is you could touch a sensor on the end of the pen onto any surface. It would replicate the color. And you could start drawing with that color. That there was like an ink mixing mechanism inside of the pen. It could mix the inks together for you. And you could start writing. And believe it or not, this was a pen basically the size of a dry erase marker. Absolute 100% fakery. We spent a lot of time on the show. Because this pen kept coming back as well, which is one of the funny things about it. It would launch onto different crowdfunding platforms. It would launch under different names. One of my very favorite things about the Kickstarter platform is that all of this stuff remains. So I will have links in the show notes. You can go and look at the page even though they canceled the funding because it exploded into... And I really do think that we were partly responsible in exposing this product for what it was. Because it became very bloggy. Very blog-worthy to show this thing. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was involved in a lot of articles around discussing this and the Visionaire before that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But this one was like... And we took a real stand on this pen because we knew it was physically impossible to produce. Right? That it could not be made in the guise that they were showing it. But this pen kept coming back and the story kept getting weirder and weirder over time. But this was one that is just fake. But you can go and watch the video and it's still fun to see today. But there is just no world in which this pen could be made right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I did get threatened with a lawsuit on this one that I posted on the blog. So it was just... It continues to exist. This is a very much what is dead will never die thing. I mean we're years and years on and they continue to take people's money for pre-orders and never deliver anything. And I'm just shocked at the people who continue to believe that this product exists and will actually work as intended. And they keep changing what it is. Now it's practically down to it's a color picker with an app type of thing now. But man, what a mess that project was at the time. All of the product imagery was photoshopped. It was just fake from head to toe. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it was super fun over time to break down those videos frame by frame. Yeah. And work out exactly what they were doing to fake them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good times. The scribble pen. That one continues to live in infamy. The next one was infamous for a while and now has just become famous. It's the CWNT pen type A, which was a pen that I fully supported and fully, you know, loved and everything. But it turned into one of the biggest Kickstarter stories ever just because of the catastrophe that the manufacturing process became. And then which led into like all kinds of bad things happening and all kinds of, I guess, product theft and idea theft and things like that. And in the end, like we all got our pens and it all shook out fine. But it was one of the craziest, wildest rides I've ever had on any Kickstarter project. And in the beginning and in the end, like I became friends with Sewe and Taylor, who are CWNT. And to this day, I continue to be friends with them and support all their projects. But at the time, this was like their first big Kickstarter and it just ran amok. And talk about articles written about it. There's articles about this, like on big, you know, websites and blogs or just about how like the madness of producing a Kickstarter project and all the things that can go wrong. And in the end, they came out better for it in the end. But man, that's that was a crazy project. And it continues to come up to this day. And CWT does because they've they've made some really interesting products since then. But it's worth mentioning the pen type A if you're into this type of thing and want to research it. But we actually mentioned this, Myke. I had to go back and look it up. I was shocked when I saw this. We mentioned the pen type A in episode number two. I couldn't believe that when I looked it up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that's wild.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Speaking of wild, another recurring theme. We're off the Kickstarters now and we're just into some common themes that we talked about. Do you want to describe this?

== Chaos Pen Discussion ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Chaos Pen is a collaboration between Montegrappa and Sylvester Stallone. Montegrappa are known for making some very, very, very expensive tens of thousands of dollars worth of expensive pens that are themed in some way. And the Chaos Pen is one of these. It's not really available anymore, but comes up every now and again, I think. And it just is this pen which is full of snakes and skulls and just wildness. But it's referenced because it's so crazy to see and is also so very, very expensive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is the first pen, wild pen, that I recall getting press outside of our normal sphere. And it was really because of the marketing of the pen with Sylvester Stallone being an internationally famous actor. Past his prime and just doing this really. I think there was a watch component to it. I think there was a full brand thing going on with it. But this pen has lived on throughout. I think about every year, a new media outlet would discover the pen. And we'd get a new influx of articles about the Chaos Pen, right? And then we'd end up discussing it. And then one day, Myke and I got to see this pen in person. And I think our opinions changed fully about this pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, we turned on it. It was like, I don't know, a notice isn't for me, but I can totally see how it's for someone. Yep. Because it was just quite a sight to behold. It's incredibly well made, as it should be for its price. But it's easy to laugh at it because it is so absurd. And then when you see it and you hold it, it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's like, I get it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I get it now. But that was really a marketing story more than anything, which is proven by its reemergence every year or two by someone discovering, oh my gosh, what happened back then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Speaking of marketing, I got to say, Myke, we were the leaders of the Bullet Journal train. I'm just going to go ahead and take that now. I mean, I know Ryder, Carol, invented it. But we were on the Bullet Journal bandwagon way back in the day before it became hashtag Bujo, right? Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Basically, like the Bullet Journal, the idea of the Bullet Journal, the original website that was created, where it was just the system that Ryder had made. It made waves in our community and also the tech community, which we both kind of straddle because it was a really beautiful website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the productivity community as a whole.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we interviewed Ryder in like 2013. We had him on the show and then had him back when he launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a book. And now like Bullet Journal. We had him back a third time. When he released his book about it, right? And these are three episodes that are super interesting because you get to hear someone who's going through this change, this transition. You know, Ryder like had an idea, thought it was interesting to, wow, this is starting to catch on. And now I want to try and make a career out of this idea that I created because people seem so excited about it to the point where this has exploded and expanded way past me to the point that I've had to now like legally claim ownership of my idea again. And I don't endorse any of what's happening. I have, but I have my thing, which is the core part. And it's super intriguing to watch him kind of go through this. And it is one of these like successes that we do claim a little bit of, you know, Ryder has said himself that like we really did help get the word out for Bullet Journaling when it began.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we also told him which notebook to use.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We did. Yes. We told him.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So he has a partnership with Lloyd's term now that has turned out hopefully pretty well. But yeah, I like I'm like I'm joking about taking credit. But I think Ryder is one of the more interesting characters we've had on the show repeatedly just because of exactly what you said. Listen to the three episodes that we did. If you're a Bullet Journal fan. And I think it tells a good story just like Myke was alluding to. And again, I just I think what he's done is pretty amazing. And I just find it so interesting. Like it's still like I could go back and listen to those episodes today.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then lastly, two companies that are referenced a lot because both me and Brad care about them greatly. And we've formed collections over the years of Field Notes and Retro 51.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, they both started really early. I think Retro 51 might have been mentioned before Field Notes. I think you were early to the Retro 51 game just as, hey, this is a really good pen and I like this pen. And what does it do different? Well, it's recommended from you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And but I'm just saying like that surprised me when I was looking back at some of the episodes. I thought Field Notes would have been just like the thing from the beginning. But they both kind of do the same thing, right? So even though Field Notes has a subscription and Retro 51 doesn't, they both do something. They both do what they do very well. They have great marketing. They have great products, which they wouldn't be in business if they didn't have great products. And they were able to tell stories that we were able to latch on to, you know, whether it's a specific Field Note limited edition release or a specific pattern or, you know, design on a Retro 51. And they did it well and they did it frequently enough to where they became full time topics on our show, sometimes multiple episodes in a row. So they've certainly become popular enough that I would get emails saying you talk about them too much. And like, I'm okay with that. It's because they're doing interesting things and we like the we like the product. So you will hear if this is your first Pen Addict podcast. And if you go back and listen to the previous 399, you're going to hear Field Notes and Retro 51 talk a lot. And that's not going to stop either.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, there's going to be less Retro 51 talk.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I guess that one's closing down. Technically, that one's going to stop, but not this year. It's not going to stop us from talking about them, right? That is it. All right. So that is going to stop us from talking today.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. We have completed the Pen Addict 101. The next episode, episode 401 of this show is going to be Pen Addict 201, where we get into more detail on some pretty important elements that you may want to also consume. So we're going to make this a two-parter. Because when we started putting this together, we asked for our audience, our wonderful Pen Addict audience, for some things that they think we should talk about. And we could not get to them all in one episode. This is already one of the longer episodes of this podcast. We feel like we maybe should split it up. So that is your introduction. Thank you for, if you are, if this is new for you, the Pen Addict, thank you so much for choosing to listen to this show. And we hope that you enjoy any future episodes that you consume. But there are also, you know, a lot of people that are listening to this today. The majority of people that will probably ever listen to this episode are people that have already been listening to the show for a long period of time. Many people from the beginning. Many people from very early on. Thank you, thank you, always. You know, we say it all the time, especially as we cross each 50-episode barrier. But this, you know, this show is such a joy to put together. And we can only do it because you listen. So thank you for supporting this show over its lifetime. Thank you for supporting our sponsors. Thank you for buying all the products that we make. Thank you for supporting our Kickstarter campaigns. We couldn't do this without you. If there was nobody listening, there wouldn't be a podcast to make. So we, you know, this community is one of the greatest communities I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of. And I've been a part of many communities over my podcasting career because I span so many different interests. This is so kind, so giving, so wonderful and so thankful, this community. And it's an absolute pleasure to be a part of. But I will always thank at this moment Brad Dowdy. Brad puts in an absolutely immense amount of work into this show, including this episode. Most of the time, I'm just showing up and I'm talking with him and then I edit and post it. Brad's the one who's like moving this show forward always. And, you know, I couldn't do this without you. Plus, there would be no pen addict without the pen addict himself. So as we are finishing our 400th episode, thank you, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, thank you, Myke. I am glad that Myke does all the editing and all the posting and all the back end work because I hate all that stuff. So thank you, buddy, for doing for you putting in. I'm putting in the the production work. You're putting in the the technology technological work on the back end to make this show exist to all of our amazing listeners. And it really is about the community we've built around all the things that we do. And we wouldn't be here without all of y'all listening and everything that Myke said. I second it all completely. So thanks to all of you and especially thanks to Myke for being a wonderful friend for all of these years. And I know we have a lot more years in front of us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We most certainly do. So that is episode 400. If you're listening to this in real time, keep an eye out for our Kickstarter campaign. We're days away from launching the Kickstarter campaign for the 2020 pen show circuit. So keep your eye out for that. We'll be back next time. Thank you so much to Warby Parker and ExpressVPN for the support of this show. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 530/transcript

2026-06-22T08:42:35Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 530
| title = Overengineered
| date = September 13th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[C Y]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/530 Episode 530]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/penaddict530.mp3 Audio Episode 530]
| length = 91
}}

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 530. My name is Bradley Dowdy, and I'm joined by someone who only two weeks ago I shared dinner with in person, but had to wait until they were halfway around the world again to have on the podcast. From Tokyo Station Pens and the Tokyo Inklings podcast, welcome CY, how's it going?

'''CY:''' Hey, Bradley Dowdy. I'm very glad that that name is sticking. I mean, I know that you were born with that name, but I think it's great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am glad you picked up on that. I did that intro just for you. I figured you would appreciate it. So CY is one of the few people on the list of approvals for calling me Bradley Dowdy. For some reason, you latched onto that really quickly. I don't know what happened. You just, like, out of the blue, you're like, wait, is your real name Brad, or is it something? Something else. And then from then on, Bradley Dowdy it was.

'''CY:''' I think I, you know what happened? So we got off the car, you got off the car, and then, you know, the shaking hands. And then I saw you, I was like, Bradley Dowdy, the man himself. And then I asked, like, a few hours later, and I said, by the way, is Brad your, like, full name? And then you're like, no, it's actually Bradley. It's like, all right, then. That is who you are, then.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that is it. And for the rest of the weekend, I was Bradley Dowdy. Now, for listeners, it is with no E. So it's a very, more unique Bradley than the normal one. So it's B-R-A-D-L-Y.

'''CY:''' Well, it's, it's like, it's like, kind of, and what is it? Adjective to describe Brad? Bradley? He's very Bradley. Exactly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's terrible. I wish you wouldn't have said that. No, just kidding.

'''CY:''' We're going to have, we're going to have some Bradley conversations today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is going to be a great episode. This has been a long time coming, right? Like, you know, were you, were you jealous that I had Jacob on the show first?

'''CY:''' Uh, no, because I was already on the front of the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, yeah, we had talked before we had talked previously, but I was like, oh, I gotta, I gotta make sure like, see why it was like, hey, I'm gonna have Jacob on. And, uh, for those who don't know, Jacob, uh, is CY's, uh, Tokyo Inklings podcast partner, which we're going to talk about, uh, throughout the show. Um, and I had, uh, Jacob fill in, um, you know, back in the summertime or gosh, I can't even remember when, several months ago. And I was like, I need to email CY or text CY like right after. It's like, hey, I'm going to have you on too. I didn't want to be on your list.

'''CY:''' No, no worries. No worries. I've been on podcasts where he hasn't been on. So don't tell anybody.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We won't tell him he won't, he doesn't listen to this. He won't, he doesn't listen to our show. So we won't, we won't do that. All right. So one of the things you and I need to knock out at the start of this is kind of give everyone who is not familiar with you and your work a little bit of background. So they know when we go off the deep end later in this show, why all of this is happening. So one of the things that I need to know that I don't personally know is kind of your stationary background. When did you become just kind of, you know, a stationary nerd and junkie and started to get into this stuff? You know, was it an early years in school, CY? Did it come a little bit later in life? So give me your stationary background.

== CY introduces himself and his online presence. ==

'''CY:''' Sure. So I'll just do my intro. Hello, my name is CY. You can find me on my website at tokyostationpens.com, on Instagram at tokyostationpens, and on Twitter at tokyostationmnh. And I think we might have had a conversation about this before, but let's just get it on air. I think it's very difficult, you know, me having grown up in Asia. So I was born in Taiwan, but I was raised in Hong Kong. And it's difficult to really live a life without stationary here, which is something that I hadn't realized until I actually moved to the US. But, you know, the kind of premium stationary, I guess, like a Pilot G2 or, you know, your Sarasa's or your Muji, all of those are pretty readily available and pretty common in everybody's pen cases. So I wouldn't say that I was particularly a, you know, stationary enthusiast. I mean, I like stationary, but then, you know, so did everybody else. But I remember that when we were younger, we used to have these mechanical pen cases. And these mechanical pen cases were, well, and of course, they're all from Japan, but usually on the outside, they had some, you know, cartoon character or what have you. And then there are these buttons. And then inside the pen case, there are different rigid compartments. So there's one for your eraser, your pencils, your pens, leads, blah, blah, blah, blah. They even have like pencil sharpeners. And then you press the button and those compartments kind of shoot out because there's a spring. And so we used to use these pencil cases or pen cases. We'd shoot out these compartments, but instead we'd put our eraser in front of the compartments. So we, you know, try to hit each other with the erasers. So that was fun. Yeah. So that was probably my first really distinct, oh, you know, I'm using my tools in a way that probably was not intended, but everybody did it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. So like when we talked about before, you and I, like you mentioned, we actually talked on the, I have a pen addict members podcast called Friend of the Show. So, but like we talked about like stationary where you grew up just is, it's like part of daily life. Like in the U.S., it's like, okay, we have McDonald's. It's just part of everyone assumes like everyone has a McDonald's. It's like everyone, you don't realize that, oh, other people don't have a McDonald's around the corner or something like that. It's just part of your life. So when did it become, you know, later in life, like a real thing, like as you're starting to get, as you're starting to like share things online, write about pens. And I want to talk about like the order of events as far as blogging, podcasting, Instagram and all that. When did that change happen and why did it happen?

'''CY:''' You know, let me, I know this is not the question you asked, but let me backtrack just a little bit onto, you know, how I got into, let's say, fountain pens specifically, because I think that's, that's quite important to the overall story. Okay. So, you know, as a kid growing up, you know, watching these movies and especially these, you know, period dramas, everybody's using these quill pens, these fountain pens. And I'm like, wow, that's, that's so cool. And so I always, I thought I wanted to have a fountain pen. And at that time I was maybe about like, you know, 12, 13, 14. And I really wanted a Lamy Safari. And you've had Patrick Ng on the show before. And I think he works at City Super, right? As the stationary merchandiser. So I have these distinct memories of going to City Super, seeing these massive Lamy displays. And, you know, they have the, the pens kind of diagonally placed into, into those displays. And I said, wow, I really want a Lamy Safari, but I don't know if I can pay 10 bucks for, for a pen. So one year I was, I was sent off to handwriting camp. We have those here. Okay. That's a whole discussion right there. Yeah. So I was sent off to this handwriting camp in, in China. And it turns out in China, people learn how to handwrite with fountain pens. And I remember hating these pens because none of them would fill. Like they would write, but they wouldn't fill. And they're all those bladder squeeze ones. Yeah. But yeah, so, so they weren't very good. Kind of forgot about it for a while. And then when I moved to France for university in, in Europe, as you're aware, um, many countries in Europe still require the use of fountain pens in, uh, especially grade school. And so one of my Swiss friends had, uh, had a fountain pen and I said, uh, well, may I try using it? Um, and she said, no, uh, and I, you know, there's this myth about, uh, if you let somebody use your fountain pen, they're gonna, um, the fountain pen is gonna, you know, change its properties and it's gonna, you know, go out of alignment because your fountain pen has a kind of learned to be with you. Right. So, so, so she gave me this, this myth and I said, okay, fine. Um, so I went to the supermarket, spent about five euros and bought myself a pack of three pilot petites. And then I tried them and I was like, wow, they're, they're incredible. So smooth. I can write so quickly with them. Uh, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, invest in a good pen. So, so I went to the pen store and, um, and then I got a Parker sonnet and then, you know, I brought it back home, went to class with it, started using this Parker sonnet and it was terrible. So fibers got, got stuck in, in the tines. It was, you know, wooden, right? Hard starting dry. I don't know how you can hard start and dry. Um, and so like, like, uh, a normal person, what I did was, okay, um, let me go back and buy another one. Just in case, you know, just in case it's a user error. So I went back, bought another one and, um, lo and behold, it was, uh, it was rubbish. So, uh, eventually I, uh, I bought a few more pens. I think I bought a kit pen at one point. And then that summer I worked an internship at a law firm and using the money that I earned at the law firm, I bought myself an absolutely crazy deal of a Mont Blanc. So I bought a Mont Blanc 145. And I bought it in the already discontinued burgundy color. And then I thought to myself, well, uh, you know, I'm at the apex of writing instruments. Now I have a Mont Blanc. So I guess that's it. My journey's come to an end.

'''CY:''' Um, and it did, it did for, for, um, for almost seven years. I, I used that one pen exclusively and I used one ink exclusively too. I used lavender purple exclusively. Oh, well that, that's a pretty good choice. It is. It is. It is. Uh, you know, the burgundy and the, and the, and the, the purple, I thought that went pretty well. And, and that ink at that time was dark enough that if you use it on, um, kind of like copy paper or just regular paper, it looked almost like it was black. So I did, I never got any, you know, comments about it from my teacher or, um, you know, I would use this to, you know, sign those immigration forms at the airport. Um, so, so I used that for, for exclusively for seven years. Um, and then I moved to Japan. I bought a Naginata Togi. Um, and because you could at that time, just pick them up, uh, off the ground. Um, I went to this Merz and Pen Fair. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I went there. Um, I bought some inks. I bought this pen. It's like $200 or something. Um, and I was like, this is too thick for me. Back to the Mont Blanc I go. Um, and that was, yeah, that was, that was pretty much my fountain pen adventure. And then what happened is about four or five years ago, I think almost five years ago, I went on a, uh, Christmas vacation, winter vacation, uh, with my girlfriend and we went to Kyoto and I discovered this thing called Yahoo auctions. Oh no. Have you heard of Yahoo auctions before? Uh, only through this certain podcast that I listened to. Yes. So, so Yahoo auctions is kind of like our version of eBay.

'''CY:''' And, um, and then I was scrolling through these Yahoo auctions and I realized, I said, wow, I can buy a Mont Blanc for $50. You know, it's just $50. Why not? So, so I, I bought a, bought a Mont Blanc there. Um, it was a Mont Blanc Generations and, um, it arrived and the section was cracked. Um, and so I said, no problem. It's only 50 bucks. I'll just go buy another one and swap out the parts because I'm a genius.

'''CY:''' So I bought like three more and all of the sections were cracked in the exact same spot.

'''CY:''' But then I, I had already been hooked, you know, uh, I had already been, um, enticed into this world of secondhand, um, fountain pens. And then now to more directly answer your question. Um, when I was about to leave my, I used to work at a company, um, that dealt deeply within the social media space. And I was about to move from this company to a more traditional, uh, retail company. And I thought to myself, you know what? I'd really like to keep up to date with social media trends. Um, I'd really like to, you know, become a practitioner and really just in case I want to move back to this kind of a job, I would be able to say something right about being able to keep up. So, so that's when I started Tokyo Station Pens. Gotcha. And I think it was, um, I want to say the October of 2018.

== CY discusses starting his blog and entering the fountain pen community. ==

'''CY:''' Okay. I didn't post anything, but I bought the domain. Uh, I started up my WordPress and I said, you know what? I'm going to do this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's interesting getting a little bit more detail about, you know, kind of how you got started in fountain pens. I have two questions from what you were just saying. Number one, do you still have that original Mont Blanc?

'''CY:''' Um, I actually sold it. Uh, I sold it to our good friend Kelly's mother. Okay. Nice. Well, hey, it's going to a good home.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's, that's.

'''CY:''' That Mont Blanc has a, has a funny story actually. Um, I lost it once. Um, I went to graduate school in the UK. Uh, so very close to, to Myke. Um, and, uh, and for some reason I was possessed to bring my Mont Blanc everywhere and, uh, and I brought it to a nightclub.

'''CY:''' Of course you did. That's what you do, right? Yeah. Just, you know, in my blazer pocket. And, and then, you know, the next day it wasn't there anymore, but it has my name inscribed into the, into the clip. So I went to the Mont Blanc store and I said, Hey, if, uh, somebody comes into the shop with, uh, with a pen with my name on the clip, you know, that's a stolen pen. And they said, Oh no, we're not going to help you. If somebody comes in, we're just going to swap out the clip for them.

'''CY:''' So I was very, very mad, but because my name was on the clip, some kind soul picked it up. You know, they, they found me on Facebook and they actually gave it back to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. That's unreal.

'''CY:''' Yeah. And, um, and, and then afterwards, you know, like five years later, I sold it to, to Kelly's mom and she's kept the inscription on the clip.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. Absolutely. That's, that's great. All right. So the second thing I picked up on, which probably leads us directly into like literally the entire rest of the show is I'm wondering as you started like finding Yahoo auctions and you're in, I guess even back from the Parker sonnet, you were interested in, it sounds like you were interested in like how these things work, what can I do to make them better? How can I manipulate this? How can I repair this? Like most people, I would say, you know, probably 95% of people are going to get that crack section and go like, Oh man, this is bad. And I'm going to send it back. Like, I'm, I don't have any interest in trying to figure this out why this keeps happening. Um, you ordered three more all with the same problem. And you're like, Huh, this is interesting. How can I get around this? Um, is, is that accurate in kind of how you see things maybe a little bit differently? Than like, say myself in the fountain pen world and why you kind of do what you do now?

'''CY:''' So I would say that, um, more than how this is interesting. I thought, well, I've already spent 50 bucks. What's another 50? So it was a sunk cost fallacy. Yeah. You fit right in around here. Um, but, but to go into the repairs and, and, and the modification, that stuff, actually, I have to credit Aziza. I didn't tell her this when I, when I saw her, but the reason why I got into nib grinding in the first place is because I've read Aziza's blog. And at the time, uh, another reason why I felt that I had been finished with my, um, fountain pen journey is that most, uh, factory settings come only with, you know, fine, medium, broad. If you're lucky, you get like a, you're like, I don't know, like a medium, fine or something, but you know, what's the point of that? Um, excuse me. I, I retract that medium finds are great. I was about to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slander. Yeah. But, but, you know, they're, they're essentially just in between fines and mediums. Standard stuff. Yeah. And, and, and then I saw her article on music nibs and she had this vintage Waterman music nib, which was, which was flexible. And I thought to myself, oh, I really want one of those. So I go on eBay. I look up, uh, I look up the relevant keywords. I found one. It's like $350. I said, $350. I don't want to spend that much on just the nib. You know what? Because I, you know, have these genius ideas. I'm going to make one. And then I thought to myself, well, how am I going to make one? Uh, so I bought a bunch of pilot music nibs and, um, started grinding away at them. Well, $3,000 later, I managed to make, yeah, I managed to make a flexible three-time music nib, which is actually, um, my logo. A lot of people think it's a light bulb. Oh. Yeah. But it's actually a three-time nib and, um, and it also serves as a location pin. And, but anyway, uh, so, so yeah, I, you know, several thousand dollars later, I've been, um, I've been, you know, again, sunk cost fallacy. I've got to do something with this, with all this machinery. So, so then I decided to explore, you know, making other nibs. And I, I've said this on a, I think on a video with, um, Inky Rocks. Shout out to Inky Rocks. Shout out. Fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. Um, YouTube. Adding that to the show notes right now. Uh, but I said on, on one of the videos, why I'm interested in fountain pens is because I view fountain pens as, um, really like a machine. If you think about it, we've actually regressed in writing instrument technology. Um, like I think, you know, gel pens, ballpoint pens, that they're all great, but essentially they are some form of ink. And then you, you know, push the ball and because the ball rotates, you got ink kind of, you know, stuck on the ball and, and then you're, you're writing, right? Um, but fountain pens actually use, you know, capillary action. You have to think about, um, ink delivery. You have mechanisms. And in a way I, I, I, I think that it's really almost like a celebration of human ingenuity. And it's, it's really a reflection of this phrase that I learned when I was in school, uh, man, the maker, um, you know, how we've, we've created and invented things to, to help us, uh, achieve our goals in life. And in a way a fountain pen is, is like an over-engineered piece of that. Right. So, so that's what I, uh, grew to find interesting. Um, and then, yeah, as you said, you know, that's when I went, huh, that's, that's interesting. And, um, and yeah, the rest is, I guess, history.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So were you trying to, why were you trying to solve these problems? Like why, why did you want to buy all these music nibs? Were you trying to find a better writing experience for yourself? Is it that simple in the beginning?

'''CY:''' I just thought it looked cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''CY:''' And, and, and it wasn't available, uh, that it's not available was, was a challenge, you know, like I had to do it because nobody is doing it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Well, that leads me perfectly into one of what I want to talk about next, but, uh, you, you mentioned my podcast host, Myke, just a minute ago. So I'm going to throw it over to Myke real quick for an ad read. And, uh, we're going to pick this right back up in just a second.

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'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So this idea of the things not existing or, you know, it's rare or it's different and unique seems to be a theme with what you do now. So following you kind of since the beginning, you know, I've just kind of watched your transformation. I love following everything that you do because I learned so much. Right. That's one of my biggest things about you. And I'll tell you a secret about your podcast later in the show if it comes up that I get from it. But, you know, following you and your transformation, like from the jump, the information was different than like someone who consumes content in the stationary space, you know, it was different content. And you have kind of like if we jump into like the present day, you've kind of made a name for yourself for doing things very, very differently. It comes from grinds or stacking nibs. So tell me about how, you know, from, hey, let's figure out these these pilot music nibs and make this, you know, wild flexi music nib to like really the the experimentation that you have going on now.

== CY talks about creating a flexible music nib and meeting Ralph. ==

'''CY:''' Yeah. So I'm just going to skip ahead like a year. I'd been I managed to make this flexible music nib. And it really, I guess, launched, quote unquote, my career, quote unquote, because there were there are a few people who saw what I did and believed in me. And I'm very grateful for these people. If you're listening to this, you know who you are. But yeah, they believed in me. They asked me to make some nibs for them. And they were happy enough to to share that on on their feeds. And then slowly I got inquiries. And at that time, I hadn't intended to really do this as a, I suppose. Anything beyond a hobby. Mm hmm. So I was really quite taken aback. I had like 80 followers on Instagram back then. And yeah, I got these requests. And again, going back to this Yahoo auctions, I found these pocket pens, these Japanese pocket pens for like dirt cheap. You know, bring them in, polish them up, and then I would sell them on Reddit for a little bit of a profit. Not too much. You know, I'm just making back on really shipping. But then the act of selling those pens, you know, that was another hook for me. Mm hmm. But then, again, I got into the nibs because first I thought it looked cool. Second, nobody else is doing it. And then I found Ralph Reyes's profile. And for those of you who don't know, at that time, this was around, you know, between 2016, I want to say, to 2019-ish. Sailor stopped making Naginata Togi nibs. Or maybe they didn't stop making it, but they were not for sale. Right? You couldn't get them anywhere, even in Japan. And I saw this kid who was really making really cool stuff. Whether you like the aesthetics or not, that's separate. But, you know, he was making overlays on the nib. He was making monster nibs, you know, five-layer nibs. And I was like, wow, that's incredible. That's so cool. And you couldn't get any of these because he worked on, you know, a different schedule from everybody else. And, you know, you really, really, you just had to be lucky to get one. And in the 2019 Tokyo International Pen Show, Ralph came to Japan. Because I think he had met Nagahara-san, might have been DC. And then he was inspired to come to Japan. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to grab hold of him. And I'm not going to let him go for the entire weekend.

'''CY:''' He didn't know this, of course.

'''CY:''' So I was very fortunate to meet Ralph. We had a great time. I was, you know, helping him translate. And he was showing different people his nibs. And at that time, I thought of making them. But I also had no idea where to start. So I asked Ralph, I said, hey, Ralph, you know, what are you using to make these? He says, oh, I'm just using a laser welder. And I looked one of those up. And yeah, that cost 20 grand starting. So I was like, okay, that's not what I'm going to use.

'''CY:''' So I bought this Amazon. I bought a welder on Amazon. It's like this yellow made in China one. And it's a pulse arc welder. And I had several nibs re-tipped to have the, you know, extra large tipping. And then just left it there for a year. So remember, I met Ralph in 2019. I bought the stuff. I was so scared to even start. I didn't do anything until January of 2021. Wow. Because I was just, I was worried about messing up. And, you know, I'd really like to succeed. I really like to be able to create things. So failure, failure is scary. It's scary to me. But then one day, I came back home this cold January afternoon.

'''CY:''' And I think my girlfriend was, you know, she had to do her nails or like, you know, go to the hair salon or something. So I had the entire afternoon to myself.

'''CY:''' And I said, you know what? I'm just going to do it. And in that single moment of courage, I created my first stack nib on a momplot 146. For which Jacob says I'm crazy because I should have practiced on hundreds of things first. That was literally going to be my comment. But yes, go ahead. And then I wrote the article, The Anatomy of a Stack Nib. And I wrote that article and I write the articles that I do on my website because it's not really documented anywhere. You know, especially not in English. But even in Japanese, this is really not documented. Who's making them? What's the process of making them? And I just thought for all the mythology around stack nibs, we know surprisingly so little about them. So why not take my experience? Maybe this will benefit somebody else. Maybe somebody else is going to read my article and think to themselves, hey, I'm inspired to make these. Just like how when I saw Ralph's website, I said, hey, maybe one day I want to do that too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's pretty cool. And as we go through this show, we're going to talk about how things have progressed. And the things that are interesting to you now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Before we do that, I want to rewind just a little bit because we've mentioned Jacob and we've mentioned the podcast before. How did that come about and that you had started writing and making things? How did you and Jacob meet and decide to have a podcast?

'''CY:''' Yeah, so I met Jacob, I want to say in March, February or March of 2019. And we met up and we said, hey, there's this pen addict guy. He's always talking about some stuff on the podcast, but this pen addict guy is always late.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's late and wrong a lot.

'''CY:''' We knew this stuff like three months ago. Why is he talking about him now?

'''CY:''' But in all seriousness, we listened to the pen addict and we thought, hey, there's so much information that's locked here either in Japan or in Japanese. And maybe there's an appetite for people who don't want to do that deep, intensive research. Because anytime you want to find out anything about anything in Japan, you're committed to hours and hours and hours of research. And I'm sure, Bradley Dowdy, for your blog, to research high-tech C, you probably spend 10 hours just trying to find where the information is. Not even talking about translating it, digesting it, and then formatting into your own words. Right. And information shouldn't, especially in, what are we not, 21st century, this shouldn't be locked up like this. And so we decided, hey, maybe it would be fun for us to start a podcast to just specifically discuss stationary in Asia, but more specifically stationary in Japan. Because I think Japan is really the holy land for a lot of stationary enthusiasts. But I think a lot of people just don't really know what it's like here. How are people using their stationary here? That's the question we get most. What's the difference between the Japanese stationary scene and the Western stationary scene? And so we talked about it for like, you know, a year. And it was always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we should start the podcast. Maybe when we have time. And in March, right before everything shut down, I said, you know what? That's enough. I'm buying, I'm looking it up, buying mics, and we're going to do it. So, you know, just one weekend in March, we sat down, we recorded our first episode.

'''CY:''' And, yeah, we published it. It was, I think we might have done two takes. But it was really fun. We didn't get everything perfect. The audio is probably really bad. But it was a start. And we actually got listeners from the very, very beginning. And we did weekly episodes for one month. And then we switched to our current cadence, which is bi-weekly.

'''CY:''' The podcast has been one of the more rewarding things that I've done. And because we always get the feedback, you know, thank you for talking about this on the podcast. Without this, we would never have known. And that's really the initial purpose of our podcast. And funny thing, actually, going back to meeting Jacob, I actually found him on Reddit. He had posted his kind of event recap to the Pelican Hubs and to Wagner. And I was always very worried. I think when you don't know anybody in the community, you're worried about, you know, showing up. And, you know, what if nobody likes you? You have this imposter syndrome. Or at least I did. And so, you know, you have to remember that everybody here speaks Japanese. And as a non-Japanese person, it was very intimidating. So I sent a message. I was like, hey, you know, how is it like there? Are people nice? And then when I met him, you know, six months later, I told my girlfriend, I said, that's a celebrity. He takes really good photos.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So confession time. The first part isn't a confession. The first part is that y'all make my favorite podcast. And it's the way you present information. Like I can tell, like y'all are really trying to answer questions and provide information and go in depth on topics that you explained correctly. Like we, you know, necessarily in the rest of the world don't necessarily have either the access or the ability to digest or to even locate. So I appreciate that very much. And the confession is I normally run about two or three episodes behind. I don't listen to it currently. But I, to, you know, like when the episodes drop, I don't rush to listen to it. And I do that because I want, I don't want to say, speak about the same topics that you do. So I want to have this, this gap, like out of respect as like, I don't want to feel like I'm just regurgitating. Y'all talk about so much interesting stuff that I want to talk about constantly, but I don't want to feel like I'm just regurgitating what you said is because you're going to do it better. So that, that's my secret confession is I'm usually about three episodes behind because I don't want to, I don't want to jump in and kind of distract from the awesome conversations y'all have going on. So I just appreciate what y'all do very, very much. And it shows the work that y'all put into it and the way, you know, the, the information's presented and detailed and do it from like an education perspective. Like, Hey, we're going to talk about this, you know, topic and why, you know, these decisions were made on this topic. And then, you know, also have the, the great color of, Hey, let's go to the pen store and tell everyone how great the Japanese stationary scene is, which believe me, we're going to get into that as we go through this show.

'''CY:''' Well, you know, um, the, the structure of how we present our podcast, I think, obviously I think we enjoy what we put out. I think we put out a good product. I think it's also sometimes a little bit difficult for, uh, because there's so much information, it's actually more difficult to digest. And a feedback that we get quite a lot is, you know, we have listeners tell us all the time, you say, I had to listen to the episode three times in order to catch everything. And then, you know, I'll go back and listen. Now I'll hear something that I didn't hear on the first time. So, so that happens quite often, actually.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And, uh, so I, I just implore y'all to, to keep doing what you're doing and, and shout out to Jacob. Uh, y'all, y'all have a great chemistry together. I love, uh, how y'all go back and forth and kind of like Myke and I, not to like compare the two, but like, it's like, you will just agree to disagree sometimes. Right. You see things differently and it's good to have that perspective, um, from, from different topics. You know, even if it's like, Hey, I don't like this ink color, you know, or Hey, I don't like this paper intent.

'''CY:''' You know, Brad, uh, I can't stop people from having bad taste.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You try though. You're, you're putting in the work, which that's what I want to talk about. Next is spreading the, your, your good taste around the world, specifically in the U S recently. So we're going to talk about the crazy trip that you were on recently. I have so many questions. We're going to take a break real quick, uh, hear from our buddy, Myke, and then we'll be right back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hey, Myke, this episode of the pen addict is brought to you by same box inbox. Inbox zero is a thing of the past. We're all so inundated with email these days that it's no longer about responding to everything that you get. It's only about responding to the important things. That's what you want to care about. The messages that really matter and same box gets your email in order by working on top of and alongside your existing setup. You don't need to create a new email account. You don't need to download a new app. Same box just makes your existing setup even better. If you've ever met someone who's used same box, someone like me, you're going to know that the initial same box purge can be really powerful. This is where it takes all of your email and puts it in the places that it should be. And then after that initial claim cleanup, same box will then allow you to manage your daily emails more efficiently from there. I've been using same box for years and I would never go back. Just having some of my most annoying email taken out of my inbox and put somewhere else, but not even just the annoying stuff, just the stuff that isn't the most important. Same box does a great job. You can also train it, which I really like. If you take an email and move it to one of the same box created folders that you have set up, it will then learn from that and be able to process your future email even better. I like that it has both things. It does some of it itself, but it also learns from my habits. Same box has some really cool features like same black hole. You drag messages to this folder that same box sets up for you and you're never going to hear from that sender ever again. This is way better than unsubscribing. This is going to make sure that your unwanted emails go like you get rid of them, right? You get rid of them. That's what you want. You want them gone. So I also have same reminders. This can ping you if somebody hasn't replied to your email by a certain date. You can also snooze emails to same box, which is a great way to defer or deemphasize some less urgent stuff. Same box works with any email client or phone anywhere that you check your email. It really is the very best in email filtering and sorting. With over 600 views on Trustpilot and glowing reviews from TechCrunch, Forbes, The New York Times, and emailers everywhere, you can rest assured that you will fall in love with your email again. See how same box can magically remove distractions from your inbox with a free two-week trial. Visit samebox.com slash penaddict today to start your free trial and get a $25 credit. That's S-A-N-E-B-O-X dot com slash penaddict. Our thanks to same box for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you just spent how many weeks in the U.S.? I spent five weeks in the U.S. Five weeks in the U.S. So I want to know how this idea of coming over to the U.S. kind of percolated up. Were you thinking, hey, I want to go to a pen show and, you know, see what's up and, you know, meet some people that, you know, I talked to online? Did that turn into like, was it like a single event thing that turned into this really broad, wide-ranging trip, which we'll get into all the details. So tell me the pre-planning of your recent trip to the U.S. What was the process behind that?

== CY shares his experience at the San Francisco Pen Show and connecting with Dromgools. ==

'''CY:''' So first I knew I had to do the San Francisco pen show. Okay. So that was definitely something that I needed to see because we get a lot of guests, or we used to get guests in Japan, and a lot of them were from California. So I wanted to hit up the San Francisco pen show. My parents live in D.C., so doing the D.C. pen show is a no-brainer. Oh. Not a problem. They are, you know, several weeks apart.

'''CY:''' And several time zones apart. Yeah. So ostensibly, I went back to visit my family, which, you know, very conveniently, they're only about 20 minutes by car from the D.C. venue. And originally, it was only these two shows. And maybe if we have time, I'll talk a little bit about my future plans for the shows. Oh, definitely. Originally, it was just these two shows. And then I reached out to Yoseka Stationery because I love Yoseka Stationery. I think they are vision meets execution. Mm-hmm. And I said, hey, I'm going to come to the U.S. Would you like to do a collaboration? Maybe I can come to your store and do, like, a grinding event, get the customers in the store. And, you know, when customers are in the store, they're going to buy stuff. Mm-hmm. So we had several Zoom meetings, Google meets, whatever it was, video chats. And we got to know each other a little bit more. We got to share a little bit about our respective visions for Stationery, for the industry. And we logged in some dates. And originally, I was only going to do one day there. Mm-hmm. We eventually extended to two.

'''CY:''' And then I was connected to Dromgools through Kenro. And I won't say more about that.

'''CY:''' But I was connected to Dromgools through Kenro. And Dromgools said to me, they said, hey, Ariel, toasty treat, she's talked to us about you before. Would you like to come down and do a nip grinding event? I looked at my calendar. I was like, oh, well, I guess all my weekends are booked up now.

'''CY:''' And that's really how the four events came to be, really, you know, came together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's, yeah, that's cool. So it started out as like, hey, family DC. And I really need to get to San Francisco. And you kind of filled in the gaps in between there. So let's start with DC. And can you give me an idea of what that show was like in relation to, you know, say, like, Tips in Japan, which is one of the larger stationary, you know, shows in the world? I don't know that you necessarily need to like directly compare and contrast in them. But what's like a US show experience like versus what you've experienced in Japan?

'''CY:''' So the DC show opens on Thursday. I didn't know the table assignments until Thursday. And apparently Thursday is a free day anyway. So you can set up shop wherever you like. But not a lot of people are there. And especially a lot of vendors don't show on Thursday. So I thought, you know, I'm just going to take my table and just have my stuff there. So I did. And then on Friday, Friday morning, I was informed that my table is now no longer my table.

'''CY:''' I get to get to my new table. I'm just staying quiet over here, by the way. It's fine. So I get to my new table. And it's a corner table. It's a better table. It doesn't have electricity. Okay. And, you know, on Friday night. And, you know, this is my bad. The show supposedly, ostensibly closes at 5.30. I was working until like, no, it closes at 5.00. Yeah. And I was working until like 6.00. They turned off my electricity at 5.30.

'''CY:''' In contrast, the Tokyo International Pen Show, great show. So they sent me a handbook, a guidebook to the show. You know, where do you send your stuff? How do you bring it up? The elevators. You know, where should you be? At what time? Blah, blah, blah, blah. 70 pages of guidebook. So I read this guidebook. And then they call a vendor meeting. And I said, well, it's a vendor meeting. So it must be important. So two-hour vendor meeting. I joined, turns out we're just reading the guidebook line by line.

'''CY:''' So I think a happy medium is where really we'd like to be. But so that's on the organization front. On the vendor front, a lot of individual vendors, a lot of individual stuff makers in the US, not just DC, but in San Francisco as well. In Japan, mostly retailers. So you're going to mostly see stuff that is available for sale. Very few vintage tables.

'''CY:''' Especially now with COVID and with the travel restrictions, we don't have the interesting stuff from overseas.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yeah.

'''CY:''' Yeah. In DC, obviously very vintage heavy. a lot of Europeans. I heard French. I heard Italian. I heard Turkish. So yeah, definitely I think more of a healthy mix in the US. But the last thing which I think is important is community. The US doesn't really have that many stores. Doesn't have that many great exclusives. The scene is not super interesting. But despite that, there's a strong communal aspect to the hobby. There's a lot of back and forth in terms of banter, discussion, people telling other people about cool things. And you really have kind of like a friend group, right? Whereas in Japan, it's really not like that. And, you know, what's that? Drumgools. And people apparently just go into drumgools on like Saturdays, stay there for six or seven hours and then just go home. You'd never have this in Japan because the stores and the customers, they haven't created this community aspect of it. And so what you have in the US is this healthy community who enjoy each other and who are not afraid to talk to each other. In Japan, it's a bit different. This pen show after dark thing doesn't really exist in Japan, especially with the COVID thing now. The Tokyo International Pen Show is divided into blocks. So you buy a ticket for your block. So you might get Friday morning and then you don't get to go in for the rest of the show because you've been assigned your block Friday morning. So you can buy extra tickets. But yeah, you get in to the block for which your ticket is assigned. And then after that, you just go home because your friends might not be there at the same time. You might say hi to a vendor that you really like, but definitely it's a lot. The decibel is lower and there's not as much of a communal aspect. People don't, customers don't necessarily want to be friends with each other. They really much rather kind of to be left alone and they just want to buy what they like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, they're there just to hit up some of their retailers or some of their favorite retailers and take care of their business or their dealings. And then outside of their window, they're gone. That's interesting. I didn't realize that from that perspective.

'''CY:''' But I want to still commend the organizing committee because to create an event like this in Japan is, I think, not so easy. Sure. I think it's difficult to get people who want to exhibit to buy tables. A table in Tokyo at the Tokyo International Festival is very expensive, by the way. It's about $500. Oh, okay. But the facility is super modern. But the show is very young. It's only been around for about four iterations. It's going to be the fifth iteration next month. And remember, for three of these, we had no foreign vendors. So I really think when the border opens up, we have foreign vendors, foreign visitors. We need that energy here. And I think that's why it's so good for the Japanese vendors to go over to the US pen shows because they get to observe the energy that the US pen shows have. And Takayuki-san from Plotter, when he came back, he did an Instagram Live. He said, hey, maybe we should just book out a hotel and have an event for our customers. I think it would be really fun. So I think that energy is really important. So I'm looking forward to when foreign visitors can come back to Japan.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, Myke and I have obviously been wanting to make that trip for years now and for obvious reasons haven't been able to. But I mean, it is like on the tip of our tongues just all the time. Like we can't wait to actually do this and get it done and just experience that. What about just for listeners of our show who may have been to DC and San Francisco, what is the scope and size just comparatively to something like TIPS as far as the scale of the show? How do they compare? Yeah.

'''CY:''' I'd say San Francisco and TIPS are probably comparable in terms of like vendor number. Maybe San Francisco is a bit more. DC was, you know, wild. It was wild. Like 350 something tables. Yeah. Yeah. What can I say? It was wild. Right, right, right, right. But I think if I'm not mistaken, in 2018, 2019, we actually had 3,000 summon attendees from across the world.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From what I've seen of been following TIPS, and you can obviously speak on it better than I can, the growth of the show has been impressive. And from the jump, they've had the customers coming through that a lot of shows here can't necessarily like contend with, right? Like as far as just like raw gate numbers, it's a big event for stationary fans in Japan.

'''CY:''' It's a small event for stationary fans in Japan because the larger one, Bungajoshi, has like 10,000 people. Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. Yeah. That's, so, how do I present this question? What is, I guess, different about, say, the Japanese retailers' expectations of a pin show? Say, like you're mentioning at TIPS, so it'll be mostly like retailers, right? And there's a lot of different types of retailers in Japan. Are they mostly bringing what they would normally sell in the stores? Are they making show special stuff? Because I know you and Jacob often talk about how, you know, making trips to like, you know, buy the certain special things, say a special ink creation that's only available there. Is that a really big deal kind of across the board at a show like TIPS?

== CY explains the popularity of ink and exclusives in Japanese stationery culture. ==

'''CY:''' Yeah. So I would say that ink is probably the best seller at any kind of TIPS because, unlike in the US, every retailer and their mothers have five exclusive inks. And the only way that you normally would be able to get these inks is if you actually go to these places. And a lot of times these places can be very, very, very remote. So when you have an event like TIPS, when everybody comes together, you can buy everything at once. Just, you know, imagine you're somebody living in Tokyo, you're a stationary lover, but you might not have the expenses to go over, you know, down to the very south, go over to Nagasaki just to buy the sink or, you know, go up to... There's a place in Hokkaido called Ishida Bungu. In order to get there, you have to take a plane to Hakodate, which is very far from Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. So you fly up to Hakodate, and then you have to take a train, and then you have to take a bus to go there. And the train leaves every half an hour, right? So when these people are here at the show, that's going to draw crowds.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha.

'''CY:''' And also, a lot of the retailers have their own exclusives, and not a lot of retailers in the United States have their own exclusives. So I think that's why the retail scene can do so well at shows, even though they're only bringing things that they normally sell at their stores anyway. However, there are, I want to say, two particular, maybe three, 2.5, vendors that always bring something specifically for the show. I would say the first one is BunguBox. They have a show exclusive, and that's always very, very popular, and always very well done. Eboya usually has, I wouldn't call them maybe show exclusives, but they're like first sneak peeks, right? So you can buy them at the show, and at a later date, you can buy them on their website. So those two, I think, are really good. And then Toyoka Craft, Toyoka Craft also, they had like pen show exclusives last year, but it's mostly like the lining cover, and they do not sell out on Friday morning.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that was one of my big takeaways from the San Francisco pen show, is I was so happy they were there, and I was so glad to see the reception. I mean, and they're well-received anytime they show up, but to see it actually in person, to actually see that happen live, it was kind of something to behold for me. That was one of my bigger takeaways from the show itself. So I want to get your takeaways, like your main takeaways here in a second, but I wanted to ask you something about community between the U.S. markets and the Japanese market. So you mentioned like the shows here in the U.S. have a more community feel, but outside of the shows in Japan, it seems like everyone who's in the stationary community, everyone's pretty dialed into like what store is doing what, what events are going on. And how does, is that a valid observation, like the online stationary community and the kind of the store intertwining and sharing of information between, you know, what's going on in the stationary community online in Japan, like a pretty big deal, easy to follow, easy to track everyone, kind of keeping everybody in the loop.

'''CY:''' Yeah, I think because there are so many product releases that, that there's a lot of excitement going on just around the retailers, which is great. But community in the U.S. is more like, oh, this person online, I saw that they have this product. And then you might meet them at a pen show and be like, oh, I've been, you know, following you for a long time. And then you might talk to somebody else. They say, oh yeah, I saw it on this person's feed. In Japan, it's, it's less like that. It would more be like, oh, I saw this on this retailer's website. And I think it has to do with one,

'''CY:''' it's, it's just a different culture, right? There, there's more of a reserved culture.

'''CY:''' So it's not as, let's say, outgoing, more inward looking, but then also, I guess, related to it is that a lot of people like to be very anonymous online.

'''CY:''' Especially in, in Japan. So, you know, you have people, and Twitter is actually where most of the Japanese community lives, but they might not know each other's faces. They, they don't know each other's names. And I just came back from a, from a Wagner event. and, um, I met a bunch of high school students and I love it. And, you know, they were making these grinding machines and I, I got to talk with one of these, uh, these students. Later, I followed them on, on Twitter. And, uh, I saw that they were commenting on these other Twitter users, um, tweets, think, oh, so you're the person that did this. So, you know, the community, I think, is still very, uh, nascent. That's an SAT word.

'''CY:''' I'm down, I'm down with that one. Yes. Yeah. Still very nascent, but, but what I was very encouraged at, uh, especially this last Wagner that I went to is, um, the number of young people, number of students, and these people were so willing to experiment. So I think give it five to 10 years, you know, tips is going to be able to grow that community. However, I think you really need, um, the stores also to facilitate, to create spaces for that. Japan doesn't have the space for you to just hang out. Right. So, so you've got to be deliberate about designing those spaces. Whereas in the U S I think it's a little bit easier because if there's a store, it might be the only store in, you know, the state. And then, and then you all just have to go there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. And that's why like you and I talk about this and, and I've said it to, to, to the drum goals, uh, to, to Larry and Michael, like you walk into the store on a Saturday and there's just like a cooler there with like drinks in for just, you know, for people just coming to hang out. Cause they know people are going to be there all day. So they're just like making it easy for you to just come hang out there and just have this whole communal aspect about it. And it's great to see. It's great to see. All right. So what was, what was the big highlights for you aside from hanging out with me in San Francisco? So that's number one was your main highlight. So it's like starting at like number two highlights, uh, of your trip. Uh, what were your, your main takeaways from, I guess like five weeks in the U S.

'''CY:''' So I went to, to Disneyland. And I, I,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I,

'''CY:''' I customized a lightsaber and now I am a nib Sith.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yes. That was one of my favorite pictures, um, that I took at the show was just this completely accidental. Like that was literally, we're closing. We're trying to go to dinner on Sunday night. Yeah. Let me, this is a little bit behind the scenes and everyone is ticked at CY because he, he's just working. Like he's working, you know, like CY is like taking care of customers. CY is doing his job. Right. And April's like, I have to fly out. We're going to dinner. Like, come on everybody. And then CY breaks out the lightsaber right there at the end. I just happened to be there to catch it. It was great. And she's like, I'm taking the Uber now.

'''Speaker 00:''' Yeah. She, she left us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Shout out to shout out to April. She made all the right decisions. So yeah, it was a good move. To leave us behind.

'''CY:''' April was, was great. She planned everything. I'm pretty sure, you know, the world runs just because April is in existence.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is factually correct. What a just whirlwind of awesomeness. She is. So yeah. What other, what other big takeaways just broadly, broadly speaking? Just meeting,

'''CY:''' meeting listeners, actually.

'''CY:''' It's humbling. It's, it's, it's incredible. It's, it's my first time really meeting listeners in, in real life. And, or at least so many of them. And yeah, it's, it's just, you know what, um, kind of related to this, this, this person's not a listener, but, um, first let me, let me talk about the listeners. So, so listeners just recognizing me by voice. I think that's, that's incredible. And it makes me realize that, you know, what we're, what we're doing, the product that we're putting out, and I call it product. We don't make any money on it, but you know, the, the, the thing that we're, we're producing, um, brings joy to people's lives. That that's, uh, I don't think there is something more meaningful that you can do with your life. Um, so, so that was, uh, that was huge. And, and a specific episode that I want to talk about, what's that? Drum goals. Um, and this 91 year old man handed me his Lamy 2000. He said, um, my late wife bought this for me as a present back in 62. Wow. And, uh, and it writes too broad, sent it to Lamy. They said they can't get any thinner and I can't use it. Would you be able to help me out? So I did a size reduction on this, uh, Lamy 2000, not a difficult thing to do, but boy, was I clenching my butt. Yeah. Yeah. That's a different level. Right. And, and, and, you know, when I handed it back to him, um, he wrote with it, it, and he said, you know, he said, thank you. Now I, I have a memento to, to remember my wife by. And I think in, in this industry, in this business, we are not, we are not changing the world, you know, and like, we're not going to bring world peace. We're not, you know, solving world hunger, but, but we're changing somebody's world. Um, somebody is going to have a better day just because they're listening to this podcast. Um, you know, listening to us drone on for 70 minutes is, uh, you know, it's, it's going to hopefully, uh, make somebody's bad day a good one. So I think really the realization that we're actually doing good for people. Um, yeah, that's, that's very humbling.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It definitely hits home when you're able to get out into a different area. Right. Then you're, then, you know, the walls of your home or apartment or the town that you live in and to, to get out, it really, really kind of hits home a little bit when you're, you're able to do that. So good. I'm glad like, that's like the biggest takeaway experience, um, is that you do, you know, have fun what you're doing and it does make up, put smiles on other people's faces. And at the end of the day, like that's the most important thing. And that's what we try to represent. And I know that's what you try to represent as well. And it's just really cool to now you've got that story, right? Like, and, and now that person has their story too. And, uh, it's just really cool to be part of that. So really, really great. All right. I realized one of the things, uh, preparing for this show, we're, we're going to throw it to a break here in a second. Okay. Okay. I think because like, Oh, we're, we're like, yeah. Do you have like, you know, a few more minutes to talk about personal stuff? I have unlimited time. Yeah. Cause I realized that I, for all I know about you and all the time I've spent with you, I want to know more about what CY likes to use himself. So before that, we're going to toss it over last break of the show. Promise, promise, but we're going, we're going long. We knew we were going long. So we spread this out. So let me take a break real quick and, uh, we'll be right back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This episode of the pen addict is brought to you by trade coffee. Every day is precious and we should all make the most of every single one of them. They shouldn't start with mediocre grocery store coffee. You deserve to start your day with the best coffee you can make at home from trade coffee. Trade coffee is a coffee subscription service. Unlike anything you've tried before, because they partner with top independent roasters to freshly roast and send the best coffees in the country direct to your home on your preferred schedule. Your trade experience can be as simple or sophisticated as you want. If you know what you're looking for already, you can quickly select from curated coffee collections by roast flavor, profile, brewing method, and more. And their team of experts do all of the work, taste testing hundreds of coffees from across the U S every single month to curate over 450 exceptional coffees that make the cut. Or if you want something curated just for you and take a minute and complete trade coffee questionnaire, you'll be expertly matched with your perfect coffee and a fresh bag of beans will be on its way. The coffee I get from trade is so good. I can't believe how much I love what they pick for me and just how easy it was for them to find what I want based on their simple questions. And their team have actually worked with me to create my own custom coffee collection, which is great for me because I'm incredibly picky about my coffee. I know you can benefit from that too. I love the diversity in roasters that I've been treated to with trade coffee. And it's been selected in this collection as well. Trade have collected together for you a great selection that matches the flavors that I enjoy in coffee. And there is some super tasty stuff in here. I want you to go experience it for yourself. So if you're like me and want your coffee to taste just right every day, go check out my collection at trade. But if what I got isn't up your alley, don't worry. Trade will have whatever it is you want. You can shop the most popular coffees by roast or flavor profile, or you can take their coffee quiz and get expertly matched with coffees that you're going to love. Trade is the easiest way to get the very best tasting coffee delivered fresh just when you need it. And you've got nothing to lose because trade guarantees you will love their first bag. And if not, they'll work with you to replace it for free. So if you want to support small businesses and brew the best cup of coffee you've ever made at home, it's time to try Trade Coffee. Right now, Trade is offering our listeners a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping at drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That's drinktrade.com slash penaddict for $30 off to the best coffees in the U.S. Our thanks to Trade Coffee for their support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, CY, I want to know what your favorite pen is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a hard one. Isn't it? It's the hardest question you can probably be asked.

'''CY:''' Well, the answer is it depends. And what it depends on is what have I bought the most recently?

'''CY:''' Other than that, I think...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let me reframe it for you. What do you use a pen for when you're not working on a pen, right? What kind of pens are you reaching for when you're not actively manipulating them?

'''CY:''' I like right now one of my absolute favorite pens. And this pen gave me a real different experience. It's a 149 adorned with maquillage by a studia in Wajma. And it has a super sharp oblique italic nib on it. And I like to use it just to practice more calligraphic writing. I'm really trying to get more into that part of the world. So that's what I really enjoy right now. Otherwise, I enjoy me some extra needlepoint flex nibs. Again, that's really to get me into that world of calligraphy. I'm still pretty rubbish at it.

'''CY:''' But yeah, at least those are the tools.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me prop you up on your calligraphy real quick. So a lot of times, if CY and I were out to dinner with a bunch of friends, and a lot of times at these pen shows, people will pass around their notebooks just to like, hey, can you sign my notebook? Or just write a note to say, we're at the pen show. And this is my little diary from the pen show. Can you add something to it? So I would be just like, hey, it was great meeting you at the pen show and my little handwriting. And then I'd hand it over to CY. And then 30 minutes later, it would come back. And he's got this whole calligraphic writing, just dunking on everyone who's written next to him in the notebook. But this is a whole beautiful little piece over there. So yeah, good job. You are definitely practicing it and putting it to good use. So I got a kick out of that.

'''CY:''' So it's really something that I think has a lot of potential. And I'm actually going to try to do, well, it would be last weekend already for the listeners. But I'm going to try to put out a little instructable. Okay. A live instructable probably on Twitch to show people how to use FlexNibs. I think there's a lot of mystique around FlexNibs, but nobody knows how to use them somehow. So I think just going through the theory basics, stuff like that. But that's something that I really like to use for myself as well. And it's really something that I think has a lot of potential for us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So along the same lines, outside of pens, what inks and what stationary paper products do you find interesting? Maybe just that's in Japan that hasn't kind of caught on around the rest of the world or has started to come on? What are you seeing that interests you right now? And it doesn't even necessarily have to be from a pen basis.

'''CY:''' Yeah. So personally, I really like purple inks. I like desaturated inks. Desaturated inks really show that color shifting, chroma shading very well. So I like those. Unfortunately, all I use is blue because that's what I use to test pens.

'''CY:''' But yeah, that's something that I really like. I don't know if it's not caught on in the US. But oh, and you know what? This I think is really cool. Wearing Gull, they make these inks that are themed after literature. So they have like Alice in Wonderland. They have like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And their whole concept is you add stuff to the ink to change it. So I think they came out with an Alice in Wonderland thing. And it was like Becoming Witch or something. And it's just one bottle of ink and then four different types of shimmer. And depending on the shimmer that you add to it, you are a different type of witch. Nice. And that's, I think, really, really cool. That interactive, that playfulness with the products. I think the Korean ink manufacturers are just superb. Superb at it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I actually picked up the little added shimmer from Bangu Box in San Francisco for one of their ink lineups. And they had like swabs of here's this ink with all of these different shimmers in it. And it's interesting to see like that aspect, you know, like you're saying, like the Korean ink makers really leaning into like the customization, the creativity. And that market is really huge over there. Like we've talked, like I've listened to y'all talk about the glass dip nip pens just like blowing up over there in the Japanese and Asian market in general. As opposed to like in the U.S. where it's not necessarily a thing, but it's like a huge thing right in your market.

'''CY:''' Yeah, absolutely. And I went to Marizen just yesterday. First day of the Autumn Marizen Pen Fair. And glass pens are everywhere now. Like every single row had a glass pen. And that's just, you know, it's just where the market is. And I think it's very fun and interactive. And, you know, you can really collect a lot of those because they all look different.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And honestly, it's quick and simple. Like in relation to a fountain pen, getting someone into like a $200 fountain pen with like extra mechanics and extra maintenance. And like, you know, we're used to that now. It's like not a big deal. Right. And once you get into it, it's like a non-issue to like clean a fountain pen or change in ink. But getting people into just, hey, here's this really, really simple way to express yourself. Like, I think it's fantastic.

'''CY:''' So, Brad, I'm going to send you a link on Twitter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''CY:''' Like you'd just click on that link.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's do this. We're doing this live on the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. We got it.

'''CY:''' That's a glass pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, we will have this link in the show notes. We're going to keep this up. I am transfixed at what is happening on my screen. I am. Look, this is what we're going to do. I am not going to explain this on the show because it's unexplainable. Right. So, I will put this in the show, in the show notes. Y'all make sure to go click on this link when CY mentions this. And I am. Wow. There are no words to what's happening here. So, the level of artistry in these glass dip manufacturers is outstanding. Like, it's outrageous. It's extraordinarily high tech for a simple mechanism, right? Like, that's what's fascinating about this. Like, this is simple stuff that artisans are making into, like, their own creations. It's beautiful. So, this leads perfectly. And it's like, how jealous should I be that I'm not literally surrounded by this stuff all the time? Like, you just casually keep dropping, yeah, I went over to Morazon and did this yesterday. I was like, come on, man. It's like, this is unfair. This is unfair. Like, how jealous should I be? I think pretty jealous is the answer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or how broke would I be is probably the better question.

'''CY:''' Yeah, I think your wallet is probably pretty happy that you're not here. I think that's really, you know the saying, distance makes the heart grow fonder?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, yeah.

'''CY:''' I think there's a little bit of that. And I think, you know, at San Francisco, there's a huge kind of fever for Japanese products. I think the reason is because you can't get it every day, but it's just close enough that if you wait a while, you know, you might be able to just reach out your hand and aspire to it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''CY:''' And I think, you know, we are obviously very lucky in many ways to have so much stationery around us. But I think if you are here, if Bradley Dowdy was born in Japan, the pen addict wouldn't exist. Because it would just be normal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It would just be normal. That goes back to our conversation at the beginning, right? Like, you don't know it's different, right? It's just what you do. It's what you have. And it's really cool. And, you know, that distance that you mentioned, like, it's, you know, that's what gets my brain going. And it's like, oh, it's fascinating. But, like, if you lived in it every day, like, it would be the norm. And, like, I think there's a lot of value in that. So, yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. All right. See why. We're not going to let you go yet. Because I need to know, what does the future look like for you, for Tokyo Station, for Tokyo Inklings? Do you ever think about, like, hey, I'm really enjoying this. I'm having fun being part of this community. What is next for you? Are we going into, like, really, really mad scientist nib mode, nib Sith, if you will? Or what's kind of, what are you thinking about these days?

'''CY:''' Yeah. I've been doing this long enough to understand that it's not, like, a fad for me. Mm-hmm. Because sometimes, you know, you're really into something and then you're just like, okay, you know, now it's time to back off. Right. But I've been doing this every day for the last five years, right? Something that I really, I heard on a TikTok somewhere. They say, hey, how do you manage getting burned out? And, of course, you know, there are periods of time where I just don't work. And then there are other periods of time where I, you know, work the entire day. But I saw this quote on TikTok and said, it says, how do you know you are ready to go pro at something? And this person on TikTok, they said, you can't get tired of shooting hoops in the local basketball court. You can't get burned out by shooting hoops in the local basketball court if you want to go pro. Because you're going to be shooting a lot more hoops, right? Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just the beginning.

'''CY:''' So, in that way, I think I do a good job at regulating myself, at working too much, but not too much to the point where I say, you know what? I've had enough of this. And people like that do exist, right? There are pen makers. There are nib makers who just push themselves too hard and decide that they can go on. So, I think I do a good job at regulating myself. I give myself several hours in the day specifically only to wind down and to relax and play video games. I work all the time, but I also dedicate parts of the day just to me where it doesn't belong to anybody else. And I work when I want to because I think that's when I make my best work. So, I've been doing this, you know, trying to balance work and life and then the main job for a while. To know that this is more than a fad. In the future, I'm hoping that this will replace my day job and really go into, you know, the industry, the business of it. I think I have a good base. I have a good foundation because I already have customers. I already have people who know me. I'm not going into this blind. Right. But there is still a lot of work. There's a lot of capital that needs to be considered. Brett, you've made products. So, you know, the scariest thing is inventory, right? Yes. You know me very well. So, I think there needs to be a balance. And I'm slowly working on getting there. And I'm very lucky to have a lot of people who support me, who are willing to collaborate with me, who are willing to put money into me. And I'm very grateful for that. The second part, I think, is really about, you know, what about my activities? And I think in the future, I did five weeks this time. If I were to go full time, I would probably do seven to eight weeks in the United States.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''CY:''' Because the tickets are just extremely expensive. So, it has to be worth it for me. I talked a little bit about the economics of going to the pen shows this time. I actually lost money going. I mean, I, you know, I earned a lot of money. But a lot of that is in the products that I invested maybe two years ago or three years ago. Brought them over and then they sold. But they maybe a little bit less than covered my flights. So, maybe longer, less intensity. Right. More stores, more retailers. I found that a lot of people who weren't able to go to shows but were able to go to the retailers really appreciated that. You know, I was able to go around to the different retailers.

'''CY:''' And maybe do something in like Canada as well, right? So, that would be a good way kind of on my way home.

'''CY:''' Lastly, I think it's all about cutting deals with retailers. You need the support of retailers if you want to survive, I think, in the business because you need a distribution channel. And you need people who, if you want to scale, you can't be the one on the sales floor yourself 24-7. Right. And the grinding stuff, that's me on the floor 24-7, right? I love doing the grinding stuff. But there's a cap to how much money can be made just by grinding. Right. Because there's physically a limited number of hours in the day. Yes, that's math you can do pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah. So, I need to create my own product. I need to diversify. And hopefully, in five years, I won't be the one that's doing every single grind. I'll do some of them. But hopefully, I'll be able to find somebody, maybe a high school student that I met in Wagner to help me out, to join me in this business. And I'm looking forward to building a business where the business belongs to employees. I'm very interested in the organization building, organization creating aspect of that. And I want to show people that there's money to be made here so that more people want to be in the business, raise the profile so that I don't get on an Uber. And, you know, the driver says, what's a fountain pen? Right. Never heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think, you know, one step at a time. If I can only take one week in the U.S., I'll just have to have my mother fly out to San Francisco, I guess.

'''CY:''' The trip there is just so much easier. The trip out to D.C. is like 14 hours, and it's a nightmare. To San Francisco, only eight hours.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''CY:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I love following your journey. You are definitely on the right path. We are lucky to have you in our community and creating and sharing and entertaining us. And I'm lucky to have you in my life to call you a friend. And it was great to finally spend some time in person with you. And I know it won't be the last time. It won't be the last time you're on the show. It will not be the last time we see each other in person. And I just, again, wanted to thank you so much for everything you do for all of us, really. Not just me individually, but, like, literally our community, the stationary community, is better off for having people like you in it. So thank you so much for doing everything that you do. I really, really mean that.

== CY expresses gratitude for the Pen Addict podcast's impact on pen-centric content creators. ==

'''CY:''' And thank you, Brad. Without the pen addict, I think a lot of us pen-centric content creators wouldn't exist. So thank you. You demonstrated that it is possible to do a podcast about pens without looking at the products.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Who knew? Who knew that the worst idea ever was actually pretty okay? All right. We'll leave it there. Tell everyone where they can find you. I'll have all these links in the show notes. But just give yourself a shout-out everywhere you want to plug. And we'll make sure to include it.

'''CY:''' Sure. So my name is Siwa. You can find me on my website at tokyostationpens.com. On Instagram and TikTok at Tokyo Station Pens. And on Twitter at Tokyo Station MNH. I'd also like to shout-out my excellent podcast partner, Jacob. He's at FoodFan. He has a blog at foodfan.com. As well as the rest of the Tokyo crew. I'm Quay at MiraiCat. And Alisa at InkyRocks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Got it. Love it. And I'm Brad. One of the hosts of the Pen Addict podcast. Actually, you're Bradley. I am Bradley. Technically correct. I am Bradley Dowdy. You can find me on Instagram and Twitch at Pen Addict. I'm on Twitter at Dowdyism. D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. And I'm online at penaddict.com. And until next time, say goodbye, CY. Goodbye, CY.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 61/transcript

2026-06-22T08:39:20Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 61
| title = Welcome To Dan Land
| date = July 2nd, 2013
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Dan Bishop]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/61 Episode 61]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/penaddict-061.mp3 Audio Episode 61]
| length = 65
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hello and welcome to episode 61 of The Pen Addict podcast on 5x5, a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. And I'm going to introduce my friend, who's quite simply the master at what he does, no jokes this week, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Alright, thank you very much, I appreciate that. I, you know, master of my domain, we'll go with that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can take that.

== Vintage Surf Pens ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And we have a special guest joining us again today. We've got back-to-back interviews with back-to-back Dans. I'd like to welcome Dan Bishop from Kara's Customs. How's it going, Dan?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pretty good, glad to be back. Yeah, welcome back to the show, buddy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think we're setting the podcast record for most amount of Dan's appearances on the show.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah, welcome to Danland, I guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, good, we're glad to have you. You've got a big, big new Kickstarter project we wanted to get you on and talk about. And I think the last time we had you on, we alluded to, you know, some of the things that have come to fruition now. But before we get into the retract, which is the awesome new retractable pin that you guys have created at Kara's Customs, let's, we've got a couple of follow-up topics that Myke and I need to get into, and then we'll jump into it. How's that sound? Sounds good to me. All right. So, Myke, you finally, you know, about a month ago or so, we were talking about the Retro 51 Vintage Surf, and, you know, how we'd all, several of us had gotten it, a bunch of listeners. You know, myself had gotten one, and you had ordered one as well, but you had a little issue getting yours in hand. And I want you to relive that story. I know you do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you know, a running gag on the show, I think, has been my issues with the customs office here. And I don't, I honestly don't really know what it is that triggers an item at customs. You know, I've, some people say that it's due to the amount. Some people say it depends on what is written on the actual packaging. I've had things from the same company, same shipping methods. Some get picked, some get picked. I don't really know what the, you know, I don't really know what the magic is or not. But I, the Retro 51 Surf and the Ace. Oh, yeah. Got caught in customs. Much to my upset, and I basically created a siege on the customs office here. And finally, I have received the Retro 51. It's called the Vintage Surf, isn't it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Vintage Surf, Vintage Surf. So, what do you think? Now that you finally sprung it with the, you know, way more money than you had anticipated to get this pin in your hands. So, what do you think about it? I don't know if you're jaded now that you, it was such a hassle to get.

'''Myke Hurley:''' See, it does, it does, like, overshadow the experience a little bit. Like, this was so expensive. Like, so, what did we work out? It came to about... Like, 80?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Was it around $80?

'''Myke Hurley:''' To get it all in total, to get both pens cost me about $120.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Golly!

'''Myke Hurley:''' Somewhere between $100 and $120. And everybody knows my love for this brand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But they don't make pens that are that expensive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, right. Like, that's why we like them so much, right? I mean, that's kind of the point.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I paid $50 a pop for these, which is, like, two to three times the price of them. But, you know, I mean, there is no denying that the Retro 51 Surf. You haven't reviewed this yet, have you?

== Pen Reviews ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I haven't. I haven't. You know, the more I work on, like, my top five list, the more I realize how many pens I have not reviewed. So, yeah, I need to get a review done on that, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, it's as beautiful as I expected. Like, you know, there's no way to doubt that. Like, I was wondering before I received it if it was going to be, like, a sticker or whatever. But this is actually made of wood, you know. And, I mean, it's not entirely wood. Right. But there's, you know, there's another wooden version, the bamboo edition, which I really love as well. And, yeah, I'm really, really happy with it. Quite a nice touch on these is they're numbered. They're all individually numbered. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, I've got number 91 etched into the top of mine. Nice. And they made 100, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 500. 500.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 500.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, Dan, you actually, you know, being the machine pen master, you actually have one of these as well.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Right. And it's number 66. Nice number.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's real good. Yeah. Mine's up in the three something. Mine's just some, like, random, like, 368 or 349, something like that. Yeah. I like y'all's numbers better. Yeah. Yeah. So, what do you think about a pen like this, Dan? That's, it's, it's a little bit different than, you know, what you're, what you're manufacturing or what you've been using there.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, it's, it's pretty fantastic. In fact, uh, you know, Myke, Myke, the dude, Dudek, and I went to, cause he's local. We went to, uh, our local, uh, pen shop, Scottsdale pen. And the, he had one and I had planned on picking one up, uh, a, any retro 51, but he had one of the surfs. And, and we both kind of looked at each other and I saw that it was number 66 and I have a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle that I drive. So, I had to have it. Yeah. That was fate. It was fate. No, but it's, it's really nice. Um, uh, I didn't know what to expect cause I, I'd never had a retro 51 before, but the, the walnut on the pen is, is really, really nice. And, uh, the, the refill that they use is, is, is beautiful and I'm, I'm really happy with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, yeah, I think, I think I'm not, I don't have as many or as a huge a variety as Myke does, but, um, I think this is easily, easily my favorite one so far. Um, it's, it's extremely well done and it's, it's, it's just cool. It's just a cool pen and, um, they, they did a good job on that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, yeah, I really liked the styling of it. I mean, it's, it's a really classy pen. I, I, I think it's very, it's, it's beautiful in its own way. Like I really like the, um, the, they, they have a top on each of the pens. So on the top, they have like a little circular disc and usually they're plastic and they, they have a color underneath. But on this one, they, it's all, um, I assume it's aluminum, um, aluminum as I would typically say. Um, some metal, I actually don't know what the metal is, but it's the metal. It's like a metal disc instead of a plastic disc, which I thought was a really nice touch as well. It's got a real great weight to it because the, the, the metal gives it a nice balance, but the wood keeps it light. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to the other ones, which are slightly heavier.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Well, no, this was my first retro 51 and I was excited because I was hoping it would come in one of the aluminum tubes, but it came in one of the cardboard tubes. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I prefer the cardboard tube and I think that this is new packaging because the ACE came in a cardboard tube as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think they've switched up a bunch of the packaging. I think Mary Collis was talking about that. Um, when she, she ordered something else recently and it didn't come at the show, I think she was disappointed. It didn't come in the aluminum package or somewhat someone was. And I think they're just, I think they're switching up the packaging nowadays or it might've been Anna from a well appointed desk. What someone was, uh, you know, looking forward to, you know, the, the cool tube and the pop sound that it makes. And yeah, but the last snapper I bought and the retro 51 surf I bought both came. Yeah. And the cardboard tube, which is fine. I mean, I don't have a super problem with that. I mean, they, they're still keeping the same, you know, the retro style branding, but yeah, it doesn't come in those cool aluminum tubes anymore. But I bet you could still find some.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like how they, they have the foam in though. So when you take the top off, it's just like presented there. Um, and that wasn't the case before. I mean, they were kind of in like a, um, like a felt sleeve, which was just inside the, the, like the, the, uh, the metal tube. I think, I mean, naturally I have too many of those tubes. So I was happy to have some new packaging.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's basically like if you, if you pop the cardboard tube now, it's almost like a stand. It's almost like a pin, individual pin stand. It stands up vertically in the bottom, bottom foam section and just kind of, kind of stands up and you could display it like that if you were so inclined. But yeah, cool. Well, what else, what else you got going on, Mr. Hurley? I know you, uh, we talked recently about, uh, you wanted to make some, some changes to your, to your field notes repertoire. So what do you got going on?

'''Myke Hurley:''' For the last week, um, I've been carrying, um, a field notes, dark sky and the space pen around with me, um, on a daily basis. Um, and I've kind of, I filled up a good chunk of, of a book already. Like, but I've found that what I'm putting in here is exactly the type of thing that I feel should be going in, um, a field notes book. So like I've got, um, I've written down, um, some definitions for success. I'm literally going through what this is now. Yeah. What I've got in here, I've got a little drawing that I did, um, for just random doodling. Um, an outline of a blog post, um, a new business idea, some notes for a business idea I'm thinking about, um, a to-do list for that business idea. Um, notes from a telephone call that I made, um, the network, the monthly network download numbers, um, for me to track our sponsorships with. Um, some technical stuff about recordings. I need to try and change some of our recording stuff. I have some, uh, purchase order numbers for work, um, and a wireframe of an email. Um, and basically, I've also got my Wi-Fi password in here because I had to restore my phone. That's right. And this feels like I've finally using a field notes for what it's kind of intended to. They have a great, like, motto, um, like a slogan, and I'll probably butcher this, but it's, I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now. Mm-hmm. Um, and that always spoke to me because I've, I take notes a lot, um, especially for work, but I very rarely refer back to the notes because I find that if I write something down, I'm more inclined to remember it, or it just helps me, um, to think about things in a deeper way if I'm able to take notes at the same time. Um, so the types of things that I'm taking notes in field notes for, uh, most of the time, you know, things that I don't need to keep forever, but I'm enjoying having it in my pocket, and carrying around a book, it gives a book a totally different character. Like, the corner's afraid, like, it's battered, um, you know, because I'm just taking it in and out of my pocket all day, um, and it's just going around with me, and I'm finding that, like, the warmth of it being there as well is, like, sort of just softening the book. It's very strange. Mm-hmm. Um, but, you know, none of my field notes have looked like this before. They've always been pristine because they've either been in the box or they've been on my desk. Right. But no, I'm, I'm, and I think that the space pen is the right choice, in all honesty. So it's very simple, it's very light, and it's very small, and I actually don't even notice it being in my pocket. So where I appreciate all of the suggestions that people were sending in, and we've got a bunch of them, I didn't actually find that any were really, um, what I was looking for. So, like, they either didn't come with, um, uh, like, clips, or there wasn't easily, easily, like, buyable clips and addable clips onto them, or they were, like, too long, um, or too wide, and none of them really seemed to fit the purpose like the space pen does, in all honesty. So I'm really enjoying it, and I'm, I'm pleased because I'm, you know, I have a lot of notebooks here, um, so I should start using them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and I, from what it sounds like the, the contents are, and what you're using it for, that's exactly what it should be used for, and that sounds, I mean, almost verbatim of, like, what's in, what's in mind, and, you know, just carrying it around, like you said, it, it, it makes it more personal, you know, in the, in the, the, the carry of it, you know, just the wear, and, and, and, you know, how the, the, the patina on the notebook, and then the, the contents are more personal when you, you were carrying it around, you know, more frequently getting those, you know, ideas at the time you have the ideas, and, and, and putting them down, and just, um, you know, keeping track of it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, there are some notes that I still take on my phone, because I feel that they're best there. Um, like, I'm, you know, I'm thinking about, um, writing something about how to take good interviews, like an interview 101. Right. And I don't really know where I put it, but, you know, I, I feel like I've amassed some knowledge now. Um, so that's on my phone, because that's like a, just, it just seems like the right place for it, and I have, like, people I want to interview on, on Command Space. Um, stuff like, so I, I, there are some things that I feel need, that are longer term. Um, because, like, when that Field Notes book's done, anything that's in that book won't be with me every day anymore, and that, they're the sort of things that I want to have around all the time in their, you know, in their, their original form.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Yeah, a lot of my stuff goes in the Field Notes first, and then, and then some of the things, like, you're talking about, um, that I need some more permanents, I'll, I'll transfer, you know, digitally in my phone or, or somewhere else.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, so, like, one thing that I've been doing, um, was, like, sometimes I, you know, I, I will take, like, some of the business-y stuff I've got in there, I will take out, and I will write that into something, um, at some point. But, like, with some stuff, I just take a picture of the note.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I've done that, too. I've done that, too, for sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I needed those numbers, the number, like, the download numbers to put into the spreadsheet that I keep, um, so I just took a picture of it, so I wouldn't, in case I lost it or whatever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Dan, do you, do you carry any paper around with you? Like, if you're in the shop, or going home, or going, or going out, do you, do you carry anything? You, are you, uh, as, as, uh, as crazy as us?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, yes and no. At the shop, uh, come, coming from, um, school and stuff, we did a lot of sketching and, and note writing on loose paper, just blank, like, copy paper. So, at work, my desk is, uh, in a, in a sordid pile of that. Some of it's folded in half for convenience sake, but I have, uh, a moleskin and a, uh, oh, I can't remember the name of it. It's a spiral bound, uh, sketchbook that I carry. I don't, I don't carry any lined, um, notebooks because most of the time, uh, I'll be doodling or if I do write, I, I don't feel like I need the lines. So, um, but the field notes, I have a few of them and, uh, I feel very constrained to write within the height of the grid in the one that I have. And so, it's great for, I have a list for my Volkswagen, actually, of stuff that I want to fix or repair or maintain on it. And, um, it works great for that because I can take a, you know, like a high-tech C or something and I can write out very, very small and, and very neat and then check things off the list, which makes me feel good. But, uh, otherwise I, I just carry, uh, uh, some type

== Retract Mechanisms ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' of sketchbook usually. Okay. That's cool. Cool. Well, um, I think, uh, I think when it's time for us to get into the, the retract and the everything around that, do you want to, um, do you want to do our sponsor first, Myke, or you want to go into the retract?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, let's, let's, this is a nice, um, break point.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yeah, let's do that. And then we'll, uh, we'll get down to brass tacks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'll take a quick moment to thank squarespace.com who give you everything that you need to make an amazing website. Squarespace is a fully hosted, completely managed environment that allows you to create, maintain, build a beautiful website, blog, portfolio. Even maybe you want to build a site for your business, create an online store. You can do that with Squarespace too. With Squarespace, you get some fantastic features like beautiful themes, a drag and drop page building system. It allows you to create custom layouts for your pages in seconds. They have great structure. They have perfectly clean code. It's all optimized for SEO. So whatever you say is going to show up as high as it possibly can in Google, which is very important for people finding a site and they have everything integrated design domains, hosting support. You can get it all in one bundle. And that's why I love Squarespace because everything that I need is just with this one company. And that's great for me. They have statistics, real time analytics that are built right into Squarespace. They have iOS and Android apps that allow you to see these and manage and post your site on the go. They have Squarespace commerce, which allows you to add a fully integrated store into your website. Start accepting payments instantly. You can manage your inventory. You can sell physical or digital goods, process your customer orders, print packing slips, and much, much more, all within one interface. When you sign up for one of their annual plans at Squarespace, you're going to get a free custom domain name as well. So you really can just go to one place and get the whole thing that you need to start a website. Squarespace plans start at $10 a month for their standard plan and $20 a month for their unlimited plan. If you sign up for a year, not only will you get the custom domain name, you'll get 20% off. Sign up for two, you'll get the domain name and 25% off those monthly prices. Go to squarespace.com to sign up for a free trial and to help support the show. Squarespace have been awesome in supporting us for such a long time. And if you enjoy the show, you should go and check them out. Maybe you need a site, you have a family member or a friend that needs a website. Squarespace can help them out. And Brad, we have a new offer code for the show. All right. That's right. It's a new month. But it's a brand new code. Oh, cool. Tally Ho 7.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's T-A-L-L-Y-H-O 7. And I feel like I should do it properly and give you Tally Ho 7. Tally Ho.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's awesome. I like that. That's perfect.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So go check out Squarespace. Everything you need to make an amazing website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Thank you, Squarespace. All right. Dan, for those who are new to the show, since you know, I guess it's been several months since we've talked to you before. And now we're on 5x5 and our listenership's growing and things like that. So let's get, let's, why don't you talk a little bit about you, what you do, what Karis Custom does. Just kind of give, kind of give the listeners a little bit of background on, you know, everything that you guys are doing and kind of how these projects came to be, if you don't mind.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Sure. Like I mentioned previously, I'm a designer. I started working at a machine shop out of curiosity slash necessity when I became unemployed. And one thing led to another and I kept throwing ideas at the owner. And now I pretty much just design stuff for us and for customers. So I'm doing what I was trained to do, but with a little twist, I basically make stuff out of metal at the shops. So we do everything. We started out with some, some iPhone cases and we've been on a run of pens because people seem to really, really like them actually. To the point where we're, we're talking about, you know, if that's going to be what we're known, known for primarily in the marketplace rather than anything else we do. So that's about it. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's the, this whole pin, this whole pin aspect. And we've, we've talked about it before and we've talked about, you know, the, the owner, uh, Bill Karis that, you know, this is just, does it still seem odd to this day? Cause this is, this is the third pin project you've guys done. The first one was the render cave. Right. Um, which was, it's still my, still my favorite. Um, you know, it fit the height. It was basically, it was generally based around the high tech C refill, although there's, there's, there's, you know, you can get other refills in there, but it's, it's really, you know, it was made around that originally. Um, and that did extremely well. Um, I mean, I think probably, you know, exceeded any expectations you guys have and, uh, not to, not to put words in your mouth, but I imagine it was kind of a shock to you guys. No, it was, uh, our original goal.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Cause on Kickstarter, you set a goal, uh, and you know, a time period. So we, we had a goal of $2,500 and our time period was 30 days. And we, we blew through that 2,500 in the first 24 hours. And we were, I figured we were going to be at least, you know, 15 to 30,000 bill didn't tell me until later, but he said, no, I figured we'd do like three grand or something, but it ended up, it ended up at like 69,000, which is, seems insane. Everyone's like, oh man, you guys got rich off pens. But then the excitement wears off when you're, when you think, oh wait, I need to make, I think it was like 1100 and some change. Like we had to make 1100 pens. And so our little shops just churning out pens, you know, for, for weeks on end. And, um, it was fun. We got to take videos and pictures of the process and show everybody along the way. And, uh, it was interesting cause when we came up with our second pen, the bolt, um, you can comment if you on Kickstarter, they can comment and ask questions on the render K. There was just tons and tons of questions and comments. And then when we did the bolt, it was like crickets. It's just, it's almost like they all went, oh, okay, cool. They got another project. Here's my money. And we'll just wait.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I think, I think people don't have the, the buyer's fear when they, when they see that you've done it before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, you, you, they can look at your previous projects and they go, oh, this, this guy made a pen before. Like I'm waiting on a, um, a Kickstarter reward, um, of a pen that I backed a while ago by a British company. Um, and.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Oh, I know which one you're talking about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's called, uh, make your mark the pen with a twist by a Johto.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Hmm. Is that the one that's got the straight knurled end and chrome or, uh, brass body? I think so. Yeah.

== Pen Design ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Dan Bishop:''' It's a beautiful, beautiful pen. Great packaging too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But it, it was like six months ago. Yeah. So the funding period ended on January 27th. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that they're getting ready to start shipping in a couple of weeks, but they were meant to ship months ago. But this is, because this is their first one. Well. And they had a very successful Kickstarter as well. Right. There were 198 of them.

'''Dan Bishop:''' It's, well, it's, it's, Kickstarter is interesting because coming from, uh, a design and, you know, now a manufacturing background, if I were to go work for a big company, um, stuff doesn't get produced as quickly as people expect it to on Kickstarter because they give their money up front.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Dan Bishop:''' And if you overfund, it makes it even, you know, it delays the time, the timetable out even further. So when people, you know, they say, oh man, you have all this, you know, all this extra money or you have this project, they, they assume that it's just going to go, go, go. We have the luxury of making our own product. So if there's a problem or, you know, we can tweak it on our end, but if you're having somebody else manufacture it and there's a problem and, oh, it's, it becomes just an exponential nightmare for these, these companies.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's been their problem. And in, in fairness, they have, they have literally sent any one email a week the whole time. Like they've been really, really like, um, they've just telling the whole story and you can, you can, I think you, I actually know you can't view the, the, the updates, can you? I think they're for Kickstarter backers only.

'''Dan Bishop:''' And that, that confuses me because we, we try to do all of them unless it's something, uh, it's like an exclusive, like a coupon code or something for our backers. We try to be really open about it. And some projects do that and some don't. Um, and I think it would behoove them if they wanted to do a future project that outsiders can look and see them and see that how open they are being. I think it would be good for them in the long run. I'm just curious of why they don't, they have done that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So they've got 32 updates in total. So they sent like an email a week and the whole time they've been saying, right, this is what happened. This is, this went wrong. And then we went and did this and then this went wrong. And so they've been really open with it, but it is, I mean, and you know, I have sympathy for them because you know, they're, they're trying hard and you know, I know people like you guys that make this stuff, but you're right. I think the difference is because you pay upfront. If I paid when I received it, I think I would feel different. But I gave these guys like 60 pounds, you know, a hundred dollars or so at the end of January. And I haven't got anything yet. And again, you know, I know obviously, obviously it needs to be made, but that's, as you said, that's typically not how you do things like in commerce as a customer, as a consumer. Right. And that gives, and that must give for you, like bringing it back to you guys, that must put an additional level of pressure and stress on you when you're building something like

'''Dan Bishop:''' this. Yes, it is because the way the Kickstarter model works, when your funding ends, they basically dump all the money minus the, their take, um, into your account. And then suddenly the weight of all those backers is all on your shoulders. Um, Kickstarter is just there to, to basically host the, the, the updates and stuff. You're locked out of your original, uh, profile or not profile, but like the project page, you can post updates, but that's it. And so, uh, Kickstarter is, I I've seen, there's been some ugly things on it, but yeah. Um, if you're successful, it's great. If you're bad, it's, you're out there for the whole world to see. And it could be difficult if you didn't have a lot of planning done in the first place.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So now we come to the retract, which is your most recent, uh, most recent project. It was, it was put on Kickstarter, Kickstarter eight days ago with a goal of seven and a half thousand dollars. Yes. Now you knew you were going to meet that, right? I'm going to say that, right? You, you don't have to say anything, but any, but, um, you met your goal within an hour, right? Yes. And you are currently at $57,786 as at time of recording. Bloody congratulations to you. Thank you. That is incredible. I was, I was when you, cause you know, I knew that you guys were launching, um, and I had the page up and I was just watching the money just tick up. And I was like, this is incredible. Went away for a couple of hours. Oh my God, they're like $15,000. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was like, I was like, uh, I was hitting the search bar like the morning. I, the morning I knew it was going to be released. I was like refreshing. All right. Is it live yet? Is it live yet? Because you know, my schedule is weird. So I'm, I'm like trying to go to bed and I'm like, all right, come on, Dan, do this thing so I can put in my pledge and get in on this and, and whatever. And it's like, Oh, it wasn't coming. So I finally just went to bed. Then I woke up and it was already like blown through the roof and you know, like all the early backers are gone and everything. I was like, wow. Yeah. It, it, it got off to a roaring start. Yeah.

'''Dan Bishop:''' It, we always hoped. Well, here's, we've had two other projects on Kickstarter that were not pen related and they did, uh, put it mildly horrible.

'''Dan Bishop:''' And it just seems that the Kickstarter crowd, I mean, there's certain patterns and pens seem to be one of those things that, um, granted if it's just not completely terrible, it's going to do fairly well. And we've been lucky enough to, um, have our third pen project now. And as of probably the end of today, we will have bypassed the, the goal that we, or the total that we did on the bolt.

'''Dan Bishop:''' And within a week or so, I mean, if it continues the way it is, we will surpass the render K. This will be our, hopefully our best project yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would be very surprised if that wasn't the case because what did the render K make? Uh, 69. And you're at 57 and you've got 37 days left to go. So unless everybody just stops now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's not, let's hope not. So where does it come from? Where does, where did all these backers come from?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Well, if, in, in my opinion, they're residuals, uh, from the first two projects and maybe people that they know, you know, office buddies, whoever said, Hey, this, these guys have another project. Remember this cool pen? And, and it's, it's the more mainstream of all of our pens so far. Everybody knows what a click pen is. Everybody's got a cheap big click or maybe even a Parker jaw or something lying around, but not everyone wants a screw top pen. Not everybody wants a bolt action pen, but a click pen people, people, it can identify with that. So it's the more user friendly, uh, it's the most, I don't know. It's just the common guy can see that and go, Hey, that's cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I think it's, it's the most accessible out of, out of the three. I mean, it can reach the most people just from ease of use and, and familiarity and things like that.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Right. That's the word I was looking for accessible. No, but, um, and here, here's the thing is with the bolt, um, uh, we made it so it would take the Parker, uh, sized refill, you know, the international G2. Now people would ask us about the specific refill, the pilot G2, which isn't the same thing, obviously, but, and so we designed this pen to kind of cater towards that because our first pen worked with the pilot high tech seat, but also worked with the, with the Parker, the second one worked with the Parker, but with, you know, a longer front barrel will work with the pilot G2. This one, because the pilot G2, uh, is the most sold pen in, in, I think in the United States, if not, you know, larger, we decided to go with that because the click pen is the most common type pen and, uh, the G2 is the most common, uh, refill in the United States. So that combination, um, I think is what we, we, we, we hoped would drive this campaign. And so far I think it's worked pretty well.

== Pen Mechanics ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let's, let's, I want to talk about the, uh, the, the mechanics of it because that's what we talked about. Um, you know, the last time we had you on, we talked about the challenges and making different types of pens and, you know, where you, you know, where before say just taking the, the render K essentially that's a, that's a simple barrel. I mean, you just have to, you know, make the dimensions to, to fit the refill, but it's just a standard, standard barrel conical type tip and, you know, threaded cap. Well, this has a lot more, this has a lot more mechanics going onto it, even compared to the bolt, which is just basically, I don't know how you would describe the, the mechanism, but it's just, it's almost just like a push. It's like a push and twist pin. There's not a lot, a lot of extra stuff going on now with a, with a retractable. That's, you know, that always, I always thought that was like the hugest challenge just because of the additional moving parts and the, you know, putting, putting that all together to work, right. It's gotta be a, a pretty big challenge. How did y'all, how did y'all get around all that and come up with this design?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Well, the bolt kind of arose out of, uh, we wanted something that was like a click bin because I knew about this, this mechanism before, and I'm not going to reveal our sources, but it's a German company. And if someone looks hard enough, they can find it. But, uh, they were turned out to be notoriously difficult to get ahold of. Uh, we tried to contact them and their emails or their contact page was broken and it was all in German. And, um, so we originally went with the bolt to kind of appease that market. And when we finally were able to get ahold of somebody, we got our hands on this mechanism and we immediately knew that it was just fantastic. Like you said, it's, it's mechanical, but it's not like a standard click pen. It doesn't make any real clicking noises as you depress it. It has a, a machined, uh, track and uses a ball bearing to follow a groove inside of it so that it, it's, I don't know, it's bizarre. When you put the spring tension on it, it, it follows that track and gives you the depressed and, and, um, an undepressed, uh, position on the, on the knock. So it's really simple, but you take it apart and you look at it and it's very well made. It's nickel plated brass, has a nice waist weight to it. And I don't think it'll ever wear out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's fantastic. I, I think it, the most amazing part to me, and I mean, it's not a shock coming from you guys. It looks fantastic. Like I didn't, you know, I was worried about it being like overly comfortable. Complex or, you know, just really, you know, not, I don't know, not fitting the aesthetic. Right. But this is just completely spot on. I mean, it looks, it looks beautiful. I mean, Myke, Myke, you've got one, you've got one in your hands, right? You spoiled the surprise. I was good. Busted, busted. Let's.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah. I sent, I sent it to Myke. I'm going to interrupt it real quick, but I sent one to, to Myke because I knew he'd come over to, to, uh, San Francisco and I knew the troubles he was having with his, his, uh, custom stuff. And so as soon as I found out he was going to be in the U S I found out immediately where he was going. And I, he was the first person outside of our shop to own one, to have one in his hands. I didn't know that. Oh, wait, no, I lied. I lied. Myke Dudek beat you because he, he like literally is down the street. So yeah, you were the first person outside of the circle of trust as my boss puts it to, to have one. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So my favorite thing, um, about this pen is the way that you took the design, the beauty of the render K, um, and have made something new out of it because like if you took the top mechanism off, it would, it looks very much like a slimmer render K, right? Because you've got, it's called knurling. Knurling. Yeah. You've got like the knurling, which is like that, that pattern, which is around the top and then the real heavy duty clip with the two like rivets. They would, what are they rivets? What are they? They're just a socket head bolts. There you go. With the two bolts in them. Um, and I have the aluminium version, um, pronounced correctly, of course. Yes. Um, and I mean, as soon as I took this thing out of the packet, I was like, Oh my, look what they've done. And, uh, my buddy, Stephen Hackett, who was showing a room, he was like, Stephen, look at this. And he was like, that looks nice.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And, uh, you've created a great product. I mean, it weighted really well, uh, which is something that's very important to me. Um, it's not too large. I mean, the bolt was a bit too large for me. Um, and, but it's, the bolt for me is more like a piece, you know, it's like a thing to own, um, as opposed to something that I would want to use every day because the mechanism is really interesting and different. Um, but this is a pen that I'm able to use like a lot and I have been using it a lot at home. Um, I've been, it's the pen that I've been reaching for quite frequently out of the, the pen, um, holder that, that the dude made us. And, um, what I really like, and obviously this is something that's so difficult to explain and you guys kind of mentioned it and you showed it in your great Kickstarter video, which people need to, need to see. Oh my gosh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We haven't mentioned that y'all got, y'all, if you don't, even if you don't back it and I know you will, once you see it, just go watch the video. It's killer. Y'all did an awesome job.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah. Uh, that, the video was actually, uh, made, uh, written and directed by the, the, my boss's brother-in-law. His name's Wes, Wes Ford. And, um, he helped us put that together and it turned out awesome. He's the guy that, uh, tears off to the, oh, I won't ruin that part. He's the, he's the runner. We'll put it that way. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's the, he's the end. He's at the end. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. So my favorite thing, um, about the pen, aside from the looks, as I was going to say, is, is the mechanism itself is unlike any, like knock mechanism I've used before. It has a very interesting feedback, which it gets me every time. Like, so most, most knocks you can feel like a, um, a clunk mechanism inside the pen, right? Which is typically like the teeth moving around the plastic of the, uh, the refill. Mm-hmm. But, but obviously it would have been really difficult for you guys to make that because you wanted to have a wide range of refills that it could take. And you have like the extension system that you include, right? Which allows people to like cut the, like plastic tubing that you give so they can use different refills. So it would have been probably been quite difficult. So you've obviously sourced out this other method, but it, it gives like a really like, it's obviously silent, but it's a soft, interesting feedback. Like the feedback feels really natural.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's so difficult for me to like really explain it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's one of the, you just have to buy it. Is it like a, like a cushioned? Yeah. It feels cushioned.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Dan Bishop:''' But cushioned by metal. Mechanical. Yeah. It's like a mechanical, mechanical cushion or something. Yeah. Cushioned by metal. What refill are you using?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm using the G2.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Okay. Like, cause I think we, for all the reviewers, we threw a G2 refill in there. You should try it, uh, with the, that back plug and a Parker.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Because when you switch out the spring and the refill, the feel, in my opinion, it's different, but I almost prefer it. It feels smoother and cleaner. Um, not that the other one's not good as well, but, um, I'm running a, a Schmidt easy flow in mine and I love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. See, I use the Schmidt easy flow in the render K. Mm-hmm. Um, and I've been thinking that I should change it, but I do actually really like the way that the G2 writes. Mm-hmm. Um, and I always have done. I think that there is a reason that the G2 is the most popular pen in the United States because it is actually a very, very competent gel pen. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Um, so I've been, it's been one of those things where like, because I had a refill, I've been like, no, I'm happy with this. Like, this is good. Cause I forget that it's a G2, right? And I'm taken back to how good a refill that is because I'm not, I'm not being a pen snob by not wanting to use, oh, the plastic G2 refill. So it's like how people are like the reason that the high, you know, there's so many, there's such a culture around the high tech C is because the refill is great, but the actual pen like packaging, it's like the, you know, the, the plastic case that, the pen, the refill comes in typically isn't good. And that's why the, there's such a market for creating pens for that. Right. Refills. Me and Brad, and you've spoken to us about it too, Dan, we spoke about it so many times, but the interesting thing about the G2 is it's, in my opinion, a superior writing experience. Um, so I've been kind of using that a lot, but I will try that. I need to get the ruler out.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, it's an experience because, well, in the packaging we sent you, we included, I think it was a little black spacer, correct?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Put that, put that in the end with the knock and, uh, then put your refill with the spring and you'll be fine. You won't have to make an adapter.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Perfect.

== Refill Compatibility ==

'''Dan Bishop:''' But I do, that, it's interesting. Uh, you, you mentioned refills. Now, because the mechanism has a very specific throw in it, we've found that some of the quote, you know, pilot G2 compatible refills, they're slightly different in length. And if they're a little longer, it doesn't work quite right. So, uh, Myke Dudek, the dude over at ClickyPost, he, he's actually posted up a couple of things and he, uh, about it, but you have to trim down. You take out that little plug at the end and cut it down. But we're, he's been able to fit like an Energel. Um, and I, I'm trying to think of the other ones, but quite a few of them. And people constantly email you on Kickstarter. Will it take this refill? Will it take this refill? And we, we have to tell them we're not quite sure. Because if, if the refill isn't manufactured to the same tolerance as the G2, then no. But the good news is with a couple of slight modifications, and it's not ideal, but people are packing all kinds of weird refills into them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So what, what other refill do you, have you tried any other refills? Any, any specifics that have, have worked well? Any that, any that you just couldn't get around and couldn't get them to work or anything like that?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, let's see. The first run of pens, like I said, we sent these all out and they're basically a prototype. And so, I tried the, a Mont Blanc rollerball. And we were having what felt like some interference. Uh, so what I did was I took, I took one of the front ends and I, I put it into a, a mill and we machined it down so we could see what was going on inside. Like a cutaway view. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we think that if we increase the diameter of the, the barrel bore that we can, we can accommodate for that. But, um, a lot of pens, it seems, are either, um, like I would call a Pilot G2 compatible or like a Parker size compatible. Mm-hmm. So, if I want to just drop in a G2 refill, I can do that. But I can go out and find a more exotic refill and maybe with a razor blade in 30 seconds, I can put in something that nobody else has and have a different feel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think that speaks to a lot of us too. You know, we like to, we all have our favorites and we all want to try to, you know, we have a favorite refill and a favorite barrel and we want to try to, try to find a way to make them work together. Sure.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Well, and that's, and that's why we didn't, like, because I've seen hacks with like, you know, duct tape and all kinds of weird stuff and we didn't want that to happen. Um, we include that length of tubing with all our pens. But on this one, it's kind of funny because if you unscrew the knock mechanism, it has this little, uh, I don't know what you'd call it, like a finger or a piston that sticks out. Um, and I've actually cut a couple refills too short. And so I just jam that over the end of that mechanism and trim it to length. And then it's great because I can use that refill until it wears out and then trim the next one to be the right length and just cut that little piece of plastic off. So it's like a, an adapter that you can use over and over again and customize to any refill you want. But it's not, like I said, it's not the most ideal way, but if somebody really wants to get into the nitty gritty and do something weird, they can do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Cause you're, you're never going to be able to make a pen that can fit everything. I mean, there's, there are limits, you know, but so some of it does, does require a little bit of modification to get, you know, a specific refill. But I think going the, the, the basic G2 route or the basic Parker style route, I mean, that you, you pretty much have to do that. And there's so many refills out there nowadays that are really high quality. You know, if you, you know, didn't like the standard G2 or a standard Parker that you can, you can easily, easily find something to fit in there without any modification and just go. So yeah, that's awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So while we've been talking, while you guys were talking then, um, I went and replaced the refill with an easy flow 900, 9,000 M and it does feel really different. Yeah. And I think I've really liked it. I really like it. Uh, and I, I guess it's maybe because the spring that I'm using is tighter maybe. I don't know. Cause you used, you used like a smaller spring for the, for the refill, right? Because they have the, like the long thin refill at the end. So you can use a smaller spring. So it will be tighter and give more bounce.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah. It's, I think it's a slightly different spring pressure and it's also, um, it might have to do with just the way that the barrel interacts with the machining work on the inside. Of, uh, uh, what the refill interacts with the machining on the barrel. Um, like I said, we're going to do a couple, couple more tweaks, but the idea is to make everything feel, you know, like it was designed that way. And more or less it was, I picked two solid refills and, um, designed to accommodate both. And I think we've done a fairly decent job at it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think you've done a great job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. And I can't, I can't wait to get mine. I've, I'm, I'm backed on the, uh, the aluminum, the aluminum version that way it'll, it'll match my render K. It'll match my bolt. I'll have a, I'll have the full set, full set of, of, of aluminum versions. So, you know, I, I hate to even ask this at the, at the outset of the retract project, because this is such an awesome pin, but, you know, do you, what's next for you guys? I mean, do you have, do you have something that you've always dreamed of doing or something you've wanted to do? Or, you know, do you have a, you know, an itch that needs to be scratched that, you know, I don't, I don't want you to give, give away all the trade secrets, but, uh, I know it, knowing you and, you know, we talk a lot, you know, offline and, you know, and, and through our, through our daily lives. And I, I know how your, your brain works. There's always something going. So what, what's, what's turning around in that, uh, that dome of yours? Right.

'''Dan Bishop:''' The hamsters are turning on the wheels. No, um, I actually have a short list of, of what to do next. And it's, it's kind of hard. I would like to eventually tackle a fountain pen. Oh boy. I need.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Are you okay? I don't know, man. I don't think so. That's, yeah, that's, that's a, that's a big thing. But you know that you shouldn't have said that. Why is that? Well, I mean, now everybody's going to want it.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Hey, well, that works too. No. So, but I, I, I, I'm kind of an information junkie. Um, and it's kind of the reason I, the pen project even came up because I was, you know, in the first place, the first, uh, render K was because I was trolling the internet for my, just my information fix like I do every day. And, um, I, I was like, oh yeah, I can, I can do a pen like this. I can do a pen that takes a high tech C and I did my research and I've been looking into fountain pens. And fountain pens are a tough nut to crack because there's no rhyme or reason or universality of nibs or, or, you know, I guess they call them, uh, flexis or nails if they're flexible or stiff. I mean, there's all these things. So it's like, what's the, what's the 0.7, you know, version of, uh, equivalent of a nib that, you know, everyone could tolerate if we make something. And so that's the nut that I'm trying to crack right now. But yeah, that's, that's going to be down the road. I don't know. I have a couple of a couple other ideas and refills that I'd like to design a pen around because I would like to have a pen that takes a very specific refill so that people who love that refill can have a pen for that. And I don't know. I have a list of about five different projects and one of them is, uh, is also a pencil. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, interesting.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, they're like, oh, that's great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, no, see, the thing is like the book for me and Brad, we feel that the pencil has been fixed. It's been solved and cannot be beaten is in the Kuru Toga. Are you familiar with the Kuru Toga?

'''Dan Bishop:''' The Kuru Toga.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. You need to look this up because it's an incredible piece of engineering. Um, so it's made by Uniball. Mm-hmm. Regular listeners will know about this. It's Kuru. It's Kuru. K-U-R-U-T-O-G-A. Okay. Um, and what this does is, you know, like if you're using a mechanical pencil. Yes. And you're writing with it and the, the, the lead or the refill will wear down on one end because of the way you hold it.

== Fountain Pens ==

'''Dan Bishop:''' Oh, it's, it's an automatic, um, yeah, it's a lead rotation. Uh, that's, that's a touchy thing with me because I, uh, I'm just getting into fountain pens like I said. And I just bought, I was, we were out to dinner and we were right by a Staples and so I grabbed some of the cheap throwaway fountain pens because I'd never tried them before. And the problem that I had to get over is because I come from a fine art and design background is I unconsciously turn my writing instruments as I use them. Absolutely. So if something does that for me, it feels weird. It's a different feel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Right. No, we've talked, we've talked about that a lot since the pencil came out and some people can't use it because they can't stop twisting it in their hands. And actually when I reviewed it, you know, I had to make a, you know, I made a point of, you know, making sure the mechanism worked. I had to force myself to not spin it in my hand as I'm writing. You know, it's just, it's a natural thing. You know, we've been doing this for decades. You know, it's a natural thing. It's hard to stop. It's, you don't even realize you're doing it until you're told not to do it. And then it's like, oh my God, I can't even write. But yeah, but it's, you know. No, I'm going to have to try it though because. But functionally it works. It's, it works perfectly. It's pretty amazing. It's astounding.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's one of those things that I can show people that don't really care much for this stuff. And they're like, oh wow, that's, that's more interesting than I thought it would be. You know. Right. Because it is very, very interesting that they're, that they will. Someone came up with it and two implemented it so flawlessly in a relative. I mean, you can pick one of these up for $7.50. It's, you know, it's cheap for what it does.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They'll have it at Staples or Target. You know, just the basic model. Then there's some higher end models you can pick up online. All right. That'll be my homework this week. They started, they started making them, mass producing them because I think it went so well. So yeah. That's pretty cool.

'''Dan Bishop:''' I mean, is there anything that, that you guys can think of that you would, see, I always ask everybody. Because I mentioned the fountain pen and that's because nobody, I work in a machine shop. I mean, these guys never, had never used anything besides a big pen. For, since we started making our own, now everybody at work is carrying around a copper pen.

'''Dan Bishop:''' And when I, when I mentioned the fountain pen and Myke's reaction, that to me is very interesting because I'm kind of in a bubble. And I'm not even a huge pen fanatic. I love objects because I'm a designer. And so now I have to put more thought. Thanks a lot, Myke. Now I have to.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, for me, if you want, if you want a suggestion from me and I haven't seen it done just like on, on, well, it doesn't mean it's not out there. But I mean, you're like, you'll find other fountain pen projects on Kickstarter. But I haven't seen, I haven't seen anything for a good quality mini pen, you know, just a pocket carry along the lines of like Myke's Fisher space pen that, you know, people can throw with their field notes and, you know, have some variables around that. I don't know. I don't have a perfect design in mind. Yeah.

'''Dan Bishop:''' I think that's number two on my list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Because I'm a, I'm a big mini pen guy. I like the carry. I like the pocket carry and that whole EDC type of, um, type of pen. And I think that would, it's something different that really hasn't been, you know, there, there's been a few options out there, but it's just something that's really, really well done. And really, I hate to use the word minimal, but just, you know, a real simple, simple, but high quality mini pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And there's a thing, a thing for me, like, in this is an engineering difficulty is there are so few of these pens, but so there's a pen that, that Brad loves that I loved called the pilot vanishing point, which is a retractable fountain pen.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yes. That is the holy grail of pen design, I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So the problem with that pen, um, for me, and it seems like all, there are only two or three retractable fountain pens that we've been able to come across, is the clip for the pen is placed in the writing area. Yes. Um, and I don't really know why they make this, well, I guess they make this choice because then the ink won't run. Yes, exactly. Yes. That's why. Yes. But I, what I would like to see is a retractable fountain pen without that clip, because the problem for me, I don't know if it's because I'm left handed or whatever, but I cannot hold those pens comfortably. Because with the way that I grip the pen, um, the clip is always in an awkward position underneath my finger. Um, so as much as I do love as a piece of engineering, the vanishing point to the point where I keep it in my pen case, even though I don't use it anymore. Um, because it's like a work of art, right? But I don't use it because it's uncomfortable to use. And, and like, there's another one called the Lamy's what's, what's the name of the Lamy's the dialogue, the dialogue three is the same. And it has the clip there. And again, I mean, I just worked out as I was talking about, I never really thought too much about why it was like that before. It's because then you aren't clipping it upside down, but I would like to just see one without that. Um, so then I can use it again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I haven't used the dialogue, but what I've, and I've almost bought one several times. And what I'm finding when I'm reading the reviews about it is what pilot seems to have solved with the vanishing point that the Lamy does not do as good a job with is the, um, is the trap door mechanism to where to keep the nib, keep the nib from drying out. Right. Since you're not doing it, sealing it with a cap, there's a tendency for the nib to dry out. Well, pilots got that open space more on lockdown. It seems then all the reviews I'm reading about the Lamy, like I've, I've had it in shopping carts and then I just can't get over the repeated reviews of, you know, this pen dries out, this pen dries out. And, you know, I've set it down for an hour and now I can't write with it. And it's over and over and over. I think that's almost more of the challenge than the knock piece of, you know, the, the, the knock mechanism would be, I would think because, you know, if your pen's just going to be sitting out in open air, it's going to dry out. And that's the biggest challenge in my mind.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That little trap door is, is as an impressive feat of engineering as the fact that it is a retractable fountain pen. Right. It's, it's the first time you see it and it's difficult to see. I think you took a quite good photo of it, didn't you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I tried. It's, it's hard, especially with the, especially with the black matte version. If I think if I had a chrome tip, I could probably see it, do a better picture. It wouldn't be so dark. You could probably see it better. And I, you know, I've, I've held the Lamy. I don't, I don't, I don't remember exactly what it looks like, you know, looking up through it. But that seems to be a, a recurring theme with the, with the dialogue. So I think that's almost more of a challenge than the actual, the knock mechanism itself to, to eject the tip. So who knows? So we can, we can put that in Dan's book. So that's, that's going to be Dan. Dan's next pen is a retractable fountain pen. Oh no.

'''Dan Bishop:''' No, my problem is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm just kidding.

'''Dan Bishop:''' I get, when I get something like that, my problem is I want to tear it to pieces to find out how it works. No doubt. And so it's, it's very tempting. And I mean, and that's very much how, you know, Bill at work, the owner is, he's not afraid to tear anything apart. So you get something like that. And I, you know, I'll look at it and say, Oh, look at this awesome, you know, whatever it is. And he's like, Oh, let's tear it apart. And he just tears it apart. And I feel like I just, you know, you know, killed somebody's puppy or something. Like I feel horrible afterwards, but in the, in, in the name of progress, it seems to work. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think so. I mean, I guess. I don't.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah. I, I, I don't know. I have lots, I have lots of ideas and twists on, on some things. And some of them, like you said, a pencil, if you can do something, it might just be an exercise in aesthetics. But, uh, I think eventually, um, whether or not those things are, are going to be successful, you know, who knows. But as a followup, I think it would be nice. Cause people have asked us, can you do like a set, you know, do you guys do sets of stuff? So with the render K and the retract, and I don't know, maybe a pencil, who knows if you had something that looked on your desk, they all looked like they belonged. Um, cause don't we all just want to belong in the end, really? So, um, I don't know. There's lots of stuff and I might pick your, both of your guys' brains a little bit off the air, but, uh, uh, for the next one, I want to do something different. And, uh, what that ends up being is, is going to be a surprise to me and everyone else cause I'm still working on it. So who knows?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, good. I think, uh, I mean, if history is, is any indicator, I think we would all be, uh, anxious, anxious to see what's next on the, on the table from, uh, you and from Karis Customs. Cause, uh, I think, I think the retract, you know, I don't have it in my hands, but I think it's probably going to be the best one yet in, in my humble opinion. But we'll, we'll, we'll see, I'll, I'll get it in hand and we'll see how it goes. But, um, it's, it looks incredible. Um, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's, it's fantastic looking and, uh, I'm, I'm anxious to see how this, uh, this project, uh, finishes out. I think it'll be, I mean, it already is, but I think it's going to be just a huge success for you guys.

'''Dan Bishop:''' Yeah. Uh, me too. I just, it's, when it's over, it's going to be kind of nice because, you know, every day you wake up, you check, you check it. You're like, Oh, how much, what's it up to? You know, every day you're, you know, dancing around on eggshells, trying to figure out, you know, where it's going to be. And I've just taken to not looking at it because it stresses me out so bad. Um, but yeah, it's quite the ride. If you've never, it's a unique experience to put something on Kickstarter, to have something just out in the open. And then you're on just a timer and it just goes and you just, you know, it's like rolling a, a boulder down a hill. You don't know where it's going to end up or what's going to happen, but it's exciting to watch and nerve wracking at the same time.

== Kickstarter ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, for sure. For sure. And, and before we, before we wrap, I just wanted to make a comment on, uh, another show on the, on the five by five network, um, called the frequency that Dan Benjamin and, uh, had he do. Um, I guess this was yesterday, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was yesterday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, just, uh, out of the blue, I saw it. I didn't have anything to do with it. Uh, they picked the retract as their Kickstarter project of the week on the frequency. So we'll, we'll include that link on there. It was pretty cool. And they actually got, uh, they actually ended up calling Myke at the end of the show. And he told them that we were going to have you on, uh, we had already had you booked on our, on our show to do this interview. So, uh, it's funny how the, the timing worked on that. That caught me off guard. So that was pretty cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Excellent. All right. All right. So I think, uh, Dan, unless you got anything else, I think, uh, I think it's a wrap guys.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Dan, why don't you tell people where they can, where they can find you?

'''Dan Bishop:''' Um, you can find, uh, the retract on Kickstarter. Uh, if you search, uh, just search for retract with a K instead of a C and, or you can go to our website, uh, to find a link. And that's, uh, karascustoms.com K A R A S and customs with a K.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Awesome. And, uh, Brad is a pen addict.com. He is at dowdy, D O W D Y on Twitter. I am at I Myke, I M Y K E. We will be back next week on the pen addict. Um, do we have another guest next week, sir?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We do have another guest next week. Three in a row. Should we keep it a secret for now? Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, we'll keep it secret for now, but, um, but I think it's going to be one of these episodes where I'll probably post ahead of time and get some feedback going into it, if you will. So yeah, we'll keep it. We'll keep it on the down low for now. Cause I need to do a little bit of work around it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So yeah, keep your eye on pen addict.com for that. Yep. Yep. Brilliant. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of the pen addict podcast. I'm Myke. He's Brad and the other one was Dan. And until next time. Bye. Bye.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bye. Bye. Bye.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 303/transcript

2026-06-22T08:38:13Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 303
| title = Live from the Atlanta Pen Show 2018
| date = April 15th, 2018
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Ana Reinert]] [[Lisa Vanness]] [[Jim Rouse]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/303 Episode 303]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/TPA_303.mp3 Audio Episode 303]
| length = 63
}}

'''Ana Reinert:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 303. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's and Panshele. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello Myke Hurley and hello Atlanta, Georgia.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And of course, a live episode of The Pen Addict would not be complete without the one and only Anna Reinhardt. Hi Anna.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello. Hi everybody.

== Atlanta Pen Show ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' So we're back in Atlanta for the fourth time. Four years in Atlanta. We're thinking about the fact that next year is five years, which feels like a pretty important thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I think we might have to do something a little special for that.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, don't know what yet. Send in your answers on a postcard. Thanks to everyone for helping us get here. All of our Kickstarter backers, of course, we have some of them in our audience today. So thank you to everyone that did that. And I'm sure we have many. Well, I know we have many more missing at home because we couldn't fit everyone in this room. I would like to do that one day, maybe hire out an auditorium somewhere. Seems like a pretty impossible task. But thanks to everyone for joining us. We have something special for people in the room today. Anna, would you like to explain what you have done?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What you have wrought upon us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thanks to the technical genius of Alexander Kramer and a long car ride from Arkansas to Kansas City, Bob and I cooked up the idea of turning the whole idea of pen addict bingo into an actual thing. A physical thing. A physical thing. We actually printed bingo cards. So everybody in the audience here has actual paper bingo cards, which are doubling as fans right now because it's kind of hot in here. Yep. But yeah, so Alex made it possible. Alexander made it possible for us to have a hundred plus random bingo cards here in the audience. So hopefully someone will bingo right here.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yes. So like fools, we are allowing for the bingo to be called. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' During the show. So at any point we may have to stop as someone will call bingo. We will just take down the name of that person and then after the show they're going to be given a prize. I am going to call it at one winner so it doesn't continue to happen constantly because the more it happens, the more it will happen because it will just continue to get more filled up. Right. So there will be one winner for a line we're going to do. Right. I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And we have to always ask Daddy Myke for permission to do these things like breaking up his technical audio recording for the podcast.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So much anxiety, Brad. Just like so much that you bring upon me, but I love you. Thank you. And we, so yeah, there's going to be a bingo during this episode. Hopefully. We'll see. So we are at the Atlanta Pen Show. So Brad, I wanted to know how has it been for you this year? Has it been busier than usual? About the same? It's Saturday. It's end of Saturday. I feel really tired because I'm a little bit sick. But how have you been feeling?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. We've had two of the best days we've ever had at the Atlanta Pen Show. This crowd has been amazing. Our tables at NOC have been packed and ransacked repeatedly throughout the weekend so far. The first two days, the overall feel of the show. So we've been doing this podcast four years here and I started coming to this show maybe two to three years prior to that. And I think this is the biggest and best ever. And you don't want to say that every year because it feels like you're being phony. But this year it really feels genuine that I've never seen so many like great people and packed hallways and full bars. This is the largest live audience we've ever had too. Yeah. The live audience is fantastic. So just from a general overview, it's got to be one of the biggest and best that they've done from a business perspective. So I'm also here for NotCo, our pen case company. You may have heard of us. Who?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, the Friday sales were better than any other Friday we've ever had. So and that goes for all shows. So this has been crazy. And just the general feel and vibe of this show have been really outstanding. I've talked to a lot of vendors who are repeating the same thing to me. They are ecstatic with the turnout. We have a lot of new vendors because they hear about this show. And, you know, I don't want to hype man us too much. But I mean, we're a little bit of that reason why this show is growing. And I'm proud of that. Like I take it I take it seriously that everyone comes to the show and has fun. It's a big deal for me that, you know, all of y'all put your faith in listening to us babble on about pens for so many episodes. And it's it's really important to me that everyone has a good time at this show. And I want to see it succeed and make it the best show we can. So thank you.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, look at that. A round of applause.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Brad Dowdy for mayor of Georgia. Yeah. And what about you? Like as well as just the daytime, the evening activities are always fun at the pen show. If you find that to be any more vibrant or different this year to last year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's we've everybody's been having a really good time. I mean, they keep changing the bar restaurant situation. I think they keep making the table smaller.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I don't know if they're trying to get out of here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like closing the bar down earlier, but it hasn't lessened anybody's enthusiasm for hanging out. And I think everybody has been like everyone who sits in the bar area and in the restaurant area is still very warm and welcoming to new people who are coming and sitting down and sharing. And there's, you know, we keep passing like this time we just sat at the bar and just kept passing pens down. Yes. Last night we actually handed the bartender. Somebody handed her a metropolitan and said, you're going to get better tips if you give this pen to people to sign your to sign the bill. And she's like she said she said, I can't take this pen. And they're like, no, seriously, it's OK. Take the pen. And she and literally like we watched her turn around and give it to somebody to sign a bill. And they're like, oh, excellent. And I think they gave her a bigger tip. And we're like, we told you that was going to work.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Shout out to Brittany.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it was and she was like, oh, this is really cool. And we're like, this works. And I think something very similar happened in D.C. was that they gave the bartender a fountain pen. And he's like, this is awesome. And he kept getting better tips the entire time. And we're like, trust us, this will work.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So as well as attending, we do attend as like people coming to buy stuff as well. Usually. Brad, have you made any purchases this year?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have made zero purchases so far this year. But Sunday is usually the day at this show if I do buy anything because I'm so busy Friday and Saturday. Like I barely get around to like run errands if I need to run errands. You know, we squeeze in lunch if we can. Right. So. Barbecue place, cold fire. Yeah. So that was it. So Rip Heirloom Barbecue. Check their Instagram. Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We got in under the wire then.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So all you Friday Heirloom Barbecue eaters, you did good. All you Saturday Heirloom Barbecue. Like us. Full worms. You're out of luck. Out of luck. So, yeah. We love you, Heirloom. We love you, Heirloom. And give us a shout out, Connor. When you get back in shape. So, yeah. I mean, it's just been fantastic. Anna, have you bought anything?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was lucky enough to hit a couple tables in our little small room. But it was literally a case of like woodshed pens was literally two tables over. And I walked over and I'm like, how long have you been here? And he's like, Friday. And he's like, I came in a little late. And I'm like, well, good. I don't feel quite so bad that I didn't realize you were here. And then I just, I walked over and I literally put my well-appointed desk stickers on most of his pens. And I'm like, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. That's a good climbing method. Yeah. And he was like, that's not really going to work, you know.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It's easy to just give money in exchange.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's usually a better method. But, yeah. So, I basically kind of just said, okay. All right. I'll take this one. And he held it back for me. But I haven't actually really completed the purchase yet. So, most of my purchases have not actually been completed. But they are. They're on the way. Yes. The negotiation has begun. Yes. Yeah. We'll finish transactions tomorrow.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I have not purchased any pens this year. And I'm actually expecting to buy no pens at the show. And there's a couple of reasons. And there's a couple of things happening. So, one, Brad gave me a pen, which we're going to talk about in a minute, which I'm very excited to talk about. But I went to Jonathan Brooks' table. And he sought out of everything at, like, Friday afternoon. So, that didn't go so well. Everything's just gone.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Okay. It's a tip for next time. Get this straight away. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, our rule at pen shows is generally, like, take a lap first. Get the lay of the land. And Jonathan is the exception to that rule. If you see it, you should buy it right then. Yes.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I still want my king of pen. But I'm not getting it yet. And I don't know why. I haven't got a real good reason for this. People are like, oh, it's because of the wedding. It's not because of the wedding. I actually haven't got a real reason. I like Brad's. Brad's is the blue one. What is it called? The sky? Sky. Pro gear sky. They don't make that one anymore. That's all gone. And the next one is the ocean, which is not a demonstrator. And for some reason, I want to demonstrate one. And you can get a clear one. And I kind of want it. But I'm just not going to get it yet. And I don't know what it is. I don't know why. I want it. But I'm not buying it. It's very strange. I guess I'm pretty strange this time. I have actually spent money on a pen that I didn't buy at the pen show, which I can't talk about now. But can talk about next week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Aha.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And I'm only mentioning this because if you are a Canalea fan.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Gotcha. We are the worst. You want to tune in next week live to the show at 10 a.m. Eastern. You just do.

'''Ana Reinert:''' To avoid disappointment. But no, I haven't bought anything. But you gave me something. So over the last few months, Brad keeps buying me pens. He just keeps buying me pens. In a way that this has kind of never happened before. I don't know what happened. Maybe you pity me this year because I'm going to a wedding. I'm going to a wedding. I don't even know. I'm attending this wedding. But Brad keeps sending me pictures of classic retro 51s that he's been buying. I don't even like you. I don't know why I do this. It's very strange. And there was something that Brad found me. It's called the retro 51 Abondanza. And this is a pen that we couldn't find online. And can you tell the story about how you came across it? Yeah. So I was at the Little Rock Pen Show. And everyone's talking. I was like, why is everyone looking down? I said retro 51. So they were all marking off the bingo card. I was like, I lost everyone's attention. That's why.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I was at the Arkansas Pen Show, which is awesome. And we'll talk to Lisa Vaness about the Arkansas Pen Show later. And I just go to that show to hang out. I don't really work. I help out Lisa. I help out the show. So I get time to shop. And when you actually have time to look around and see what else is out there, sometimes you run across some really neat things. And I've always had my eye on the retro 51 stuff for Myke because I know he likes it so much. Like I like retro 51. He has true issues with retro 51. It's a real genuine love. Yeah. So he absolutely loves them. So I saw this weird box on a table. And I opened it up. And the box has like this retro 51 imprint on it. And I pick up the pen. And the pen has no markings on it for the brand or anything at all. And I'm super confused about what this is. And the person whose table I bought it from was not real sure what it is. But it had the original box. It had the retro 51 sticker. So I did what any true pen addict would do. I DMed. DMed. Well, I bought it because the price was super fair for just taking a shot at something. And then I emailed retro 51 to say, what do I have here? They said, ah. Because this was unfindable on Google. Right. You Google it and it did not show up anywhere. And this has like a real label. Like it was a real product. And it's a real kind of fancy pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And so in this box, it had two section, two holes cut out of it for nib units. And there was only one nib unit. And when I emailed retro 51, they said, oh, yeah, that was a pen we did a while back. We don't, you know, it didn't do real well at the time. And do you have both nib units? They knew exactly what it was. And I said, no, I only have the rollerball nib unit for it. And they said, well, let me see if I can find you a fountain pen nib unit for it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Because it's interchangeable. So it comes, it's one body, but you can put in a rollerball and it has like the cuff that you would tighten around it. Or it had a space in the box for a fountain pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So like a week later, a fountain pen nib from retro 51 for this super strange. Abundanza. Abundanza. That's how I say it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I feel like I should have said it normally once before I said it weirdly. I don't know that there is a normal person. But like we just keep saying it like that because it feels like the only way. So this pen is super weird. The box is really awesome. It's like a wooden box that you open up and then the pen kind of raises out of the box. I absolutely love this. And I love Brad so much for buying it for me because it's, it has become a prized possession now because it's so friggin weird. Like I love it. It's like so strange. Like I don't, I can see why that maybe didn't sell very well because it like it, it is a odd pen. Like what do you do with the other half of it? Right. So like when, when you want to use it as the fountain pen and then you just have like a rollable refill and like a, what would you even call it? I don't really know how to describe it. I mean, it's just a section. It's the front end of the pen. So like, and you just put it somewhere. Like, I don't know where it's supposed to go, but like, I love that it is this really strange pen. It has no branding on it except for on the nib. And the nib is this like beautiful art deco style nib. And yeah, it's really nice. I'm going to take a picture of it and put it in the show notes so people can see what we're talking about. But this is just this super weird pen that has like completely satiated my desire to buy anything. Yeah. For this weekend.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I'll tell you the truth. It cost me 40 bucks. It wasn't like it was some, you know, outrageous outlay. So you can take a chance on a 40 buck pen.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I wanted to thank Retro51 for sending you that as part of it as well. Yeah, that was really cool. Because that's awesome.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're the best to us. They treat us really well.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, I mean, I treat them very well too, I think.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Hashtag sponsorship. I just, just, I, there doesn't need to be any money. I just want to be the spokesperson.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Like, I feel like I say this and they think I'm joking. Or they just really don't want me to do it. But like, I'll, I'll do it. Like, I'll give them a quote. Be like, Myke Early, official spokesperson of Retro51. No money needs to change hands. All right. All right. I will do this. All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Anyway. I'm waiting for your head to go on the little end cap. You know?

== Guests ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' Should we take a break? We have some guests today. So we have Jim Rouse of Franklin Christophe and Lisa Van Es of Van Espanse. And we're going to bring up Jim after we take our first break. And today I want to thank Pen Chalet for their support of this show. Of course, of course, Pen Chalet would support the show because they're amazing. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have all of your favorite brands. They have fast and reliable and awesome customer service. They're always doing great discounts and specials so you can get amazing prices. But Pen Chalet offer great prices and they guarantee their 100% satisfaction with every purchase. They want to make sure that what you're getting, you're going to love. If there's any problems, they will make it right. They sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. And they do free shipping on orders over $50 in the United States. As always, go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website. And enter the password penaddict for this week's special offer. And to get yourself the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet. Brad, this week's special offer is 15% off the Opus 88 fountain pens, which we were talking about recently.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I just got one in finally. And I'm seriously impressed with those. Have you used those yet, Anna?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I have a Chloro, which I lost on Thursday night, but found Friday afternoon. Yeah. That's great. That's great.

'''Ana Reinert:''' This is the first time Pen Chalet had discounted these pens. And they wanted to do something special for the live show. So that's 15% off the Opus 88 fountain pens. And this is before you add the 10% coupon as well. So that's some amazing prices. Our thanks, as always, to Pen Chalet for their support of this show and Relay FM. All right. So, Jim, would you like to come and join us on stage? Give us a round of applause, everybody, for Jim Rouse and Franklin Crystal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Jim.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sorry we interrupted your bingo. Yeah.

'''Jim Rouse:''' You got a bingo? I'm supposed to mention some things here.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Don't listen to these guys. I got $5 a square.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, Jim, thank you so much. Oh, have we got a bingo? We got a bingo? Yeah. If that counts as you getting excited about a sponsor. I'm super excited. All right. We got a bingo. No, we got a bingo. Denise, congratulations. Everyone else, you can keep playing. Woo-hoo!

'''Myke Hurley:''' Should we do the prize now? No, we'll do the prize later on. We'll do the prize later on.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Y'all are going to like this prize. Congratulations, Denise. We got our bingo. Yay. Everyone, you can keep playing along. But if you win, keep it yourself.

'''Ana Reinert:''' That was actually the perfect time to do this, too, because it's not interrupted anything. Denise, thank you so much. It was a skill. So, Jim, thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure. It's a pleasure to have you. For people that are unfamiliar with you or unfamiliar with Franklin Kristoff, can you explain a little bit about you, what you do, and maybe a little bit about Franklin Kristoff? And then we're going to dive into some things in some more detail, just kind of like super high level.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I don't work for Franklin Kristoff. Okay. They work for me. I am the nib guy at Franklin Kristoff. So, my main job is to set all the nibs because we want the best nibs going out the door. So, basically what happens is where a lot of companies buy the nibs as complete units and then screw them in. We buy them as individual components. We put them together and we screw them in the pen and make sure they work okay. Now, of course, that doesn't include Myke's nibs, but I also make my own line of nibs for Franklin Kristoff called the SIGs. The SIG stands for Stub Italic Gradient. And those are designed to screw in like any other nibs, but kind of halfway between an italic and a stub.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Okay. So, how long have you been doing this? Like not even just for Franklin Kristoff, but like involved in nib work and in the pen industry?

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, let's see. After the arc landed.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They needed two pens.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I was trying to figure that out because I thought you might ask that. I think it's been 25 years in total.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, where did you get started? Like how did you get started in this whole pen business?

'''Jim Rouse:''' I got started running the Baltimore store and being Bert's partner in Bertram's Inkwell.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, like the original Bertram's Inkwell. The original Bertram's Inkwell. Yeah. That's cool.

'''Jim Rouse:''' At least in that store.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, that was like, I guess, 25 years. That was in the 90s. That was in the early 90s. What were you doing before? How did you get involved in fountain pens to begin with?

== Shoe Business ==

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, believe it or not, I worked for a shoe company. And it was called Hess Shoes. And I worked in, I was a district manager. So, I traveled around the Washington area going to these different stores. These were like real high-end fancy shoes, you know, with alligators and all this kind of stuff. Like big buck stuff back then. And I used to go into Bert's store all the time. And I really enjoyed looking at the pens and stuff. And I was kind of into ballpoints back then. There wasn't a stigma against ballpoints back then. So, I would go in and look at them and, you know, play around with them and stuff. And every now and then he'd give me something to try to fix and I'd play around with it. Well, there was this jewelry store upstairs called, I think it was Jay Codwell's. And they had just spent like a million dollars. And I mean, I think that's a reasonable estimate. That's what the manager told me. To redecorate the store. And then three months later, they went out of business. So, here's this store.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Maybe they spent a little bit too much money.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, this was a huge chain. This was a huge chain. And we're looking at the store, you know, because we knew they were going to sell off the fixtures. They've got a vault the size of a bedroom in there. They've got a complete phone system. They've got chandeliers. They had Honduras mahogany cabinets with brass trimmed, you know, bulletproof glass. The whole nine yards. Everything you'd want to open your own store. So, Bert and I decided that we would try to buy the interior of the store at auction. And sell this stuff to make some money, you know, because it's some halfway decent investment, right? So, the manager of the store, this is kind of funny, but the manager of the store, they fired. But then they call the guy up and say, hey, you want to come back for a day and sell off the contents of the store? And he's like, sure.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Seems like a great idea.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I'd be happy to. So, they tell him to place an ad in the paper. So, like in Wednesday's Washington Post or whatever, there's like this, I don't know, two-line ad, you know, that says, store fixtures for sale. So, you know, I go, his name is Myke. And I go, hey, Myke, you got any bids on that stuff yet? He goes, nope, not yet. I go, well, I'll give you $1,000. So, this goes on all day. You know, I call the guy up or he'd call me up and he'd tell me what the bids are and then I'd place another bid. So, we end up with this store. And we're up there, Bert and I walking around, you know, this is like, this is a great find. You know, all this stuff's ours now. So, then we realized, what are we going to do with it? We got to do something with this stuff. Well, the mall said they wanted the vault. I mean, this huge steel vault. They wanted the vault. Had to take the ceiling out to get it out of the place. So, they agreed that we could store the stuff there until we could move it. Now, the cases kind of fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. So, we realized that we could reconfigure them to any shape we wanted to reconfigure them to. So, I don't remember who suggested it. I think it was Bert. Said, well, you know, I got a lot of extra merchandise. And we could open a store in Baltimore. And we could have a pen store. Well, to be honest with you, I didn't know very much about pens at all. But that sounded like a great opportunity. Because I was tired of being in the shoe business because of that stupid Al Bundy.

'''Jim Rouse:''' So, I like that show, actually. Married with Children. So, we opened this store in Baltimore. And, I mean, this was like real Mickey Mouse stuff. I mean, I made paper templates of all the cases, which was an open end, which was a closed end. You know, and then we fit the paper templates together until they formed the horseshoe pattern we wanted here and the circle we wanted here and all that stuff. And that was a fairly successful store. We did well with it. But, fortunately, after, I don't know, five or six years, they told us we had to move because they were tearing the building down. So, we moved like one block up the street to the corner of Baltimore and Light Street. And that's where we stayed almost for 17 years until the store closed. Wow. And what year was that? It closed?

'''Myke Hurley:''' God, I don't remember.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Oh, yeah. Sometime in the 2000s.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, how does that play into what you're doing now? Like, how did you go from that, you know, the store was open, successful, then, oh, well, it closed. And now you're with Franklin Kristoff and you're super famous.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I'm not super famous. We had reps that came in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've seen the lines, Jim.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I think you're pretty famous.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, thank you.

'''Jim Rouse:''' But we had reps that would come into the store, you know. And, of course, you know, once you get into the business, you kind of want to move up in the business. So, I was always asking them if they had any positions open or stuff like that. Well, after Bertram's closed, one of the reps contacted me and said, we've got a position with Hampton Haddon. And Hampton Haddon, at that time, did Schaefer and they did Waterford and some other lines. And they needed a guy for Schaefer. And what they wanted, they wanted a Schaefer salesman. That's really what I was told they wanted.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, just so, at Bertram's, were you a salesman there? Was that what you did?

'''Jim Rouse:''' Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Yeah. Manager, salesman, you know. I mean, we had three or four people in the store. You know, when you're in that kind of environment, you do everything.

'''Ana Reinert:''' You clean the bathroom. You know, you do everything. Like, it's different to kind of what you do now where it's more hands-on. But then you were, like, running the store, selling the stuff. Right, running the store.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Luckily, it was a pretty much nine-to-five store and Saturday hours. You know, you didn't work Sunday. So, it wasn't too bad. Mm-hmm. So, I got the job with Hampton Haddon, working with them. And I started to, it kind of devolved or evolved, however you want to look at it. But they didn't, it turned out they didn't want me to go out on the road because they didn't want the expense. Okay. And this was a thing between the two partners. So, I went with, you know, like, taking care of the warehouse, making sure all the stuff got out of time. There were some huge orders that came through there. Because I guess it's no secret anymore. They used to do the Levenger True Writers, too. Mm-hmm. And there'd be hundreds of these things coming in that had to be QC'd and checked. You had to make sure they got done. You know, that there was quality control issues sometimes. You had to make sure those things got corrected and everything. Back up a step. When I was at Bertram's, I realized early on that if somebody brought a broken pen in that I was going to send back to the factory because that was one of the services we offered, I could try to fix it. And if I couldn't fix it, I sent it back to the factory. So, there was an, and if I did fix it, you know, I didn't charge the customer or anything, just give the customer the pen. So, kind of a win-win situation. So, I had a lot of experience at, like, learning how to take apart pelicans and Mont Blancs and how to straighten out nibs and stuff. But really no formal training. So, at Schaefer, there was a lot of printed material on how to do things. And I read through that stuff. I really ate it up. And I got pretty good at fixing the Schaefer's. Now, fixing pens in that kind of environment basically is a part replacement thing. But every now and then you run into somebody loves this nib. We don't have that nib, you know, from an older pen. So, you learn how to straighten it out. And I was pretty successful at it. Sometime toward the end of that run with, I think that was four or five years with Hampton Head. And I had known Scott, Scott Franklin, for 20 years at that time. He says, I want to expand. I need somebody else. Would you move to Raleigh? I said, no, I don't want to move to Raleigh. So, we went back and forth and we worked out this deal where I didn't have to, you know, spend all week in Raleigh, like four days. And I could go back home to see my grandkids and play. So, you know, he opened a new or he had an office. I went to work at that office and the rest is history. Kind of developed the nibs as we went along. You know, back then he was getting nibs from Myke. The people making our pens were in Texas, which was Dan Simons. He was making them out in Texas. And that evolved to an in-house. We moved to a new facility, bigger facility. We bought in-house machines. Dan came in and trained the staff. And, you know, now we're making pens in-house. And I'm doing the nibs in the back, the SIG. The SIG was just a freak accident. It really was. You know, I was making a nib for myself and I ground it wrong. So, then I tried to correct something and I ground that wrong. And then I started writing with it. And I said, hey, you know, this thing works pretty good.

== Pen Testing ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' You try this terrible nib.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, I thought it was terrible because it wasn't what I was trying to do. And it just worked out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, how long have you been with Franklin Kristoff now?

'''Jim Rouse:''' Almost five years. Almost five years. That's from the time he started to expand from one person up. And now we have like ten people.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, especially at pen shows, because you can see the process, Franklin Kristoff has become like an institution. Because it's like the table is typically quite large. And as a customer, you'll come in. You'll take a look at the bodies that are available. You'll try out the nibs from all the testing. And then you'll kind of add an assembly line. You'll pick your pen. You'll pick your nib. And then it will go along. And it will come to you. Now, what is this process? What is the thinking behind this process? Like, why do you do it that way? Is this just at pen shows that this happens? Like, does every nib go through you? Like, what is the thinking behind this process? Why does Franklin Kristoff do that? And why is it so important?

'''Jim Rouse:''' When you order something from Franklin Kristoff, you pick out a body you like, or a nib, but mostly a body. You find the body you like. Then you pick from a long list of nibs, which are then, you know, put on that pen for you, you know, tested. Make sure they work okay.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Every single individual pen is tested, irrespective of whether it's here or online.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Like I mentioned before, that goes on the card. Like I mentioned before.

'''Jim Rouse:''' What? Every single pen. You already did it, so I get to do it too. Yeah, I know. Every single pen. Where should I start? We don't buy units. I said this before. We buy individual pieces. So we have to put them together anyway. So we have this process where we clean them. We check with a shim to make sure they're in the proper dimensions. We center them in the feed, make sure they're set properly in the feed. By having that hands-on with it and the microscope we use, we can see if they're centered. Everything is perfect. Put it in and then dry test it. If somebody requests, we're happy to wet test. And the reason we don't wet test everything is because sometimes people will call you up and say, you sent me a used pen. Yeah. You know, so. Which makes sense.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Like if every pen arrived with some black ink on it, you'd be like, hang on a second.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Yeah, I am delighted to wet test anything for you. It takes a little longer, but it's probably worth it, you know.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, because you know it's working at that point, right?

'''Jim Rouse:''' You can see it. If people give us notes like I'm a left-handed overwriter, I'm an on-the-line left-hander, or, you know, I write at a severe angle to the paper, not for them, but for me it's severe. You know, you tune that into the pen. Yep. And I forgot the other part of your question.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But it's like, so why, like, obviously this takes a lot of time.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Do you think that this time investment on your end is beneficial? Like, do you think that by spending this time, every pen being tuned and tested, saves time on the back end with, like, people sitting in the back that there's problems? Like, what is the reasons that Franklin Kristoff has decided that this is the process that you want to take? Because you could just not do it that way.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I think, and I can't speak for Scott, but from my point of view, I think it's because they're getting really a custom product.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Sure.

'''Jim Rouse:''' They're picking their body. They're picking their color. They're picking their nib. We're actually not just screwing a nib in it. We're really going over the nib. You know, we package it up and we send it out. And yes, we do that for everyone. I think that the process at the show is not different than the website. If you really think about it, you pick a body, you get all, but what is different is you can try all those nibs and see how you like it, you know, and they give you an idea of what you're going to get. And then you get to come over and sit with me and we try to figure out the best we can. You know, does this corner have to come off because it's too sharp when you do loop-de-loops or, you know, straight lines? You know, I had a lady today that was doing circles and now, come on, circles aren't a normal part of writing, but she was bothered by a little roughness with a circle. So we fixed it. We found a way to fix it. And I think the customer is much better served in the end run. That's what it's all about a lot of times is you want to take care of your customers. You want to make them happy. And that's what we really try to do. That's a real driving force at Franklin Kristoff. What will make the customer happy?

'''Ana Reinert:''' And I will say, like, from coming to pen shows a bunch and seeing people who own Franklin Kristoff pens, typically they don't own just one. And it feels like that there is a real loyalty built around the brand. And this is probably part of the reason for that, right?

'''Jim Rouse:''' I think so. I think people like the different color prototypes. I think a lot of people really like the regular colors, too. And I, you know, people love nibs. I had a lady yesterday that was looking for a nib. And I couldn't find the exact right nib for her. I just wasn't sure which way to go with it. I had to think about it a little bit. And she asked me, well, who could I go with? And I know a lot of these pen companies. You know, you're around 25 years. You're going to learn something. Not much, but you're going to learn something, right? So I've thought about it. You know, I'm not knocking anybody at all. I just could not think of anybody to refer to. I try, you know, pilots and sailors and platinums and all these different pens, Mont Blancs and Viscani. I own them all. And, you know, I have never, I can't think of a time that I've actually bought a pen that I was just 100% satisfied with the nib right away, that I didn't have to tinker around with it a little bit. You know, and I think people tell me they like our nibs and I believe what they're saying. I mean, you guys like our nibs?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Jim Rouse:''' So, you know, I think that's what it's all about. Mm-hmm.

== Nib Options ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' So you, Franklin Christoph offers a lot of nibs, right? Like, there are a lot of options.

'''Jim Rouse:''' I don't even know how many it is anymore. We got nibs that we don't even offer that we have.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Aside from, obviously, the amazing one that you created, what are some of your favorites?

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, let's see. Obviously...

'''Ana Reinert:''' I like the Zoom a lot. The music nib, sorry. I like the music nib a lot, a lot. That's my favorite.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Well, the music nib is super cool. Yeah, I love that. And it has a lot of things you can do with it. You can write sideways with it and get a thinner line. Of course, you can get the, you know, the thicker, more signed nib with it. 1.1 cursive calligraphy has been a real popular nib lately. And it is a beautiful writing pen. I guess I like Myke's fine italic a lot.

'''Ana Reinert:''' That's Myke Masayama, right?

'''Jim Rouse:''' Myke Masayama, excuse me. Yeah, I like his fine italic a lot. I kind of like finer nibs myself. At one point, I bought nothing but broads. And I went to write a letter, and I realized I didn't have anything to write the letter with. They were all broads. So, you know, it kind of made me think about it. Now, I guess I'm just into fine italics, fine cigs, extra fines, things like that. They seem to work the best when you're actually writing something.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Jim Rouse:''' That's pretty, I don't know. We play around with an architect's nib. We don't call it that. You know, we haven't really named it. We kind of wanted to call it the Scriblarian, but then we decided maybe the Sandpiper. So we're, I don't think Scott's sold on either of those names. Yeah, Scott's a smart man. Yeah, you should have heard my original name for the cig. But, and he came up with a, Scott came up with a cig thing, you know, and I thought that was pretty clever, the stub italic gradient, you know. I think I wanted to call it a cig lit or something like that, you know. But, what can I say?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, Jim, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you. I had no idea about your history, and it was fascinating to hear. Like, really, really amazing history. So I guess people should go to Franklin Christophe tables at pen shows. Go find Franklin Christophe online, right? Because then they know your hand's going to be on their pens. They're going to love it. You're going to touch up their nibs, make them perfect. It's the only way to go.

'''Jim Rouse:''' Make them the best I can.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you so much, Jim. Thank you. A round of applause. Very much.

'''Ana Reinert:''' All right. I want to take our second sponsor break for the show and thank Harry's for their support of this show. Harry's is all about a great shave at a fair price, which is why over 3 million people have made the switch to Harry's, and it's why you should join them as well. Harry's founders decided to create this company because they were fed up with overpriced razors, and they wanted to fix it. They knew that a great shave comes down to great blades, made with sharp, durable steel that lasts, and they also cut out the unnecessary costs, allowing them to deliver you the perfect razor at an amazing price. Their high-quality blades are half the price that you'll be paying elsewhere, just $2 a blade. They bought a factory of their own that's been making high-quality products for over 95 years, so they know they're good, and because they know this, they offer a 100% quality guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let Harry's know within 30 days, and they'll give you a full refund. Now, Brad, I know that, I know because we're sharing a room that you love Harry's stuff. We have the best bathroom set up in the hotel, don't we?

'''Myke Hurley:''' We do. There's Harry's stuff just everywhere. It's not a joke. You can't trip over it in there. Yeah, so, you know, I bring the dop kit, bring the handle, bring the fresh blade, bring the shave gel, bring the aftershave, so, yeah, we have it going on. And he smells good.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I'm sitting right next to him. I don't know why. It's really warm in here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not so sure that's accurate.

'''Ana Reinert:''' No, I don't know. If it is, Harry's has taken care of me. Harry's stands behind the quality of their blades. They know that switching razors isn't an easy decision, so they created a trial offer. You can get a $13 value set, which comes with everything that you need for a close, comfortable shave. It includes a weighted, ergonomic razor handle, five precision-engineered blades of a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict right now to redeem your trial offer, and let them know that we sent you. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM. All right, so let's welcome Lisa Vaness of Vaness Pans to the Pan Addict Podcast.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. We're so excited about this. So, I found out before the show today that Vaness Pans is getting ready to celebrate a pretty important anniversary, right? Yep. What is that?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' 80 years.

'''Ana Reinert:''' 80 years. 80 years. 80 years. So, obviously, that's how long the store has been around. I think the website has been around for 95 years, right? Is that correct?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You invented the internet, right? Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, I wanted to get into your history a little bit with this. So, when and how and where did you get, and why did you get involved with, not just Vaness, but pens in general? Which came first? Was it Vaness Pans, or did you have a love of pens, which got us back longer? Like, for you, how does that story tell out?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I had a love of pens, but it was pharmaceutical pens. Okay. So, my old job, I was a geriatric social worker, and we used to fight over the best pens. So, I had a pen collection that was sometimes inappropriate pens.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' But, so that was my beginning, was pens. And I was really picky about my pens, and I'm left-handed. So,

'''Ana Reinert:''' Like all best people.

== Pen Store ==

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Yeah. Oh, oh, that's right. I am super outnumbered. He is so outnumbered. Way outnumbered. The odds are probably one out.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I didn't even think about that. It's just like a bonus. So, and I know that's on the bingo card.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So, anyway, I was super particular about my pens, but I met Myke, and I, locally, they were well-known, because it was the pen store. Church. And, so, I didn't know he owned a pen store, but all my friends did. So, apparently, that's why he liked me. I'm like the only person who didn't know he was a pen store. And so, he just had me come try pens one day, and I played with him, and I found some that I liked. I have adored retros from the first time I tried them. Like, I'm a huge retro fan, too. Like, that's, that's just the best. Like,

'''Ana Reinert:''' all people with good taste, right?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Was that the first pen that you really liked, that he showed you? Yeah, that's probably the first pen I got. Well, actually, in high school, I graduated in the 80s. Every human that graduated high school got a cross pen. Like, that's what you got. You got the cross pen. Oh, that's the same,

'''Ana Reinert:''' like, in England as well. Like, it's just somehow, I got my pink cross pen. It's always crossed, like, every single time.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I beg people every year not to buy cross pen. Please, no.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think that we, we get these questions around graduation time, right? Yeah, always. What pen? Retros and Swifts, man.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' If they don't want to do fountain pens, retros. Anyway, so, um, um, when you marry into the family and your mother-in-law retires, you marry into the pen store, or so I was told.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow. Were you, like, jumped in? That sounds serious.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I was like, uh, well, I mean, she was there in the beginning, but eventually. I had, um, a job where I worked Monday through Thursday. My mother-in-law retired, and on Fridays, the girls that worked at the store, um, would try to get me to reason with the men to get new products. So, um, because they were just getting the same products over and over, and they were super boring. So the girls would always have a list for me, and I'd go in, reason with the guys, you know, they had no choice but to say yes to me. So, um, so anyway, then we started expanding, and then I just, um, um, How long ago did you start in the, into the store? Uh, well, I was going in on Fridays, like, and redecorating, because they decorated terribly. But, I mean, like, how many years? Seven or eight years, probably. Oh, no, probably eight or nine years, maybe even ten. Um, but I didn't go full-time into it until we moved to the location we're in now, which has been six or seven years. Um, I actually negotiated the contract, and my husband said, well, you're full-time now.

'''Ana Reinert:''' You should have checked the contract. We've written you in.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Like, I was hard to negotiate with, so my husband and my father-in-law both thought that a female would do better, and they're like, you have psychiatric training, you go. So, so, we got six months of free rent out of it, so I had to go.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, really cool. Nice. Can you negotiate my contract?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I walked away from a van that my husband really wanted because I was like, mm-mm, I'm hardcore, but I'm gonna negotiate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Anna and I have worked for her. She's serious business. You do not cross. She got scared one day. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I saw her in, was it LA? Yeah,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' but that's because I was hangry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but we saw her, we saw her negotiating with somebody about something, and Casey and I walked away. We're like,

'''Myke Hurley:''' she's scary.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Somebody needed to give me a Snickers, and he, he didn't do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' She didn't do it. I was scared. Like, I may be twice your size, but I am not gonna cross you ever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do not cross her.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I now feel bad for the people, but at the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Here's the deal. Give her what she asks for, and then give her a Snickers.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Anyway, so, it just, I don't know how and when it evolved, except that, thankfully, the employees that worked there were amazing. There were some employees that had been there up to 20 years, and there had just been a gap in female leadership, and so, I just started filling that gap, and then my job ended, and I had a job opportunity where I would have been on call 24 hours a day, and my husband and my daughter were like, no, no, and so they, so I went full time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And so now you work 24 hours a day. Now I work 24 hours a day.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' 24-7. Yeah. I'm communicating in the middle of the night with Australia and South Korea, and yeah, and China.

== Online Business ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' You mentioned the store. Yes. I know that the physical store, the physical location, has been an important part of Vaness's history, and I think over the time that I've been familiar with Vaness, it seems like you are getting more and more involved in online as well. That is becoming a more important part of the business, and I kind of wonder, as we sit here now in 2018, like, what is that breakdown like? Like, is the store as important as it ever was to you, the physical store? How has having a stronger online presence changed the way that the business is thought about and managed?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So a couple of things. The physical store is mentally and emotionally important to us, and I can't imagine ever giving it up because there's a certain, there's a certain special something to, just like that's why you guys love the pen shows. You touch that pen, you feel that pen, you get to look at it, you get to find out, okay, oh, we can tune it. You don't get that online, so online is super important because there's only, like, I think there's less than 20 pen stores in the U.S., like real pen stores, and so not everybody gets that opportunity, but it's so important that we survive. But the only way we're going to survive is online. Like, so there's a, it's a catch-22. We have to have that online aspect in today's world, but we, like, I can't imagine not being able to let everybody play with pens or smell the stinkiest ink or, um, we had an open house and everybody smelled the stinkiest ink.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Were you hesitant with the online business? Like, was it something that you were resistive of or did you think it would take away from the specialness? I wasn't, but my father-in-law, yes. Yeah, okay.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' He kind of knows. My father-in-law used to not believe in it, but now they tell, tell everybody, let Lisa do what she wants.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, because I'm sure, I'm sure that it's worked out, right? Like, you know.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Um, they were not, but like my, I mean, you have to remember the generation that they're in. You, this is personal. Um, even like when Jim watches you write and Mark, he'll want you to write. It's such a personal thing to them and especially something in their 70s, 80s, 90s. This was your most important instrument in your life and you have to touch, it's so personal to you. He couldn't imagine the idea of buying one without somebody actually trying it out. Like, this is your personal item and it's, you know, when you see these people's names on them when they, you buy a vintage pen, like, that was something special to them and that was their, like, that's how they communicated in every way with everyone. And, you know, um,

'''Ana Reinert:''' it's understandable though, right? Like, yeah.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' And so they couldn't fathom the idea of somebody choosing a pen without actually touching it and knowing lefty overrider, underrider, side, right? You know, those kind of things. They, it's, it's too personal to them.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It is kind of wild. Like, when you think of it in that way, it is wild that pens are sold online. Like,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' When you think of it that way, it, it's crazy that it exists in that way but I think it is why at the same time shows like this one seem to get more popular all the time. Right? Because I think that, you know, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, like the stuff that, that I assume that you sell the most of would be inks and I would expect maybe pens that are on the cheaper side online more, I guess until people know what they want, right? And then when people are more understanding of the things I like and don't like, the brands they don't like and don't like, then they're maybe more willing to spend higher amounts but I would expect that most people are buying the inks and the lower value pens until they get that experience in them, right?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It's hard for me to know, like on that side. We sell high-end pens in that there's some high, like we sell a lot of high-end pens in that we're the only ones that carry some of those and we were their repair location for Conway Stewart's which most people didn't know because they didn't have Conway Stewart's but we were the repair center for them for years. My husband did that and so we had, we have the high-end customer but we also have the low-end customer as well so it's, there's like almost a disconnect, like you can tell that entry level versus the experienced and my experienced customers tend to call and not want to do online, like they will,

'''Ana Reinert:''' yeah. Is that because of their,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' don't call every day all day?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Is that just because they were part of this before the website was such a thing? I don't know,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' like some of these are strangers or people that I don't know, you know, but they just are not comfortable buying online and so we still do it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They at least want to speak to a person who can't touch it.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Yes. And I also feel on the, I was talking to another retailer about this, I think that the, in general, not just the pen community, I don't think brick and mortars or retails have done an effective job of communicating our value, like being able to walk into a store and touch things and feel things. I think that there's a, like, maybe they'll make a comeback, I don't know, but I just think there needs to be, we need to do a better job of communicating our value, the value of coming in in person and that personal touch because you're going to have more exchanges no matter whether it's clothes, shoes, you know, unless you do something like what he does, you know, where it's custom tuned because so many people don't want to touch the pens. But anyway, I think there's the beginner side and then there's the advanced side, like, so we do both and we don't really do the middle.

== Ink Colors ==

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So, inks we sell. I mean, I counted, so we have 1563 colors.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So everybody knows now.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I like that you say I count.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' How do you count that? So I had to break it by brand because, so I thought we had like 380 to get tremendous and I was off by 100-ish.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, eventually you have to count that, I think.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So what happens is like he would, he, my husband, when I, when I said, you know, let's expand the inks, he, I didn't realize he was really gonna, like every time Dieter Men's just comes out with a new ink, he's on it and they just, you know, they came out with like 25 new shimmers or whatever, I don't know. It was like, we don't even have room for them and they've been in the store, they know, like it's, we, I don't, I don't even know. I don't know what to say but every time there's a new ink that comes out, everybody expects us to have it. Yeah,

'''Ana Reinert:''' because that's kind of, that's our thing. That's one of those like spiraling things because you have been that way so now you have to be that way and then you end up with thousands. I didn't order

'''Lisa Vaness:''' a stir like for two months and I was getting email, I get emails every day, when is it coming in, when is it coming in and so I'm like, okay, I just didn't have time.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I just don't have time. So, and they, you know, they come out with a lot of ink so it's just, some of it's just a time factor but now everybody expects us to have all the inks and I get emails and calls and when are you going to get this and can you pursue this because now we have a reputation for going after inks that are harder to find.

'''Ana Reinert:''' because I would say like, and it's a lot of work

'''Lisa Vaness:''' by the way.

'''Ana Reinert:''' You know, I'm, if I'm going to order ink, it can be difficult to have it shipped internationally.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But if I want an ink, I go to your website first because I know it's going to be there.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' All right, so it's like, I'll just go to Van Aze first and it's going to be there. Like, I mean, because if it's not there, I can't imagine it being anywhere else. It is a shock if it's not

'''Lisa Vaness:''' and I'm going to get 25 emails.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, because it's like, I'm just going to expect it. By the way,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I've sold out a Motorola thanks to you and then now I get, now I'm here, I've probably gotten 25 emails. Thank you, Brad. No problem.

'''Ana Reinert:''' My pleasure. The ink and being known for ink, especially when you're looking at pen shows, I'm sure brings its own level of complexity. Yes, it does.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I mean, I've spoken to enough vendors now and there's like questions like how do you get here? Like, how do you travel? And, you know, someone like Brad would be like, oh, maybe I'll take some stuff on a plane and blah, blah, blah. But I'm assuming that the only way you can get to pen shows is to drive, right?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Right. Have you seen my license plate?

'''Ana Reinert:''' No.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It says ink van.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, it does. That's awesome. It's parked. I'm going to go find it. So, that is a, I'm sure, monumental effort to move that ink and then to always be driving, especially when, you know, like listeners to the show know, there is a season and there is sometimes a pen show every week or two weeks and you seem to be all of them. So, one, why?

'''Ana Reinert:''' But like, seriously, like why do you, why do you go to as many pen shows as you do? Do you feel that there is a real, like tangible benefit to one, going to as many as you do and then also bringing the amount of ink stock that you do?

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Well, I think half the audience can tell you I didn't bring enough. So, no matter what, I bring enough. But, so I have fun. I enjoy the pen shows and I've made these amazing friends like Anna and Brad and even Jim. like, there's so many more.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Like, they become my friends. I was there when he hurt his ribs.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Like, we, we hang out, we just enjoy ourselves and we just have a great time and so I enjoy, one, I want to make sure everybody's educated and I want to make sure everybody feels welcome because, you know, some of us have been misfits and when I first came to shows, I was a misfit. I didn't quite fit in. Believe it or not, I don't fit in with the traditional pen collector crowd and so. Where's your fishing vest? I know. I actually got one, you know. It doesn't fit. It's too big. Anyway, so, I, I think that for me it became something I really enjoyed and I learned more than I could ever have imagined. Like, I learned so much at each show. I learned how to use my phone correctly. You know, those kind of things. We learned how to

'''Myke Hurley:''' find her phone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I tried to buy her a tile.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So, yeah, so, yes, so, I think that it's really important for me that everybody get educated and so I felt like, let's, my husband and I felt like, let's take the pen store to them and so that's kind of how this went is the pen store is more than just a bunch of vintage fountain pens which is what it kind of was initially. So, we, you know, now there's several of us that do this but, that are more modern but I think we just, it was really important that everybody get the full experience just like you got to come and see us because not everybody comes to Little Rock, Arkansas. I mean, I wish they did but, you know, but anyway, so we just wanted everybody to have that full experience and I want to make sure you walk away knowing how to use that pen, happy with your pen and I want you to have the ink that matches that pen so perfectly that you tell all your friends that we know our color. Anna knows color.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So, you know, that's, that's how it started and hauling it is a nightmare and,

'''Ana Reinert:''' but worth it?

== Ink Incident ==

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I think it is most times. There's, there's, like when the ink fell in Little Rock of all places we had our first ink-sident. R.I.P. Nike's. No, no, it was, it fell on Brad. It fell on Brad. Did it?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. He doesn't tell me these stories,

'''Myke Hurley:''' tell me the story.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It was, it ended up on his shoes. I mean, it was, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And you know what I think about my shoes? I think very highly of my shoes.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I think it stained, you said your sock and your foot?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I had, I had pink toes for at least three days so which,

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Anna and I were cleaning it up. It was, so, not his feet. It was one of those shelving units. We were trying to pack it all in the van already loaded and we weren't. Myke, my husband Myke and Brad were. But we did not

'''Brad Dowdy:''' wash Brad's feet. It was not. No. We didn't want to see him.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' No,

'''Myke Hurley:''' we didn't want to see his feet. Don't trust me. We believe you. We just said it's pink. Deatromentious fuchsia is very nice ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But yeah, we lost a couple of shelves and surprisingly not many bottles except the one that landed on my foot and exploded everywhere.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It was probably like 20 or so bottles. I mean, it was a miracle some of them survived because it was califolio and deatromentious. So it was glass.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was really just that like one or two bottles broke but everything else just got covered in the fuchsia. So they were just stained on the outside. And when it rained it looked like blood coming down the back of our...

'''Lisa Vaness:''' it was... The parking lot looked really brutal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I got a picture of the murder scene that was pretty gruesome.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It was bad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was bad.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So anyway...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's worth it though in the end. Like it's... You know, moving that ink around is not a pleasurable experience but we've got it down to a science I think.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I think we... The newest method we have a business went out and I went and bought all their fixtures and it was actually... I feel like I'm boring everybody. No, no, no. It was... What are... Tester... You know, the tester paints the little tester paints. So those fixtures y'all see now that are like six high that have the wires I can travel with those already done. And I went and bought all they had. And so that's working better because I can travel with the ink already put together as long as I have a little bit of muscle. And so I can... Like Brad won't be in Chicago so hey guys free bottle of ink for anybody that will come and help us unload.

'''Ana Reinert:''' 700 people who can hear them descending upon you in Chicago. I'm here for my free ink. I'll do whatever you need.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We're not talking color verse here people.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So anyway the... Yeah. So yeah we'll need a little motor muscle but I think we have it figured out for the most part. The biggest thing is that even though I kind of am organized it's an organized chaos I think maybe on a stereotype. That's accurate.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I have one last thing I wanted to ask you. When we were... When you were talking about your history at the beginning there was a lot of like references to the fact that like it was a man's world when you started. And I want to know if you think that's changed.

== Women Attendees ==

'''Lisa Vaness:''' I think it's changed. Was it last night or today I was talking about it that... That... I bet it was 40% women this time. Like... It is so awesome. It's so amazing. I just... It's so exciting to see the changing dynamic. Not just females but age group wise and... Just everything. You know... It's... It brings more energy when you have a variety of people like... I love all my little Black Pen Society man friends but they are for the most part retired and...

'''Lisa Vaness:''' There's a very specific perspective. They have a very distinct thought process and I love having the variety and hearing from it. That's why I feel like I learn more at shows than I could ever teach because I love getting the input and learning from other people about their interest and how they handle technology and breathing new life

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and perspective into the community coming from different... I don't know.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' It's just... It's just so valuable. I... You know... And I second guess myself every second of every day and so... Going to a show you know reminds me okay this is... This is good. This is good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Before we let her go I just wanted to follow up on the store and people coming to the store and what type of things you offer and testing the inks and testing the pens. Another thing you do is engraving and I've taken advantage of your services before and you actually brought an example of your engraving. Can we show it real quick? Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So I'll do a dramatic description I guess of this for the people listening.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you've seen these... We've all had stuff engraved and like there's these cool retro 51s. Check that one out. Check out the engraving.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Something's happening.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' So this is a little something

'''Myke Hurley:''' that Lisa... Go ahead Markoff.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' He cried. Go ahead.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lisa cooked something up and as Myke mentioned earlier, he's getting married this year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we... You know, I got... Lisa kept asking me what are Myke's wedding colors? How many times did you ask me? Like six... Like over like a month I didn't answer. So she's like, you know, what can I do for... I want to do this thing for Myke.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Send me the damn invitation.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's not on my card. It's not on my card. Oh crap. Yeah. I was super bad about sending that. So she's like, what are the colors? So we sorted it out and I got her the picture of the invitation and what she did to this pin. I thought, you know, I was hoping Myke would like it and when I saw it I was kind of blown away. So I... This is all Lisa's idea. So it has...

'''Ana Reinert:''' How do you know Myke and the date of all winning on it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's her wedding invitation. And the wedding invitation like logo engraved on the pin. So y'all can come check this out after the show. We'll put it in the show notes for y'all to see. So she was... Well, we can't though.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It's got the date on it. Ah, yeah. So we'll do that later. We'll have to share it later. So please understand that it's beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' She kept yelling at me asking what your colors were. And I'm like, I'm not entirely sure that Myke would even know. That's not something guys know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you remember me asking you about the colors of the... I don't know if that rings a bell. You can go back through our Slack messages.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But yeah, she kept yelling at me and I'm like, I'm not entirely sure guys actually know this information. Like, I don't know.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you so much.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' You're welcome. That's so kind of you.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you so much. Lisa Vaness, thank you so much for joining us. Sure.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' Thank you. Thank you.

'''Lisa Vaness:''' All right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you. Thank you to Lisa and Jim for joining us. Thank you so much, Anna, for always being here with us. Brad, for being so amazing, as always. Thanks to Stephen with UnGenius for the warm-up. We did a warm-up, which is a big change this year. I've never done that before. It's definitely warm. Because people... It's very warm. If you backed our Kickstarter campaign, thank you so much. Thank you very much. I can't believe that we've done this four years in a row. We're going to be going to Toronto in a few months' time, which we're really, really excited about. Again, thanks to our Kickstarter backers for doing that. Once more, thank you to Harry's and Penchelle for their support of this show. Thanks to our amazing live audience. We really appreciate them all coming out to see us. And until next time, we'll be back again. I can't talk now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll help you. Goodbye, Brad. We'll be right back again. !

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 570/transcript

2026-06-22T07:01:06Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 570
| title = Witchy Whatever
| date = June 28th, 2023
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Miranda Rose]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/570 Episode 570]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/penaddict570.mp3 Audio Episode 570]
| length = 73
}}

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello and welcome to episode number 570 of The Pen Addict podcast, part of the Relay FM network. I'm your host, Brad Dowdy, and I'm back with another amazing guest this week, the one and only Miranda Sanchez, also known online, some of you might know her as At Havoc Rose in all the various places that she is talking about stationery, talking about video games. How are you doing, Miranda?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am so excited to talk to you. We have a lot of topics to cover. And the one thing I want to do first to kind of lay some groundwork, can you share with our listeners what your current job is? Because I think this is going to play a role in some of the questions I have later.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yes. And I could see why it would, because my life is very involved with all of my hobbies intertwined with my job, which is both great and terrible for many reasons.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I have questions about that too, believe me.

== IGN Entertainment and Miranda's Role ==

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Okay. So for my job, I am the executive editor of guides at IGN Entertainment. We are a media outlet, specifically online. So we primarily cover video games. We also get into movies, TV, of course, big into like comic book movies, superhero stuff. But video games are my main beat. I had like a stint with anime for a while, but now I lead our guides team. And so that means basically, if you need a walkthrough, if you need some cheats, if you need some secrets, if you need tips, I've got you. We have so many of them. And let me tell you guys, covering the latest big Nintendo game, Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom has been a lot of work, but it's been a lot of fun work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have so many questions.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, please. Yeah, please go ahead.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It sounds so intense. It's like, this sounds like insanely difficult, like just a crazy intense time specific job, right? To be accurate as well, right? So there's a lot of due diligence on your part before games even launch, right? So I'm assuming you're getting plenty of early access, and you just have to kind of like crush to get these done? Or you're laughing, you're like, no, we just we're just up for like three weeks in a row trying to get it done.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' You know, if we had three weeks of early access for everything, that would be incredible. That's so rare. So yeah, a lot of my job is coordinating at this point as the executive editor. I started at IGN, if you don't mind me getting into the background real quick. Yeah, so I started IGN as a freelancer, actually, graduated college, got hired full time and started as an associate. And so I've kind of worked my way up to leading this team. And I kind of make all the big editorial decisions on like what we cover, how we cover things, getting new writers, you know, training writers, all that kind of stuff. And so much of it is planning, because we never actually know how much time we're going to get with the game ahead of launch, until we get it basically, like sometimes PR will give us a heads up and be like, yeah, you'll get, yeah, we're expecting codes, maybe like two weeks ahead of time. And sometimes it's like, well, here's day of, and here's two codes. And I'm like, you know what, thankfully, like we can we can deal with that. But also, it's so cruel, because like, all right, guys, time to go. So, but but on that note, too, like, I'm very cognizant of like crunch and crunch work in my industry is ridiculous. Like it is a very big problem. And especially with guides work. I don't think a lot of people know too much about guide writing and the work that goes and you kind of touched on to like accuracy is such a big thing. And basically, what this job entails is playing through a game so much that you know, like the back of your hand, like how can you have to become an expert in every part of your assignment. To make sure that you're an authority on it that you can tell people what to do and how to get through without being frustrated. And make sure that you're writing it clearly. And that you're also not talking down to people because people are usually coming to us like frustrated with the boss fight, or they can't find that one beeping collectible somewhere around them. And it's like pinging like their radar is going off, but they can't find it. And we got it for them. But we want to make sure it's done in a way that's, you know, pleasant and not frustrating also. So yeah, it's it's intense. I was gonna say there's hardly been a bigger

'''Brad Dowdy:''' release for y'all than Zelda. Actually, you're probably in the midst of a lot of releases right now video games or seem to be just like at the like peaking right now. But like that for the Zelda release, for example, what is what was your role? What was your how many people did you have working on this? And how soon do y'all strive to get like information out there for people who are starting on the game?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I can't talk too much about like the early access, nor do I want to talk too much about how many people we have. It's like the secret sauce. Like we have like nice, you can kind of if you do your own investigation, you could probably figure it out. But our industry is just really competitive. And the way we run a lot of stuff, I try to keep it a secret as much as I can. People know. But anyway, I appreciate that. No, that's good. Yeah, it's like, no, I'm like, Brad, I'm at the top of my game here. I love it. I love it. Yeah, thank you. But yeah, so with that, it is a lot of planning. And that's really what it came down to is ahead of time before we even got the game in months and months and months before we even knew the release date, I was already planning this guide. So what my primary role was ahead of launch was making sure that I had my internal team kind of ready to go on their assignments. One way we cover guides is because they're so huge, like one or two people cannot cover this one game like it is way too big, you'd probably just have to work on it for like two years straight. So we split up our guides into a bunch of roles. So like we have our walkthrough writer, we have a collectibles writer, we have other roles. And so basically, my job was setting those up and setting up expectations based on research and things that we already know that have happened in previous games. So a lot of note taking a lot of like analyzing of what worked for us last time, and of course, implementing like new things that we want to do new feature ideas and things that we think can be even more helpful this time around. So when we actually got the game, we started working on it, my job was writing these little puzzle walkthroughs called shrines. So there are 152 throughout the world, and you have to find them. Some of them are just like in plain sight, some of them are hidden, and some of them are not even on the map. And you have to do like a side quest to like unlock them in the world. So I teamed up with my boss, we wrote all of those. And then I also wrote our cookbook, which is what I call it, because there's like this big recipe list. There's I think like 227 recipes. And I made all of them, and made our big sheet on it's like this big, beautiful checklist of like, here, cook this to make pizza. Here's how you make fried chicken. And it's just really cute and a fun project. So I did a lot of fun stuff. And then honestly, I'm actually still working. It's been like well over a month, since I've been working on this, but that, of course, and in addition to the rest of my job, which is, you know, managing people, getting people paid and everything else.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's unbelievably impressive. And I think our listeners are going or are starting to figure out as like, hey, I may not be into video games, but I see where this is going with how this ties into stationery, right? Like you've hit all the words, which is why I wanted to do some of the work stuff up front, because I think it's really going to set into like some of the questions we're going to have later. You're a prolific journaler. You started using fountain pens, you're into streaming, like we have like all this huge, like crossover, stuff that we're both into very, very much, but I wanted to get this groundwork in. So thank you for explaining this. And I'll probably have some more questions later. I'll try not to get you in trouble, though.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Oh, no, no, don't worry. I'm the boss. I get to say we're the one. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I mean, I still have my boss.

== Miranda's Love for Stationery and Journaling ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So let's back this up a little bit. And now I'm wondering, like, I know a little bit of your stationery life currently, which we're going to get into later, but I'm always curious. And I think our listeners are always very curious of how people got started into stationery for the first time, knowing that you how much you journal now and how much you enjoy it. I'm wondering, like, did this start early when you were younger? Did you come about like journaling and stationery usage later in life? So what's your stationery background?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I've always loved journals and stationery, but not necessarily journaling. I definitely kept a diary as a kid. And I have one from when I was really, really little. And it's so embarrassing to read. Like I was not even a teen yet. And so it's, it's really cute. It's like written in pencil, and it's spelled wrong. So I've been journaling and like kind of writing in my own notebooks for a very long time. And I have like, you know, fond memories of, you know, a notebook that I saw at the Scholastic Book Fair in elementary school that I really wanted. My parents got it for me, and I never wrote in it because it was too pristine. It was too pretty. Like that, those sorts of habits still exist now. But I do a lot better at not letting my notebooks just sit there and I use them, even if they're too pretty. Like, I think we all still have that problem sometimes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' And I got into planning a little bit more with like on like physically writing planners more in college. Like I think I did it a little bit in high school. But it wasn't until about 2020 when I started getting really into like personal journaling again. Like I did diary writing on and off, but nothing to the extent that I do right now. And not for really any good reason. I would go to Japan for work and I'd look at like all the stations like, wow, this is cool. I remember walking up to the Hobonichi display and we're like, why is this notebook so expensive? What? No. And so then I'd just go get like, you know, a cheap planner because I was still always into planning and like meticulously writing out my bullet points of my day for work. And then, of course, after I got out of school and then I would just like buy one or two washi tapes and call it a day. And now I just look back at my younger self. He's like, Miranda, you missed out on so much. It's like you just you just left it there. You could have gotten that cool cover. It's it's important now. It's rare now. And so it's kind of funny looking back to see that, you know, journaling as it is now for me, which is big on like washi tape and stickers and stamping and lettering. And of course, using really pretty pens to make sure I have nice writing throughout it is sort of just like a fundamental in my life now. And that really did start in 2020 with the pandemic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, interesting. So that just kind of just you you had you had this, you know, kind of innate love for this stuff. And then it just really, you know, once the pandemic started, I think a lot of people even went further into just, you know, trying to find something to do with our time and and take care of ourselves. Right. Like a lot of it is very, very personal that, you know, we always talk about these things, you know, helping ourselves, you know, you know, keep sane in an insane world for sure. Sure. So I find it interesting how much crossover there is between like video games and stationery. And our listeners are going to get sick of me just keeping bringing this up and you probably do. But just like, I mean, Japan is like the place for both of those things. It's like it's like Japan is like the video game, you know, place to be for stationery. It's like the same thing. And I would be the same way, like if I was back in, you know, only being, you know, maybe in Japan for video games, just kicking myself or just like freaking out over all this stuff and what I missed out at the time. So that's that's pretty, pretty funny. So in talking about journaling and the current times, how you journal between work and personal and pleasure, how do you look at journaling in your own life? And how do you have things separated as far as do you keep multiple journals right? Is there a work and a personal and a hobby and a media journal? I'm setting you up because I do listen to your podcast and I know all these answers. But I want to I want to explain or help explain to like our listeners, like there's lots of different ways you can journal. So tell me about your journaling setup and why it's so important to you.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, absolutely. So my journaling setup has changed a lot over the years, as I noted, you know, I was just had the epiphany of like, oh, I can journal for myself. And like in 2020, it's like, I don't I don't know why I just started getting into it. And it's really evolved since then from just doing a single diary, which I do keep for myself, because I think it's important for us to have a space that's wholly private, wholly our own. And just like like the most safe space to put down any thought, regardless of how good or well worded or whatever it may be, like just having that to let it out is just very cathartic. So I've always kept that up. And this year, for me, I've really toned it back. Since lockdown is basically a thing of the past in the United States, it's been hard kind of getting as much journaling done as I used to when I was just at home all day, right? So I'm still at home a lot of the days, but I'm I'm busier. So and so what I do is I have a Hobonichi day free. This is my first day free because I started getting really stressed out with the data planners. I just felt like I would look at the blank pages and I felt that I was failing myself and my journals. I was like, journal, I let you down. I decorated this and I did not write a single thing. Like, that's that's terrible. But it's not terrible. It's my journal. I can do whatever I want with it. It's fine. And so this year to kind of like ease that stress, I got that day free, which, again, is just for personal journaling. Like I'll write literally whatever in it. I don't care what it is. It's like, ah, here's something about some trash I saw today in San Francisco because it was really weird. And the city is changing. And, you know, just like really goofy things or how I'm sad about losing friendships or about a movie I just watched or a book I listened to. And so I kind of just have that as like my catch all. What's happening this year for Miranda? And that's more of a public space as well. I know we're going to get into it later. But that's like one of the journals I show most when I'm streaming. Right. And then I have something that's a little bit more structured. I have a thinking of you planner that's by Mr. Eggplants from Taiwan. And that's an imported journal that I got. And that one, I say it's a journal. It's a planner, but it's more stylized to be a journal. And you'd be like, wait, Miranda, didn't you just say that the dates stressed you out? Like, let me tell you guys, this is an A5 notebook and it is weekly spreads. So there's less space to write. And so that makes it way easier to fill out. And the reason I have that is just so I do have a space for the very rote, here's what I did today. Or if I'm in therapy and sometimes I've been doing like these body scans, it's like, where am I holding tension? I've been really stressed. How do I reflect on that? And so I have that space for those sorts of thoughts where I don't necessarily need to keep it forever. I might. I think it'd be kind of cool to have it forever, but it's a place where I can quickly jot down things, but still make it pretty. And also feel like I'm getting fulfilled in the journaling space. If I don't have time to work, say, in my Hobo Nietzsche day for eight, which I haven't for many months, actually. Like I went months without touching it just because it's been so busy. But my thinking of you planner for my personal stuff, I also write things about like embargoed projects and whatever it may be. It's just a great place for me to like let it out, but limited. So I don't have to worry about writing too much. And if I need more space, then I take it to the Hobo Nietzsche. It's kind of perfect little system. So I have those two. I also have a Hobo Nietzsche Weeks that are specifically media planning. So that's where I plan for streaming. That's where I actually have notes in here for this podcast. I have notes for my podcast with Chelsea, Words and Roses, which we'll get into later. So that's just kind of also really blank, but it's fine. Because I accepted it early on. This is an unexpected purchase. A friend was able to get me the Pokemon Hobo Nietzsche Weeks from Japan, and I could not say no. So I had to find a use for it. It's getting used. And then for work, so I know you said like what's the division? There's a very firm division, and that is I have a plotter just for work and only work stuff that lives there. Some work stuff will sometimes get, as I said, in my Thinking of You planner. But that's kind of rare. And I just try to keep most of my like daily checklists. Sometimes meeting notes, I've actually been taking a lot more stuff in Notion these days just because I've been so busy that I don't necessarily have time to like take the time to sit and write out thoughts. It's like, okay, I just got to type this up real quick. Next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. So that can be helpful too. But for the most part, my plotter is, I have a Bible size that I got part of the plotter. I don't know what to call it, but like the pilot program. I know you talked about it as well. And so I was part of that too. And that's kind of just what I've used basically since I've got it. And it's been the perfect system for me for work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's fantastic. I think my plotter is mostly work-ish too, right? Like that's where I like I plan my week and I will think about like topics I want to explore and then like the notes from exploring those things. And I'll have like my more personal, like my everything notebook. We'll just, I have like a A5 life notebook that I'm testing out right now. Like that's that. And then I have my five-year journal, which I just started this year. So those are like, that's my setup, those three things. So like plotters kind of work. And then we have the personal everything journal. And then I have like the five-year, which is like the bigger tracking type of project. So I think I tallied five different, not that I was like totally counting. I think I counted five different notebooks of yours. So April still wins. April, if we add ours up together, our friend April would still probably beat us in how many journals and planners she uses.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' It's true, but I'm not done.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no. Let's go. Let's beat her.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, I think, well, with April, she has ones that come in and out every single year. And I think that's a little bit of a difference for mine. So I have actually a personal planner too. I have the narrow size plotter that I got for myself because I just love the plotter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what I use. I use the narrow. Yes.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' It's just, it's too good in the narrow. When I saw it, I was like, okay. Actually, I think it's because I saw yours. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I got to get this. Yeah. Because the Bible is perfect, but narrow is even more perfect for my personal planning. So that is my actual, here's what I'm doing in the month of July. You know, like not necessarily journaling. And it's weird because I think a lot of people who are in the journaling community actually use planners for journaling and not necessarily for planning. Like it's not, here's what I'm doing on this day of this month and I'm planning ahead. It's like, no, no, no, no. This is what I did. But so a lot of those exist, which is kind of weird. But the reason I have my actual planning, my dates in something that's like a plotter is because it's disposable. I don't need to know what I plan to do. I want to remember what I did, but the actual planning sheets of it aren't really that exciting. And if they are, you cut them out and you stick them in your journal. It's really nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One hundred percent. That's exactly right.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. But do we want to talk about the other journals that are not timely?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Um, absolutely. Like, yeah, this is great. And I have so many other questions like I'm noting down here. I was like, oh, we're going to follow up on this stuff. So, yes, please keep going.

== Specialty Journals and Their Uses ==

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Do we? Okay. Yeah. So then the other journals I have are like my specialty journals is what I call them. So I also have a traveler's notebook that I use specifically for Genshin Impact. So this is a ongoing RPG and it is fantastic. It's a big open world with lots of quests, lots of characters. They're constantly adding new areas, new characters and things to do. Like every six weeks there's events. It's ridiculous. And since there's always so much and I love the game so much, I just journal about it. So oftentimes when I'm ready to play a new event or a new story quest, I'll sit down with my, what I call my couch kit. I have a whole little kit for my couch with pens, glue, scissors, tape, stickers. It's all organized specifically for Genshin Impact. I have a notebook with stickers in it too. And I also have just like the notebook itself, which I have the Bamkuhan grid Tomoe River paper notebook. And I plop it open to where I'm at. And then I play my game and I pause every now and then. And I just journal because it makes me that happy. So, and it's really weird because it's kind of a strange way to play a game, especially one that you can only pause in certain moments. But it really just helps me remember these events because a lot of what they do are time, are timely events. So once it's live, that's it. And then they move on and never come back to that again in the same way. So it feels even more special to write down notes about these character events and interactions that I really liked or things that I'm like theorizing about the story that's coming up. Sometimes I keep track of like checklists of tasks I need to do in the game for events. It's really free form. It's really relaxing for me to have. And just like a nice playground to complement this game that I love so much and spend so much time playing. So that's that one. And then I have a mini version of that essentially, which is a, I have a passport size traveler's notebook that I got recently that I use for like one-off video games. So I just started an insert for Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, which again, I don't necessarily write about every single thing, but just about like highlights or like, here's some cool food I cooked. I printed out the photo and now I'm going to write about it. Or just nice armor that I got for Link or just thoughts on a side quest that made me cry. And so that's the two other like major complimentary notebooks that I'm using right now. And that's it. I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So here's the deal, Miranda. I am so happy to hear all of this right now. Like I want to like in this call, jump on a plane and go hang out at a bar with you and sit there and play with like journals and look at all this stuff for like days in a row. Like I am so, I love hearing about all this stuff. I just find it so fascinating. So fascinating. All right. So I actually have some very specific questions about like some of your journaling, some of your decisions on the journaling. But let me take a quick break. We'll real quick. I am actually on vacation this week, listeners. So I'm going to enlist Myke. I'm going to put him to work because he put me to work while he was on vacation. So we're going to make Myke read the ads this week. So let's hear from Myke and I'll be right back with Miranda in one second.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This episode of the pen addict is brought to you by our friends at Pen Chalet. They have everything you are looking for. Whether you want an awesome new rollerball, a new fountain pen to add to your collection, maybe a ballpoint, maybe a mechanical pencil. Maybe you want some accessories, a pen carrying case, some refills. Maybe you need some new ink. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. Go to Pen Chalet because they have your favorite brands. You can find them all there. They're an authorized dealer. They're adding products all the time. They're doing awesome discounts. Every month you're going to find new fantastic discounts, but you'll get some even better ones because you listen to the show. They are fast, reliable service. They have low prices on high quality products and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They do free shipping on orders of over $75 in the US and great shipping rates for international too. Go and check all of this out for yourself. Don't just take my word for it. Go to Pen Chalet dot com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password Pen Addict. This is where you will get the code you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet and a selection of special deals, which I'm going to tell you about this week. So, you know, if you're looking for a gift for someone in your life, you know, I know that maybe you were looking for someone who graduated recently or something like that. We always get those questions. You want to buy someone some products. They have some really great diplomat gift sets. So you can get a pen and a case and some ink. They've got a few of these there. Actually, they've got one for, yeah, they've got the diplomat in the Aero in the E-Lox ring, which is a pretty cool one. So you can go and take a look at those. What else have we got? Awesome glass dip pens. If you want to get in there, they've got a fantastic price. If that's something you've been wanting to play around with. We've got some Lamis in here. What is this? Oh, hang on a second. There's one of those Schaefer Star Wars gel pens. That's actually a pretty cool one. Oh, as always, this page goes on and on. A Montegrappa Elmo. Wow, that's a good price on the Elmo. There's so much more. I know why Brad gets so lost in these pages every couple of weeks, because there's all these fantastic deals for you at Penn Chalet. Go to PennChalet.com, click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Penn Addict to get your eyes on it. Our thanks to Penn Chalet for the support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, so without... I do get a little bit overwhelmed with all the journals, but I know you have it very, very under control. But I think one thing that would be valuable for listeners is I picked up on a couple of things as you were talking about the style of journal and the reasons why you chose certain journals or certain nots or don't use certain types of journals. Like you mentioned, hey, you don't necessarily like the dated pages. Like you picked up the Hobonichi Day Free and you kind of use it as you need to. So do you have any tips about for people who are kind of getting started in journaling? You know, like I always think about, hey, like don't overthink it. You might get into a journal that you don't like and guess what? It's okay to ditch it and go on and go try to find something else that you like. So what are the things do you talk about for people who want to get into journaling but are kind of maybe intimidated by the choice?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I think it depends on the kind of journaling you want to do. Are you most concerned with the writing experience? Like obviously I know this is, you know, pen addict and we love fountain pens here. So like are you looking for something that is just a good notebook? That's probably the best place to start. And then see how you can work in journaling into your everyday life. Like how often do you actually want to journal? Every week? What are you journaling about? And I think the question of what are you journaling about and like your intentions for it, like what kind of quality you care about are the biggest questions. Because if you don't care about anything, you're like, I just want to write about my life. Because I think it's a good idea. And I'm like, yeah, it's a great idea. I would honestly just tell people to get whatever pen or pencil or other writing utensil they're comfortable with. And any notebook and just try it. I think especially cheaper notebooks are great to start with because then you can experiment with different sizes. I found that I really like small notebooks. It makes me feel like I'm achieving more because I write really small. So if I have, say, A5 notebooks, I just don't fill it out very fast because my handwriting is tiny. And it feels weird. And it's really intimidating. And then I get frustrated. So it's just not a good experience for me. So A6 size or B6, they're perfect. And so it took me a long time to figure that out and find the right kind of notebooks for that. So I would say those are the first things to ask yourself. What kind of things do you want to journal about? What do you want? It's like you care about what you're using. And if you don't, just try anything and just see how it fits in with you and if you enjoy it. The thing with journaling, too, is it just varies so much. And I'm sure many folks have talked about it. Of course, April has. Like, it can be ephemera filled. Like, your receipts from your latest outing with your friends or your stickers that you got from Twitter Joe's because you asked them. And they said yes. And they're very nice. They'll give you a lot. It's a hot tip. That's free stickers right there, man.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' There's just so many ways you can go about it. But you don't have to have any of that. And I've seen so many beautiful journals, too, where people just draw. Like, they just doodle. And then they write. And they doodle. And I'm like, dang. I wish I could draw. So then I wouldn't have to print everything from my video game journals. And I wouldn't have to get up more. Like, I could just stay here and not have to worry about transferring the USB stick. But, you know, I work with what I'm given, you know? So anyway, I would say those are, like, kind of the best things to consider. Because, of course, writing about my everyday life is so different from my Genshin Impact Journal, right? Like, Genshin feels freeing because I don't have to think about what's happening with me or the world or what I'm worried about. I just get to write about my favorite characters and what their adventures are like or some cool realization they had about their lives. It's all fake. And it's great. And then I can use my happy stickers on it. So that's nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's great. I think, yeah, the intentions are super important. Like, what is your idea of what you want to accomplish here? And starting small, starting with the basics. Like, one of the things I used to do, because I've had, I've gone for years and years of bouncing around to find different products that work for me, either from a planning or a journaling perspective. I do just kind of have, like, a mental separation between these. Like, this is a planner. This is a journal. And it doesn't have to be that way. You can have it all in one. But I would take my blank notebook. When I would be frustrated, say, with, like, a Hobonichi Techo, again, dated page. Like, I just ended up, it turns out I'm not, like, a one-page-per-day person, right? That intimidates me. And I don't work well with that. So what I would do is I would get my blank notebook out. And then I would just use that for regular journaling, like writing whatever I want to write about. Writing about my day. Writing about my feelings. Write about something I saw. Write about a book I read. And then as I'm using this, I kind of figure out how I'm using it. And then I will build pages. I will, like, sketch out layouts in my blank notebook. What if I had this layout? Would this work for me? And then I would see if there was a product that kind of matched that layout. That's how I kind of ended up, just from a planner perspective, liking the, what's basically now, like, the Hobonichi Weeks layout, right? Yeah. So the seven days on the left, but then, like, a continuation on the left side of the page. But then, like, a continuation on the right side of the page. But it was more open. So, like, that's, I literally would just draw out, like, if I could make my own planner, what would it look like? Does that product exist? Hey, turns out it kind of does. So, you know, that's one way I did it.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Just the best layout. Like, it is my favorite layout for any planner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So that's what I use in my planner.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. Perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So that's the way I do it. I like the idea of your couch kit also. So I think it's important. I also have, like, a visual journal that I'm actually, I don't use it that much. But what it is is that is, like, my collaging type journal. Like, inspiration, you know, pictures, notes, things I will cut out from magazines or things like that. And what works well with that is kind of like your couch kit. I have, you know, just, like, a superior labor bag that's got the notebook and the scissors and the washi tape and the, you know, a highlighter and a pencil and a marker. And you just go and grab the one thing so you know you're ready to go to do that, like, creative work. So I like that idea a lot of yours. So that's very cool.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Thanks. Yeah. It just, it's like, how do I make this even easier to do? Because I want to do it, but I don't always want to have to go to my office and, like, put together a little kit and collect everything and have to get it back. It's like, I actually bought duplicates of some things because I use them so much. And it's like, I just use it enough to justify it. Like, that's totally fine. And if I stop using it, then I just use it again when the other one runs out. It's all good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. All right. So one of the other things you mentioned as you were going, listing out everything, is the idea of keeping a journal, like, permanently, like, archival. Do you have any of your journals or planners that your intention is that these will live on forever or are most of them, hey, when we're done with this, you know, we might see what's good, save it, cut it out, like you were saying, and put it somewhere else. So what is the breakdown of, hey, I'm going to keep, my intention is to keep these things forever or these are just passing through? Yeah.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I keep everything excluding my, like, actual, this is my planner for my day-to-day. Except for some of my older ones when I was in college and then when I first started at IGN just because I like to see them. So for context, I've been working at IGN for about eight and a half years, maybe nine years in December. And so that's a long time. And it's really cool to see how I thought about things when I was younger, especially because I didn't have a planner to look back on then. So I kept those. But since I am doing proper, like, journals right now, I can get rid of just the post this today, edit this person's work, do this. Like, that can all just get recycled. So that's actually one of the reasons I love Potter so much is that I can just shred it, recycle it, never think about it again. And it did its job. And it was helpful. And it was a great writing experience. And I got to put stamps on it. So it still looked nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. Exactly. So how do you store completed journals? Do you have, like, a shelf? Do you, like, just file them away, like, in a box, in a closet? So do you reference back to them at any time?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. So for now, it's just a box. And there's not that many because, again, I've only been really, really journaling since 2020. And then I only had a handful before. So I still have some. I have, like, a really fun one from high school when I went to the UK with my AP English class. So I have, like, this really weird random journal about my journeys there. And it's really cute to look at. So things like that all live together. I pull them out every now and then when I want to look at them or if I'm referring to them on stream or in podcasts or something, which we talk about them every now and then. So, yeah, I have them easily accessible. But, again, there's not that many. So they're going to stay there. But who knows what will happen with them? I'd like to keep them forever and then just dump them on whoever takes care of my body and all that good stuff when I die. But, you know, that's their problem, not mine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. Exactly. All right. I'm going to ask you a very unfair question here. And I'm going to make you pick a favorite out of all those planners and journals you just listed. Do you have a favorite? And you can put, like, earmuffs on the ones if they're listening. So if you don't pick them, like, do you have a favorite? Like, oh, this is really the one.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' They know. They all know. It's my Genshin Impact Journal. That would have been my guess. The Traveler's Notebook is just such a fun size. And I don't know what it is. It's just so satisfying to look it up when all the pages are filled out in a notebook. And then you start a fresh one. And just the way you can insert different things in the Traveler's Notebook is just really pretty. Like, I don't know. It's just pretty to look at. And writing in it is just such a fantastic experience. I don't know. It just always brings me joy. And it just looks like relaxation to me. And I think that's why it's my favorite. Like, there's nothing stressful about that book. So it's my favorite.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, I'm going to put in the show notes some of your Instagram posts where you're showing some of your journals. And I'm wondering, when I look at your journals, I see, like, this super visually appealing style. Can you describe a style? Do you feel like you have a journaling style? Or, like, each individual notebook is just different and they have their own style built in?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I would say I have a pretty consistent style, at least color-wise. Like, I do a lot of, like, blues and purples and, like, a very certain shade of red and pinks. Very, like, space, witchy flowers. And then the occasional, like, demons. For, like, because, like, I was, like, writing about Diablo 4 and that's a game about demons. I was like, oh, perfect. I have this, like, character tape ready to go. You know, I'm finally breaking it out. So, I would say it is very colorful. But I tend to journal with, like, a color palette in mind. And so, it does look more visually cohesive. And I do that pretty much with every journal I have. Even with my planners, like, I'll still get, like, washi tape and some stickers or stamps. And try to, like, make it cute if I'm not in a massive rush. Just because I feel like if I'm using something that looks nice, I'll feel better. Even if I don't feel great at that time or if I'm really stressed. It's even more important to put down a sticker. Like, I don't know what it is. Peeling off a sticker from a sheet or something and putting it down is so cathartic. And so, I just always try to have, like, a little bit of decoration here or there. And I think a lot of my pages tend to look similar. Though, thematically, I try to match them a little bit more to what I'm journaling about. And then if there's no actual theme, it tends to default to, like, witchy space, whatever. So, I would say that's mine. Witchy space, whatever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Witchy space, whatever. I think that's perfect. I think that's perfect. So, now, this begs the question that I just literally thought of while you were giving me this answer. Are there pen rules for each of these? Like, are certain pens only allowed for certain journals? Do certain journals have, like, only this pen goes in there or this type of thing? Or is there, do we have that level of rules?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I use my fountain pens whenever I can. So, those are mostly together, except a lot of my Twisby's have become work pens. So, because they have such great incapacities, I just take those to the office and leave some there. So, they've kind of been abandoned when I'm not there for, like, weeks on end, like I have been right now. And I'm like, I'm so sorry, guys. I'm coming back. I promise. You know. You know. We're fine. So, they're, like, those pens. But otherwise, I usually shift them out. The only exception is for my Genshin journal, which I have a Sailor Pro Gear inked up. And just in that bag with it. Just because I don't want to have to bring my other pens around constantly back and forth. And I don't have to worry about having to go get them. If I just spontaneously started playing, I was like, dang it, I didn't go get my pens. It's like, nah, I already have one here. So, that's, like, the only exception.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah. I try to be pretty open. And, like, I want to use all my pens, too. Right? Like, I want to use all my journals. So, like, I'm going to use all the pens in all the journals, too. Right? I'm not going to be that strict. Because, like, that's part of the fun, too. So, I think I want to dig into that a little bit more. I want to dig into fountain pens. Because I think, if I'm thinking about it, I think that's kind of how I met you. Just sort of, like, online. I think so. Right? When you were getting into fountain pens. So, we're going to talk about that. I'm going to put Myke back to work real quick. He's been slacking off too much. So, I really want to make sure he gets his money's worth this week. And we're going to make him read another ad for us real quick. And I'll be right back.

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== Fountain Pens and Miranda's Journey into the Hobby ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, let's talk fountain pens. I think, I don't remember exactly when I first started following you on stream, which we're going to get into later, of course. But I do remember, it was probably like a friend of a friend type of thing. It's like, hey, you need to go check out Havoc Rose. And I think maybe I'd followed you on Instagram. And then all of a sudden, I started watching you doing some of your journaling streams, and you were just kind of getting into fountain pens a couple years ago. Do I have that somewhat accurate?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' This is true. It was also 2020 when I got into it then.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha. Gotcha. So from my recollection, you just jumped right into the deep end. Oh, yeah. You went from zero to sailor immediately, right?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. I got, I was doing a ton of research. And I was like, all right, I don't want to start with the preppy because it's not cute. Like, it's fine. The Metropolitan, not my jam. So I got a Quebeco Sport. And I was like, this is great. And then I bought it to Wisby like a week later. It's like, this is great. And then like a month later, I brought my first like sailor. So I got a sailor pro gear. It's like, this is what I'm talking about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then the fleet of sailors has expanded exponentially since then, I would say.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Oh, yes. It's been a lot. I have, Brad, I have a lot of pens. And I love them. I love them so much. But sometimes I'm like, wow, that happened fast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I enjoy watching you write and do your journaling is because, and you mentioned this before, you write small. So we have that in common. And sailor has some really nice nibs for writing small. So what's your favorite kind of sailor setup? You know, the favorite pen shape, favorite nib, or even if there's a like a particular sailor model that is your favorite. But I know that's hard to pick.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' That is hard to pick. But I do actually have my one, two, three. I have my five favorite sailors in front of me. All right. Let's hear it. Actually, I put all my favorite pens in front of me just for this podcast. Because it's like, I love you. And you're going to be featured with my eyes only and through my words. I love you. Anyway, I'm very weird. Sorry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're in the right place. Believe me.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' God, I just love pens. Anyway, so my favorites by far have to be one of my prized possessions, a Shishikura owl sailor. So Pro Gears are my favorite. But Pro Gears slims are fine. They're just fine. I don't want to buy them unless it's for a very specific reason. Vastly prefer the Pro Gears size. So I have the Shishikura owl. It's one of my favorites. Next up, we have the Kubo Sakura from Pachimonjiya, which is a beautiful pink color. It has like very dainty. Then, okay, you'll notice a theme with all these, by the way. The next one is the Witch from Bungu Box, which is the Rialo. And then I also have the Twinkle Milky Way and Twinkle Stardust Pro Gear Minis from Bungu Box. And those are my five favorite sailors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's so good.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' They're all imported. What?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think that's kind of how we... Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if it was probably like CY saying, hey, you might want to talk to Miranda. Like she's getting all these pins that look like your kind of pins. Y'all might should be friends. So that might have been it. Yeah. What nibs do you like when you're writing?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I actually really like Sailor's Medium Fine, which I think sometimes is like, oh, it's kind of boring because it's like the special default. But it's just a really comfortable size for me.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I think it's just probably my favorite. And I've tried a lot of different kinds. And I think just with the size that I write at, it's just the perfect spot for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I agree. I think it's the default for a reason, right? For people who write with handwriting like we do, it's just like I can pick it up and I know no matter what ink or what paper I'm going to put it in, I'm going to get some sort of expectation of what I was hoping for, right?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Exactly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I love my Sailor Extra Finds, but sometimes that's just too much for me. It's too aggressive of a nib. And I feel like I have to be particular and careful with the MF. I just pick it up and go.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Exactly. Extra Fine or Fine. It's just like, okay, how much time do I have to be slow in my writing so it's still legible?

== Favorite Inks and Preferences ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. What types of inks are you using in your Sailors? Do you tend to mix it up or do you have a few favorites? What are you thinking about inking?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, I tend to mix it up. I have a few different favorite inks. Obviously, again, I'm a big Boonga Box fan. So I really love Melancholic Gray is my absolute favorite ink. I love gray ink. I can't tell you why. It's just very appealing to me. And Melancholic Gray is like one of the most pure grays I've seen. It's not too blue. It's not brown. It's not green or purple. It is gray. And so I'm like, that's the stuff right there. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I actually yell about gray a lot because it is exceedingly hard to get an accurate, like just a gray. So yeah.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' It's just gray. And so they really nailed it with that one. So I love that. Another one that I always have in a pen is from the Sailor line. I forgot exactly what the name of it is called, but it's 437.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The Ink Studio line.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Ink Studio line. Yes. It's been like forever since I've like looked at that word, that phrase. But 437 is by far my favorite. It's like this pinkish red and I always have it in a Pelican that I have. So. Nice. I just keep that paired forever. Not just because like I don't really pair inks very much, but it's just one of my favorite colors for sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' But yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you ever think about, do you ever consider our archival qualities in ink if you're keeping things?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I have. And then I realized I just rather have the pretty colors. Like, and if it's something that I feel is utmost importance, I'll grab a gel pen. But that's kind of where I'm at right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. You and me both. And I was kind of setting you up there because the answer was clearly no, but I'm with you. Like, I'm like, I just like, it's okay. I'll be okay.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' If all of our journals and our fancy notebooks are getting wet, there's something severely wrong and there's something more wrong than worrying about whether or not the ink stayed, I think. So.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. I would rather like use this pretty thing now and like, I'll, I'll be okay. I I'm sure of it. I'll be okay. Exactly. 20 years from now. Well, I'll take my enjoyment now, please.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. It's like, you know what? The pens still work. So that's what matters most to me. I think some of the archival stuff, I know. Um, I've heard you guys talk about it a lot too. It can be kind of a pain to clean or there's just other things that can happen. I just don't want to deal with that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's just more variants, right? There's some good ones that you don't even have to care about. Like you just treat them like any other ink, but you know, it's, it's just one more thing to think about. And you know, it's.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' And does it come in gray? Does it come in melancholic gray, gray?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know about melancholic gray. There are, there are a couple of, um, like, uh, Deatrimendous, I think has a gray. Um, there's, there's a couple of pigmented grays for sure, but it's, it's still like, you know, it's like, I'll, I'll use, I'll use a permanent ink if I like the color and I'm enjoying it, not necessarily because it's permanent. Right. So that's the way I see it. Do you use any other, uh, types of pens that aren't fountain pens like in your journals? Do you use, um, or pencils or colored pencils, or like you said, you just pick up a gel pen sometimes, or is it, are you like? Say like 90% plus like fountain pen usage.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I would say 90% plus fountain pens, just because I have so many that I really love. Like I have two Montblancs that are like, or I actually have a few Montblancs at this point that are like my prize possessions. And I got that Pikachu pen, um, the pilot one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That one's on my list to talk about specifically.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have never seen a video game culture collaboration done as well as that particular pen. I don't know what it is. Yes. But it is perfect.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I remember seeing the original Lamy Pikachu pen, uh, that I think was a exclusive in China. And I was like, dang, I'm not paying $300 for a Lamy Safari. Like there's, there's no way. And then this rolled in and I was like, but I am paying $600 for the Sterling silver pen. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And my comment at the time when those came out was like, that was underpriced. Like, I know that's the price of that lineup, but they're like, that is, if you're into that thing, that is an insta buy.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yes. I was shocked and so worried when I first saw it because they listed it as sold out. And I was like, excuse me, I didn't even know about this. How could you sell out already? And it was just, I think them listing the listing without having any sort of like other like coming soon option. And so as soon as it went for sale, I bought it immediately and I have never regretted it. It was, it's, it's going with me to the grave is what I say.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll find a link, uh, to that pen and make sure I put it in the show notes for those of you who may not have seen this, but Myke and I definitely talk about this, uh, when it came out and I like, and I'm not a Pokemon fan, but I just like, I couldn't believe my eyes, like how good this, this pen was like, that was totally, totally my jam. So, um, yeah, that's, that's, uh, uh, just a fantastic pen. Do you use any, uh, I, you and, uh, Chelsea, we're gonna, we're gonna get into the podcasting here in just a second. Your, your podcast partner on your, your most recent episode, we're talking about video game stationery. Do you use actually, um, much like absolutely like a video game related product, like a Pokemon pen? Like there's not that much, but there's some pretty cool stuff you can find. Do you use much of that?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Um, like aside from my pilot Pikachu fountain pen, I have like a, a zebra Sarasa from the Pokemon center that I got. Um, I also ended up importing the special edition. It was like one of the Pokemon legends, Arceus, Hobonichis that they had at loft. I was at loft. I forget exactly where it was from, but it was like one book. It's like, what is happening here? So I have things like that, but they're more for like the collector appeal rather than actually using them for a specific purpose. Other than just using them like that Pikachu Sarasa. I think I just threw in a purse earlier so I could take it with me at the store in case I had notes. Um, but there's nothing really like that, that I have. I would say like video game stationery that's officially licensed. That's cool. Is really, really rare. Um, some of the coolest stuff I've gotten have been at shows. So I like trade shows. So like the former now basically deceased E3, which is like, was the biggest thing of the year for games media and just games generally. Um, I remember I got like a sticker sheet from this one exclusive Sony game that I really loved. I was like, this is my prized possession and I've used it, but you know, it was, it was really cool and rare to see those sorts of things. So it's, it's kind of a shame that there isn't more of that, but there's a lot of like fan washi tape or stickers, but it's not like I'm going to find a halo infinite master teeth washi tape. That's really cute. Like that just doesn't exist, which is a bummer. And I would buy that. So just throwing that out there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Product free product idea.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, so let's bring this into the podcasting, uh, podcasting. You were, you were officially a podcaster. Uh, I'm sure you've been on, on plenty of podcasts in your, in your IGN, uh, tenure, but you have a stationery podcast now. Can you tell me a little bit about words and roses, uh, how it started, why it started and what's it mostly about?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. So that started, I guess, just after the San Francisco pen show last year and we had our pilot was that, but it was offline. So very few people have listened to it, but we got it started because I just wanted to do a stationery podcast where we just kind of pal around and talk about things we like. And I said that on stream once. And then another friend was like, Miranda, you have to talk to Chelsea. I was like, I talked to her literally all the time. What's up? And then she was like, I actually have wanted to do that too, but didn't know who to do it with. And I was like, wow, you're like one of my best friends. How did I not know this? And so we just started this podcast called words and roses, which is a combination of our two usernames. She's those with words and I'm havoc gross. So words and roses came to be. And basically what we do is we used to do it every other week. Right now we're on like a weird schedule just due to my own craziness with work. Um, but we just publish a, about an hour long podcast about stationery. And we really try to focus less on things like, um, stationery and cafe does where they're more about like new releases and news and like a little bit more of the shopping side of stuff. And ours is more on like the use case side of stuff. Um, one reason we try to angle it that way is because one, we're great friends with stationery cafe folks and we don't want to like overstep in the same way. We want them to be complimentary. And also because this, this started going live when stationery and cafe was on hiatus and April was like, do a podcast. I need something to listen to. You guys do it now. And I'm like, okay. Um, and so one thing that I always just try to remind myself and that I try to push on my streams as well as like, we have to use what we have to like to one thing I said, like forever ago, that's always stuck with people, which I like it's like to use your stationery is to love your stationery. If you put that sticker and you keep in a sticker book or tuck it away is like, I'm going to use this someday. That's not, that can be great, but it's even better if you use it because then it becomes something, it becomes part of your memories. It becomes part of your process. And that's even better than just preserving it in its original state. I think, um, and I think we have like that challenge rate of consumerism in this, you know, hobby, which makes sense. We're always acquiring new things. We're sharing new things. There's always something cool on the horizon, but it's always good to like turn back around and look at all the things that we already have to. And so with our podcast, we try to tend to stick more to those sorts of topics. It's like, what are we using our notebooks for? Don't forget to use those memo pads, man. Like you don't need another one probably, but if it's a really special to you, then who are we to tell you? You'll go get it, man. Or like ways to just kind of journal and have fun with what you have and maybe talk about new things every now and then, but ultimately just to talk about like, how do you get into the process and what are other complimentary ways around journaling that we can bring it into our lives and play and have fun. That didn't make the most sense, but I was like, yeah, you know, the vibe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. But so like to expand on that, I'll share and I'll definitely include this in the show notes. One of the cool things that y'all do is you have a Words and Roses Instagram account and you give prompts each week or each episode, I should say, saying, you know, asking like the community, you know, like the most recent episode was, you know, what's your favorite journaling item recently? And then like you and Chelsea will like answer these for yourselves. And, you know, it's a good, I like a prompt system, right? Like I, a lot of us have trouble coming up with our ideas or trying to force things like, okay, well, I'm gonna sit down and journal between 730 and eight o'clock. Well, you're just putting these like unfair, like restrictions on yourself, right? You're like setting yourself up for failure, but then you can go look at like the Words and Roses Instagram and like have all these prompts. You can go through, if you're just learning about Words and Roses now, you can go through all these prompts and answer them yourself. And I think that's a really cool thing that y'all do. And what made you come up with that idea?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' We wanted to leave them with like our listeners with something to take away from the show, like other guests than entertainment. I hope it's entertaining. I don't know, man. We're just, we're just hanging out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like y'all have fun.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Honestly, we set up the show to be zero expectations. We're not getting paid for this. We're doing this on our own time. So, but, but even with that, we still wanted to have like, I call it like a listener service. It's like, thank you for listening. So here's something you can take with you into your life. Like maybe that's fun. Because I often have times where I just don't know what to journal about. And then I just don't journal. And that is kind of a bummer. So I think like having something that's either loose or short, like you can make, maybe like even write just like two paragraphs about, not even two paragraphs, a sentence about, like that's better than nothing. Right. So that's what we try to do and they tend to be kind of random, but I think that's fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I will, I will call both of y'all out on this most recent episode. You did give me a panic attack by a way of your own stressing about the current calendar dates that we're in and how soon next year's planners are coming out. I was like, you know what? I did not think about that till you just said that. And thank you so much. Cause now that's all I've been thinking about. I like literally wrote a note about separately about that. I was like, oh man, it's almost planner season.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I was about to say, August is right around the corner somehow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. So another thing you were very much into, and unfortunately our schedules don't align. So I'm not always in your Twitch streams, but talk to me a little bit about your experience with streaming. You've streamed video games, of course, and then you streamed journaling and stationery, which came first. Did video game streaming come first for you?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yes. It was video games first since that's kind of mostly what I'm known for. Right. A little bit of context at IGN. I'm also on our weekly Xbox show. So we have a podcast and we have a lot of folks who kindly listen to that as well. It's called Podcast Unlocked. And so there we, it's like plug in what we're doing. And I was like, oh, I'm going to start playing old games that I didn't get to, that I missed. Can you guys make fun of me on the show? So I'm going to go play them. Stuff like that. And so I've been going through a lot of like classic quote unquote games, but they're not, they're not really that old. It's like early 2000s. But yeah, that's where I started with it. It was just video games that I had on my backlog that I wanted to finish. And I was like, why, why don't I just stream it and just have people to hang out with while I do it? So I've been streaming for about three years now. And early on, I was like, guys, I got to show you something. It's not video games. Is that okay? And then I proceeded to spend the next hour just telling all these people who are really into video games about stationery. They're like, wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've seen this happen before. Like when you, I remember seeing some of this. Yes. I forgot about that, but yes.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' And they're like, oh, are you going to show us more? Like, how's the pen going? I was like, you guys care. I'm so excited that you care. And so then eventually I was like, what if, what if I just stream stationery? Is that weird? I was like, I'm just going to do people do it on YouTube. Why can't I do it on Twitch? And so I figured out how to do a good top down setting and, and show like my face, but also my hands and doing all that. And then eventually stationery Sunday just became a thing. And I've been doing it for like three years now. And it's just been such a crucial part of my life. Like without streaming stationery, I wouldn't know you. I wouldn't know so many of my now very close friends. And like, it really changed my life. And I'm forever grateful to everyone who ever stopped and said, Hey, did you guys know you can stream stationery? And then other people started streaming stationery. And then like me and April, like, and our friend, Oh, hi, joy, joy. She, um, they, they put together like a workshop and we filmed a workshop on how to stream stationery on Twitch. And I wrote up a guide, like it became such a big deal. And I never expected any of that. And it's been just such a weird and fantastic surprise.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And to, to give you like all the praise in the world, you've, you've been a big proponent and a big supporter of streaming stationery. Um, and it does it on, on Twitch and it definitely does not go unnoticed. You were like the person behind, Hey Twitch, we should have hashtags. And I'm like, yeah, Miranda says we should have them and we should get them. So like, I would like, I would say, Hey, you know, like my friend Miranda made this and I want y'all to go like vote in this because yeah, I want the hashtags too. But you have been such a huge proponent of the stationery community on Twitch and I love seeing it. And I, I, I'm wondering right now, and I don't have an answer to this question and I'm not gonna put you on the spot. But what I'm thinking about is I think there's just a lot of opportunity out there. And I don't mean that in like a businessy kind of way. I'm in that in like a fun kind of way. Like I want more people to stream stationery and I don't really have a question around that, but I just feel like we're just on the cusp of like having like even more stationery streamers. I don't know. Do you get that feeling out there? I just, I get so much joy from it. It's one of my favorite things I do, uh, every week. And I, I just want more people to be a part of it.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' I will say it always bums me out that because of time zones, I also miss your streams live. Like sometimes if I have to be at the office really early, I'll see your stream. I'm like, yeah, the one upside of me being up early.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then he's logging off to you.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, I'm like, dang it, it's still not early enough. Um, but I, I totally agree. Like there's never enough people streaming stationery. There was, I think at a peak of the pandemic, like we had a stream. We have, we have a stream calendar. We had it like filled out like almost every spot in like us time zone was like filled. Like somebody was streaming and it was incredible. And it's of course like really tapered off as other people have like stopped streaming or taking streaming hiatuses. And it's totally understandable as our lives are kind of shifting back into, um, some older habits, which involve us, you know, going outside more meeting with people and maybe going to the office. So streaming is harder to fit into that. Or if you have families, you have family obligations, but I would really love to see more people streaming. And I do see some people from outside of like our community streaming. And anytime I see them, I'm just like, I'm there. I'm like, Hey, have you, Hey, do you want a community? I have, I feel bad because I have not done this in a while. Um, but I think you're kind of getting to, uh, the Twitch team, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Which I, can I talk about that?

== Stationery Brew Twitch Team and Community ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. So there's a Twitch team, team called stationery brewery. So why don't you, why don't you talk about that?

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. So stationery brew was started by myself. Um, and then I have April and joy as sort of like the other two heads of the Hydra basically. Cause it's like, I don't, I don't like when one person is in charge of everything. So like the three prong system, let somebody veto the other, if there's a disagreement, not that there ever is. Um, but as a Twitch partner, I was able to start a Twitch team. And so I think I'm, um, did you get, are you a partner yet, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh-huh. Yeah.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Okay. Perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I had my two year partnerversary, uh, stream on Wednesday.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Wait, that was yesterday. Extra congratulations.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It actually happened last week. I'm just not, I'm just not good at scheduling things. Yeah. And preparing.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. I was about to say, cause I think when I started it, I don't think you had been streaming then.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I've been streaming for a while, but there was like some ons and off again. So basically, uh, internet, do I have internet? And then, Hey, I got real internet. Let's go.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Oh, for sure. Yeah. Cause I was thinking, cause I started it cause I was the only person in like our group that was a partner at the time. And definitely partners can start Twitch teams. And so I was like, well, like I'd be down so we can kind of just have a nice place to showcase all the stationery streamers. Cause at the time we didn't have stationery tags. And of course we, um, you very kindly promoted that, like our little rally to get the tags approved. And then of course they changed the system to where you can tag anything. I'm like, dang. Yeah. I'll still take that victory. That's right. But we wanted a way to like really make it visible that there are a lot of people who stream stationery on Twitch and thus the, uh, stationery brew was formed, which was not meant to be like a spinoff of stationery cafe. We, we thought about using that name and I was like, well, I don't think it's fair to April if we use her brand as this. So what if it's like brew, which is, you know, like a little, nice little nod to the cafe. Like cafes have brews. We, we like all kinds of brews here. We like teas. We like coffees. We like beers. There's all sorts of things. And so we kind of just tried to envelop that. And then just to invite as many streamers as we could verify if we're good, cool people into our group and give them resources to talk about tech problems or community problems. We also have it as a resources, like a PSA for like, Hey, if there's someone that's kind of lurking around, it's a little creepy, like be aware, or this person was a problem. So please block them on your channels. Things like that. Of course, nobody wants to talk about the not fun stuff. And that's very rare in our channels, I would say, thankfully. But it does happen. And so it was meant to be a part of a resource, a community and a point for safety as well, because I think a lot of folks who do get into streaming maybe don't have that kind of internet practice where unfortunately I am very practiced at having to, you know, look someone in the eyes virtually and be like, Hey, get out of here, you rascal. So, you know, um, and so I wanted to like, kind of inform folks of that, of like how to be safe and like, what not to share, make sure you cut off the, the postage marks on, you know, your happy mail, like don't show your address, man. Um, things like that of just like nice reminders as people get into it. But ultimately that's what the brew is. And sometimes folks like, it's not just me leading and saying, we're doing this. It's like anyone in there can start something. Like we had, um, the Techo Kaigi, um, choo choo train, which was like 24 hours of different streamers. I didn't even get to be a part of it because I was busy, um, of people rating each other from stream to stream. And like these like 30 to hour long intervals of like, here's my Techo Kaigi, like my journal planning setup. And then you pass to the next streamer and pass to the next room. It was such a cool event. And that was just set up by people, part of the stationery brew. And, and I love that for us. Like we just, it's not one person in charge, even though I'm technically the person who has to like admit people and invite them. Um, it's, it's all of our group and we all own it collectively. I think so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this was, that was not on my, uh, what I'm going to be doing with my life. Uh, bingo card. Yeah, right. Streaming stationery on Twitch, but my goodness, it's, it's been such a an important part of my life. Uh, like I said, getting to meet you. I've made so many cool friends from, from this, a lot of people that I've met in person, like, you know, a bunch of us met in San Francisco last year for the first time. And even, you know, people who I haven't met in person, just getting to have this wonderful space, um, and support system of just awesome people doing this. So I will be sure, um, to add in a link to the Twitch, uh, team, uh, for stationery brew. So if a lot of people aren't familiar with Twitch or are just wondering like, how could, you know, someone writing with their fountain pen on a notebook be interesting at all? I implore you to give it a try and I'll give you, uh, some links in the show notes to, you know, go click on the stationery brew team and you can see when someone's online or when their schedule is, uh, to come and drop in and see.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah. And I can also send you the link to the doc of getting set up for Twitch. That'd be amazing. Yeah. If anyone out there wants to stream stationery, like, please use that. It's, it's a few years old at this point, but should mostly still be applicable to streaming on Twitch. Now, if you want to share your stationery or your handwriting, I know some people who just do handwriting streams and they are just so lovely. So please join us. Thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, Hey, I have to thank you for joining me on this episode. This has been just a blast. And again, like I could sit like you and I, or a group of people and just go through planners and journals. And like, I just, my brain is full. My heart is full just from listening to everything that you do and all of the support you give to the community. And, uh, you're a wonderful friend and I appreciate so much the time, uh, that you spent with us today. Thank you so much, Miranda.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' And thank you so much for having me as a long time listener and fan. It's a great honor to be here. So thank you so much for having me. And I hope you guys enjoyed this little wandering road into video games and journaling.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh boy. And like I said, we almost need to do like a whole B sides after where I like really nerd out on like the video game questions that I, that I held back on again. And like, I, I would, I am a very professional, um, uh, at wanting to run a two hour podcast and cutting it down to an hour. So maybe one of these days I'll start having two hour podcasts. I'll listen. I don't know. I don't know. I say I got to save that energy for the two hour streams. That's, I think that's enough.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' That's true.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Miranda. Um, can you tell people real quick, um, where they can find you? I'll have all these links in the show notes, but if you want to give anything a shout out, um, I would love to hear from you.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Yeah, absolutely. You can find me at Havoc Grows on Twitter. I don't really post that much, but I'm there. Um, at Havoc Grows Writes is my journaling account. I also don't post very much, but I do periodically at Havoc Grows on Twitch, where I stream every Sunday at 1130 AM PT. Um, for now, I think I'm going to change that to an evening stream. So sorry, East Coast and international folks. Um, but those are the main places. Then of course you can check out, um, the IGN guides. Please do. If you play video games, really appreciate it. We work very hard and we have nice checklist tools.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've been using the Diablo guides, uh, recently. So I need to know where those, I need to know where those helltide mystery chests are.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Oh my gosh. Yeah. We just published a big thing on that. And then, oh, if you go on Math Genete, which is also part of us, um, they have a helltide timer now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, this is the whole extra hour podcast. Y'all, y'all aren't getting this week chat. So, uh, we'll save that for another day. Miranda, thank you so much for joining and I will talk to you soon.

'''Miranda Sanchez:''' Thank you. Bye.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bye. Bye. Bye.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 336/transcript

2026-06-22T06:59:06Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 336
| title = That's When I Heard the Second Car
| date = November 28th, 2018
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/336 Episode 336]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_336.mp3 Audio Episode 336]
| length = 69
}}

== Podcast Introduction ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 336. Today's show is brought to you by Kane11, Harry's, and Storyworth. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy. Hey Myke Hurley, how are you today? Very good, I'm looking forward to hearing from our listeners today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we've been slacking a little bit, but it's because we've been busy, so I don't know how those two things work together, but we've had so many topics. I know, we've had so many topics to cover during our last month and a half or so of episodes that we haven't gotten into any Ask TPA or an update on The Pen Addict Horror Story. So we're going to do all of that on this episode today. How does that sound?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that sounds great, and we should kick right off with our hashtag Ask TPA. And the first question comes from Paul, and Paul wants to know, or Paul says, Gentlemen, it has become abundantly clear to me that the aspects of fountain pens that I care about most is the nib. After using German and American fine nibs for years, and feeling that something was lacking, it was the humble Pilot Prera that blew my mind. Love at first right. I love Pilot EF nibs, but don't want to be limited to just one brand. The one pen store in my city doesn't carry sailor pens because of the price. I mean, Canada. Buying one online without trying it first is an expensive gamble. Is it worth it, or should I look at alternatives?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, so let's discuss a couple of things here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I figured out the same thing Paul did with the nibs early on in my fountain pen journey. You know, Lamy Safari was kind of the first one for me, and German extra fine nib at the time was the finest thing I thought I could buy. And I was relating it to my gel ink pens that were 0.38 and 0.5 millimeters and going, wow, this line is super wide. It's like, it's fine, you know, not in line with, but it's okay to use, but it's not really the line that I want. The Pilot Prera was one of those nibs and pens that changed it for me that made me say, oh, this is different. Why? And it's because Japanese use a different nib sizing scale. So, the Pilot nibs that are extra fine or fine in steel, which is what the Prera is, are fantastic. So, the question is, does Paul want to lock himself into, like, one brand, and can he be safe in ordering these things online without trying it first? I would actually say that Pilot would be the one online brand that I would trust implicitly to give me the most perfect nib out-of-the-box experience, no matter if you're going for a Metropolitan with a steel nib or, like, a 912 with a gold nib. I think universally, Pilot would be a brand that I would feel the most comfortable with going in blind, if you will. You know, if you like the barrel style and design, I think that nib is kind of the most trustworthy to buy blind. Do you have anything to say about that? Say about that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I'll mostly agree. Like, I've, you know, I own many sailor pens at this point, and I haven't found any of them to be unreliable. Right. I've never had a problem with any of them. I have 12 of them, and they all write as exactly as I would expect them to. And I've never known of anyone that's had a problem with a sailor pen, to be honest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, yeah, my, I was just gonna say, my only hang-up is sailor nibs can be a little particular feel-wise if you're not used to them. They're firmer, I think. So you can get a little bit of different feedback than Pilot. So maybe I'm being a little safe in my answer, but I think that's where it goes. But, I mean, I'm with you on sailor, but I also think that sailor doesn't have the low-end options that Pilot might offer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I just don't have enough experience with Pilot nibs. Right. But, I mean, I would say sailor, personally, I would say sailor, you'd be safe. But I would recommend maybe getting a fine, not an extra fine, just to be sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah, for sure, on sailor. Yeah. Pilot, the steel extra fine, man, that is such a good nib. And they do offer that in the gold nibs. But I like the steel extra fine better, I think. And the gold nib, Pilot's gold nibs, I like the fine. So that's just me. So I don't know if we helped at all the more we ramble, Paul. But I would feel very comfortable going with Pilot blind, if you will.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' My Pilot should not fly blind, though. I do approve of that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, you don't want to do that. Our next question comes from Jacob. Jacob says, I have a seven-year-old lefty daughter who is now trying her hand at fancy writing. So I let her play with my 1.1 stub, Twizby Eco. Any recommendations for a first fountain pen for her? I'm looking at maybe the Pelicano, the Lamy ABC, or the Pilot Kakuno. The Pelicano has a lefty specific, whatever that means.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a really good list. Like, I'd feel comfortable shopping for this list.

== Left-Handed Nibs ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, as well, I don't know if Lamy do an ABC in left-handed, but Lamy do sell left-handed nibs. So if that was a thing you wanted to try, you could get an ABC, and I think you can probably still switch out the nibs on the ABC. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think they use the, whatever that nib is called, X50 or something like that. It's just the standard Lamy steel nib for everything up to, like, the AL Star nib style. So you could swap those over. I have a question for you, being a lefty, and this is a curiosity for me, not knowing, and I don't want to say something, you know, something wrong, but I wonder, so as a 7-year-old using a left-hand specific nib and pen, would you, I think it would help now in getting your handwriting better, but do you feel that would be a useful thing to use long-term as a lefty who uses non-lefty specific pens as you're older? Do you understand what I'm getting at?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it would really be of any help to me now, because I've used regular nibs for such a long time that I feel like trying to use something which is specifically tuned to being left-handed would be strange, right? Now, I've had pens tuned to my writing style, which I'm sure have some leaning towards being the fact that I'm left-handed, but it's a left-handed person who's established a writing style based upon using non-left-handed nibs. I don't even really know what a left-handed nib would particularly do, like, what makes it inherently left-handed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's got an angle to it, so when you're holding at your 45-degree angle, it gives you that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would say, even for someone who's starting out, see if they can work with a regular nib, because you're opening up just... I always, for anything left-handed specific, I've always tried to avoid in my life, honestly. I just think that in most instances, it just ends up becoming a problem, especially... And then I don't necessarily recommend this, it's just the way that I was. I just learned to do everything except write with my right hand, and that was great for me. But, like, I don't know if I would necessarily recommend jumping in to the left-handed nib. Like, maybe try her out with a right-handed and see if she can deal with that. Like, it seems like if she's using the stub, yeah, a standard nib. If she's using the eco and is enjoying it, then she's already doing it, right? So, maybe try that, because I just... I feel like you end up opening up to a world of difficulty down the line.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's kind of what I felt, but I also felt, like, biased saying that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, you don't want to be like, screw those lefties, right? You don't want to...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right, right. But I feel like, you know, 99.9 of the fountain pens you're going to use the rest of your life are not going to have that, even though it might be beneficial now while you're learning. So, we'll see. I... But I... This list is really good. The Pelicano is a really, really good pen. That's kind of probably the one I would pick out of that list, to be honest, and I'm a fan of the ABC and the Kakuno. I think the Pelicano might be the right choice. So, if you want a definitive choice there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. So, should we move on? Let's go. Next question comes from Evan, and Evan says, I have a cross 18-carat medium Townsend, the Star Wars Chewbacca pen, that writes way too broad with my handwriting. I ask cross, but they won't do a nib exchange. What will be some fun nib grains to consider for it at my next pen show? I mean, first off, Evan, you do you, my friend. Like, bravo, right? Like, sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was going to make sure you knew what this pen was. Oh, I know what it is. You've seen this. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's an amazing pen, right? Yeah. It is wild.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. I think that for these wider nib, traditional size, you know, German, American size, whatever you want to call this wide, I tend to go stub. Like, I'll get like a, I'll say, so for like an 18-carat medium nib, I will get it ground to a fine stub. I won't generally go crazy with the larger nib sizes into doing something wild. You could do an architect grind. It will have the material there if that's something you want to try. But for me, for a pen I'm going to know, I'm going to use and write with a lot and consistently, consistently. I would go for a stub nib if like a standard medium is not working for you. Again, that's not very risky like I was talking about before, but I feel like that's the best use for that nib. If you're going to be using this pen a lot as a daily writer, it's going to make it more enjoyable. You know, it's just going to make it more useful for you since you don't like how the line looks in a standard round tip medium, which I don't either. So that's why I tend to square them off and I'll do a stub in something like this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That makes perfect sense. Yep. Our next question comes from at FI88R. Why aren't there more refillable rollable pens or needle points?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I actually took this up on Twitter and I thought it was worth discussing here too, because what they're actually asking for, which I didn't realize at first, was they're looking for the fountain pen ink cartridge roller balls, if you know what I mean. Like Jay Herbon's made one, Kaweco's made one, and Noodler's has made one, right? So it's like a metal tip, just a roller ball tip that takes fountain pen converters or cartridges. Why aren't there more of these? Because they don't work well. That's why they're not more of them. The way the properties of the fountain pen ink do not lend itself to a metal ball roller tip pen. It's not lubricated enough to give a smooth writing experience.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But there is one pen that does this really well that I haven't played around with enough, but I've played around with it enough to know how good it is. And that's the Pilot High Tech Point Rollerball. So it's basically the Pilot V5 series roller ball pen. You know that famous, you know this pen, Myke. It's the famous needle tip Pilot V5 and V7. But what they've done is they've made it a cartridge fill. So they use Pilot's ink cartridges for the ink deployment system in these roller ball pens, which means you can use any of Pilot's ink cartridges or you can fill them up with your own ink once you clean them out. But they don't come already engaged, so you've got to pop the cartridge in just like any other pen. So they come in your standard black, blue, green, red, but you can just buy one of these pens and put any ink you want in it. And it actually works. It works better than the J. Herban and Kaweco, which are the ones that I have had the most experience with. And those are practically unusable. They're so uncomfortable to write with. This Pilot is not. And honestly, it should probably get more play than it does because it's a really neat pen that's done really well. It's just super particular, right? I mean, if you're just buying it for the roller ball aspect and to have like the refillable fountain pen cartridges, it's an expensive proposition. You'd probably stick with the regular V5s. But if you want something to play with, like Fader or Always Be Burley, who seconded this question and asked what I would suggest, this is the one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sounds like fun. Yeah. Seems like it's hard to get in the UK. Like every time I searched for it, it brought up the non-cartridge version. So I found out in Japan.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It came up randomly about a year and a half, two years ago, just out of the blue. It showed up. I was like, well, I'll be danged. And it really works. So it'd be one that I would. The only thing I'm curious about, which I didn't explore enough, is cleaning it after you've used it. But because of the way those fins are in the pen, it's a little bit more involved than like a fountain pen feed. So it might take a little bit of extra aspirator water pressure to get through there, maybe some soaking to get it really cleaned out. But I think it would work. It's really nice.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. That's great. So should we take our first break? Let's do it. Lots of these to go through. Let's talk about our new friends at Kane 11, the company who make ridiculously comfortable socks in precisely your size. The socks you're wearing right now, they're probably like a one size fits all right kind of deal, right? Or you've chosen a size range and you've gone with that. But look, we don't all have the same size feet. We have different size feet. And this is why Kane 11 thought, why don't we take a look at how socks are made and how they fit and innovate on it? So Kane 11 offer 11 different sizes that fit the same as your shoe sizes from US size 7 right through to 17. Kane 11 socks are made from merino wool and they offer a precise fit for you. They're made in the USA. They are made with that merino wool, by the way. That's going to keep your feet warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's magic wool, basically. That's the best way to think about it. That's what I wanted to talk about. All right. Hang on. You hold your horses. And they're made with optimal performance fibers as well that move moisture away from your feet to keep them dry all the time. So tell me about the wool, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It doesn't feel like wool. I had to look up what it was because it's not what you'd think a traditional wool sock would feel like. It's better than any wool sock I've ever owned. And I thought, okay, this is some kind of super refined cotton, which wouldn't make sense if I thought about it because cotton will shrink and modify more. And that kind of defeats the purpose of a sock that will fit to your shoe size. The merino wool doesn't. It's going to wash and wear really consistently. Hold its shape and size, which is the entire point of buying these socks. And it's just it's so soft and comfortable. Like I really had to go look this up just to see. So it's really good. I enjoy them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All purchases come with the Kane 11 promise. If for any reason you don't love your socks, just send them back for an exchange or a return. No questions asked. And Kane 11, they make the perfect gift for the person in your life who has everything because they definitely don't have socks that are their exact shoe size. To get your own Kane 11 socks in precisely your size, go to Kane11.com slash Pen Addict and enter the promo code Pen Addict to get 20% off your order. That's K-A-N-E-1-1.com slash Pen Addict. Promo code Pen Addict for 20% off your order. Our thanks to Kane 11 for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. All right. We got more, Myke. Oh, boy, do we. The next one comes from another one from FI88R. Japanese fountain pens has spoiled me. I cannot really get myself to even consider a pen over $100 that does not have a gold nib. What do you think about that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I left this in even though it wasn't a question. It even says hashtag not a question. I understand it. Like I. I get it. The issue I have personally is that it goes into like personal style and aesthetics at that point. Like once you get to like it's really probably over $200. You're really kind of paying for like style and stuff. And there's pens. Well, I guess even in the mid-100s when you're talking about like Edison and Franklin Kristoff. And that's the point I'm trying to make is they make pens that fit my style and aesthetic and feel and looks of what I want in a pen. And I like steel nibs so much that it's not. It almost doesn't come into consideration what the nib material is if I like the pen barrel enough. So that's something that I learned from myself over the years of using fountain pens. Like what's important in the writing experience. Yes, the nib needs to be really good. But gold does not automatically equal really good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. I think that's fair. Mm-hmm. I mean, also, I have many steel nibs that I love and I don't even really consider it. I don't even really think personally about steel versus gold. I just want what feels good, you know? Yep. Like I don't necessarily think like, oh, that's great. Like, you know, there are some steel nibs that I have that are wonderful, right? Like I have that pilot, the Port of Kobe one, and it's a steel nib. But you'd never, I don't think you would necessarily know in most instances. I think it's perfectly fine. But, you know. Yeah. What are you going to do?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But that's one of those things you decide over time. What do you like your writing experience to feel like? Can you tell a difference between this and that? You know, is gold worth the premium? And sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So sometimes the barrel and the way the pen fits your hand and helps your writing is more important than the nib. Sometimes the nib makes the pen. So, you know, it just depends. You kind of figure that out as you go along.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I think so. All right. So our next question comes from Chestnut Hair. I'm working on manufacturing flexible gold nibs for people to retrofit their pens with. Should I make it fit a Jowo or a Bok feed or some other feed in order to accommodate the most pens possible?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm super not qualified to answer this. Okay. But I will say that I enjoy everything that Jowo makes more than everything that Bok makes. And I'll leave it that way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I agree with you, actually. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, Bok makes a good titanium nib. And that's about it. And the Jowo nibs seem to be, the feed design seems to maybe fit more vintage pens. But I'm not sure. Like, other people have more experience than that with me. I just feel that Jowo makes a better product. So that's the route I personally would take. But I would also get lots of other opinions other than mine for this one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that's perfectly fair. The next one comes from Maud Chunggrig. Do you have any idea if there is a green and or dark red as trusty and apocalypse-grade waterproof as platinum carbon black? I am in love with Diamine's November rain, but it is so fragile I can't use it in real life and would happily sacrifice sheen quality. For something that lasts.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Apocalypse-grade is an ink-grade that I don't think many inks can tackle. Platinum carbon black being one of them. You know, Sailor nano black. And then some of the Noodlers bulletproof, like some of the most extreme inks. If you want something with permanence and waterproofness that I can't say is apocalypse-grade but has some character to it, you're going to start looking at some of the Iron Gaul inks and the proliferation of some of the unique color Iron Gaul inks. Like I put a link into the Platinum Classic inks, which have some red-ish shades and some green-ish shades. You know, they're all like green-black or purple-black or red-black. So those are some really nice colors. They have good waterproof properties. Apocalypse-grade? I don't know. They should hold up to pretty much anything. Maybe not as well as carbon black. And then you can also look at KWZ, who has some, I think they do just like a regular green Iron Gaul ink in various shades. Like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I don't know if it's all of those. And red. So I'd look at what Platinum does in the Classic ink lineup. And then what KWZ does for their Iron Gauls. That's where you're going to get some unique colors with some waterproof properties. So I can't guarantee they're going to be as fallout-proof as Platinum Carbon Black, though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. And our next question comes from Eric. I have been having a horrible time with ink smearing on Tomoe River Paper, even after drying for days, coming out of EF nibs. Clairefontaine or Rodia does better, but still can smear. How does Leuchtturm do with smearing? I used to see Rodia's Webby in A5 for $11 to $13. Since then, it's gone up to $20 to $25. Why is this happening? Or relatedly, what do you recommend for an A5-ish Webby Moleskine-type leather-bound notebook for fountain pens? Break this down into a few different parts. I don't understand how the ink is smearing off the days in Tomoe River.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, yeah. This is lots of several different parts in this. I don't either. I don't know what ink Eric's using. He did not mention that. And that sounds like Tomoe River Paper takes forever to dry. But unless you're using a hose and some other, some crazy ink, it should dry in a reasonable amount of time. I mean, 30 seconds to a minute. Maybe a couple minutes for something extreme. But not days. Like, I would be concerned about the ink. Or at least question, like, what ink are you using?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, you know, the Clairfontaine Rodia does better, but it still can smear. Right? It's a coated paper. It does have some dry time. That's the trade-off for getting the character of the ink. You know, if you want to see shading and sheen, it does better on a smooth paper or coated paper and things like that. But the pricing for the Rodia Webby, I've never seen the Webby under $18 or $20. I don't think it's ever been in the $11 to $13 price range unless you're talking about the A6 model. The A5s, the standard model, which Eric refers to later. I've never seen them for less than like $18 or so. So, I don't know what's going on with the price because I haven't seen that personally. So, what would you recommend for A5 style leather-bound notebooks for fountain pens? And you mentioned the Leuchtturm. Like, if you're having a problem with the smearing, Leuchtturm's not a very coated paper. So, it's going to dry faster than Rodia or Tomoe River. Are you going to miss out some of the characteristics that you're used to? The shade, the sheening, you know, whatever ink properties that you like in Tomoe River or Rodia? Yeah, probably. That's the trade-off. So, you have to decide, okay, Leuchtturm works well for my general writing. The ink's not going to smear as much. It's going to dry faster. But maybe I don't get the wild sheen that I used to see on Tomoe River. That's the trade-off with Tomoe River. The price you pay is dry time. It's just going to take a while. So, if you want to try something different, I do recommend the Leuchtturm. I think it's a great notebook. And I enjoy writing with fountain pens in them. I think they do great. So, that would be my choice. I would not get a Moleskine. I know you weren't saying that as a choice. You were just saying general. That size and style, I would go with Leuchtturm.

== Mechanical Pencils ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Our next question comes from Tim. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to dive into mechanical pencils is I have no clue about what leads to go for. Any chance of a new top five category for leads?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I left this in here because I don't have an answer and I want to work on this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I talk about mechanical pencils all the time, but I never talk about the leads like I talk about them in the wooden pencils. Like, wooden pencil is like totally graphite driven. Why aren't, why don't I treat mechanical pencils the same way? So, this is my way of saying publicly, Tim, that I will work on this. So, I need to, and I get asked this pretty frequently. It's like, what's the lead to put into my mechanical pencils? I don't have a great answer. I've got some general answers, but not enough testing on that. So, I vow to work on that. So, right now, Myke, in my notebook, I'm putting a square, an open box to buy more mechanical pencil leads. And then, when the show is done, I will go order these and then I will check off the box and continue on with my notebook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good man.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Kim R. Osborne sends in a link and says, Brad, where do I find this? And this is a link to a travel website called Out of Town Blog talking about the 2019 Starbucks Philippines Planner and Travel Organizer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I'm bringing this to the listeners for help with this. This is obviously a Philippine Starbucks creation. But I wonder what other regional Starbucks have specialty items like this. Because I got to say, Myke, this is really attractive. Like, I think it's really good looking. I mean, they've done a great job with the photography. You know, I don't know anything about the quality or anything like that. But it's really kind of compelling, like, what these things look like. So, I wonder, would the roastery in Seattle have these types of products? Because they're the ones that carry, like, the special field notes and things like that. Is it worth checking out, you know, these huge flagship Starbucks for these types of products? So, we'll put a link in the show notes to this so y'all can check it out. And if anyone has any ideas where to find products like this at other Starbucks, we'd be happy to know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I'll pass them on to Kimmer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. And I think we're going to round this out as maybe our last ask TPA for today before we start getting into horror stories. And this comes from Kim Squared. How do you determine when it's time to say goodbye to stationary goods that you've purchased?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' God, this is a loaded question, right? This is a great, this is an awesome question. And that's why it's in here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' To me, it's just time, right? It's so, the more I use products, the more I use multiple products, and the more I refine what I'm reaching for on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis, it's kind of self-selecting, right? You know, eventually, certain products get pushed to the side. That's when I know. You know, when it's, when fountain pen A is not getting used nearly as much as fountain pen B, well, maybe it's time for fountain pen A to be sold. That's kind of how I do it. I don't know what other way it could be. Really, it's just, you know, you've, the more things we buy, like, and let's be honest with ourselves, we go pretty crazy sometimes. The more experience we get with different things, the more refined our tastes become. And then maybe some of those things we bought previously don't really fit our needs now. And that's when you know it's time to go. Hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm. I think you're probably right. Like, I try not to hold on too tightly to things, and then as my tastes change, I allow myself to move on, right? Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that, I've gotten better at the moving on part. Hmm. Um, I've, I used to be really latched onto things, um, and now I'll just, I won't send out things willy-nilly to people, but I'm, like, I don't need, 10 of something, you know, if I'm not using it, you know? So, yeah, no problem. So, I've, I've gotten better at that over the years. It does take time to, to come to mental terms and the physical terms of, of selling the product, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. We still have Ask TPA that we want to get to, but it's going to happen in the future. But you can always send in your questions of hashtag Ask TPA to be included on a future episode. But for now, we must take a break and thank our friends over at Harry's for their support of this show. We all know that finding gifts for your loved ones can be a difficult task. They want more socks and pajamas? Why not get them something that they really want to use every day? Buy them a gift from Harry's. Harry's razors and shaving products make the perfect gifts because they're super practical. And then once the recipient gets hooked, they'll be able to save money because Harry's razors cost a little to $2 per blade. You can personalize the Harry's razor to make the recipient feel extra special. You can choose from multiple colors and even have the option to engrave it. And they come ready to gift in wonderful boxes. Brad Dowdy, tell me about the box.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's wonderful, Myke. I got the Harry's box. It's the beautiful, it's kind of, do they have an official color name for it? I call it like cranberry and navy. It's really pretty.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm sure they do. I'll try and find out. But it's like, it's blue and red, right? And it's kind of shiny, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's shiny and shimmery. It'll look great under a Christmas tree or a holiday table or any gift. It would look great, honestly, Myke, if you bought this for yourself. Used all of the amazing Harry's products and then used the box as your next pencil storage box, which is what I do with these boxes because they're so freaking good, Myke. I just buy them for the boxes. But hey, guess what? I need more blades, more shave cream, more handles. All these things are in this gift box. And then I get to put the gift box to use on its own after I'm done using all the products. So I buy them for myself, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good. Everyone's got to treat themselves. As a special offer for listeners of this show, Harry's doing something great. You can get $5 off any gift set, including the limited edition holiday sets, when you go to harrys.com slash penaddict and you'll get free shipping. This offer is for new and returning customers and only available over the holidays. It's harrys.com slash penaddict to get your hands on that. Each Harry's shaving set comes with an ergonomic weighted handle with an option to engrave, German-engineered five-blade cartridges that provide that close, comfortable shave, foaming shave gel for a richer lava, and you get a travel cover to protect your blade and a handsome holiday gift box, as Brad has explained and adores. Or if you're looking to treat yourself something different, maybe you can get, you can redeem a Harry's trial offer to experience the quality of their shave before committing. Get your holiday shopping done early. Free shipping ends on December 12th. So act now. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to get that $5 off a gift set while supplies last. That is harrys.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Harry's for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

== Horror Stories ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. We have horror stories. And I'll take the first one because you've been reading a lot this episode. And then we'll switch them up. But first, we did have a follow-up that you'll have to play back in your heads from some of our early horror story entries. Papa Courage emailed us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You won't forget this one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This was the guy. Smelling the Christmas ink in the car.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then spilling it like two days before going to meet the president.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Or whatever. And we questioned whether the ink actually spilled in the car. And good news, Myke. There is. There's still Mont Blanc ink on the car in their seat. I mean the seat in their car. So, yes. Don't sniff ink and dry, folks. It's not going to end up well. So, first one for this week is from David. Hello, Brad and Myke. I have a story about my very first fountain pen. It all started January 19, 2017. This is a new user, Myke. After days of research, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy my first fountain pen and bottle of ink. That day, I ordered a clear TWSBI 580 with a medium nib and a bottle of Noodler's Polar Blue Eternal Ink from Amazon. It was a good day. The package arrived. Went home to make sure the poachers didn't steal my package. And I was disappointed to see no box. I checked the notification and see it was delivered to my mom's house, which thankfully lives only about 20 minutes from me. I sped over there, greet my mom, quickly tear open the box. It was beautiful. Never had I held such an expensive pen. I watched a few more YouTube videos to make sure I did everything correctly. Once I was ready, I went and grabbed a couple of rags and paper towels to wipe the nib once I finished. I put everything in front of me, phone off to the far left, pen to the left, rags in front, and bottle of ink to the right. Being smart, I put a paper towel under the bottle to be safe. Can't be too careful, you know. I opened the bottle. Well, man, Noodlers fills them up to the top. That's no joke, Myke. You got to be careful with those Noodlers. I pull the piston, and then I get a phone call. Thankfully, it was before I dipped the pen, so all is well. I answer, talk for a moment, and hang up. As I turn to put my phone down, I hit the bottle, and ink spills. What followed was one of the slowest 10 seconds of my life. I looked at the ink and couldn't even react. After my mind processed everything, I grabbed the ink bottle and capped it and shut it. Ink all over the place. You would think that that would be the end of the story, Myke, but you'd be wrong. The part I didn't include earlier is that I was doing this on the living room floor.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is carpet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I get up and see the floor has a big blue blob of ink. My foot is covered in ink. I had made myself comfortable and took my shoes off earlier. I grabbed the rags and wiped my foot and dabbed the floor with paper towels. I go to the shower and try to clean my foot. This stuff is pretty permanent, so that didn't work out so well. My foot looked like I was half Smurf and half character from Avatar. I frantically look for videos about how to clean and scramble to do those directions. Still blue. I call my wife since she has an SUV and I tell her I need one of those industrial vacuums from Home Depot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We get that. And I'm washing and vacuuming the floor for about two hours straight.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' When the floors are clean, the water tubs you empty should be fairly clear. They were still coming up blue. The picture attached, and he sent me like seven pictures, shows how blue the water was coming up from the carpet. After hour three, my mom says, don't worry about it. The carpet is old anyway. Just buy me carpet when the time comes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So my $60 pen and 13 bottles of ink will eventually cost me new carpet at my mom's. I still hear about it from time to time. My mom brings it up. My wife brings it up. My sister also reminds me every once in a while. It's a story that will live in my family's memory for the foreseeable future. Since then, it's been a great relationship between pens and I with very few accidents since. That's the story of David and his first fountain pen. I may make it into a children's book someday. Brad. So, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now. Let me just, before you even continue, let me just say, I got a foot picture in this email, okay?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I got a picture of a blue foot in my email from this email.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad, I think this has got it. I think this is everything I'm looking for in a horror story, right? This is, you have ruined something. Your whole point of this was to get a pen and ink. You dumped half the ink, right? His first pen and ink.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is his first.

== Pen Horror Story Introduction ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the first time you've ever done it. You've spilled the ink everywhere. You've destroyed somebody's property. Not even yours. That's not yours. You've destroyed somebody else's property. You have done something to yourself, i.e. paint your foot blue. You've had to spend money to try and fix it. But you've spent hours trying to fix it and couldn't. And now, and this might be the worst part of it all, this is the joke that your mom tells about you to everyone. And you have to just go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to say it, Brad. I think David is the first entrant into the Horror Stories Hall of Fame. This is exactly what I'm looking for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Welcome to the Hall of Fame, David.

'''Myke Hurley:''' David, congratulations. You did it. This is it. You've done it. This is, you ticked all of my dream boxes for a horror story. Congratulations, I guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, right. Congratulations. Thank you for the foot picture. Please don't send me any more. I'm good for that part.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can keep that part to yourself.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't share that with you. Normally, when we have just behind the scenes here, when we have like personal pictures or like, you know, any extra things, I'll upload them to Dropler and send Myke the link, you know, not for us to put in there. I didn't even send you that one. I'm not going to send you that one. I don't need it. It was blue. It was blue.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It was a blue foot. He was doing this in bare feet. Like, he was on the floor in the car.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, why were you? Why did you have no socks on even? I love it. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. All right. So our next horror story comes from Richard. Can Richard live up to this? We'll find out. I heard your initial call for pen horror stories and knew I should tell you about mine. My story, however, occurred not long before your request. And as they say, it was still too soon. I then heard your initial batch of horror stories and I knew I had to come clean with my own. I just started this hobby less than two years ago, but already had quite a number of pens and met lots of great people, including Brad. But it wasn't until this past August that I got my first Grail pen, a Hanawama Bay purchased from Hugh and Carol at the Carolina Pen Company at the DC Pen Show. They're nicest people and I couldn't have been happier with this pen. I truly felt like I was Ohana, which is family. Then September 13th happened. This is the day I expect. I'm getting ready to go to work that day and I put my briefcase in my car. I then go back inside my house to get my Raven Aqua Sinclair Nock Pen case loaded with several pens, including a Franklin Kristoff Intrinsic O2 Smoke and Ice, a Woodshed Pen Company Saturday Special from Myke Allen, and yes, my perfect, my wonderful, my Grail, my Hanawama pen. I take this case into the garage and place it absentmindedly on the roof of my car while I pull out the garbage cans and retrieve the newspapers from my driveway. I have not read this in advance. All right. So I'm going on this journey with you all. All right. So, okay. I can see where this is going. Maybe once those chores are done, I get in my car and proceed to drive to work. A few minutes later, when I'm speeding up to get onto the Long Island Expressway, I hear a noise and see a flash of a dark object sliding off my rear windshield. I wonder what was that? A branch, some leaves, whatever. On to work. I go. I get to the building and walk into the office to start to unpack the items in my briefcase. Where are my pens? At that moment, just like in the movies where the ending consists of a montage of prior scenes that now make sense in my entire move, like the sixth sense, the events of that morning quickly flash in my mind. I never removed the pen case on the roof of my car. It is only now, weeks later, that I can even bring myself to tell this story. I confess what happened to my wife, who was super fine about it, and told me to replace everything immediately. I will, just not yet. I need some time separation from the event, since I have lots of other nice pens. I'm able to appreciate them even more now and not get too bent out of shape. I know that these horror stories you are telling are actually first world horror stories, but yet, in our little community, they're helpful to hear. These stories are painful, at least initially, because these small objects and the people associated with them give us so much joy. In this current world of ours, we should always look for our little bits of joy, wherever or whenever we may find them. And yes, I will get another Canalea pen and rejoin my Ohana in due time. What a beautiful end to that letter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Richard, Richard's amazing. Like, I love him so much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is wonderful, Richard. Thank you for sharing that. Now, here we go, though. These pens are gone, Myke. They're gone. And this is, this is pretty bad, right? That it's, it's like your three favorite pens. And, hmm. Hmm. Now, see, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Where I'm, where I'm like, I'm just flip-flopping on this one. This is rough for discussion. This is tough. I don't think this is as clear cut as the previous one. This is really friggin' bad, right? Right. But, like, would a horror story version maybe have been, he accidentally drives over them himself? Right? You know? Like, you reverse and you hear him go. Like, this is a really bad thing to happen. This is bad. This is very bad. Very bad. Very upsetting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, he had to tell his wife, like, how much money was in that case that's now vanished. Poof.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Here's my question, though, right? I expect there are many stories of people losing their favorite pens. So, I don't just want to set a precedent for, like, every time someone loses their favorite pen, they go into the Horror Story Hall of Fame. You see where I'm going with this? Can I just say I love how strict you are with the Hall of Fame? Well, you have to be. Because, like, I have all lost stuff, right? But these were, like, the certain circumstances in which it's lost. So, like, is that enough? So, are we setting, like, you put it on the roof of the car? Because, like, here's the thing. Spilling ink, that's not a horror story. Spilling ink on someone's carpet, that's not a horror story. Spilling ink on someone's carpet and covering your own bare foot? And it's at your mom's house? And it was your first time? And it's your first pen. Clear cut for me, right? There are so many elements going on here. So, I don't know about Richard. I don't know. Richard, I feel for you, my man. Like, seriously, my heart pours out to you. That is a terrible situation to go through.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But I just don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm kind of with you. I'm a small Hall of Fame person.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' As opposed to what we call, in baseball terms, the Hall of Very Good, right? Like, this is a very good story. Is it Hall of Fame? Like, it's very strict to get in the Hall of Fame. And I got to say, I didn't think this would happen. And Myke is much more strict than I am on the Hall of Fame ballot. And I like it. Your opinion weighs very heavily. Because I think I'm a lot closer to a lot of this stuff, too, right? Like, I know Richard personally. It's like, I feel awful for him. It's like, he should be in the Hall of Fame. But it's like, what's the precedent the Hall is setting? And I think we're setting it very strongly with the one entrant we have so far. But we're not done yet, Myke.

== New Pen Story Topic ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, and here's what I want to say as well about this, right? I want to... We're going to park Richard's story for a bit. Mm-hmm. Right? I want to see, like, maybe as we get more, what kind of level are we getting for lost pens?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? So we can have a still-on-the-ballot group. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, like, Richard may get inducted into the Hall of Fame somewhere down the line. Because I think as far as lost pen stories go, this is probably pretty bad. And if this ends up being, like, over some period of time, the worst lost pen story we're going to get, like, yes, I would want to put this in. But I want to understand, like, how bad can these lost pen stories go, right? Like... Myke, just you wait. Okay, you see? Ooh-hoo-hoo! Here we go. All right. So we've got some more. We've got a bunch more. I want to do... You're going to do this next one, and then we'll take our final break?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I suggest you close your eyes while I read this to you. All right. Don't read ahead. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No reading ahead. All right. I'm going to listen. I'm just going to take it in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is... And it's not a long one, so you won't fall asleep. So this is from Jacob. Here is my fountain pen horror stories entry. In 2009, I didn't know much about fountain pens, but had for some reason decided to try one. Rakuten was the hot e-commerce site at the time here in Japan, so that's where I started my search. One of the top listings was something called the Pilot M90. It had good reviews, looked interesting, and wasn't too expensive, so I bought one on a whim. It arrived a few days later, so I inked it up and used it for a while. It was uncomfortably small, so I didn't use it much, and eventually, the ink dried out. It didn't help that I often left it uncapped. Not knowing much about pen maintenance, I thought I had somehow broken the pen, as there was still ink left in the cartridge, and putting a new cartridge in didn't help. Since I didn't like the pen much to begin with, I threw it in the trash can and returned to my ballpoints. Years later, I found out that the M90 was quite a special pen. Probably should have spent a bit of time learning basic pen maintenance. I threw my Pilot M90 in the trash can because it did not write.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't even know what to say. Oh my god.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Rip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know what to say. I couldn't wait to read this with you. There's no question. This is in. Like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh. Oh, god. Oh, god. My god. Used. They're like hundreds of dollars used.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And it wasn't cheap new.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was, I think it was $180 new, if I recall correctly at the time. It's been like a decade now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But Rakuten might have done it cheaper. Like, it might have done it cheap. Like, Rakuten is like. Sure, sure, sure, sure. It's crazy and stuff, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that was the US price. I think it was like $180.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm trying to work out what happened here. Right? That, like, the ink dried out. He left it uncapped. That's what he said. He just leave it there uncapped. So, like, he just didn't leave it. He just didn't give it enough time to try and flow it through, I guess?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. No, no. He, no, he didn't. He never cleaned it, so it was permanently clogged. So, when you take out the old cartridge, even though it's not empty, you put in the new cartridge, it's never going to flow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Even, like, you can make it happen, right? Like, you can make it happen. You know, like, you can run it under the tap for just a little bit, right? And you might, like. Sure. Like, my experience with the Pilot M90 is that is a pen that does not take a lot to get it started if it dries out. Right. Like, it's actually one of the qualities of that pen, funnily enough, that I hold it so dearly. Because I could leave that pen for ages. You give me a couple of minutes and it's going again like nothing happened. Like, it's. So, which is kind of funny to me because he must have just been like, yeah, it's not working. And just, like, just immediately just bombed it in the trash.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, my God. Oh, God.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, I vote no on this one and here's why.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's an amazing story. And it's blowing my mind. But at the time, like, it was just another pen and it got chucked. And, like, 10 years later, in retrospect, it's like, oh, my God. Like, this is serious. At the time, I don't think it was necessarily a horror story. So, does it rank with the current time frame of what the horror story is?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because, like, imagine if it was a cheap pen but became. Like, so, let's say, for example, Field Notes, right? You bought Butcher Orange, didn't like it, and shredded it. Right. That's not a horror story because. Right. They became valuable later. Like, to Jacob, this was never a valuable pen. All right. I'm going to go with that. Now, I would say that, like, there is a version of this story which, you know, like, where it's like you accidentally throw it in the trash at Pilot M90. And, you know, because that's, like, about. I mean, don't get me wrong.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This blows my mind. Yeah. I was speechless. Literally speechless. I mean, the sentence reads, I threw it in the trash can and returned to my ball points. Wow. Like, I can't get past this. But I'm going to go no on this entrant.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. All right. I'm going to go with you on this. I'm going to go with you on this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What a story. All right. Tell me some more stories, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow. I can't. Wow. Yeah. Talking about stories. Let's talk about some stories that aren't about horror. Let's talk about some warming stuff. Let's talk about StoryWorth, who are supporting this week's episode. StoryWorth is the easiest way to share your family's stories. We all have that one family member who tells the best stories around the holidays, right? Those tales about the first TV in the neighborhood, right? The first family who got a TV or that memorable trip that your uncles and aunts all took to some cabin somewhere or maybe some like prank to a family member or friend from years ago. StoryWorth makes it easy and fun for your loved ones to share these stories. Here's how it works. You buy a subscription for someone you love and every single week StoryWorth will send them an email for a question about their life. Questions you would have never thought to ask. The recipient will reply to the email with their story or they can even record it over the phone. All of these stories are totally private and only shared with family members that you choose. And after a year, all of their stories abound in a beautiful keepsake book which can be shared to future generations put on the bookshelf. It's really seen as like a token, something important. StoryWorth is a great way of staying in touch with family members who live far away. With StoryWorth, you can write stories and upload photos by email or on the web. You can share the stories of as many people as you want. You just invite them by email. And you can save and edit all of these stories on StoryWorth.com. This is a wonderful service. Like I've played with this a bunch and I've spoken with my family members about some of these prompts. And it really is wonderful. So here's my thing. I don't live far away from my family. But I live the kind of life where I don't have a lot of time for family time. Like I travel a lot. I'm a pretty busy guy. And I found that the prompts that StoryWorth can give, these prompts give answers to stuff that typically you're only going to find out if you're spending an extended period of time with family members. Right? Like over the holidays. That's when these stories come out. But the great thing about StoryWorth is they're doing these prompts so they don't have to come up naturally. And these prompts will allow for things that are wonderful. Stuff you may have never even thought to ask. And it could come at any point. It really is a wonderful service. To help you get to know even better the people you care about the most. And isn't that just a wonderful thing? It is a great gift for the holidays. Why not get it for somebody you care about who loves telling stories? Listeners of this show can get $20 off their subscription by going to StoryWorth.com slash PenAddict. That's $20 off when you visit StoryWorth. That's S-T-O-R-W-Y-O-R-T-H. StoryWorth.com slash PenAddict. Our thanks to StoryWorth for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Perfect timing for this story-laden episode, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Most certainly. It's almost as if it was planned. It wasn't, but wouldn't it have been wonderful if it was? All right. So I've got the next one. And this comes from Andy. I will say, by the way, everyone's really up their game this time around.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is legit stuff. Right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I feel like we did a good job in setting the bar. And I hope that the bar is continuing to be set on this episode. All right. Andy says, My biggest Pen Horror Story happened just a few weeks ago. I woke up in the middle of the night with subtle pain in my right leg. What is happening here? All right. Hang on. Okay. It wasn't terrible. Felt like a mosquito bite, to be honest. So I disregarded it and went back to sleep. A few hours later, I woke up with an even sharper pain in my leg. A stabbing pain, if you will. I'm just going to say right now, I feel like I know where this is going. Like, maybe skip ahead a few minutes if this is already making you feel a little bit uncomfortable. All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, this is nothing. I'm glad I'm reading the next one and not you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. I looked down and, to my horror, discovered I had been sleeping on an uncapped fountain pen. The pen, which sported an extra fine steel nib, was inked and had created a massive stain on the bedsheets and my leg. The extra fine nib had stabbed through parts of the fabric and there were also traces of ink on the blankets in the surrounding area. To make it worse, the nib on the pen, one of my favorites, had become misaligned under my crushing weight. It has never written the same. Turns out I had used the pen the previous night for some journaling in bed. And I guess I forgot to store it after use. My fiance and I now have a no pens within five feet of the bed rule. This is amazing. This is amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. I love this story. So, journaling the night before, leave the pen uncapped in the bed, roll over onto the pen the following night and stab yourself.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like, you can't make this stuff up. It's like, this doesn't happen. But now you have a stab mark and a stain on the bed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know what to do with this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, God. You think we have something that tops this?

== Listener Email Transition ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's put that one in the parking lot. And I'm going to read you this email from my good friend, Emil.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It happened some years ago. Can I just say the storytelling of our listeners is amazing?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I really like that people are writing these stories. It makes our job a lot easier, right? Because we don't have to fluff them up. This is very good. Please keep writing. If you're going to send them in, be as creative as you want. I love it. Like, the 13th of September happened. It's brilliant. I love it. Just go wild with it. This is it, right? Like, I feel like you have a better chance, the more dramatic the story is, right? You have a better chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. But remember, true stories only.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It happened some years ago, Myke. I was sitting at my desk, anxious at thoughts of an upcoming hike. Should I go light? Should I turn into a beast of burden? I'm already quite a donkey. But the most important issue, what kind of stationery should I throw into my bag? After settling on pens, I went to my ink drawer and pondered some more. But nothing inspired me. Finally, I went for platinum violet. It was sitting in ink cartridges. But since I've given away all my platinum pens, I had no use for it. Harvesting the ink seemed like the reasonable thing to do. So I sat down with a spare container and started sucking out the ink. I fumbled for a bit and took a short break, moving all the stationary stuff to the sides of my desk. After a while, I went back to it. I reached, not looking, to the right side of my desk to grab my tools and felt a short, stingy sensation. When I turned my head, I realized what I've done. A now empty syringe dangled from my palm with a needle piercing my skin. I, in my eternal wisdom, left the syringe standing up on its plunger, needle up. So when I tried to grab it, I went sharp point first. And the pressure and weight of my hand made me, A, stab myself. And B, inject my palm with two milliliters of a decent violet ink. I didn't die, but my entire hike, my hand sent a constant reminder, making a burst of shooting pain, that yes, I am an idiot. P.S., you still cannot get blunt needles in Poland. That sound you make is what I made the first time I read this. This is the first one that made my jaw drop as I read it. I was going, oh, oh, oh, God, I had to read this. Then I had to read it again to, like, grasp what happened. So, like, he was working, filling these, you know, sucking out the ink of these cartridges and left the needle standing up on its end. And in the U.S., you can get blunt tip needles. Doing this type of work with a traditional needle is not only scary, it's dangerous. And Emil found that out. Oh, my God. Like, I, this one made me, like, exclaim, like, out loud. Like, ugh. Like, I don't even know that I'm comfortable putting it in the Hall of Fame because I'd have to tell it again. Like, it, this one, like, moved me in an uncomfortable manner.
'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe that's because it needs to go in the Hall of Fame. I don't know what to do here. This one freaked me out on a different level.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, how does that, how does that compare to the rolling over the nib in the bed story?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sorry, Andy, you've been beaten out by this. Like, you know, you got, you just, like, poached yourself. Emil straight up ejected himself. I think it's gotta, I think it's got to. This is. Because there was ink in the syringe. That's why. Right? And it's a sharp needle, which you shouldn't do. Like, you know, Emil, he knows better. If Emil stabbed himself, right, that's terrible. The fact that Emil injected himself with platinum violet, that's gotta be it. It's gotta be it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? Like, I mean, I've stabbed myself, I've stuck myself, I've never, like, injected myself. And I see how this happened.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, this could have been legit dangerous. Yeah. Right? I feel like it's got to. I feel like it's got to. I don't know how many more stories we're really gonna get that have legit human peril in them. Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This one does. I think it's in. I think it's in. This is the first one they got, like, a visceral reaction from me. Wow. Like, oh my god. Wow. And it's bad. Please don't do this. Please use your blunt needles, folks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we should say, Emil and David, they need to email you, right? Yeah. To get their t-shirts. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we'll do that. Wow. Yeah. That one moved me in a not good way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow. All right. I've got the last one today. Let's see how we're gonna finish up today. Wow. Brad, I can't believe that. That's wild.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He injected himself. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. Matthew. Matthew writes. In 1986, I started studying the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. My first day in the studio, we were instructed to get a radiograph pen, preferably a .35. I didn't know what this was, and I had to ask at the art supply store. I learned that they came in multiple widths, but were kind of expensive, so I just got one. A Rotring .35. Some of my classmates got full sets, though. Over the next two years, I added a few more Rotrings for wider and thinner lines. In my fourth year, one of the local art stores had a huge sale. They offered a set of Koh-i Noor's at a price that was too good to pass up. I bought it on a Saturday. It was a beautiful set with seven full pens, two small disassembly discs, and a bottle of ink. It all came in a clamshell case that had a clear plastic hinged lid with little push tabs on the side. I still remember opening and closing the case in my dorm room. The next day, I decided to bring the set to the studio to keep in my desk. I packed it in my messenger bag and got on my road bike to ride across campus. The last driveway I crossed before getting to the architecture building was at the bottom of a hill. I flew across it, cut over the sidewalk, and started up the hill when I hit a huge bump in the pavement. I was used to this bump and had crossed it many times. This time, though, the Velcro on my messenger bag came loose and the bag ejected the pen case. It landed in the road right near the gutter. I jumped off my bike, dropped my bag, and went to reach it into the street. When I heard a car coming from my left, I pulled back and watched helplessly. The driver must have seen me reaching into the street, though, because the car did veer left a little, but the back tire still hit the case. The case bounced a little. It looked cracked, but everything still seemed pretty much intact. I went to reach it again. That's when I heard the second car. The second car driver did not have the acute sense of awareness of the first driver and proceeded to barrel through right over the pen case, catching it with both tires. In my mind, I can still see the parts bouncing in the air and off the pavement. Some landed in the gutter. Some strewn across the asphalt. I was then able to retrieve the remnants, dumping them in my bag. Once in the studio, I surveyed the damage. The beautiful case was completely destroyed. All but two of the barrels were crushed flat. Most of the tips were still usable, but some of the small collars and ink reservoirs were also crushed. The remaining parts were riddled with pockmarks from the road debris and gravel bits. Somehow, the bottle of ink was untouched. I did use the pen somewhat over the years, but the luster was gone. Always having to swap barrels was tedious. They were all loose bits in my case, and the pens just never seemed to work that well. I continued to use and still have my three rotarings. I also still have two of the Coen oils with the two barrels. I hung on to the remaining points, too, but the last time I saw them was about two years ago, when I'd given them to my then five-year-old son to play with. This is good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this one, yeah, this is good. This one resonates with me because in the mid-'80s, this set of pens was everything for a college student in architecture or engineering. Like, this was like buying your $400 textbook that you don't need, right? This is like it for someone of this age going to school at the time for your design work. And the importance of this set is not lost on me because I grew up during this time, even though I was a little bit after that in college. But, like, I knew these are the pens, like, I would go to the bookstore and look at through the glass case and know I could never buy because there were, like, $30 a pen. And you'd end up with, like, a whole set of these pens. And it was just crazy. I'm glad he didn't lose a hand or an arm reaching for them, but I probably would have done the same thing, right? This was a very expensive, important tool at the time. And I believe that's why Matthew remembers this tale so vividly. Like, I would, too. Like, I remember these types of things because, you know, for things that were very important to me, like this set of pens. I don't think it's a Hall of Fame case, but it's such a relatable story to me personally. Like, I get it. Like, this was a big, big deal because of the time and what this product was and what it was being used for and, you know, how important it was to his studies. So it's a crazy story. I don't think it's a Hall of Fame story, though.

== Hall of Fame Criteria ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' So here's the thing for me where I feel like it doesn't necessarily reach the Hall of Fame.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There was no user error. Matthew didn't mess up. I feel like that there are, like, I'm starting to zone in on what works for me. And part of it is, right, like, that you did something that you regret. Like, it was partly your fault, right? Like, I feel like that really adds a level to it that I enjoy, right? Of, like, I was so stupid because, you know, that I feel like this was just a bad accident, right? Which you couldn't really prevent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is a great story. I'm super sorry. I love that you've been holding on to the story since 1986. But it doesn't get there. But I am really surprised that we have added our first two entrants into the Hall of Fame. Like, we need to think of ways to remember these. Like, so we have Bluefoot Dave and Purple Hand Emil.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's a theme. That's, yeah, there is a theme. There is a theme. Please, please send in your horror stories. You can email them to hello at penaddict.com. Hello at penaddict.com is the place to send those in. Because we want detail. Detail is important. So email is best for the horror stories, I think. Detail is key. Please send those in if you have them. We love to see them. And if anything, I hope that it brings some closure to the people that have gone through this in their lives. I love it. Oh, my. I love it. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Special shout out to Andrew in the chat room. This was his idea. I think I said that the first time we read these stories. But this was a wonderful idea. Andrew, I'm glad we could integrate this into the show on occasion. This is wonderful. This is well worth it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you so much to Kane11, Harrys, and StoryWorth for their support. Thank you so much for listening. You can find show notes this week at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 336. You can find Brad at penaddict.com. He's Dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. I am iMike. I am YKE. We hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 580/transcript

2026-06-22T06:49:53Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 580
| title = You're Going to Regret All of This
| date = September 6th, 2023
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/580 Episode 580]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_580.mp3 Audio Episode 580]
| length = 53
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 580. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm good. How are you?

== Orlando Pen Show preparation ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm really good. I'm really good. I'm packing for a pen show, Myke. Actually, I take that back. I am packed for a pen show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's fantastic news. Which one is it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is the Orlando Pen Show, which we'll be talking about later this episode. But as we record, by the time people hear this, I will be in the car driving to Orlando.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's going to be you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Beep, beep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Beep, beep. Get out of the way. I've got a vacation to go to. Oh, it's no vacation, baby. That's what I meant to say. A pen show. You know, we had this conversation last week, because I get confused, because you go to Florida for vacations. And so, like, I just keep thinking, that was why I asked you, what pen show are you going to? Because I knew you were going to Orlando, but again, thought it was a vacation. Like, I just keep thinking you're going on vacation. But you're not.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. No, but, you know, like, it is definitely like air quotes work, right? Like, it's work, right? But it's not like, like, I'm, let's hold the Orlando talk. We're going to talk about Orlando. I'm doing a little bit of extra this time, which I rarely do. So we'll talk about that when we get there. But we have some important things to cover up front.

== St. Jude campaign raffle details ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' We do. So you, as promised, have opened the raffle for the Pen Addict Community St. Jude campaign dealio. Do you want to talk through a little bit about what's on offer?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So for, what, the fifth year in a row now, I have collected goods from the community, you know, pens, inks, notebooks, whatever, anything like stationery Pen Addict adjacent type of stuff, to put in a raffle to help raise funds for St. Jude. So what I'm doing for every $10 you donate between, what was it, September 4th? I don't even have my dates here. The 4th to the 26th? Mm-hmm. Yeah. 4th through the 26th that you donate to St. Jude's. You send me your receipt. And for every $10, you get one entry into the raffle for a litany of pens and inks and stationery, which I just said. Yep. And this will continue on. You can enter as many times as you want. You can buy as many raffle tickets as you want. I will continue to add goods. You're eligible for all the goods, no matter if you, if you submit your donation today. And I add more goods tomorrow, you're eligible for everything, literally everything I collect during the month. And it continues to grow and people love participating. And I love their participation in this. And, you know, we have our good friend, John from HelloTello. I'm going to miss some as I'm reading through this, but we'll have a link in the show notes to go check out all the products we have so far. And I want to emphasize that I have so much more coming next week. So like probably next Monday or Tuesday, I'll do an update with like a round two of goods. And I'm sure there'll be like a round three. Because as soon as I start this, the emails start coming in. It's like, hey, can I do this? And I'm like, yes, you absolutely may. So, you know, we've got a pen from Elba.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would imagine as well, like especially if there's a pen show going on, right, that people might be like, oh, can I give you this thing to put in the thing, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like I can imagine. Exactly. Exactly. So I imagine I'll be coming back with some stuff either, you know, just donated or stuff I pick up. But it's some really cool stuff, you know, Frank from Elba, you know, when he did that podcast for us while what back in the summertime. And he said, hey, I know you're doing this thing. People know about what we do every September. So I start getting emails and contacts like in the spring, like, hey, I want to be part of that. Can I make a pen for that? Yes. So like that's what John Tello did this year with this great new Allegria model and this clip and this finish from Heinz Pens and the clip from Hooligan. And Frank made an Ebonite short cap model of his fountain pen design. Plotter is giving us an early release and an early look at a product that's not launching until next week. I don't believe the Shiranami notebook. So people like to I am very lucky that people like love to participate in this and give us like cool things. So Eric from Amarillo Stationaries, he's donating an ink that's not even out yet. His newest ink is the Amarillo Antigo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So just all kinds of cool stuff y'all can go see here in the link. I'm not going to read everything. And then, Myke, I have a section called Mysterious Benefactors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is the stuff that blows my mind. And like I really, really appreciate all our retailers and all our friends and, you know, all the businesses and makers that donate to this. And then we get just listeners want to participate as well. Myke, did you see the stuff that is in this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's some of the stuff I don't even understand it. Like it's outrageous. There's such beautiful products in here. Yeah. These Sailor Pro gears? Are you kidding me? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. There is some massively rare pins in this that various donors have sent to me to give to to participate in this raffle. Right. Like the stationery Delta Pilot Custom 845, Myke, there's only 70 of those pins in existence.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like this is the type of stuff like people are sending me this stuff and it's brand new. Like it's not even used. Like it's brand new. Like people, I, the amount of products that I'm getting is like, I, I honestly, I, I'm not being like, I, I, I try to be like very open. Like sometimes I have to turn things down. Right. Like sometimes it's just a lot or sometimes it's like, it's too much volume. Right. There is a, there is a, there is a maximum we can do here, but I'd like to, I want to do this as most as possible. But like, and this tag stationery, Secura, like the pink one and the blue one from the aquarium.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just unbelievable. So we're going to continue to see more stuff. I really, really appreciate it. Everyone who has worked with me to make this the biggest and best ever. And I, I just can't thank everybody enough. So stay tuned. Like seriously, stay tuned. There's going to be more coming. Even if you have donated, you're, like I said, you're eligible for anything that I get over the next month. Or if you wait till the end, you're eligible for everything in the beginning. Yes. Don't, don't sweat that. But yeah, we're off to a great start, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I'm going to give you a quick rundown again. Go to stjude.org slash relay and you can donate today. For every $10 that you do, that you donate, that is equal to one entry in the raffle. So after you donate, forward a copy of your donation receipt or a screenshot of this, including the amount and date of donations. You've got to be able to see all of these. Email these to stjude at pennaddict.com with 2023 raffle in the subject line. Eligible donations are only from September 4th to September 26th. And then Brad will do all the selection stuff. There will, of course, be a link in the show notes with these instructions all written out very clearly. So you can see them for yourself. I also wanted to point people to the Studio Neat Boys because I think this will be very of interest to our listeners. So last year, Tom and Dan put together a gold PVD coated steel version of the Mark 1. And they put this on raffle in a similar fashion for people that support St. Jude. They're doing it again. So I'm going to also put a link in the show notes there. It's a similar thing. But for them, you have to put thoroughly considered in the comments field. I will ask. This is just a kind ask from me. Don't double up your raffle tickets here. I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying Myke would like it. If you want to enter this one, then put a donation in for this one and also put a donation in for Bradstuff. That's what I would like. Let's just make as much money as we can. As the boys say, most of this is fundraising. That's what we're doing here. All we want you to do is give as much money as you can to help defeat childhood cancer. That's not a big ask, is it? You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. We actually talked about this. I vividly remember the conversations in me deciding, should we limit how much people can donate? And we're like, absolutely not. Nope. Like, so, like, we had long conversations of, like, so, like, what did you say about the, what did you say? Like, relentless donations or what did you say? Merciless fundraising. Merciless fundraising. So, yeah, like, you can donate as much as you want. We would like them to be separate. Like, if you're going to do, you know, $20 for the Mark 1 and $20 for this, the Panatic one, do them separately. That would be awesome. That would be nice. But that is a hassle for people, but I do appreciate that. Agreed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're also doing a, like, I was thinking of Willy Wonka with this one, especially because it's the golden thing. But, like, this time they're doing something very specific, which is the person who donates the most money, with thoroughly considered in the comments field, will automatically get one of these. And then the rest will be random drawing. Nice, nice, nice. Very cool. So, there is a way to guarantee yourself one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is true. Donate a lot. Well, you don't know. It's blind. It's a blind raffle. You don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, but you will because it will say thoroughly considered in the comments, right? So, if you're, like, top donor of the campaign, then you don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What I'm saying is if you and me are going for that, you know, I don't know what you don't know. Exactly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And there could be someone who gets in at, like, the very last minute. You never know. But, like, be generous. Why are we asking you to be generous? It's because this is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. That is September. And we are coming together here at RelayFM. To ask you to support us in supporting the work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. St. Jude won't stop their life-saving work until no child dies from cancer. And if your support will be one step closer to that day, one cure closer. St. Jude is an incredible place. And they have done incredible work. And they believe that no matter a child's race, ethnicity, beliefs, or ability to pay, that they deserve the care. So, St. Jude will make sure that their patients receive customized care. This is what is needed to treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. No matter what barriers they face, St. Jude wants to help these children. And they also want to share their research with the world. And they do. It's very important to them that they do that. They are a research institution and a hospital. They treat children with the research that they have amassed over the years, over the last 60 years. But then they share that research worldwide so that children all over the world can defeat childhood cancer. Because of its supporters, St. Jude can provide children with cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance at no cost to families. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. Meaning that they can do the thing that matters most, focusing on helping their child live. So, please go to stjude.org slash relay to donate. You can also find out more about fundraising yourself there. So, you could set up a fundraising campaign that you could share with your friends, your family, your co-workers, your community. And you can earn some exclusive RelayFM merchandise for doing so. That is stjude.org slash relay to learn more and donate. St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. With your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer. This month and every month. Let's cure childhood cancer together.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Me and Stephen are also doing a bunch of videos and milestone streams and stuff like that throughout the month. Mm-hmm. And one of these was a desk tour video that I just put up. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's on my YouTube channel. It's showing off the desk that I use every day. So, there's a bunch of interesting little trinkets and stuff of interest to pan addicts. As well as a preview of this new core keyboard that I got sent from people at Mod Keyboard. So, go check it out. I'll put that in the show notes too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I've made it through six minutes of the video. It's just come in prior to us starting this show. So, I didn't have time to catch it. I have notes, Myke, already. Like, written notes. And I'm going to go through them. So, if you all haven't watched it, go click on the link.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just realized right now in you saying I have notes that I made a blunder in this video. I didn't explain why the stickers are on the desk.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I'm going to look like a madman to people that don't know me. Like, I've just realized this right now. I think it's a feature. I intended to explain why my desk was covered in stickers. And I realize now that I did not do that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We'll do it now because that was last year's bet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, I think listeners of this show know. Yeah. But hey-ho. People will just think I'm weird.

== Discussion of the Mark III pen and personal preferences ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, number one, I was surprised how much you love the Mark III still. We talked about that when that launched. Oh, my God. That you're still actively using the Mark III, which I find super interesting. Like, in a very positive way. I don't know why.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I have no idea why it's got as strong a hole on me as it has. But it has. I adore that thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those are the best products, right? When you don't understand why it's so good and you just keep reaching for it. So, yes, I could tell that. I have almost an intervention level issue with your Canalea pen in the pen cup next to metal pens like your Tactile Turn GT that has ridges on it. I am definitely at some point going to screenshot this for posterity's sake.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a pen storage issue at the moment that I've yet to resolve since we moved house. And it's just like, it's a whole scene over here. I've got so many pens that are empty and I don't know where the inks are. But it's like, yeah, this is a consequence of that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is bad. This is bad. Like, I can get over, you know, like when the pens touch. Like, they're just going to have to at some point. But when you have acrylics versus ridged metal and they're adjacent, this is a problem. No, no, you're very right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to rectify that today. That will be rectified as soon as we're off the call.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I quite enjoyed your orange James Brand draplin collaboration knife. That was pretty neat. So that's as far as I've gotten so far in the show. So, yeah, very cool. But, yeah, fix the canalea next to the tactile turn. Notepad here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Fix the canalea pen cup issue. So I will check that off as soon as we're done.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, that's as far as I've made it so far. So there will be more later. I'll have more feedback later. But, I mean, we had to get that out there right away. That was almost an emergency podcast situation.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's pretty bad. I'm not going to lie. I'm embarrassed. Because I love that pen. The reason... And it's like the Mailele band one, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, it's like you're not... You didn't even play around with that one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Mailele is protection from these sharp pens. It like...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, it is not. It's not at all with the up and down removing in the cup. No, I'm not letting you get away with this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have it around and accessible. I know I have a problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That video shows lots of problems that I have. It's top to bottom full of problems. It's great. I'm actually anxious to see the rest of it because I did enjoy what I saw so far. It makes me actually want to do my desk like in the current state that it's in because it's absolutely catastrophic. Yeah. And it would probably take me like 20 minutes to go through like a desk that I can reach like my arms around. Like, it's so small. There's so much going on on this desk right now. I think... You have... That's what I'm going to say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am going to challenge you right now. All right. To make that video, but we put it up as a milestone in the campaign. Okay. So, you tell me an amount and then you can make the Brad... You can make desk tour Brad's version.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Okay. We'll have to look at it. I'll have to check the numbers, but I would almost certainly be able to do that. That's going to be good. And wow. I'm just looking around right now. I'm just going, yeah. This is... I am in the perfect state for a desk tour because it is a mess. And that's where I want it, right? I don't want to clean this up to do the desk tour. Like, we just got to go for it. We got to keep it real here. I didn't clean mine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All I cleaned away was the things that I couldn't let people see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. The embargo goods and the business notes. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What about if we get the $300,000? Okay. I'll put it up on the thing. Done. Awesome. I'm going to put that up today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sign me up. We're going to get there for sure. What are we... What's today? The 6th?

'''Myke Hurley:''' We're at $179,000 right now. Okay. For the kids of St. Jude. We're going to get there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We'll get there. Brad desk tour. Brad's Unprepared desk tour.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad's version. Yes. That's what we're going for here. Because of St. Jude, I'm going to be traveling next week. Because I'm going to be in Memphis getting ready for the podcast-a-thon, which we'll talk about over the next couple of weeks. So we're going to be pre-recording an episode of the show. So next week, we're going to go two episodes of the show. So one episode will be Brad's Orlando Pen Show recap. The other will probably be all Ask TPA. So if you have a question that you would like to get into us, you can go to penaddictfeedback.com. That is penaddictfeedback.com. And submit an Ask TPA question. And we'll try and get through as many as we can on that episode. What I'll say is if you have shorter questions, they're more likely to be answered in an episode like that, I think. Because we want to try and get through as many of them as we can.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It depends. I really appreciate the long questions. Oh, and we'll get to them. We'll get to them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the longer ones tend to be a lot of the new user stuff. That's true. I'm really kind of stuck here. And that's my favorite thing to help answer. So yeah, we'll get it all covered. We're just not always super timely. If you have a question that requires immediate attention, you might want to just email me, hello at penaddict.com. And I'd be glad to help you out there. But for the show stuff, we could be weeks, two months. I'm getting to them. But we do appreciate it. Please send them in. All right. I wish I would have gotten someone to send me this in, Myke. The Bungu Box Little Witch AL Sport. Did you see this? Apparently, this came out at the San Francisco Pen Show. I did not catch this till afterwards. This is my kind of pen. Like, I love... Like, again, Kaweco is really bordering on Sailor's level of just all the things, grabbing the parts, putting together, and throwing them out there. This one's a little bit beyond that, which is why I kind of give it a little bit of a pass. It's got some extra text on the barrel. It's got a cool nib on it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's the only effective text on barrel that I've seen from them, I think. You know, like, I've really not liked that. But I think this one is done really, really well. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it works for a while. It followed the brand guidelines, if you will, right? We've had some really, like, mix and match stuff that didn't work in the past.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just things that didn't make any sense, really.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. This one, like, I don't need, like, a new Kaweco. And, like, I have no intention on buying this one, but this is the kind of product that I love, right? Like, I really, really like this pen a lot. So I just thought that was cool. Cool thing to share because I think they launched it in San Francisco, but it's just kind of getting the publicity treatment now, like, on their site and on Instagram and stuff like that. Because now that they're going to be back from the San Francisco Pen Show, able to sell them in the shop, it's something to check out. Anyway, so I just really found that interesting. Um, we have another interesting pen we're going to have to talk about. I think we should talk about something else interesting before we get there because I need to prepare myself for this next topic we're going to have to cover.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that's a really good idea. Let's take a break first and then we'll get to that. And we can cast your mind away to a better place right now. Yeah. We're going to calm you down before we go into our next topic. We're going to talk about pizza. This episode is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company. This is because they make excellent, surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal or gas to let you make restaurant quality pizza in your own backyard. Ooni Pizza Ovens are incredibly easy to use and super portable. They fit into any outside space. Ooni Pizza Ovens can reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. This enables you to cook restaurant quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds. The high temperature is what you need to really get that excellent result. It's what separates these pizzas from what you can make in a home oven just from a taste perspective, a visual perspective and a convenience perspective as well. They have a bunch of really excellent models over at Uni. They have the Uni Coda 16, which is what Brad has. This can cook up to 16 inch pizzas. They have an innovative L-shaped burner at the back to give you even heat distribution. They have the Uni Karu, which you can use wood, charcoal or gas. They have the Uni Vault, which is an electric powered pizza oven. They have so many more besides. There is the pizza oven for you. Just waiting there at Uni.com. Their pizza oven start at just $299 with free shipping to the US, UK and the EU. They also have all of the accessories that you're going to need from peels to cutters to oven tables. Everything you're going to need is over there at Uni. And you will get 10% off your purchase of an Uni pizza oven, which could be up to $50 off an Uni Coda 16. When you go to Uni.com, that's O-O-N-I.com and use the code ADDICT2023 at checkout. Brad, you love making pizza in your Uni, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And we're getting ready to the best season for Uni pizza cooking, which is the fall. You can get that temperature cranked up and you can have, you know, a little bit of outside picnicking or dinner party or anything outside going. It's getting ready to be ideal pizza weather to cook in the Uni. So I cannot wait to crank it back up. So admittedly, it's been a little bit hot here to stand in front of the fire, even though it doesn't really radiate that much outwards. But you still want to have that experience, getting it outside, having it set up and going to town on some pizzas this fall. I can't wait.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Everybody wants to do this. Uni is the perfect tool for the job, which is why they're always in such high demand. So if you want one, go get one. Go to Uni.com and use the code ADDICT2023 for 10% off. Our thanks to Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this show and Relay FM.

== Return of the Scribble/Color Pick pen ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Myke, what is dead may never die, my friend. The scribble pin is back, now known as the Color Pick pin. And our inboxes are full because it is live on Kickstarter right now. And it has met its funding goal. And it is just very problematic. And I put in the show notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Of this product, the last time we did this, when they made that really weird video. Do you remember?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, when they made the failure video and published the failure video.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Where it was like meant to show you why is this thing working. Yeah, yeah. I would have to go back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It did not work. I would have to go back into... So it was post-scribble, it became something else. And then they were posting videos on that. We got links to that. It never made it to Kickstarter at that time or to Indiegogo or any other platform. But they were releasing these videos.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it might have been Color Pick, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It might have been. It might have been. It was just failure after failure after failure. And it didn't work. And it never worked. And it was just... It was making the grinding noise like when it was mixing the colors. It was like, oh my gosh. This one, it's the same concept. And if you're new to the podcast, we've been covering... The product kind of initiated the pin was called the Scribble Pin. And it ended up being like a huge, huge mess on Kickstarter. And this was probably, what, six or eight years ago at this point. So we've been covering it that long. We kind of did a recap of the Scribble Pin probably in episode 400 or 401 of the podcast. Where we kind of went back through some of the highlights. Some of the things that we were known for at the time. To catch people up like the new Starting Point episode. So if you want to hear about the Scribble Pin, either in 400 or 401, we should cover it. It was in 400. Okay. Because it was a big topic, right? It was... It was... At the time, it was... And I don't say this lightly. It was a scam product, right? At the time. And I'm not relating that to this product. Because I think you and I will agree that the Color Pick, based on the videos that they've shared now. It... I'm going to go out here and you can correct me if you see it differently. It technically works. Yes. Is that fair?

'''Myke Hurley:''' This thing that they have shown us, there is a video which shows the product. And I've put it on... In the show notes. It's called Color Pick Pen Test in Five Colors. This is a video. A single video. No cuts. So they should just...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You can see that it works. To give you the context, this came out of their comment section on the Kickstarter.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Well, unsurprisingly. Because how many times has this happened, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It technically works, but I don't understand why you would pay money for this product in the results that you get, right? Yeah, it's terrible. It still looks terrible.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And also, I think that this is only working within a very set parameters. These four colors. That's what I reckon this thing could produce. A blue, a red, a green, and a yellow. I do not think it can produce the 16 million colors that they are purporting that it can cover. And it still suffers from a lot of the same problems that we've seen last time. Because it's just the way that physics would stop this thing from working. Yes, you can scan a color, and the pen is doing some kind of mixing inside with a bunch of cartridges to provide you with the ink that you need. Yeah, but then when you change color, you have to eject a ton of ink until the old ink has run through it. Right. This is just a terrible product. Like, it has improved, but it is never going to be like what they're showing in the videos. Which, by the way, this video... I'm sorry. If you watch the video on their site and back them, I don't know what to tell you. Right? Like, the people that have watched...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought the exact same thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' ...this video, and they're like, yeah, okay. I will give these people... I will give these people... What is it? $160? Like... Okay, we found it. Kate is the best. Episode 480. So, like, literally 100 episodes ago.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, this is the one where it's plugged in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the one... Yeah, but this is the last time that this thing popped up. It was called The Scribble, again. Okay. And they made that... It's just... This episode is worth listening to just for our reaction to the video that they made. It was just one of the most...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In every possible way. You do not publish this information.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Because it just made the product look terrible. Yeah. But, yeah, this thing... I mean, look, if you see this and you're like, yeah, I want this, I mean, you're going to get what you pay for, which is this thing is trash. And, like... Right. All the... You know, it's truly wild to me that this thing exists. The video is very clearly using some kind of AI voice generation system, which I don't understand why they're doing it. It contains multiple inaccuracies, like, in grammar and just, like, words being left out in sentences. Like, or if you... I mean, I don't know what to say. And also, like, they showed one thing in this video of, like, using this pen and then using it in an app to, like, make... That's what this product should be. Like, it shouldn't be anything else than this. Like, it should be, like, you get a light sensor and you can sense a color and then it recognizes the color and lets you drawing a drawing app. That is where this product should start and end. And that sounds like not a great product, but that is as much as it should ever be. It's as useful as this thing could ever be because the idea that I could go up to an Apple, scan the color of an Apple and immediately be able to draw... And, like, and there's, you know, they like to say so many times in this thing, you can just get rid of all your coloring. No, you can't. You can't do that because this thing is trash. It's never going to work the way that you want it to. And I just cannot believe this thing continues to exist. Like, it just, like, it makes me frustrated about Kickstarter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This should never have been allowed on the platform in the first place and it shouldn't continue to be allowed on the... Like, what...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They even say in their mic that it's not 100% functional yet. Like, in their comments, the creators. We're not 100% there. It's like...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, that, though, like, I'm sure that's the case of a lot of Kickstarters, right? And they're hoping to get... I mean, I don't know. Like, I don't know if that's against the rules. I know not you. Like, but, like, you know, I imagine a lot of Kickstarters start that way, but they have a path. Like, these guys clearly don't have a path to getting this thing to work because it's just, like, not possible. But, like, I just feel like, in my mind, Kickstarter is supposed to review stuff and this just doesn't pass the common sense test.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I agree. And I don't... So, I don't understand why it's here on the site. Like, it's wild. It's really wild to me. Like, I just don't get it. I don't understand it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Well, you said... I can't believe you said this because it's my exact feeling on this. If you go and watch that YouTube video that the creators linked in the comments and you still give them your money, that's on you. Yeah. Because...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't want to be mean, but it's like you kind of deserve what you're getting. Which is... If you watch that video... Either your money's stolen or something that's not going to work. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, it's unbelievable. It's... I... It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. So, anyway. You know what, Myke? If you want to buy a real pen, can you tell people where to go cleanse their palate and get something they can really love?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was like, where are we going now? Have I got something else? No. I was so professional there. I know. I'm sorry. I didn't have the document open. I was still looking at the Kickstarter page because I was just lost in the fact that they claim they've won awards for this thing. It just annoys me so much. Like, but like, yes, we have to talk about it. We have to talk about it. We do. I just can't... I'm glad I got you so fired up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, I didn't think this was coming, but it's on.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just can't believe that we're still doing this so many years later. And it's so ugly, this thing too, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's the other thing is like, I couldn't even get past, like, we're still talking about this. I can't believe it. Like, the functionality of this is horrible. And that's before you even like have to look at it. It's literally like... It looks like a dentist's tool. Yeah. Or it's like a standalone mixer or something. I don't know. Like, I mean, it's definitely something that people aren't going to repeat on this podcast. Like, it is like outrageously ugly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it's just like the idea that this would be for any artist, right? And that they would like be able to use it. Champion this product. Yeah. Like, I just... I just don't know. I really don't know. This episode is brought to you by PenchLA, who sell authentic products.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Can we get a shout out to my segue that you botched? Like, I feel pretty good about that. You knocked out of the plug.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A star, A++++ would segue again. You nailed it. I did not. Thank you. PenchLA do. They sell amazing roller balls and fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, fountain pen converters, inks, carrying cases, pen holders, refills, all the accessories you're going to need. They have products from your favorite brands, and they have the best prices around. Every couple of weeks, you're going to find not only new products coming to PenchLA, but also tons of great deals. They're adding new styles of products all the time, and they believe in fast and reliable customer service. You get free shipping on orders of over $75 when you're in the US, but they sell internationally with great shipping rates as well. PenchLA believe in a simple thing. Low prices on high-quality pens and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. I want you to go to PenchLA.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password PenAddict. This is where you will get this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time over at PenchLA. What special offers do we have on deck this week, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They have this really cool Conklin crescent filler, which is one of the classic Conklin designs, right? It has this crescent, for lack of a better term, on the barrel. And I believe it's like a lever filler under the crescent. You kind of twist it and manipulate it to fill the pen. And it's kind of a modernization of a vintage filling system for fountain pens. And it's really cool. The ones I've seen in the past have been really neat. And it's kind of one of the cooler things that Conklin does. But this one, this chrome pattern in like this, it's like a chased rubber pattern, right? You remember seeing on like ebonite and hard rubber pens, you know, like from the early 1900s and mid 1900s, but they've kind of done a chrome version of this. So it's a very modern version of a classic design, which I think is, looks pretty neat. Also the Pelican M205, the Appetite color, which I think was last year, one of last year's colors. The demonstrator is a really, really great pen. The M205 is a fantastic pen, one of my favorites. And this is a really great price off of that. There's a couple of Benus in there, which I don't know that I've ever seen Benus in the, on the podcast page before. So the Minima, which is their smaller version, you can get for quite a good price for some of these Benu pens, which I haven't seen before. And then lastly, something I found way down the list, which if you ever go to our Pen Addict page on Pen Chalet, you got to keep scrolling. They have loose nibs or a loose nib for the Pelican 800. So this is an 18K gold replacement fountain pen nib. And it's a crazy good price. Like you don't need, you normally can't find these loose nibs, especially at this price. So I imagine that's not going to last very long there at Pen Chalet. So go check them out. There's even some great stuff further down the list, Platinum Procyon and just even more. Just go check them out. And thank you so much, Pen Chalet. So yeah, definitely hit them up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. Go there right now. Hit the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Pen Addict to get your hands on these offers. A sincere thanks to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Shout out of the week. One of my Mastodon friends, Cheryl Lindo-Jones, who I've actually been following online for like before I was on Mastodon and they were on Mastodon. Um, but they've never really, uh, had like a dedicated, uh, pen space, but now they do. So you can go follow their blog, uh, online. Um, Cheryl started doing a 30 inks for 30 days, which is a popular September, um, thing to do in the stationery space. So a lot of people are participating in the 30, 30 inks, 30 days challenge. And Cheryl's, uh, been posting all of the inks. Um, and you can go check out why they're doing it, what they're doing. And, uh, it's really fun. So, uh, go check out Cheryl Lindo, Cheryl Lindo Jones.com. And then, uh, she will yell at me on Mastodon later for going, why did you put that in there? And because it's awesome. That's why, that's why I did it. So, so shout out of the week, shout out of the week, pen show of the week, Myke. That's what it feels like these days. There is a certain season of the year where it really is just like, which one is it this

'''Myke Hurley:''' week?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Um, to me, this is kind of the end, but that's a little bit unfair because I know, uh, like Dallas is always a good show, uh, later in September in the U S and then you, you have, um, the Columbus pen show, I think in October, November. And there's a couple, definitely a couple, a couple more, but this is the last one I'm traveling to this year. Um, the Orlando pen shows this week, I'm heading down, like I mentioned at the top, um, right after the show. So that's a little bit of a different schedule for me this week. The Orlando pen show has a great schedule. It is essentially a Friday, Saturday show, no Sunday show there, uh, 10 to six, uh, to the public Friday and Saturday, but they do Thursday night. They do kind of a vendors kind of like a soft launch, you know, hang out, get together party, which I think is a great benefit for vendors and weekend pass holders. If you're coming in Thursday to be ready for Friday morning, the show promoter, just buying the vendors pizza on a Thursday night when they've traveled to get there, I think is a pretty cool. It's like, it's a small thing that I think goes a long way for vendors. So I think that's pretty cool. So I'll be doing that Thursday night. Um, and then go into the show Friday and Saturday, but Myke Thursday morning, I am playing golf, which I think I might've mentioned on the show before I've certainly, well, no, me and you

'''Myke Hurley:''' spoke about it. Yeah. And I'm very jealous because I'm going to play golf with you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Well, I don't know that you actually want to, because I have not swung a golf club in over two years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm like, I'm an absolute novice. It would be perfect for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this is going to be a mess. Like it full stop. Like it's going to be, uh, hilarious and fun. And like, I don't take this stuff seriously anymore. I literally have not been to a driving range or a top golf, or I haven't hit a putt in the house in over two years. So this is going to be fun. So I'm playing with my friends at Kenro industries, uh, distributor of all of our favorite brands like the, like Estherbrook, Aurora and Y studio and all kinds of fun stuff. So, um, they asked me, said, Hey, you want to come in early? Um, and, and play golf for this Thursday morning before we do the show. And I'm like, yes, I do. Which, um, you know, I would, I rarely do that, right? I rarely take the days before the days after shows to like do something fun and chill and relax. So I am taking advantage of that. So that's going to be the schedule this week. I am going, uh, Wednesday night. I'll be getting in there driving. It's about a five, five and a half hour drive for me. So it's not too bad. I don't mind doing that. Uh, playing golf Thursday morning, doing the vendor opening Thursday night, going to the show Friday and Saturday, and really just planning on having fun. I really liked the venue that they have for this show. The hotel is massive. It's kind of like a conference type hotel, which you can imagine Orlando has a lot of facilities like this, but where this one is different. Um, it's not like say some of the resort type hotels. It's more of just like a conference hotel, but it's attached to a mall and giving the state of malls, at least in the U S you might not think that's a very good thing, but this is one of the malls that has been, I guess, very successful. Um, it's kind of like a high end mall. It's gigantic. It's got all these great shops, great food, which is important to pen show attendees. And it's literally attached to the hotel. Like you walk out of like the hotel for you're through the door and then you're in the mall. Um, and it's like, like I didn't even scratch the surface of the mall last year. Like it's a big, big, like it's a, it's a destination type of place and therefore it gets all the destination type stores. Like pretty much anything you want is there. And like I said, it's got all kinds of like crazy food choices last year. Like I ate Brazilian last year, like just wild stuff. And you know, as well as steak shack, you know, things like that. But, uh, yeah, I, I really look forward to it. It's a good location. What I realized, like, I didn't know what I was getting into last year, right? It was their first show at the hotel, new promoter, new show. And it was small, like, and it's going to stay, you know, small ish, right? And, you know, Atlanta sized or maybe a little bit bigger between Atlanta and Baltimore, maybe. Um, there were a lot of makers that attended this show and that was something I pointed out from last year's events and how much I enjoyed getting to spend time with makers at a show where you can actually like sit and talk with them, you know, for a while and learn about what they're doing. And that maker list has expanded even more this year. They have increased the size of the rooms, the, um, the, the show floor space. They're moving to a different section of the hotel to, uh, give it a bigger floor, which is great, which has attracted more vendors and more makers. So it's really, really neat to see, uh, the growth. And I think Joe does a good job and his whole, you know, his, his wife and the whole team that, that does everything for Orlando. They, they're really like on top of the information that you need shared before the show. Like when you go to Washington DC, like you can get all the information like statically, like on the page and, you know, like on the website and you just cross your fingers and go. Or Joe seems to be like very proactive. Like just randomly, we'll put a post on Instagram saying, you know, if you're coming in Thursday, be sure to check, you know, your email, because we're going to tell you everything that's going on on Thursday. It's like, I appreciate that. Like it makes everything so much easier and more comfortable for me to go to a show when I know like what's going on, what to expect when I get there and not have to be just like blindsided by, you know, where do I go? What do I do? So I do appreciate that. And it's noticeable compared to some other shows. So the one thing that I did going into DC was take a look at the vendor list to kind of get an idea of what I wanted to check out. And there's a few people that I haven't seen before or some that I have seen before and haven't ever shopped from before in Orlando. So I wanted to give a couple of vendors a shout out and I know I'm leaving everybody out. Like I could literally just go down the entire vendor list and can't wait to see all these people. So, you know, a lot of friends that are going to be there. A lot of people I talk to every year and I'm definitely going to hang out with. But I'm going to make a point to go to the London Pen Code table, which not not from your area, Myke, from from London, Ontario, Canada. So unfortunately not local to you, but they will be at the Orlando Pen Show. And I got to meet Sean for the first time in DC, checked out his pens. I did not pick one up at the time, but I think that's in the cards probably this time. So I definitely want to spend some time talking to Sean, getting to know him because I just kind of, you know, got introduced to him at DC. And I appreciate the fact that he is already making the return trip back to the Orlando show. Someone that I just learned about yesterday when I was streaming, Abigail Markoff, Florida resident pen maker, someone brand new to me, makes some really neat looking pens that I'm looking forward to checking out and getting to meet them and seeing all the cool stuff that they make. I've been browsing her site and it looks just kind of amazing. And then Joe Little from Little Pen Designs. I've actually ordered from Joe online. One thing Joe does, Myke, and I'll have to show it to you. I don't have a link directly, but I can find you one before the show ends randomly or just sporadically, I guess is a better word. Joe will take acrylic blanks and make them around the Pentel Sharp Mechanical Pencil mechanisms like we do for spoke pen. Like take that mechanism and we make metal barrels. He makes acrylic barrels. Like you see, you know, from like your fountain pens and things like that. So those are cool. I've ordered a couple of those from them from Joe. I enjoy those pencils. So I'll be checking them out. And yeah, I'm just really excited to get down there. I need to look at the classes. They have a, they had a bunch of good classes this year.

== Classes and activities at the pen show ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From my friend Stephanie doing a creative journaling class to Vanessa Langton to Langton doing a wax seal class. Nick's obviously doing his calligraphy class. It's, it's really good. So yeah, that's, that's kind of like the short list. Those, that's my Friday list. Right. So that's the way I tend to do it. It's like if, if you're on the list, those are my first stops. And then the rest of the show just opens up from there for the rest of the weekend for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You got any like personal shopping list or aims, like something you're trying to get out of this show specifically that, that you haven't from previous ones other than these like specific makers.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So what's funny about this and I can, I've noticed this over probably the last couple of years, the current production line pins from most companies, I'm just, I have so much access online now that like, I'm not anxious to see the new Leonardo because I've already seen it. Right. Or I've already bought one. Like I bought a Leonardo online like a month ago. Right. So where before I would be like, I need to check this out. I need to check this out. I will say there is one, there is a new platinum 3776. Oh, I got to find the color. Have you seen this? I actually need to talk to you about this. I don't think so. It's like an aqua blue and rose gold. So I need to find the link and find the name, but it is a like platinum hasn't done like a really bright color like this. They only do it. I don't know, maybe once a year, maybe once every other year. But I haven't seen this before and I will find the link in the show notes. It's here for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll also take a poke around and see if I can find it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But so that's a, it's, it's rare that I am going for like a main product line at a pen show. And because I have those opportunities elsewhere. Right. So what I'll do is like, I will, I want to talk to those vendors. I want to see what they like. And what is the sense of Komodo? I think so. Is it blue and rose gold? Yeah. Translucent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That's nice looking. That's it. I would like to see that too. You know, like, yeah, that's a pen I'd want to see. I was not expecting when you, when you described it, that it would be a demonstrator. Yep. Because that's rose gold is a bold move there, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So it's not coming out until October. It looks like. So I might not get to see why that there, but I am shockingly compelled by this pen. Like I.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Feels like a very Brad pen to me. Yeah. Maybe not the rose gold part, but like maybe that will look good. But like the blue demonstrator is like that. That's Brad Dowdy right there. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think the rose gold looks amazing. So yeah, I am all in on this pen. So check that out. So I probably won't get to see one if they're not coming out till October. So, you know, after that, it's, it's really just learning about all these makers and spending time with people who might only be local to this show, right? Like Abigail Markoff, who is, you know, a Florida resident. So that's one of the cool things going to shows in different parts of the country is you get to meet people who that might be their only show of the year, right? They're not, they're not on, on the carnival circuit. Like a lot of us are for all the shows around the country. So that's important to me is to spend time with the locals or the smaller vendors or the smaller retailers, because I have access to all the other stuff year round, right? Like all I have to do is like make a phone call or shoot an email and I can figure out whatever I want. And it's the, the opportunities to see some of the smaller makers, local makers, local vendors, things like that at these shows that really, really gets me going. That's what gets me excited. Like I am super excited to, to get there and taking the show. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Are you planning on doing any of the classes?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am going to figure that out probably Thursday, Thursday night. I will sign up for anything. I Stephanie's journaling class, which I told her I would take last year. I didn't get to, and then she yelled at me deservedly. So shout out Miss G's crafties. I'm probably do that, especially cause I think that's on Friday. And then there were a couple, Oh, there was like some, so there's like three classes in a row and I don't have this pulled up right in front of me, but starry night resins is doing a resin making class, which I think they did last year. No, that sounds fun. Yeah, that sounds cool. So they did that last year. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How did they make that look? That's fascinating to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So right in a row, I think there's that class and then Vanessa's wax seal and stamps class. And then right after that, I believe is Anderillium's history. Is there a cleanup class after the resin and wax seal classes? Well, then just wait. So then the third one right after that is Anderillium, who's an ink maker, their history of inks class. So like, that's gotta be messy too, right? So like, I'm just going to get, I need to get an apron at the mall on Thursday night to be prepared for the rest of the weekend. So I think that's the, that's the plan going in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I can go to the mall and maybe I can find like a Prada or a Gucci apron, right? Because it's, it's one of those fancy malls. Yeah. So I, oh, LV apron. That's what we need. LV apron. Make it happen, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wait, well, how am I going to make it happen? You need like a Louis Vuitton sponsorship?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Or something, or at least a bank transfer.

== Adding Brad's desk tour milestone to the St. Jude campaign ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, speaking of that, actually. So during the episode, I went in to add the Brad's desk tour milestone to the campaign. Okay. And we'd originally said it would be for 300,000. I can't do that because it said, if I do that, it will increase our milestone. And I felt like everyone would get really mad at me if I, our goal, if I changed our campaign goal, just like on the pen addict. So it is now set for, if we meet the goal of 293,000, which gets us to two and a half million raised for the kids of St. Jude, Brad will create his own desk tour video.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hilarious. Okay. This is going to be so bad. You're going to regret all of this, by the way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I'm not going to regret it. I'll tell you that right now. Because like you come in here with your like, oh, look what you're doing to this poor, poor pen. And I can't wait to see what atrocities you're doing to these poor, poor pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, man. Okay. I need to think about this. Yeah. I'm looking around. No tidying. I'm not tired. Oh, I'm not tidying. I think I'm safe. Like I'm to the good. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So please go donate to St. Jude. That's stjude.org slash relay. And we'll be, again, obviously we're going to be talking about this throughout the month. We've got the podcast on coming up real soon. And so we do want you to send in your RSTPA questions. You can go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send those in and we'll be getting to as many of them as we can in a couple of weeks time because we'll be pre-recording that episode. But Brad, I hope you have a great pen show. I look forward to seeing it all unfold on Instagram and getting the report and refill, which I assume you'll be doing over the weekend.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll be doing. I'll be doing. And seeing how poorly my reels went at DC. They were great. We might as well try again. We might as well try again. What do you mean poorly? I don't know. I just feel like I don't do a good job on those. But yeah. I guess it doesn't matter. Just do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And that was fun. I liked it. So I'm going to try to do more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think I will try to do more this time because when a show is not the scope and size of something like DC, you have a little bit more freedom to do some of that stuff. So I'm going to try to embrace that this week. So yeah. Definitely stay tuned. Penaddict on Instagram.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's like I want to see more of what's happening at these pen shows. And you're the man on the ground. You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm on it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm on it. If you want to find Brad online, go to that Penaddict page. He's Penaddict on Instagram. Of course, he's also Penaddict on Mastodon. Penaddict over at twitch.tv slash Penaddict where you can see Brad streaming multiple times a week. Also at Penaddict.com. You've really got that consistent branding going on these days. I'm a big fan. Took a while. You can also go to spokedesign.com where you can find Brad's products. You can find me online. I'm iMike. I-M-Y-K-E on threads and Mastodon. You can go there to find links to the video that I was talking about earlier. But that's also in the show notes, which you can find at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 580. You can also find those in your podcast app of choice. Thank you so much to Penn, Chalet, and Uni for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening. Don't forget, don't forget, I should say, stgeo.org slash relay. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Bye, Brad. Bye. !

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 200/transcript

2026-06-22T06:46:05Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 200
| title = Episode 200, Live from the Atlanta Pen Show 2016
| date = April 17th, 2016
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Ana Reinert]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/200 Episode 200]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/TPA_200.mp3 Audio Episode 200]
| length = 71
}}

== Pen Chalet ==

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode number 200, live from the Atlanta Pen Show, brought to you by our friends at The Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Michael. And Anna Reinet. I'm very emotional right now. It's hitting me pretty hard. Yep. So we have an audience here, a fantastic audience, who are joining us for this live show in Atlanta. They're all very beautiful, Brad, aren't they? This is an awesome crowd. I'm not going to lie. Very beautiful. Yeah. So, I know this is a pen show, right? And people think that, like, a pen show is crazy. So many people wanted to be here. We had to give out tickets because we had a maximum in the room. We have standing room because we have too many people in the room.

'''Brad:''' So this didn't hit us till late. This was a last minute panic. Like, two, three days ago, we realised we might have an issue, which is an awesome issue, it seems to be. So, yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Where Brad was like, I think there's going to be more people than we have space in the room for. And I think my heart fell off. Like, it just went, because this is amazing. And again, for the listeners at home, I'll just tell you something that happened. So we were getting the room set up. So me, Brad and Anna and the guys here, we're setting up the room. And we're like, okay, bathroom break before we start. We open the door and go outside and there's just all these people there. And I have never felt a shudder through my body like that one. And everyone that was there got to see me do this really weird movement. That was that shudder.

'''Myke:''' So I want to thank all of you for being here and everyone listening who was a backer of this that has made this happen. I can't believe that we're doing this now every year. And it feels like it's getting bigger and bigger. And it's amazing. So thank you so much. Thank you all so much. We're going to just clap you guys for that. Thank you. Thank you. Now, before we start, there's a couple of like incredible things that have happened in the last couple of days that I wanted to talk about. The first being listeners from afar who are here, which is crazy. So I came from the UK and I'm like, ah, I've come all the way from the UK. I've traveled so far. But we have Julia and Pontus from Sweden who came here today. And I thought, wow, Sweden.

'''Myke:''' Like Sweden's even further than me. And then I bumped into a guy and we're going to talk a little bit later about what he showed me. His name is Ed. He came from Australia. Like, yeah. So like that is just amazing. Yeah. So when I found out about Pontus and Julia in the airport, I cried a little bit.

'''Brad:''' There's going to be a lot of tears in this episode. We're just starting and I'm feeling it.

'''Myke:''' 200. Yeah. 200 episodes. I was wearing my episode 100 t-shirt over the weekend. It's a long time ago, man. Yeah. Also, we had something amazing happen today. So we're at the knock booth. So all weekend, me and Brad and Anna, you've been helping out as well. And Jeff, we've been at the knock booth selling your amazing cases. We're going to talk about that later on. And a family comes up. So like a dad and like three kids. And he comes and says hi. Like we've had loads of amazing people come up and say hi. And we've given out the notebooks and these amazing temporary tattoos that we had made as a little surprise. And so we're giving all of those out. And we're seeing like this family come up to us and they're like they say hi and stuff. And then there's like these kids and they come up and shake their hands. And they have these like faces of like complete excitement. This is Phineas and DW. They're like 10 or 11 years old. Massive fans of The Pen Addict. Like they were telling us about all the pens and inks they had. They were buying knock cases. It was amazing. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' DW burned through two bottles of Liberty's Elysium so far. He let us know. Yeah. I mean these kids are hardcore and it's awesome to see that. That's like the best thing that could happen.

'''Myke:''' They were like so excited. So I wanted to give them a shout out because I hope they'll listen to this in the car. So I said, do you come into the show later? They said, no, we're going to Legoland. So like these kids are having the best day.

'''Myke:''' And there's two more shout outs we want to give people that can't be here today. So one is Joe Lebo and the Lebo family. They're not here because they've just had their first kid. So Nico.

'''Myke:''' Baby Pen Addict. Baby Pen Addict. And also Glenn HK. So for people who are watching the video, they can see this stuff here or the people that are here. But basically we have a bunch of things from Hong Kong for us to eat to make our voices sound better. Yeah. And Glenn HK sent all of these and me and Brad have been like munching these lozenges all day. Yeah. And they have helped.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. This is last year. I couldn't talk at this time. It was like a struggle to get through the podcast. But Glenn HK hooked us up with the herbal candies straight from Hong Kong. And thank you, buddy. We appreciate it. All right.

== Pens ==

'''Myke:''' Let's get into talking about pen stuff. All right. Me and Brad wake up at 5.30 a.m. on Friday morning because we're so excited. And I start looking from my Twitter feed and people were sending me pictures from the UK of some field notes. Right. And I see this belly band and the belly band is talking about a reissue of Butcher Orange and Butcher Blue. And this was like a complete surprise. And they seem to arrive in the UK first. Some must be magical logistics to try and get them all to be on the same day. So they start arriving in Europe. And basically what the field notes guys have done is for their third. Is the 30th edition coming up? No. Or that was the last one. Right. It was the 30th. So they basically just reprinted Orange and Blue and sent one book to every current subscriber. And the belly band has your name on the front. Not the edition.

'''Brad:''' Printed. Printed. Like not handwritten. Like they digitally added everyone's name to belly bands on. I can't even imagine how many subscribers they have to do that. And you got yours.

'''Myke:''' I got mine. They're not here.

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' But I basically texted Dina and was like, when you get home, there might be a package.

'''Myke:''' And I need you to open it. And she did. And I've got a picture. And I'll put it in our show notes. And it says Michael Hurley on the front. And it's amazing. So I have mine waiting for me when I get home. I'm so excited.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So I'm assuming no one here has them. But our Twitter feed blew up. And I'm kind of interested to see what's going to happen. Because y'all know that I'm a field notes junkie. And I have like the first butcher orange. Mark Back has traded me the orange to complete my collection last year. And the butcher blue. So I'm... I think it's awesome. I mean, Jim and Aaron both signed the... Like they have their digital signatures. They're pretty much our president of the United States. Like the presidential stamp. Jim and Aaron on the back of your belly band. But then to take the time and effort to put that out to all the current subscribers. Kind of blows my mind. And I'm interested to see actually what the inside... No one's dared to open these up yet. That's what I've noticed. I'm cracking mine over. I know. But all the pictures we got... Like our Twitter feed was kind of dumb from everyone just saying... They all got them at the same time. When the mail arrived in the UK. All these tweets started coming. Not one person's opened them up yet. So I'm interested to see that later on.

'''Myke:''' So you know those... The two craft ones that Jenny made for me from Three Staples. The Myke Was Right one and the Relay FM one. I'm going to take my belly band off and put them on those. Cool. Because it's got my name on it. Yeah. I think that's cool. And that's the kind of person I am.

'''Myke:''' I just make everyone cry because I open all the editions up. Yeah. And I'm going to write in them. Yes. For fun.

'''Brad:''' Absolutely.

'''Myke:''' Bit of follow up. We've played around with the Mont Blanc Rouge Noir.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Okay. So did you get your hands on that, Anna?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I got to see it, but I didn't actually...

'''Myke:''' Were you scared? Don't pick it up. Like... Because you won't pick it up, you don't buy it. Just don't pick it up. It's terrible.

'''Ana Reinert:''' It's just... It's a snake design. It's not really to my taste. No. But I did pick it up and it required a forklift. It's a pretty big pen. Yep. So, but yeah. No, I did get to see it.

'''Brad:''' It requires a forklift for the wallet that it takes to make the purchase.

'''Myke:''' They have both of them, like the orangey one and the black one. That'd be coral.

'''Brad:''' Coral. Like you're going to get shot for like orangey.

'''Myke:''' It's orangey. It is orangey.

'''Brad:''' It is orangey.

'''Myke:''' What did you think of it?

'''Brad:''' Good. Not like I'm going to jump all over it good. Like it felt better than I thought it would seeing how skinny it was. Yeah, it is skinny. So, it's a narrow pen. Not pencil thin, but it's narrower than you can tell in pictures without having seen it in person. And that was the first thing everyone started saying when I said, I really love this design. I don't own a Mont Blanc. I'd love to like check this pen out. I think this might be my first one. And it still might, but I'm not like as super jazzed about it as I was before. But the barrel feels better in my hand than I thought it would. It's weighted right. The sections metal. The full barrel's metal. It's got a pretty cool snake on the clip. Snake's killer. Which you can't go wrong with that.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I feel more in trouble having seen it. I don't think I'm going to buy one now, but I might buy one in the future. I like it. I like it a lot. And I like the, they did the old logo on the side. Yeah, that's my favorite part. That looks really nice. That looks really nice.

'''Brad:''' So did, and related to that, did you pick up the M, the Mark Newsome one?

'''Myke:''' They have that yet?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I haven't seen that. Where have you been? This is a pen show.

'''Myke:''' Well, I don't want to see it. Okay. Right. If I find it, I will probably buy it. Yeah. And I don't want to spend that amount of money because I will use it maybe. I'm going to have to go look at it now. That thing.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I didn't see that.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And I want to see that one.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Where is it? Is it just you? You go to like one of these, I bet Brad goes like a private room. Like they're like, come on, Brad, you come see the secret stuff. Like the velvet rope is opened and you can be brought in.

'''Brad:''' I've seen them in a couple of places. Yeah. I know that Anderson had it on their table, but I saw it somewhere else too.

'''Myke:''' That's not good for me. I was, when I was in the airport.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Right behind us. We didn't see it. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' When I was in the airport, I was going to get some food and I went past a, like a watch shop or whatever. And it had Mont Blancs in there. And I was like, cool, let me go in. And it's like, I'm going to a pen show. Why am I going to go and look at the Mont Blancs in the airport? Like what's wrong with me? And I did go in the, we have like a stationer called WH Smiths and I went in to look at all their notebooks and they had like rodeos and stuff in there. I was like, well done Smiths. Yeah. Stepping it up. Like that was pretty good.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So the pens on the maybe list, it's not on the absolutely must have list. I've definitely slowed my roll on it after seeing it, but I wasn't like overly disappointed. I'm just not like, I have to have it now. So if that makes sense. Could you start it? Yeah. Do you reckon you would have bought OVLC in it?

'''Brad:''' There's a fair chance that might've happened. Well, that's good. Knowing me, there's a fair chance that might've happened. Okay.

'''Brad:''' We'll see. It's a maybe. It's probably not going to leave the show with me. I'll say that. All right. Cool. Talking about that.

== Purchases ==

'''Myke:''' Big buys. Let's talk about big buys.

'''Brad:''' All right. So I'm still waiting on that kind of until Sunday to see how, how the budget's looking. I have some things in my head, but I did get one.

'''Myke:''' You have some stuff coming too that we don't, you don't have yet.

'''Brad:''' I don't have yet. I have a, so one pin I'm waiting for, which I hope to get, um, is the orange vanishing point, the original limited edition one with the silver trim. So I'm waiting on that. Um, I don't know how much that's going to cost me yet. So that's why I haven't blown out the budget on other things because I want to have money for that. Um, but what I did get so far is, um, I got a delivery of a pin I've been waiting for, for a long time. This is a, uh, Jonathan Brooks solar dust, uh, finish. Y'all come by and see me with this. Cause it, it looks awesome, um, up close. But what he does is he put, uh, he took my pilot Falcon section, added that in, uh, built me a pin around that, which he's done for several people. And, um, he did a pretty amazing job and I'm, I'm anxious to, uh, get this into the rotation cause it, it's a real beauty. Um, and, uh, Jonathan does great work. So, and he gave me a little pen stand too. So I have it propped up here so y'all can see. Nanny, nanny, boo, boo.

'''Myke:''' He loves that pen stand. He's just like puts it out, puts the pen on it. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It's, it's, it's on the nightstand in our room.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Don't tell people about our room. Uh, it's not that kind of podcast. No.

'''Myke:''' Anyway, Anna, uh, what were your big buys of the show so far?

== Vintage Pens ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' Um, my big buy has been.

'''Myke:''' Going to get it?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Um, is a friend of mine, like literally like two days before the show, um, pointed out to me a vintage Lady Schaefer scripser. And so I had a, um, something to.

'''Myke:''' I had a gasp in the audience when you said that. So. I was like.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, um, I got lucky enough to find a vendor who had about five or six different ones. And so then I had to decide which one I wanted. Clearly not one. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That, that's two for those playing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' For those playing at home, I got two of them. Um, and one, uh, they are both basically kind of new old stock. This one even still has the thicker, like really like new old stock.

'''Myke:''' New old stock has become one of my favorite terms over the last couple of days.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, um, and, uh, this, one of them has an integrated, super integrated nib here. It gets a. Um, and they kind of have these like almost like a little nib, which is kind of cool. Um, they're supposed to be, uh, easier to write kind of at a lot of different angles. Um, and a very kind of integrated texture. And then the other one's kind of just a funky little nib, but I was very excited to be able to find these. So that's awesome.

'''Myke:''' Where did you get those?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Um, one of the vintage vendors in the big room.

'''Myke:''' Okay. Yeah. So the way that the pen show set up is, is kind of interesting is that this time is three rooms. There were two rooms. I wonder why there's three rooms now. What could have happened? That meant they had to open another room. Nobody knows. I don't know anything about that. The room, the room that like that knocks in has got, um, more of kind of like the newer vendors maybe. Like there's us, there's Anderson pens, uh, modern, modern pens for the most part. Yeah. And then there is, uh, the third room this year has a lot of, uh, I guess independent pen makers, I think.

'''Brad:''' So I'm going to call the third room, the cool room. Cause that's where all the cool kids are at. And I haven't made it over there that that room is tight, man. Kara's customs, Mark Backus, Sean Newton. Who's in there. But the king of that room is not in this room and that's Michael's soul. So y'all should bow down to him when you walk in that room. He's right in the front. So that room is awesome. That's best room, best room in the show. They win the prize this year.

'''Myke:''' And then there's a huge room at the back and that's where a lot of the vintage vendors are. That room terrifies me when I go in there. This is like, there's a lot of expensive things in here and people that maybe don't want to talk to me. I don't know. Yeah. It's very, I get very intimidated going in there, but that's, but Anna, you're more at home there clearly.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I have not been intimidated by any of the...

'''Myke:''' I get scared really easily.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They've, everybody, all of the vintage vendors have been really, really nice and super helpful. I've only, there was only one vendor who was a little like, I don't have time for you. And so I didn't buy anything from him. I'm like, if you're going to snub me, no time. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And then we even have a hallway full of vendors too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a pretty packed show. It is. It's much larger than the previous years by a large number. I don't know what that number is, but it's really good to see all the people who have, all the vendors who have not attended this show before. I mean, I think I've only been coming here four or five years and you see the same kind of regular faces in the crowd with vendor wise, but to have like an influx of new vendors at the show is, is really, really cool because like I take a lot of pride in the show. This is like my home show. It's my hometown. You know, it's where Knox based out of. So like, I really care a lot about this show and it's really cool to see that kind of thing happen.

'''Myke:''' So my big pen. So was it last week or the week before I was talking about the fact that I wanted a Mayu or Murex, right? Mm-hmm. About a few hours after the episode posts, get a DM. Who do you think got a DM from? Thomas Hall. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' That was a, that was a short list in my head.

'''Myke:''' Just that little thing. That was a short list of one. I've got an M90 for you. New old stock. Do you want it? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'll take that. Yeah. So we worked out a deal in which I think I've ripped him off a little bit. Yeah. But it was when I was like, Thomas, allow me to give you more money. And he's like, no, no, that's fine. So I have a amazing.

'''Brad:''' You had, you already resold it. You got such a good deal. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' That's great. Flipped it.

'''Myke:''' Back to Thomas. Yeah. For some reason. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Who turned around and sold it to somebody else, right? Doubled his money.

'''Myke:''' So I have a beautiful Pilot M90 now. And I, I'm not going to show it yet. Oh. That'll be in the video. It's for the video people. All right. I'll get it. Yeah. Somewhere around here. So it is fantastic. I love it so much. There was a, on one of the tables behind us, there was a Murex. Yeah. Um, and it was like way more expensive than this. And I don't, I looked at it and I, I much prefer the way that the M90 looks because it's completely clean. The barrel is completely clean. There's no lines on it. And I think that the cap is way nicer and, uh, the clip is way nicer because it flows. Cause the Murex clip kind of like jumps out and goes across. And this one just flows way, way nicer and it's much, much better. So I'm a big fan of this. This is an absolute stunner. So thank you so much, Mr. Hall. And I have purple ink in it. Yeah. Because. Good move. Obviously. Uh, and I absolutely adore this pen. Uh, and the nib is just fantastic. Like I'm in a place where there's some incredible nib workers, right? So I could get some work done on it if I needed it, but it is superb. It's a medium and it just isn't, it is a dream and it has already found its way into my, this is a lookout, right? So I talk about how your case names. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So Myke's, Myke's has a, uh, the three pin holster, but what's special about it? It's in the unicorn barf colorway.

'''Myke:''' So that's like bright blue and pink inside from last year. And I love this thing so much. Uh, and I, it's already made its way into there, which is fantastic. So whilst we've, I've mentioned that I am struggling so much to remember the names of your cases and like tomorrow, Brad's leaving me on my own for a couple of hours. I might just put everything for $5. Is that all right? That might be an issue. Okay. It's like, so people come to buy stuff like, and I'm on the table and they're like, can I buy this one? What is this one? And I have to look at this big list and I'm like, that one is this case and it's $35. And I look at me like, don't you like work here?

== Phone Cash Register ==

'''Brad:''' Like what's wrong with you? So my phone is the cash register. So Myke has taken our price sheet and put it on my home screen.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it's on mine too. And I still can't get it. Like I, yeah, it's, I'm just really struggling. So next year we need to make me a cheat sheet that I can study for like three weeks before I come. We'll do that. That'll be our Tatli for next year. Yeah. Oh yeah. I could just, so we have these amazing Tatli tattoos and I have one on and it's the Pan Addict logo. Yeah. And we had those for people here, which is amazing. All right. Let's take a break. This is a real special one this time. So long time sponsor of the show, the amazing Pen Chalet. I know we're buying pens here, but like you should still go there as well. Like go to the Pen Chalet. We love the Pen Chalet. They sell everything you're looking for. They have great pens. They have great accessories from all of your favorite brands, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco. They have all of them. They believe so much in fast and reliable customer service. You know all this stuff about them, but the best thing about Pen Chalet is how amazing they are to work with. And Ron was so excited that he got to be part of this episode, our 200th episode. He's worked on something really special, which I'm going to get to in just a second. They do great prices, great shipping on everything. If you're shipping in the United States, it's just $50. They'll do free shipping as long as it's under 50 bucks. They have great rates for shipping overseas. They have great prices everywhere and you kind of benefit when you're getting the exchange rates. So that can be great. They do 100% satisfaction guarantee. That's what they believe in. Go to penchalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password penaddict. You'll get the code that you need to save 10% off anything on your order. And if you're listening live, you get to take part in something that we're also doing here. So in the room today to commemorate our 200th episode, Ron has put together a giveaway package, which is very unique. It includes some pens, some ink, and for the people here, a dudek block, which has been inscribed with penaddict 200. And it's got the Atlanta Pen Show on it and it's got the penchalet logo on it. So that's going to be a raffle for the people here. For everyone listening at home, we're doing the same, but the block isn't inscribed. And so we're going to be giving those away to people. So it's two packs. So we're going to, for everyone here now, we're going to do the raffle after the show is over. So I hope you kept your raffle tickets. We did tell you. But for everybody else, you can go in. You've got until April the 25th to enter online and you can get a whole, this fantastic package. Thank you so much to Ron and Penchalet for sponsoring us. Like they're with us every other week. We just have like, it just will go on forever. We love supporting them. So if you love this show, you've got something that you want to go and buy, go to Penchalet. You get 10% off, but you also help support them in this show. Thank you, Ron.

'''Brad:''' Thank you, Ron. It was really cool. I'll be anxious to get some pictures up of this block that he worked with Myke. I haven't seen it yet. You haven't seen it yet? No. I know all about it, but I haven't seen it. It's in this room right now. So we will take a look here momentarily.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I've seen it. It's super cool. Excellent. Excellent. And thanks to Ron.

'''Myke:''' Thank you.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Because he also supports the well-pointed desk.

'''Myke:''' He's great like that.

'''Ana Reinert:''' He is awesome.

'''Myke:''' All right. So I mentioned Ed from Australia earlier. So when Ed came to see us at the booth yesterday, he brought with him the Moleskine Smart Writing Set. Now, I've seen this floating around. I've just seen links to it. I've seen ads for it. And everyone's seen these things before, right? Like these pens that you can write with and you can take the images from the pens and scan them or whatever. It creates JPEGs or something. LiveScribe was a big one. Moleskine have created a very interesting combo. So it's a notebook and a pen that has an app. And we had it on Ed's iPad Pro. And I've never seen anything like this. Like blew me away. So the pen. The pen's okay. It's a bit chunky, right? As these things always are. It has a kind of a camera behind the nib. And it takes standard D1s, right? Right. Because the first thing Brad does when he gets it is like rips the refill out of it. Like it just picks up. It's like just pulls it apart. And everyone's like, ah. And he's like, oh, no, it looked like it would come out. It's like, okay, right.

'''Myke:''' So.

'''Brad:''' So what is the D1, right? So what's the D1? It's just a standard mini size refill that you can get in all kinds of cool iterations now. Like you can get a Jetstream. You can get these great Zebra Charbo gel refills. So you can fit any D1 refill into this pen, you know, to write with.

'''Myke:''' And the notebook is weird. It's like really weird. So if you imagine like a regular Moleskine, Moleskine. The edge of the paper kind of, it comes out and then it's like rounded at the edges. So there's like a big chunk of paper that goes all the way around the outside. I can't see any reason for this.

'''Ana Reinert:''' They beveled the edges out so that it would look more like a tablet. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think to visually differentiate it from their regular notebooks so that you knew it was a digital notebook versus their regular. I don't know if I like it. I know. It's a little weird.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Because I just look at it and be like that edge is just going to get dirty because it's just like sticking out. It's very peculiar, but I can see what they were going for. I just don't think there's a way to do it. It's being passed to the front now. So like we can maybe try and get it in the video at least. So, you know, I'll have it here and it also helps me so I can see it. Yeah. So it's like a weird kind of, if you imagine the front of the notebook, the paper looks just like it's too big, basically.

'''Brad:''' And the way they did the finishing on it is not like a normal paper notebook would be cut. But the way they rounded it and they did, there's some kind of coding on it to make it look, they make it look plasticky, to be honest. They make it look like a tablet. But it's what, you know, standard 190 something pages, I'm guessing, of just regular sheets. So this is a really, when it came out, I've never been into the Livescribe stuff. I've never been into that kind of capturing. But when we, when Ed broke it out, we're both like, okay, this is cool. And then we started using it. And it legitimately works well. I mean, like, yeah, it matches your handwriting so quickly. And you can't help but watch the screen because it's going so fast. You're trying to race it. It's like it does it live. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' So you have the app open and you're writing with a thing. And it basically is, we have a millisecond or two delay. You're seeing it in the app, right? And inside of the app, you can change the thickness and the color of the ink as well, which is really interesting. So you're still drawing on the page in the standard color because, you know, it's not a scribble pen.

'''Myke:''' One day, Brad. One day, baby. One day. And so you can see it's changing the color. So, like, a real interesting application for this would be, like, a digital whiteboard. Like, imagine if you could airplay it to a TV. And you could just be sitting in a room and drawing this thing out and you can change the color of it. I was, like, enthralled by it. I was, like, I just kept changing the color and drawing little happy faces and boxes.

'''Myke:''' This is really cool. Now, it looks like it will only work with this notebook. The paper has, like, an interesting, like, dark gradient to it, which I guess maybe helps with the camera, right? Yeah.

'''Brad:''' But I'm really impressed. It has, like, some tap zones on it, too, so you can hit it. It has a little envelope. You can tap it and send the image somewhere. It's like I'm going to send Ed an email later that says the Aussie accent is superior to the British accent.

'''Myke:''' I'll go straight to spam. So, yeah, I'm impressed by this. And I'm... I'm surprisingly impressed by it. I'm intrigued to get one. So I can give it a go. I don't know if I can go that far yet, but it's definitely interesting. This is what I wanted. Yeah. When I was working on my old job, right? Because scanning field notes didn't really work for me in the long run because it was just a pain to scan them. You know, because we had the Doxy Flip, so it was like I had to take a scan of each page, basically. It took forever. And then you kind of have to put it all together. I mean, I don't know if they're trying to... I don't know if they're doing any OCR stuff. They're doing OCRs on it as well. Oh, man.

'''Brad:''' But it's not like you're going to carry that in your back pocket. I mean, you have to make an effort to carry the notebook. I mean, it's like A5-ish size, whatever the Moleskine A5 size is.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I mean, they might do smaller ones, right? There's nothing to stop them.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. They've just introduced it. It's brand new. Yeah, so they've just done the A5. So I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they don't introduce the pocket or reporter size.

'''Myke:''' And you don't have to have the device with you. Like, the pen will record it all and you can put it in later. Because it wouldn't help if you were carrying then an iPad and a notebook and a pen. Like, that wouldn't be very useful. But it's really cool. And I was talking to someone about it because I had my... You know, we had an iPad Pro and there was a pencil there. And it was like... The thing is, like, whilst I love the Apple Pencil, it's still not pen and paper, right? And you get no feedback from that screen. And whilst it's amazing... I know you were using it earlier. What did you think of the Apple Pencil, by the way?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I really enjoy it. I really do like it. And eventually I think I will upgrade.

'''Myke:''' It's the closest representation of your handwriting in digital. That's, you know, that's the underlying thing about this. But it's still not pen and paper, though. And when you're using... Even though I'm not a massive fan of that refill type, it's still superior. Like, it feels... It just feels correct.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I think that's completely accurate. I mean... We'll see how... I'm anxious to see how it does. Because there's been several attempts and they get super hyped right out the gate. And they all just tend to go down in flames. So...

'''Myke:''' I don't know if there's a market for it. I think that's the thing. I don't know if people want this. Like, it's really cool, but I don't know if you want it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. But the point of entry for it is pretty pricey.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's steep. We're at $200 to get into it with the pen and the notebook.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, it's $199 to get in.

'''Myke:''' I mean... Version 1, right? Yeah. This feels like the route Moleskine is going down. Yeah. Like, they've been seeing like they're making apps, like they're dipping their toe in the water. I think they understand where they should be playing. And considering the market that they fall into, which is tech heavy, right? People that are in technology, Moleskine, as we know from your buddy Kevin Rose. Because... Like... That seems to be like they've really got the mindshare. So, products like this really kind of play into the essential market. And I think that it's going to be interesting to see how it goes for them. If anyone can do it, they can do it. Yeah. And what they've executed so far is pretty good. Yeah. That's the other thing. Fundamentally, they've got the right product, which is very surprising. Because I saw it as someone was just like, ah, it's going to be crap. Yeah. But it's not crap at all.

== Show Differences ==

'''Myke:''' All right. Let's talk about how this show is different to last year's show. So, Anna, what has been your kind of overall feeling about how, if this show is any different to last year and why you think that is?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, for me, the biggest thing is this is my second show. So, I have a different... I'm having a different experience. My... Last year was my first show. So, it was really learning sort of how to navigate a show. What I was looking for. And also, different grade of flop sweat for doing the podcast.

'''Myke:''' Still quite a lot. Quite a lot.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I wasn't... You know, last time it was just camera guys and you guys. This time it's all of you guys. So, it's a whole different grade of... But, no. It was... That experience was just kind of getting a real sense of just the scope of how many vendors there were. Both new shops selling new product as well as the vintage sellers. And kind of figuring out how to navigate buying from a vintage vendor and figuring out like, you know, will... How do... How will, you know, a seller of vintage pens react to someone who is sort of new to vintage pens, a little bit younger consumer? Because there was a lot of talk about, you know, somebody younger buying vintage pens. Like, are they going to kind of give me the cold shoulder? Are they going to be receptive to someone younger being interested in vintage pens? And the reaction ended up being very warm last year. And then coming this year, what ended up happening for me was pretty much every vendor I went to said, I remember you. Last year, you bought a Pelican from me. I remember you. You bought. And which was really cool. I mean, I actually had, you know, a couple of the older guys come up and they passed my hair and, you know, gave me a hug. And, you know, what are you going to buy from me this year? And I'm like, I don't know what kind of deal you're going to give me.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, which has been really fun. And it's, I think, you know, and I've had some people tell me that, you know, like the DC show is a much bigger show with a lot more people. Atlanta show is a bit smaller. So, vendors do have an opportunity to remember the people that purchased last year. So, you do have an opportunity to have that experience with a lot of the sellers, both, you know, shops and, you know, resellers in a way that maybe you wouldn't necessarily get in a big show like LA or DC, which has been really nice because then you can have sort of a relationship with people and go back. If you have a particular type of brand or pen that you really like, if you really like Parker 51s, you can kind of go back to somebody who frequently buys and sells Parker 51s and kind of work with them. What have you got this year? Kind of a thing. So, in my case, it's the couple guys who sell Estabrooks and I spend a lot of time with them.

'''Brad:''' Goof balls. Any Estabrooks? No Estabrooks yet this year?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I did. I bought, well, I bought two. Shocking. Shocking. I know. One I bought for a friend of mine who is the reason I have an Estabrook problem. He asked me, he wanted a pink purse pen for his daughter. So, I found one. And if he does not like the one that I got, I will just swap out and give him the pink purse pen that I have. And I'll keep the one that I bought.

'''Brad:''' Cool.

'''Myke:''' So, you bought 10 is what you're saying? No, just 10. Okay. All right. All right. Brad, obviously, part of why you're here is to sell stuff. Yeah. So, from a not-co perspective, how has 2016 differed to 2015?

'''Brad:''' It's been really good both years. Like, just the volume is bigger. Last year, we prepared more. Last year, we definitely had some deer in the headlight stuff going on.

'''Myke:''' Like, when we got and realized we didn't have any way to set up the table. Yeah. It was like, oh, we probably should have worked something out.

'''Brad:''' Like, we packed stuff in boxes, threw it in a truck. We arrived, threw our hands up going, I don't know what to do now.

'''Myke:''' I guess we just put stuff on the table. Yeah. Did we put the boxes on the table? Yeah.

== NOC Business ==

'''Brad:''' So, it was our first show ever for NOC. It went, I mean, of course, it ended up going super last year. This year, it was, from a business perspective, like, obviously better just because there's more people. We were better prepared inventory-wise. We were able to set up and not be nervous wrecks in a shorter time frame because we've done it before. Just the same thing as anyone going to their first pin show. People here, I know a bunch of y'all have been, this is your first pin show. It's super stressful not going to know who's the right person to talk to, who's the right person to buy from. And it's like the same thing with us setting up is like, I don't know exactly what to do. I told Jimmy Dole of the show promoter last year that you should put me next to the Andersons because when I panic and have questions, I know them already. And I can get help quickly. Luckily, I didn't require any help and it came out fine. So, this year is definitely calmer from a personal standpoint. I feel like, you know, the ship ran very smoothly this year. Not that it didn't last year, but we made our own lives easier this year and business is booming.

'''Myke:''' Not overall. Yeah. Because we did this this year. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Very different. We did this thing with all the eyeballs looking at us. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' But you talk about the Blue Label stuff.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, we try, we like to mess around. I mean, we like to create things and try to do innovative things or try something new that hasn't been done. And Jeff's the pro at that. Like, I get emails or text or Slack images. What about this? What about that? Just like all of his brain is constantly going on like design stuff. Um, and it's like all really good. Like, Jeff doesn't have a lot of misses, which is what impresses me the most out of him. Um, so he just comes up with these ideas and we're at a point as a company where we're hitting this growth spurt that we can't quite handle. Like with standard inventory. Yep. But we still have to scratch that creative itch a little bit or we'd go insane. Right. So, we're able to fit in something like limited edition, limited colors. And we decided to give it a name. We always kind of did this thing. We call it small batch and we release it online, which would be just a case we make already in just a different color or something a little bit different. So, we decided to give it like an official name. And it's kind of like our playground. So, the Blue Label is like our playground. We're going to try new products there. We're going to try new designs. We never made a case with a snap before. So, we wanted to see how that would work and what people think about it. So, um.

'''Myke:''' So, this case that you made, because you've been teasing it, it's a snap open. Mm-hmm. It's blue and red. Blue and red. Like a royal blue and a bright red. The flap which you open up has got a place where you can pop your pen in. Yeah. It's got a pen slot. You need a clipped pen, preferably. Yep. Or just slide right out of there. Or, and then it's basically just like a big pocket. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a, it's like an envelope carry type case. Envelope case.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I have one with me. Anyone? You want to see it? Yeah.

'''Myke:''' So, this is what, you know, this is something that you did. And how did we sell them? Because this is, this is pretty funny. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So, I mean, you know, we want to try to be good to all our customers and make sure everyone gets what they want. So, we kind of, we knew we were only going to make a limited amount. So, we made 40 of them. We bought enough material, you know, to, to manage doing something extra in our workflow is a challenge as it is. So, we had to pick a number that was good enough to give everyone a taste if they wanted, but not 200 to where we can't make regular stuff. So, we did that and we teased a little bit online and we set it up. We just made 40 of them. We broke them out at noon on Friday. We let everyone know ahead of time. So, we had a, we had a pretty good crowd.

'''Myke:''' People were coming up, right? This is at like 9 a.m. on Friday morning. The show is not even open, right? There are still people that haven't even arrived to set up. You got the label stuff? Like, you got the special case? It's like 12 o'clock. Come back at 12. 11.45 is probably about eight or nine people just like waiting.

'''Myke:''' And they're just waiting. And then, and then, so basically 12 o'clock rolls around and the thing starts standing. And Jeff had some policy that he set up, which I saw in action that he was very strict about. So, it was one per person and you had to be there. Like, you had a couple of people send him text messages saying like, can you hold one for me? And I saw him say, no, I cannot hold one for you. Yeah. I stole the first one and just rung it through the Square Reader. Yeah, Myke didn't even get any advanced special treatment. No, I basically put them on the table and I just picked one up and just ran my card through the Square Reader. So, I got one. And then, I think we sold like half in about two minutes. And then, the rest kind of staggered out over like an hour or so.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''Myke:''' Like, I went away to get a drink. It's like, it's died down. I was like, oh, okay. We have these for a while. Went away to get a drink. Came back and they're all gone. So, I don't know. It's like a second wave of people. But you're pretty happy with that, right? Yeah, super happy with it.

'''Brad:''' And, you know, this is something like we want to continue to do. We love getting feedback on our cases, how they're functioning. You know, especially when we try something new and getting those out there in people's hands. And letting them play with it and do things that we wouldn't normally do with it. And see how they hold up and how they function and what we can do better. Like, it's great. Like, all of our customers are like really good at giving us feedback on our products. Like, you know, I'll have people walking up to me today saying, you know, what do you, you know, can we talk about this case? And here's how I use it. And here's the things that I'm thinking about when I'm using it. And is that something, you know, you might think about integrating? And, you know, we don't know. But just having that conversation is super helpful as a business.

'''Myke:''' So, for me, I think the biggest change this year is the vibe. The vibe of the show has been really different. Tons of new faces.

'''Myke:''' Lots of listeners of the show have been coming up to me. Like, a ton of people that I didn't meet last time have been coming up. And I think one, like, personally, something that's been really interesting is how many people have been telling me about the other real AFM shows they listen to. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like CGP Grey woke me up in the bed the other morning.

'''Myke:''' Well, that was a whole different thing. I was watching a video. He had a video come out. You woke me up at, like, 5 a.m. I was, you know, I was relaxing. And, yeah, there's been a couple of Cortex t-shirts. I'm looking at one on Doug right now. And, yeah, it's been really cool, actually. Yeah. It feels like one of two things are happening, which is either, like, Pan Addict listeners are going out and finding other shows. And the other one, which I've heard, is, like, people are hearing about this show from other shows on Real AFM and tuning in, which is great. And I'm happy that we're finding people like that. I've heard from a bunch of people who have done the all the way from the beginning in, like, I think it's almost like 30 days. Chuck, was it 30 days? Yeah, 30 days, 200 episodes. Like, doesn't sleep, I don't think. Yeah. And there's a bunch of people who have done a thing that I think is really interesting that I don't think I could do, which is, like, coming in at, like, 180 and listening to the new episode every week, but also going back. Like, so hearing, like, these two separate timelines of us. I don't know how you keep that straight. Yeah. And a ton of comments about, like, you guys hated fountain pens. Yeah. Never lived that one down. Yeah. But I'm really excited for next year now because looking at how much this has grown is incredible. And, like, doing this, it's going quite well, I think, with all these people in the room feeling all right about it now. I'm very excited to do it all over again. So this has been great, and I can't wait to do it next year. I'm not even done yet.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. No, we've got a long way to go.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Do you guys want to do this again next year?

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I like that. Team club time. Yeah. All right. So I've come to the end of our planned topic, so I think it's time for some questions. So if anybody has any questions, please, if you could go and line up at the microphone.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So while we're waiting, I'm going to go with the first question, okay? While we're going to get someone up there. So y'all don't listen to me. Y'all go get in line. So my first question is, do you remember episode 194 when we talked about a certain pen that a certain long worldwide traveler bought? Maybe had a skull or two on it. She may have arrived today. She might be sitting right over there. So we talked about a particular Nakaya we had, and we made a particular comment about this. And she stopped by earlier and brought something that I think you're going to like. So this is from Miss Lee Reyes, and we got a shirt that uses a quote from our show that seems to have lived on. So why don't you tell everyone what it says?

'''Myke:''' So on the shirt pocket of this shirt, it says, forged by pure evil. And then it has our logo and says, the pen addict podcast episode 194. Thank you, Leigh. That is amazing.

'''Myke:''' All right. Someone, come on. Come on. Come to the microphone. Don't be shy. Someone's going to have a question. All right, Dan. You go. Come on. You give me a face. Come and ask me a question.

'''Audience member:''' Who's your favorite Arizona pen manufacturer? I was just curious about that.

'''Brad:''' Are there any? Yeah. I got my phone. Let me look some up. There's a map on all things stationary. You can check out. Oh, okay. So if we need someone, but I'm going to go with Karas Customs because they're legitimately awesome.

'''Myke:''' Karas has a really interesting thing this year, which is a teal ink, right?

'''Audience member:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' And Dan was telling us at breakfast that this one's slightly different to the rest because they all had to be painted, right? Right. So tell me about that. Talk into the microphone. Tell me about it.

'''Audience member:''' So, yeah, we wanted something different for Atlanta. So we originally wanted to do an anodized teal, and everyone knows all the problems we have with anodized. So we came up with a solution where, well, they came up with a solution where I have to airbrush every single one, and then we put them in an oven, and then we bake them. Yeah. And, you know, the cookies come out, and then they're teal pens.

'''Brad:''' So y'all have heard me tell the story about the Kaweco Fire Blue Lilliput, where the theory is that Michael Gubrele, the CEO, president of Kaweco, takes the blowtorch to these pens himself. That's all I can see Dan in the Karas Customs office painting these things himself. There's a video of it. Yeah.

'''Audience member:''' It's on the, I think, the Karas Penco, and someone got mad at me because I didn't have a dust mask on. I kept telling Paul, I was like, don't show my face.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. You have a beard, so you're covered, I think. Yeah, yeah.

'''Audience member:''' It's filtration. I think that overrides OSHA regulations. I didn't get a flu shot because I just grew the beard, so. Is there any left? You still selling any? We sold all of the inks, but I think we have some EDKs, and then we did some faux patina on brass EDKs. I've seen that. So we're going to do some other ones. I think it's going to be fun. So it's something that if I don't want to do any office work, I can go out and make the shop guys mad because there's this huge dust cloud and fumes going towards the areas.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Isn't there something interesting about that material that you're using for the teal?

'''Audience member:''' It was primarily developed, I think, originally in the 60s for coating steel for firearms. So you can do, like they did like black and camouflage and stuff. And so it's like a ceramic-based coating, I guess. You bake it for a couple hours at 350 degrees, and it hardens it. So I don't know, it's kind of cool. Like I worked in the automotive paint industry for a long time, and so I mess with all kinds of paints, but this is the first time it's something that was oven cured like that.

'''Brad:''' So I'm going to brag on Karis Customs for a second because something cool happened today. Like I told Myke when we showed up Friday, we have these yellow knock notebooks that don't have our best paper in it, admittedly. That was version one. Version one. We've improved on it then. So I said any kids that come up to our table, hand them the pack of notebooks because we just want to promote that. We believe in that. We want the kids to be part of this. Give the pens, give the kids the paper, right? Yeah, right. Hey, DJ, DW and Phineas earmuffs, buddies. So yeah, we've been passing that out. And earlier this afternoon, our friend Chris from Alabama, he had his wife and his daughter, and they'd come and seen us. And they just had a few hours to spend at the show. And they came back, and I was walking somewhere, and they stopped me in the hallway like, you're not going to believe what just happened. And Dan or Paul, I don't know who it was, but they gave their daughter one of the copper EDKs, and they were just freaking ecstatic. I was so excited. Did she be able to lift that? How strong is this kid?

'''Audience member:''' She had to arm wrestle one of us first. I think that was Paul, yeah.

'''Brad:''' I thought that was super cool, and that's what this show's about. And I just wanted to say that was really, really cool. Yeah, I mean, the children are our future. Or was it Paul? Paul's got the heart, right? Yeah. Yeah, sing for us, Dan.

'''Myke:''' Nobody needs that. Thank you. So come on. Someone's got another question for us. Sorry, Anthony.

'''Brad:''' Anthony's got a question. Oh, he's going in front of the microphone and in front of the camera. This is probably going to be trouble.

'''Anthony:''' Hi. So this is a question for Myke. Okay. You've come a really long way to Atlanta for the pen show. This is your second show. So what did you do personally differently to prepare for this? And since it's almost two-thirds of the way through now, what do you want to do next year differently from this year?

'''Myke:''' I think the biggest thing was just trying to think through how we would have a show with an audience. Because it's a very different experience. Because if I do something stupid, there's people that are watching it happen. So that I can't hide from. One of the things that I learned from last year that I did differently this year was think about the fact that I was doing a show in two days and actually write some stuff down. Because last year, it was like 10 minutes before we were recording. And Brad said, what are we talking about? And I said, I don't know. So I've been writing stuff down as I usually do. But usually I'm not surrounded by pens for a few days. So I've been taking some notes and prepping. Next time, I want to see if we can get a bigger audience. Nice. So. Yeah, look at you. Look, everyone. There are people standing up right now. I would like everyone to be sitting down. And then maybe some more standing.

== Pen Show Shopping ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to brag on just your pen show shopping for a second. So we talked last year when you came. What are your pen show 101? How you should handle yourself when you show up? And you blew that completely out the water within the five minutes of the pen show opening. You ran around like, ah, I got a new pen. Just running around. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. So he's like, Myke would vanish. Then we'd come back and go, look what I got. And then he'd vanish again. He'd go, look what I got. You've been very like paced this year.

'''Myke:''' I've bought two things. Yeah. So. Well, one of them was pretty quick, but I'd arranged it beforehand. Yeah. So I think that gives me an out. Yeah. I did buy a retro 51 within like 15 minutes of being there. That's true.

'''Brad:''' That's a given, I guess. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' There was one that I like to look off the Anderson table and I was like, ah, I'll take that one. Yeah. But yeah. So great question. So thank you very much.

'''Myke:''' Oh, now look. There's like a line forming now. Congratulations. Line up. Just line up.

'''Matt:''' So you get a space. My name is Matt. So I've recently found your podcast. I'm one of the guys who found the Apple podcast and then came to pen addict. And one thing interesting for me is I've used pens all my life. Never really thought about them. They're just tools. Then I got a fountain pen after listening to you guys. Then I went back to the beginning of your, not all of them, probably like 10. The first 10. Something interesting for me is now I'm actually paying attention to the normal pens that I use. Like, you know, Brad, you often refer to the jet streams and stuff. And it's, it's, it is interesting. It's sort of, you know, this little world that's opening up like, oh, I actually enjoy writing with this pen. So what I was thinking about for you guys, you referenced at the beginning of the podcast, you guys either didn't use or didn't like fountain pens. So how has, how has your view of, you started the pen addict when you didn't even like fountain pens. So how does, how has y'all's view of pens changed since 2012?

'''Brad:''' It's mind boggling how little I still know about pens. And I think that's what's changed the most is I've learned so much and then only come to realize I know very little still. So having people around us that are more experienced and do these things and can answer questions that you can lean on these people in this community to help you out when you have the most absolutely simple, basic question. And learn so much from each individual person's different perspective than what I have. Like, you know, I have a particular set of things that I look for in a pen. Well, that doesn't necessarily make it a good pen for you or for anyone else in the room. So being able to leverage like the group knowledge of everyone has been like really important for me in like just growing myself and learning and then be able to talk to someone else who's like brand new. Hey, I just started this. Here's how I write. Here's what I'm looking for. And then like to just appreciate every little thing, you know, about stationary. You don't have to buy $300 pens to have a great experience. You know, you buy a $3 pen and write on any any piece of paper that you can find and you're just set. So, you know, it's seeing kind of that. Community being so available and so approachable that. Change kind of how I think about things and change. How about how I think about doing things in the future, too.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So I completely agree. And I think that the opportunity that that everything from a roller rollerball or gel pen can create just as great an experience for what you need to do. If you're just taking notes at work or anything like that to a fountain pen, that's $100, $200, $500. And having all of those opportunities to have a great writing experience and having people here that can tell you I was listening to somebody today talk about, you know, this was the original ballpoint pen, you know. And, you know, here's they're telling the story about how that came to be. And, you know, no, these didn't work great. But this is where it started. This was how they were trying to figure out how you could have something that you could put in your pocket and not worry about leaking. Okay, well, this one did leak. But they were working on it. But, you know, and having that great history and, you know, how they tried to figure this stuff out and eventually figure out how to make these inks that actually didn't leak. And, you know, the balls in the rollers that kept the ink in there and flowed properly and all this kind of stuff. It's really cool. It's just, you know, and these people have all that knowledge and all that history and being able to sort of learn from other people.

'''Myke:''' So, fun. I think getting into fountain pens ended up giving me a greater understanding and appreciation of what I enjoy in pens. So, like, the thing that I use the most these days is a rotary mechanical pencil. Like, that is the thing that I use to write the most. And there are reasons for that. Like, because it's better for me to use something that I'm not clicking or uncapping when I'm recording. Because, like, you'll see me doing it. Like, I'm taking notes as we go. It's the quietest way for me to do it. Because the pencil can just remain uncapped all the time. It's easier for me to do that. And it's quieter when I use it. It doesn't really make as many sounds because it can be picked up in the microphone. But I've found a mechanical pencil that I adore. Like, I used my Rotaring Lava one because I love the design of it. Fountain pens taught me more about the design in pens that I enjoy. They taught me more about weight and balance. Because they tend to be on a higher scale. So, when I then started to understand what I liked about that, I could apply it to things that are more simple. But that I could still appreciate. Like, I used Rotarings before I got really big into fountain pens and didn't like them so much. And I have a regular Rotaring 500 at home as well that I really love to use and was using a bit last week. So, getting into fountain pens seemed to give me just a better understanding of what I like and don't like. And what I then can appreciate when looking at other things. And I like that stuff more now than I did four years ago.

'''Brad:''' I still get really excited about an awesome gel ink pen. I mean, like, I smile. I mean, I'm sitting there looking silly at my desk. No one else around. And I'll be using just whatever random fountain pens I'm using at the time. And I break out a gel ink pen. I was like, oh, man. I missed you, buddy. And this is, like, a really cool. This is, like, a really great experience. It happens all the time. Yep. Great question.

'''Myke:''' Another question?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Dave. All right. Sure. Hi. It's Dave. So, I'm curious. You know, Myke talked a little bit about wanting to grow the audience next year and have more people in here sitting and more people standing. And so, for everybody who might be listening at home and might be on the fence about buying that plane ticket or getting in the car and driving a few hours next year, like, what is each of your number one reason to come to the pen show? Anna?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Actually, the opportunity to get to hang out with my friends, meet new friends, meet vendors who can make me more knowledgeable about new products and older vintage products, the opportunity to actually hold in my hands things that I only ever get to see online, the Van Ness ink testing station, where I got to actually sit for a half an hour and try out, like, 20 different bung box inks. I mean, these are things that you can't really do online that can either, that can inform whether or not you spend the money on something that's very, either very expensive or very inexpensive. Getting to see all of these things, hold them in your hand, talk to the people who sell them, get a nib tuned, get a custom grind. These are all things that you can do in person that, yes, you can do them online, and you can do them through email, and you can mail, you know, something to someone and have a nib tuned, but it's not the same experience as actually sitting with someone and handing them the pen, have them tune the nib, try it, nope, not quite right, hand it back, let's try it again, you know, and work, really work with somebody. I mean, these are opportunities that are so, so, so great, and then just getting to meet people and talk pens and sit around and kind of nerd out with other people who get really excited about this stuff. This is like, you know, my husband's teased me for weeks. This is the three days in which I'm probably the most extroverted I am compared with the other 362 days out of the year. The rest of the time I stay in my house, in my room, on my computer, and then for three days I talk to people and hang out and stay up until two in the morning. We love Godot!

'''Matt:''' Wait.

'''Brad:''' So, for someone who's never been to a pen show, you don't come for the pens or the purchases or the inks. You come for the smiles and hugs, and everyone knows me, I'm a hugger, and it's just like Ana was talking about. Getting to meet these people that you talk to online, even if you've never talked to them at all before, just being able to see these people, hang out with everyone, you know, hang out at the bar afterwards, sharing stories and pens and paper and being able to talk to everyone. I mean, it's really all about the people. I don't even care, like, much about the business stuff. Like, you know, I'm actually here to work, but that, I'm just, I want to get through the day so I can go hang out with everyone when I'm done, because everyone's rolling by me. They can come see by me. Look what I got, Brad. I'm like, I haven't seen any tables yet. Thanks.

'''Brad:''' But it's good that I can get to live through everybody and everyone going through the show. So that's pretty cool. It's, I mean, it's 100% about the people. I know a bunch of people traveled to this show. I know it's a bunch of people's first show. And even if they just come for the people and for the hanging out, it's going to be so fulfilling and so rewarding. I can't recommend it highly enough to anyone who's even remotely interested in what we're doing to just come and hang out. I mean, that's seriously all you got to do. And you'll have a wonderful time. And the next year, you will be dying to come back, I hope.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. For me, obviously everything they said, but also the ability to try pens. Like, one of the best things here is that ever, like, it's not even a question. Like, you say, what pen did you buy? Oh, this one. And they just give it to you. And then you just get a pad. You just start writing with it because everyone trusts each other that they're not just going to go and just stab it in the desk. So that's one of my very favorite things is that sense of camaraderie of everyone. So I think we have three people waiting for questions. So we'll do these three and then we're going to cut it off because it's really hot in this room. Yeah. It's escalated quickly.

'''Dave:''' And here I was going to ask if I could have an extra question per layover on the way here. Because you were talking about different. I feel like this. Somebody needs to check their tall privilege on this microphone. So you were talking about different ways that people find the podcast and different ways that people come to it. And it got me thinking because I was sort of forced into it. I didn't get to choose which was my first episode.

'''Dave:''' So I was just thinking if you were going to recommend one episode for listeners to get someone else into it, like the first one is free episode to make someone understand why they should listen and why they should care about pens, which episode would you pick?

'''Myke:''' Probably this one, right? Like I'm being serious. Like it's not, I think.

'''Dave:''' So this one's full of inside jokes and high temperatures.

'''Myke:''' Well, that's what we're best known for. Well, the problem is getting into this show, and this is something we've been talking about a bunch, right? About how do we give a new starting point. And we're working on that for some point next. That's going to be mine and Brad's next kind of little mini project. It's working on a new starting point for people because we realized that there's 200 of these now. The issue coming into this show at any point is even if it's not inside jokes, it's just the accumulated knowledge of 200 episodes. So me and Brad refer to terms now like they're second nature that people might not know. And that's always an issue with anything that has lasted for as long as this has. Is jumping in anywhere is always going to be difficult. So I think why I think this one might be a fun one to start off with is because it's kind of different and it's got a different vibe to it. And we're having a bit more fun with it and it's a bit more lighthearted than usual, I think. But going forward, I think it's an important thing for us that we need to recreate and create something that becomes that and work better at trying to make the Panatic podcast a better resource for people.

'''Brad:''' And for me, it might be kind of a cliched answer, but I honestly think number one would be the best. And I never thought I would say that until Myke forced me to listen to it. About three or four weeks ago.

'''Myke:''' It's only the best if you're going to then listen to the whole thing, which is a good thing to do because you get all of the knowledge that we've got over the last four years. But it's a daunting task.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. But I thought like as nervous as I sounded and as, you know, sketchy as the whole thing was that we're doing a podcast about pins. Massively different. Yeah. For someone that's coming from like zero and has like a Bic or a Jetstream or all of a sudden they found a gel pen that they want. They can go, oh, there's more stuff to like learn out there. And then maybe I'll pick up some of these other episodes later. But I was episode one still holds up in a very strange kind of way, which I didn't think I would say until you made me listen to it again.

'''Myke:''' That's a good question.

'''Dave:''' And I can recommend the method. Get someone in a car, drive all the way up the West Coast, control the phone and explain all the in-jokes to you. Yeah. I like that. Just like hypothetically recommendations.

'''Myke:''' We can get that as a service, right? We can find people. We'll hire someone. Doug, you'll do that, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Doug, what's your question? So what's your most exotic nib grind and what do you like about it? Anna?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I actually don't have any exotic nib grinds yet. I would at some point like to get an architect grind, but I haven't done it yet. Only thing I've had done so far was last year I had Myke Masayamo do two tunings for me. Just because I'm left-handed, I wanted to have some edges just touched up a little bit. I had an italic and I had him round the edges just a little bit and a fine that I just had him buff out a little bit. That's it.

'''Brad:''' For me, it's a recent one. I think architect type grinds would probably be a lot of our common theme, but I actually bought a pen recently with Zoom nib, which is a sailor nib, and it ended up, I didn't know if I would like it or not. It turns out I really disliked it because it writes like a marker.

'''Myke:''' I'd really like that. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So my friend Mark Bacchus, I gave it to him. I said, just do something with this. Because it's just like a huge block of tipping on there. So I'm pretty sure someone who knows how to work on nibs could do something cool with this just massive workspace. So he did an architect grind, but the tipping on the pen is so big, the back end of the architect grind looks like a fish hook. So it's like the biggest, baddest architect grind you've ever seen in your life. And I brought it with me. So anyone who wants to see that, it's like you hold it up and you can see like you could tie it to a fishing line and go fishing with this thing. It's pretty, it's stupid in all the right ways.

'''Myke:''' Brad showed me this and whilst he wasn't looking, I turned a page of a notebook with it. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I hooked it right in under there and turned it over. Yeah. I don't have anything really. Mine is just like a cursive italic, which is like, everyone's like, that's, that's the most I have. Uh, cause I'm still a little bit scared of, of getting these things done. Cause as well, like most of the pens that I would want to have something like that done to, I already really like. So I've only ever had these grinds done on pens that I don't like. Right. Like, so like I know they need to be changed in some way. So I have the work done. Um, I should probably just buy something and have it for that purpose, but I haven't done that yet. Thank you, Doug.

'''Brad:''' Thanks, Doug.

== Pencils ==

'''Myke:''' Father Kyle, you had the last question. The most important question. Yeah. What pencils did you bring to the show? I'm using one right now. Uh, I'm using my Rotring Lava. I think it's a 600. I don't know what they call it. They call that model or something different, but yeah. But I love this thing and I'm using it right now. And I'm, I just, this is like, if not most, it's in the, I think top two or three writing utensils. I love this thing to death because it's real heavy and it looks so good. Uh, and it does a great job. I also brought the Mickey Mouse Kuro Toga as well. You didn't think I had this many, right? And I also brought a Koh-i-Noor magic pencil. Ooh, how is that? It's magic.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, and the Apple pencil.

'''Myke:''' But it kind of counts.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Um, well, I brought two boxes of Koh-i-Noor magic pencils and I have a few left. So, come see me if you want a Koh-i-Noor magic pencil. Uh, thank you, CW Pencil Enterprises. Yes. So, I ordered them from them and they included a handwritten pencil note on my invoice saying, what are you up to? Um, to which I put an Instagram picture up saying, uh, because I thought the pen show needed some pencils. Um, so I brought those. But I also, um, included in my regular kit, um, some of my watercolor pencils and I have a whole bunch. So, I got a problem.

'''Brad:''' So, um, living up to Brad Dowdy hates pencils. As I've recently heard on my good friends, the Erasable Podcast, who we have so much fun with, I brought zero pencils to this show.

'''Brad:''' Because I didn't want to besmirch the good nature of the fountain pen show. So, but I, I will say I'm leaving with one pencil because I got the magic from Anna as well.

'''Myke:''' So. That brings us to the end of the episode. Brad Dowdy, where can people find you online? I'm giving you the honor this week. Find me online at penaddict.com.

'''Brad:''' You can find me on Twitter at Dowdyism and on Instagram at penaddict. Anna?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Uh, you can find me at wellappointeddesk.com. You can find me on Instagram at wellappt. Desk? Oh, Jesus.

'''Myke:''' That was why I asked Brad because I couldn't say Anna. Like, I can barely say it when I'm looking at it on the screen.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Same on, same on Twitter. Please don't make me do that again.

'''Myke:''' Ha ha ha ha. I'm at iMike. I am YKE. If you want to find our show notes for this week, head over to relay.fm slash penaddict slash two zero zero for the episode two hundred. Thanks again to Pench L.A. But most of all, thank you all for joining us. We'll be back next week. Like in a few days. Yeah, like three days.

'''Myke:''' Thank you for listening, everyone. Oh, come on. I've got to take a picture of this from my stupid iPad. All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. All right.

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The Pen Addict 307/Transcript

2026-06-21T10:30:14Z

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The Pen Addict 307/transcript

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Speaker 0: Question for is Mike and I like this question and I'm gonna do this.

Speaker 0: Hi Brad I have a question for the podcast are you were Mike participating in the twenty eighteen read it gives pens and stationery exchange ready guess the secret Santa exchanges throughout the year connecting strangers all over the world and one of the exchanges starting this month as pens and stationery have your Mike ever tried out anonymous gift exchanges before so the paddock slack does have a secret Santa I've participated in that before it's super fine I have not seen or participated in this red at one or or any of them before I've seen them before I always see the the post when someone gets Bill Gates every year right that's always a thing because he always took people up with some some sweet stuff so is this something you're ever interested in or have done or interested in doing this year.

Speaker 1: I have heard of this before mostly around secret center I didn't know that they did this gift exchanges outside of the home that wasn't something I was aware of the.

Speaker 1: I have never done anything like this I'm there may already Russia.

Speaker 0: Will hold.

Speaker 1: This is it I don't I honestly don't feel like I could do a good enough job.

Speaker 0: Even though you could you know you would like but yes there's a pressure involved with this but I'm gonna give this one a shot and I.

Speaker 1: Want to hear what this is like a one yeah I wanna know if you go through a lot on one issue too we want you to report back on the show yes tell everybody how it goes.

Speaker 0: I think the sign up ends pretty soon let me bring us up here one of the things is one of the current exchanges is for people who like all things British.

Speaker 0: He would be pretty good at that one.

Speaker 1: And.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]
Speaker 0: There's seventeen hundred and forty seven people signed up and it closes on may the fourteenth so yeah I'm gonna do this so I after the show today I'll sign up for it and we'll we'll track this on the on the show you know who I get what I'm gonna be gifting although I probably can't say it you know I think you know there's a lot of it's all secret.

Speaker 1: Because you never know.

Speaker 0: There is probably a pretty.

Speaker 1: Strong Venn diagram of a lot of people familiar with you.

Speaker 1: And signing up for this.

Speaker 0: I haven't got any everyone.

Speaker 1: But it's gonna be like it is going to be more people in the pens exchanged and there are probably.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: The condiments exchange.

Speaker 0: Right like is yeah.

Speaker 1: You know it is called like.

Speaker 0: Ten ten percent overlap compared to one percent over last Saturday giant is a giant like Jane still ten percent.

Speaker 1: As pretty huge if that was the case.

Speaker 0: Right and I say that I.

Speaker 1: Definitely possible.

Speaker 0: Right right.

Speaker 0: Alright will says he's back with another question sorry will not remember your previous question but I still love you Mike doesn't he doesn't like he's not a fan of wills of especially the ones in the throne the throne room I'm I have one hundred fifty dollars that I would like to use towards the purchase of a good found pension I go with the flow pilot vanishing point or Franklin Kristoff model twenty with the steel nip thanks for your input.

Speaker 0: You go.

Speaker 1: Model to why I think that it's our CZ.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Model twenty.

Speaker 0: I think model twenty.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: Right it's such a good.

Speaker 0: Pen for everything like the pallid vanishing point I love it I don't think it's good for everything the model twenty is good for everything you can pick out what type of steel maybe you want and get something tweaked on it if you want.

Speaker 0: I don't know they have great colors great designs its my favorite.

Speaker 0: Are one of my favorites arm I like the model a to the twenty has the slip cap which I like I have the clipless model twenties with the slip class slip cap they're great writers cool colors yeah I think this is an easy answer for us turned up both of us so.

Speaker 0: All right L. Jane will **** wants to know I bought a platinum thirty seven seventy six and I love this pen but the neighbors causing me problems it's ultra ultra extra fine and it feels like I'm gouging into the paper even when I'm writing writing on high quality paper like Rhodia my doing something wrong know you're using a one point an au point one millimeter fountain pen deb.

Speaker 0: So you have to understand PLATINUM's ultra extra fine is insanely fine it's going to take it's gonna have a very small sweet spot.

Speaker 0: The angle is going to be have to help correct hole held correctly.

Speaker 0: This is one of the most delicate hands.

Speaker 0: On the market from a from a stock nearby they only started making these dips widely available arm in in the US market and other markets in the past year too because they're so fine they're just super super particular.

Speaker 1: You might.

Speaker 0: Want to get it checked out to make sure the tines are aligned you know have a net Meister look at it just to tune it.

Speaker 1: If you will.

Speaker 0: Just make sure everything's all lined up properly but yeah this is a zero point one millimeter nip I don't even own one of these.

Speaker 1: Like.

Speaker 0: I I love them I've tried on I have pins ground down to something close to this this is the craziest fine stock on the market in my opinion.

Speaker 0: It's it's very particular Justin how you hold it how you write with it I would have someone check it out if you think it's causing a real problem to make sure there's no time issues because it is so fine it's going to be it's going to be.

Speaker 0: More hit and miss then you know say a medium to something like that.

Speaker 0: I I would like to see you try to spend one day might if you've ever tried on no thanks yeah.

Speaker 0: All right doc times once in a with Dudek modern goods taking a hiatus hiatus what are your other go to multi pen holders for use on a desk or Drescher shelf as opposed to cases and bags this is a tough question I couldn't really come up with the great answer beside some of the Ian M. products that are available like a jet pens and other retailers I have a couple that I haven't started using yet I just got one of their longer blocks to begin to use but I haven't started filling things up in it yet it has varying size diameters.

Speaker 0: Of holes to store pens and some of them are really wide which I don't know what to do with so.

Speaker 0: That's the only thing on my my radar right now as far as as those goes you can probably find a lot of smaller makers that I'm aware of likely at sea I just do a search for that I bet you could come up with a whole list of probably probably finds a pretty neat stuff and maybe maybe share with us if you find something but I'm sure there's a plot probably a lot of wood makers.

Speaker 0: Out there making stuff like this that we're just unaware of threats are probably pretty nice too.

Speaker 0: You have anything Mike you're you're you're all in on the Dudek I'm all in on the due back I mean I I don't yeah say.

Speaker 1: I mean I also have been using recently.

Speaker 1: Like the custom blocks that were made for me by listen Alan to remember those who got like the relay right logo on and and the Michaels wrapping using those because there will some too but yeah I I've never I've never found a product I've been able to buy.

Speaker 1: That gives me what I want other than other than do that stuff freight.

Speaker 0: Right right maybe it's just because we're not aware like I've seen plenty of other things I just nothing's like registering with me to like say that's the things.

Speaker 0: All right last one ari Thorton at this is an awesome question.

Speaker 0: You both raved about the M. eight oh five ocean swirl as well as the new can alaia if you could only use one which one and why.

Speaker 1: I'm gonna go we kinda laughed because I view reason for this I like pelicans I love kennel and pens and I do think that part of this to me is knowing the story behind the product right like knowing where they came from knowing that they have made by a small team of people knowing all of the thought that goes into them like it's kinda hipster but I like that write this kind of how I am you know it's like the idea of the small batch or whatever right like that whole thing about like the authentic made like I like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: Then I'm sure that you know pelicans are made with a lot of Karen's but it feels like a big company doesn't feel the same.

Speaker 1: I mean also was while I actually do think that as nice as the oceans will looks I do prefer the look of the hand on the bay some.

Speaker 1: But yeah that's kind of where I'm falling out go kanilang.

Speaker 0: Somebody like you I got to the big brass.

Speaker 0: I'm picking the pelican.

Speaker 0: It's a tough.

Speaker 0: Decision.

Speaker 0: But the.

Speaker 0: Number one a lot if I if I had to pick purely on looks like.

Speaker 1: The.

Speaker 0: The newest stuff can allay the Hamas obey.

Speaker 0: Between the ocean swirl just on a statics the can away as like a ten out of ten in the ocean swirls like a nine point five out of ten okay so.

Speaker 1: I would pick that.

Speaker 0: But if my choices to what pain I'm gonna use every day I'm gonna pick the pelican pretty much every time because it fits my hand from a writing perspective better.

Speaker 0: It has a piston filler gold nailed I pelicans extra Feingold lives in eight oh five don't need any work for me to use it's a perfect writing pen perfectly balanced.

Speaker 0: I get a lot of joy out of using my.

Speaker 0: Ken lay appends the ocean swirls work course of a pan and you know if those are the only two pen choices I had to use like for the rest of my life or the rest of the year say I would pick the age of five and it actually wouldn't be much of a competition.

Speaker 1: Interesting okay I mean I I like I understand.

Speaker 0: Yeah I mean.

Speaker 1: It.

Speaker 0: Like that head of my bay might be number two right it's like it's on it's almost unfair right because it's so close but if I'm forced to pick one I'm using the eight to five every day without question.

Speaker 0: That doesn't mean.

Speaker 1: Anything.

Speaker 0: Gets the Panama bay.

Speaker 0: It's a stunner I wanna use it inked up right now you know but the pain I've been using.

Speaker 1: Like.

Speaker 0: Just over the past week or two is oceans world like everyday it's really really it's it's a amazing writing pen right.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: So.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: That's it that's why I love this question so much it is really hard to answer because it's so close.

Speaker 1: In my now.

Speaker 0: If you pick one over the other feels like you're saying the other one's bad and that's not the case.

Speaker 1: Like.

Speaker 0: It is that close and that's what we pick something different because it is that close.

Speaker 0: Yep so great question I love these type a tough tough questions up and I'll be like both of us were willing to put it on the line put it down on paper right.

Speaker 1: I think that's that we would write the trend paper so going on in your house.

Speaker 0: That's our job.

Speaker 1: I should wrap it up.

Speaker 0: We should.

Speaker 1: All right thank you so much for listening to today's episode before the final show knows had to related offenses Pennock such three of seven thanks to Harry's blue apron and potential life for the support of the show if you have any questions you'd like to hear songs from a future episode to send them to tweet the hashtag ask TBA they're going to a document for us to pull out.

Speaker 1: If you wanna check out the show live we record every Wednesday typically around at ten AM eastern time you can go to relate on FM slash lives and as as a link that you can hit that to get a shot you'll see you can see we we always try to keep out today if there's been any changes but as a great live group that hang out every week and so you can you can come and join and hang out with us actually you can go directly to relay that offense slash Edgell you can get that I make fun exactly when we're gonna be recorded live locally other shows that do chat rooms a great thing to be in sponge grateful can that every single episode but if I brought online go to Penn addict dot com he is down he is a mantra to penetrate on Instagram press doing a bunch of stuff on Instagram live so make sure you gonna follow Brad have you notifications on so you can keep up with that.

Speaker 1: And you can also find Brad's amazing welcome cases over it knocked out call I am at I'm Mike I am way KP on social networks the show's apart replant them there's ton more shows up at something she gonna love good related offenses shows and you can find more right there but until next time say goodbye Brett.

Speaker 0: Good by Brad and god save the queen.

Speaker 1: Why why we doing that.

Speaker 0: I don't know wanna.

Speaker 1: Okay.

The Pen Addict 313/Transcript

2026-06-21T10:29:52Z

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Speaker 1: TP a questions to to in this up on first one I thought was a really good question for both of us because we asked both have individual experience with the so Jocasta bono says I'm a find it kinda guy but really want the sailor pro gear great purple cosmos which comes with the zoom now how does that stack up I've read it can be broad medium or fine depending on how you hold the pen thanks.

Speaker 1: So you.

Speaker 0: Got a zoom nip in a recent sailors that correct yep I have in the nineteen eleven tangerine.

Speaker 1: Okay and I had a zoom in on I forget the name of it out Stardust galaxy or starburst something like that so I can assume that when that.

Speaker 1: I thought I would like it I ended up not liking it.

Speaker 0: Okay.

Speaker 1: It was so it's.

Speaker 1: I blocky type of nearby that yes you can buy the angle you hold it vertically to the page can change the with the line broad medium are fine I really got to that find level maybe if you flip the nip over but I know yeah that's right like that I don't yeah.

Speaker 0: I don't know right now that does.

Speaker 1: As a.

Speaker 0: I think this is it what might be for the first time something I have more experience than you want.

Speaker 1: Which is very interesting.

Speaker 1: Yeah because I got mine ground into like a fishhook architect and then I sold it so.

Speaker 0: Unless I name I didn't like it maybe I should.

Speaker 1: Answer this question.

Speaker 0: So I would say that they're kind of there isn't three areas some of this is there's really kinda too you can define all you can do brought that's how I found it to be because I don't know the the the broad side you can kind of you can vary a little bit but it's more tricky to do way is way more simple to like you hold the net in one orientation is brought you flip over onto his backside and it's fine right like that's way easier to do than to try and like angle it in such a way that you can also get a medium line so my my I would say that once it's possible to do I don't think that that is.

Speaker 0: V. really something you should consider is going to happen here like you most of the time you're gonna get brought a fine and the fines so when you're using the the net upside down basically.

Speaker 0: He.

Speaker 0: That is not a great experience as a fine nip it's obviously I mean think about it is never going to be as comfortable to use because it's super we had you know like it works and it works fine and is a good find it but it's no where near as good of a sale of fine nips and like that mall regula I however really recommend this pen and this new because it's super weird and fun I love using my nineteen eleven because I can do silly things with it and the the zoom you know the regular side the broad side is super brought and I love that like but if that's not your thing don't go for it like it if you don't think you would enjoy the at the broad experience then don't do it because that's what you'll end up using most because once the finance side works it's not super comfortable it doesn't feel really great and you kind of have to be pretty particular about how you're holding I've found to get a consistent inflow.

Speaker 1: Yes I am I like in this debate to a chisel tip marker like I really enjoy chisel tip markers but I don't use them to write with every day you have to have a special occasion to write with this so from using fines or extra fines and expect to have that individual variance in this pen I'm gonna be disappointed now and I was on so you know you gotta gotta that this is one that you if you ever had the opportunity to to test drive one to see what you really think like mine was really good I bought it as an experiment to see if I would like it turns out I didn't but Mike really likes this because it fits quite some of the things that Mike does with his writing and other people really like and it's a really cool idea it just depends on what your expectations are to get a yes no.

Speaker 0: Yeah I feel like if if if roads are not your thing then you should probably not do this.

Speaker 1: Yeah yep so's sitting in the sun says what's the best pen for receipt paper I work retail want something nicer than a big stick.

Speaker 1: So big sticks are actually pretty good for receipt paper.

Speaker 0: I'd look at.

Speaker 1: The.

Speaker 1: If you want like a true upgrade either of the universal jet stream or pilot alcohol which you can get at the store on the store shelf those are going to do real well on the receipt paper.

Speaker 1: Outside of that here just into your basic ball points like the ink joy the paper made enjoy which I was sleepy as good as the enjoy gel pens are I did not have a great experience with those ball point so I'd be looking at a jet stream or an actor Paul maybe an acrobat all because you can get those and like a their little bit cheaper little bit thinner have a little bit better grip then the jet stream so any confinement at all cut to store so it's really cool.

Speaker 1: Evan Max I think is in the chat room today Mike but if it's not both will embarrassing regardless.

Speaker 0: And.

Speaker 1: This is a question I don't know the answer to which is why I love this question all the steel italic stubbornness.

Speaker 1: That I've seen available to buy off the shelf or on tipped lami pilot name is seen Quebec of X. after the only steel italic meds I seem a tipping material on them are custom ground after the factory is there a reason for this other than saving costs on cheaper still knows for not tipping them I never noticed the lack of tipping.

Speaker 1: On steel nibs.

Speaker 0: You explain what tipping is.

Speaker 1: So it's essentially consider it like for you look grabbing your gold depends and the tip of the net has basically a.

Speaker 0: Ball.

Speaker 1: Of metal there that's been shaped into whatever shape than it should be so you can have a broad net pen and it looks like it'll raced around that area okay that's the tipping the very literal the literal tip of the.

Speaker 0: Of the pen.

Speaker 1: Of the NYP.

Speaker 1: So a lot of steel nibs their talent.

Speaker 1: And stop nips like the pilot ones not tipped at all and I love him the lobby ones are not to tell I love them.

Speaker 1: The twisty ones are not tipped at all but they're rounded and softer like they have a wider.

Speaker 1: Death to the steel if you will so while they don't necessarily have the big tipping.

Speaker 1: You know they do have that softer.

Speaker 1: Rounder feel in the nab as opposed to like the pilot nibs why that's the reason I don't know.

Speaker 1: I just cannot.

Speaker 1: Think of what that could be so I'd be interesting to know if any listeners have any idea while still nebs don't have that tipping where gold lives do I have to actually look at some gold stubbed its almost never by trying to think what gold stubbornness I half like I've got gold broad needs that I've had ground into a stubs there's been plenty of tipping bear but I did an aftermarket grind off the this is something I have to think about it so it's a interesting question I never thought about it that way honestly because I feel like that the steel feel of the era.

Speaker 1: Of the new jobs yeah the sharpness of the like the italic so.

Speaker 1: Yeah like the chat rooms yelling at me because they shouldn't be they're saying that they shouldn't be tipped to begin with because to get that line variation.

Speaker 1: So yeah which that makes complete sense.

Speaker 1: So you know within a Taliban StubHub you get now a final words on a line in a sticker vertical line you don't want the tipping to.

Speaker 0: Like.

Speaker 1: Dissuaded from that that type shape so yeah maybe that's why.

Speaker 1: Alright last question Sara what's an outhouse up greater internet treating you when can we expect some twitch streaming so the upgraded internet I wish I was at my house but it's at the at the remote pen addict off office space and it's kind of amazing because my in ice yes studio be Mike and eyes.

Speaker 1: A three hour and twenty minute.

Speaker 1: Podcast from last week would take me hours to upload from my house I think it took less than a minute from the other house so that was pretty cool from studio B. so it's going good I did a test stream yesterday and I'm looking at my schedule to figure out what I can do either tonight or most likely Thursday night for the first panic stationery stream so stay tuned to the Twitter.

Speaker 0: Some people should subscribe to twitched a TV slash pen addict right.

Speaker 0: That's where they get a sign if you go subscribe on that you sign on PCS cries go follow.

Speaker 1: That followed you get a little work when I go live soon follow.

Speaker 0: Distance to the beach following you get the allies described is a is a thing for light to give bribe money but that that will come later on right.

Speaker 1: Yeah we're not worry about that now.

Speaker 0: Follow and then also.

Speaker 0: Subscribe to Brad's YouTube channel.

Speaker 0: Right.

Speaker 1: Yes so because on you tube as well so they have weird not really direct links to send to that I guess maybe can get one later I haven't totally get dark but it's I got is in an attic channel already there.

Speaker 0: I got in the in the in the.

Speaker 0: In the Senate.

Speaker 1: So you have these videos will be save like Brian in a chat room say and I won't I won't be there but that's kind of one of the reasons why I want to do it on twitch it'll be save there for like two weeks or a month or something and then I'll just be off loaded two you tube and you can check it out later but I will keep the stationery streams.

Speaker 1: Recorded and saved and offloaded to you too for safe keeping and that any game streams idea what to just be for fun those I won't save over to you to observe the you tube channel will just have like all the all the live stationery shows I plan on doing a twitch.

Speaker 0: But is another's anise I'm saying if you can't make it try make it because it's so much fun to watch left which is really really really acts on I've been enjoying the elements of recently of it doing some game changes have been enjoying greatly even you popped up when we return.

Speaker 0: All right so if you wanna find brand online twitched at TV slash pen addict is a great place for that right now but also to add to his at down the ism DO DVD why I assume penitent on Instagram Pennock dot com and not dot co for brides have writing away as I am I am like I am way KP you can find this week's episode related offense slash penetrate slash three one three thanks again to Penn chatelaine and simple contacts with the support of this house the house of red.

Speaker 1: As I get about a whole new house just for internet Mike let's get that rumor going means.

Speaker 0: You gotta do what you gotta do and fast.

Speaker 0: I will be back next time into it and say goodbye press goodbye breath.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 309/Transcript

2026-06-21T10:29:28Z

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The Pen Addict 309/transcript

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Speaker 0: Alright we got some good asked EPA to wrap the show up on the first one.

Speaker 0: Is.

Speaker 0: Something that I just realized about one of the past six months or so took gill's desk wants to know screw cap fountain pens how tight is too tight.

Speaker 1: Very tight is too tight this is actually a thing especially on.

Speaker 0: Non metal.

Speaker 0: Pens right so anything you're scoring that's acrylic on acrylic or celluloid on celluloid you can get.

Speaker 0: Too tight to wear your who will eventually bald patch or risk cracking the cap or or things like or something like that like I you can get too tight in.

Speaker 0: Non metal.

Speaker 0: Fountain pen so.

Speaker 1: You know just loosely tighten them.

Speaker 0: You know right to where you feel it kind of us stop and then don't over tighten them because you can do some damage especially over time.

Speaker 1: So it may wolf.

Speaker 0: Says.

Speaker 1: Micron dash eight forty nine broke.

Speaker 0: Where the section screws into the body likely from my grip which is very high putting pressure on the threads or from over tightening see.

Speaker 1: See what I mean Gilles desk.

Speaker 0: Or both where can I get a replacement section for this fountain pen.

Speaker 0: So crime dash as far as I know does not sell replacement parts you're gonna have to go back to where.

Speaker 1: You bought it from.

Speaker 0: Or two chron dash directly.

Speaker 1: I am sure they can get you.

Speaker 0: A new section but it's probably gonna take a little bit of jumping through hoops to get that part replaced just because they don't offer parts like say like all along me does or someone where they have like new jobs in different parts even though a section I guess not many companies are gonna have a section laying around it at various retailers and things like that so you're out to get in touch with where you bought it from our crown dash directly hopefully they will replace it for you.

Speaker 1: So the Evander.

Speaker 0: Mike this might be a vendor Holyfield actually when I read this to the Evander says I have a normally large hands like forget going shopping for gloves I'm not gonna find the that fit what are some bigger wider found pens that don't cost hundreds of dollars.

Speaker 1: So.

Speaker 1: Some of the metal barrel.

Speaker 0: Fountain pens.

Speaker 0: Fall into that category so the CNMI sue Nova or.

Speaker 0: The end so PMR I think the PMR might be the better one of the two is a very large diameter pen.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 0: As far as like non metal pens I'm having trouble thinking of any standard pens that are really really wide barreled montre grappa makes a what's the what's the tree trunk with each state.

Speaker 1: They just did off I'll find that.

Speaker 0: In a in an email you of and or or or.

Speaker 0: Of the sequoia square so that makes it so.

Speaker 0: The.

Speaker 0: Underground pasta Korea I think was that Monteverdi sequoia it's very very large pens so check that one out otherwise I'm not coming up with to too much for this so.

Speaker 1: Tim Stevens.

Speaker 0: Has a problem that I have and I have no solution Mike.

Speaker 1: How do you identify your various nodes that are powered up in your drawer.

Speaker 0: With no label asking for a friend.

Speaker 1: Look at Fred as many lucky that you just go for a huge label that's on you that's on you you know lucky.

Speaker 0: Lucky dip.

Speaker 1: Is that we're going with.

Speaker 0: Okay.

Speaker 1: Lucky dip alright Tim lucky dip.

Speaker 1: I don't know that race is this one of these positions as this is that's a British ism but I am unaware of all right so like a lucky dip is you for this welcome Polish stuff maybe like a pile of wrapped things writes the mansion like a bunch of prizes locked up in some little boxes and that'll kind of like in a power when you just reach in and grab one its lock in the U. just dependent grab one look at it yeah well logically it makes sense but lucky dip where I live involves like a can of Copenhagen or scroll.

Speaker 0: So it's not really like the same.

Speaker 1: Same type of thing but means him I don't have.

Speaker 0: A great.

Speaker 1: Answer for you because I have this problem too I know I've got some of my.

Speaker 0: Writing Christoph must yama nibs mixed in with some things that I don't.

Speaker 0: I am gonna have a hard time telling apart and I'm regretting that now because.

Speaker 0: Those are are tough to come by.

Speaker 1: The one solution I've used.

Speaker 0: Not regularly is to use the.

Speaker 1: Files that you get the samples in.

Speaker 0: Those little four millimeter files and you can drop the nip in there and label it on the outside so that's probably the best way to do it but I haven't found a great solution other than that and I definitely have a mess of nodes that I know I have some really nice stuff laden and this is one of the rations.

Speaker 1: Random loves we get questions like this for this show we get questions like this the upgrade to willing someone has a problem that they don't want to have to fix themselves and they are just hoping that we have some kind of like a magical way to help them fortunately Tim you already knew the answer to this question and it was off of a day of sitting with a magnifying glass and the OEM parts that's that's that's what is ahead of you my friend.

Speaker 1: That is what I had it.

Speaker 0: What is ahead of you so lucky dip those things up and and then.

Speaker 1: When you lucky dip and pull one.

Speaker 0: You know investigate it write it down and save it on a little little file and you won't have to lucky dip anymore nerves.

Speaker 1: All right capital why one says I think you guys have ruined me.

Speaker 1: Ever since I began using the nam across field and help with the G. cousin all.

Speaker 0: Non tamale river paper feels awful what is one to do.

Speaker 1: It's just got a phone at York.

Speaker 0: You can get.

Speaker 1: Every size.

Speaker 0: Of.

Speaker 0: Paper pad notebook planner into Molly river paper now we're spoiled in that aspect that no matter what you want what format you want to write and you can get something with my river so.

Speaker 1: I mean it's not gonna be in your office photocopier.

Speaker 0: But I think anywhere else you should you should be able to cover yourself even from.

Speaker 1: A little small pocket notebooks to the giant a force.

Speaker 0: And larger sizes so.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: So.

Speaker 1: Just own it.

Speaker 0: Own the tamale get it everywhere.

Speaker 0: Right Mike.

Speaker 1: We have one of our favorite types.

Speaker 0: Avast EPA questions got a big hypotheticals so.

Speaker 1: This is a two parter but similar.

Speaker 1: And now I'll read through the entire thing.

Speaker 0: Of for both of us so we each have a part in this so.

Speaker 1: This is from Dave he says for Brad let's try hypothetical.

Speaker 0: Does your elected the next president of the United States.

Speaker 1: As your first act as president in a small room of the capital.

Speaker 0: Just off the stage where you just took your oath of office you sign about seven hundred executive orders repealing just about everything your predecessor has done so far this is factually correct.

Speaker 1: As you're the new American.

Speaker 0: President.

Speaker 1: You want this act to celebrate the best.

Speaker 0: Of all things American.

Speaker 1: Upon which American paper have you had your staff print these executive orders and which American pen and ink.

Speaker 0: Do you use to sign them.

Speaker 1: So that's my part of this question Mike's as you can imagine is similar yet different so let's go there for Mike let's say that you have let your massive following to rise up.

Speaker 0: And.

Speaker 1: Overthrow the queen you've slaughtered her and her family this to quite a turn my I don't like the release of releasing her dragon's back to the wild and taken her realm by force.

Speaker 0: Quite a jerk I'm way nicer.

Speaker 1: Or however you become the great leader of Britain he does there is an out there.

Speaker 0: You know.

Speaker 1: He thinks that spike Dave.

Speaker 0: You know assuming that's how you would take control but you know he.

Speaker 1: There is an out how.

Speaker 0: Or however you become the leader of Great Britain.

Speaker 1: After scribes have used up all of the four health him please put it drafting odes to your greatness.

Speaker 0: You needed to ink.

Speaker 1: You must similar you choose the best of British.

Speaker 0: Paper and pen to record your royal decrees what do you use.

Speaker 1: I mean I want to start by taking up with this the way that everything is done in this question.

Speaker 1: The letter alleges many things that are wrong because if I wanted to take power in this country becoming the monarch would not be the way I would do it I would just.

Speaker 0: Feed the.

Speaker 1: Prime minister up I don't understand why you just get to be elected.

Speaker 1: But I have to slaughter somebody that's what I don't understand what appeared to be no it's not so reasonable no I don't think it is that they're way off plus I also don't really have any good answers to this question anyway.

Speaker 1: This is a very difficult question so with me the pen part is easy.

Speaker 0: At.

Speaker 1: Least in the.

Speaker 0: The thought that I gave it and I could be forgetting something.

Speaker 1: But I'm gonna go with Parker.

Speaker 1: You know Parker has a huge.

Speaker 0: Traditional relationship with this company may not be owned by I don't even know who owns Parker now but it.

Speaker 1: Originated.

Speaker 0: As an American company and was you know a huge huge part in the the forming of the the writing industry in this country so I would probably get.

Speaker 0: Yeah seven hundred.

Speaker 0: Parker do a folds the classic.

Speaker 0: Parker fountain pen.

Speaker 0: To sign all of my seven hundred executive orders because every signature you have to give away the pen.

Speaker 1: So I would do that I would probably get French paper company.

Speaker 1: To print up anything that I needed.

Speaker 0: A home which exact.

Speaker 0: Paper brand I would use I don't know but.

Speaker 0: The French it's been around for awhile their well known well known printer in the.

Speaker 1: Inks kind of the kicker like.

Speaker 1: You know there's the old.

Speaker 0: You know American inks like.

Speaker 0: Carter's and then the basic stuff like the Parker stuff.

Speaker 1: Is there any modern American ink I would use.

Speaker 0: You know.

Speaker 1: The Birmingham.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 0: I don't think of the call the Birmingham in company are they making their own inks poppy a plume plans I guess making their own inks.

Speaker 1: So yeah I would have to figure out.

Speaker 0: Which company.

Speaker 0: I would want to use on it would be new verse I know that's the easy the easy.

Speaker 1: One but the other.

Speaker 0: One of their permanent inks actually might be pretty good so maybe they like the new there's bullet proof stuff that might be pretty good for executive order so.

Speaker 1: I don't know if that's so it's a really hard question just come with like the.

Speaker 0: The the pure American traditional type of set up arm there's just not a lot of wonderful options do you have anything Mike.

Speaker 1: Fell further and tell everybody.

Speaker 1: Yeah because after you know I just I don't really have anything for paper ink.

Speaker 1: But I guess if I was gonna choose something for a pen I would maybe go with like something more modern because that's what I'm all about and I would maybe go for like the enemy sixty on which is a pen the I really really like a lot and I know that's maybe a little bit controversial but I love it.

Speaker 1: And I've been enjoying using a lot recently and it's a.

Speaker 1: This made brand so yeah that was me.

Speaker 1: Yeah I just hope might be another good one that's more modern brand was always looking for Joe classic brown I was thinking of Joe to.

Speaker 1: The I preferred the fountain pen.

Speaker 1: That like I could do if I.

Speaker 0: Was going modern you know I probably go like Frank and clerks Kristoffer Edison something like that.

Speaker 1: Paper wise yeah I don't know.

Speaker 0: I don't know what paper to you to use this is WHS a classic British company and then.

Speaker 1: One of their assigned Mina they don't make good stuff.

Speaker 1: Well I didn't make I didn't pick like an original paper maker.

Speaker 0: Like French is a printer essentially.

Speaker 1: I just thought yeah but you know but like they only sell stuff and the stuff that they may excels is all white label and it's not.

Speaker 0: Good.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: But that was a.

Speaker 0: That was an interesting question that I don't know if we did like a super great job on the whole of the puts forth well I'm sure we'll get a lot of follow up on this particular question especially how evil you are.

Speaker 1: But to wrap this up.

Speaker 0: On the question on everybody's mind this past week Mike unfortunately arm this is one of those those.

Speaker 1: Internet.

Speaker 0: Things those darn people on the internet and their things.

Speaker 0: We need to know the people need to know rebel Jim wants to know especially.

Speaker 1: Yanni.

Speaker 0: Or laurel.

Speaker 1: If you want to find a show as for this week's episode you can go to relate to them slash panoramic slash three zero nine alone I think Harry's pen Chile and Joe parrot talks of you for the support of the show can you tell I'm doing right now Brad I'm with you can engage the show in this meme.

Speaker 1: You can try to look for a pen and a dog common he sells amazing products and knocked out go he's on Instagram his pen addict he's dowdy is on Twitter and I am I'm Mike I am white.

Speaker 0: Kate.

Speaker 1: He will be back next time if you want to submit a question for the show to send out a tweet with the hashtag honesty PA or you can send something in the pan attic slack as well if you're a member of the select group and we will be compiling them for future episodes please keep them away from memes that date to show her.

Speaker 1: What would I next time until then say goodbye Brad goodbye Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 310/Transcript

2026-06-21T10:28:58Z

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The Pen Addict 310/transcript

2026-06-21T10:28:58Z

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Speaker 0: To wrap up on a couple of us EPA.

Speaker 2: Yes so we actually have a bunch that I put in this doc and we're not gonna get.

Speaker 0: All of them today but.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna put in dependence on the spot next week with the rest of these asked EPA so we don't get to so.

Speaker 0: Yeah I'm not going to be on next week's episode.

Speaker 2: Some might won't be here next week but Mike will so.

Speaker 0: Recovery from Mike flute please don't do it and the ball yes you can.

Speaker 2: So yeah let's hit a few of these and then we'll save the rest for next week.

Speaker 0: Because I'm.

Speaker 2: I'm have a lot to talk to us Mr independence about so.

Speaker 2: What's it this one from Liz real quick is there such a thing as a good medium bold fountain pen for someone who's writing is a real small and cramped my dad can't stand a fine point and he has tiny writing.

Speaker 0: But I would love to find him a fountain pen.

Speaker 2: So this is kind of like an impossible question but I do think there's an answer.

Speaker 0: You want.

Speaker 2: A farm nearby right so you don't what about you wanna buy a steel near Penn.

Speaker 0: That.

Speaker 2: From a company that is known to have firm nibs.

Speaker 0: Arm.

Speaker 2: You could even do a gold if you did sailor like hard nips.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 2: But like something like a pelican gold nab would be a terrible idea.

Speaker 2: For having a wide line but still consistently write small so you want to look at something like two is because I think has very firm nibs for the width of the pens.

Speaker 0: Arm.

Speaker 2: Pilots steel nibs you know you can get a great medium that that's a wonderful writer.

Speaker 0: You know even in the.

Speaker 2: In the pilot metropolitan I think those are kind of the two I would look I would look at for a wider near that still gonna give you some control for writing small so that that's where I would start.

Speaker 2: Sarah asked does your daughter have a pen pencil notebook picked out for tracking auction prices so that was not I I've talked about it a million times that was one of the highlights of our trip to Raleigh last year was the auction because the first time I'd sat through one and my daughter ended up loving it like I thought she would last like five minutes and she ended up never wanting to leave so she does not yet so we're gonna work on that today we're gonna pick it out.

Speaker 0: Out her.

Speaker 2: For.

Speaker 0: This trip mulching kit panda.

Speaker 2: The auction kit so we'll get that taken care of today and we'll make sure will be posted on Instagram what she's gonna use but you'll probably track and they provide a.

Speaker 0: Tracking sheet actually.

Speaker 2: So you get a print out when you go to the all right list all the lots in the opening bid in the ending bids and if they have a reserve social track on there but she will pick out her pen and pencil to.

Speaker 0: To use for her option kit.

Speaker 2: So Alan wants to know what tool method do you use to get notified of new pen and stationery content on the web Google works alerts doesn't seem to work for me Google alerts is really sketchy I use it some but I'm a hardcore RSS person.

Speaker 0: I am.

Speaker 2: A big feed reader.

Speaker 0: You know I am one of the.

Speaker 2: Biggest backers of.

Speaker 0: Any.

Speaker 2: RSS service just because it makes my life easier it makes my work easier how do you.

Speaker 2: Follow this Mike I mean one of the good ideas is to follow some blogs like well appointed task in the German stationer and gourmet pens to post links every year.

Speaker 0: Right.

Speaker 2: So I mean every week so you can get every year that be.

Speaker 0: A long time to be a big post.

Speaker 2: So every week they'll post a grouping.

Speaker 2: Of say twenty or thirty links.

Speaker 0: To.

Speaker 2: Content that they enjoyed this week so that's one way I personally just and I bring in those.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 2: Thanks to those articles through RSS that's the way I guess is there any other option you could recommend.

Speaker 0: A just voted her accounts at night and I had to use RSS them I don't use any type of news aggregation service is just what I see on Twitter and I'm not even a tweet completion and says things that I know the things I miss but I kind of got over that awhile ago.

Speaker 2: Yes so Twitter you can create lists so I don't have one now but I used to have like a stationery list and you can just put in feeds from the blogs and things like that like I have a separate.

Speaker 2: Twitter account that's pen underscore addict that is only the RSS feed.

Speaker 0: From the blog.

Speaker 2: So you subscribe to that you see every.

Speaker 0: All the content that.

Speaker 2: I create and then you can make a list of all the other you know blogs and bloggers and just.

Speaker 0: You know.

Speaker 2: Toward people who you want to follow and learn about this except.

Speaker 2: I am off all aboard the RSS train Choo Choo.

Speaker 0: And hopefully does not.

Speaker 2: Go away.

Speaker 0: Anytime soon.

Speaker 2: Alright I'm gonna hit one more Mike which is a combination of three questions and more rapid on this animal save everything to next week because we are in that gift giving time of year.

Speaker 0: And I get a lot of questions on that.

Speaker 2: With graduation happening so first one Brian Hamilton what's the best gift to give somebody that you're trying to get into fancy pens second one from the where ninja what Penn would you give us a congratulatory Lee congratulatory gift for a librarian who just got a great new job and third one from dot crawled I got a couple friends and trying to buy a proper pen wedding present for what's a good gift for a jazz trumpet player in a left handed fat that's very specific dot crowd I love you for that this will be their first nice pen.

Speaker 0: Experiences.

Speaker 2: Cartridge preferred so I lumped all those together because you're kind of talking in the same.

Speaker 0: Grouping.

Speaker 2: Of answers for all three of these questions outside of the jazz trumpet player who if you can afford it dot crowd Mont Blanc has a wonderful Miles Davis addition you should look into so that would be a pretty amazing.

Speaker 2: Pretty basic gift.

Speaker 0: But.

Speaker 2: As far as the best gift to give someone that you're trying to get into fancy pens.

Speaker 2: It depends right it like I love the two is B. ego and the pilot metropolitan but I'm kinda probably not giving that for a gift ban like I'm probably going to like the lobby studio.

Speaker 2: Something that's a little bit nicer but doesn't break the bank you know the steel mill blobby studios are like seventy eighty dollars they look beautiful they write really well I prefer the finer nodes on those like I stick with extra fine only those are really good.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 2: Then you can depending on your budget you can you can go up from there.

Speaker 0: And to.

Speaker 2: You know a whole world of pens between one hundred and two hundred dollars but I think like the best quality from someone who has has no idea.

Speaker 2: About a pen you can get some really nice lobby pens even if it's not a fountain pen the lobby two thousand rollerball and ballpoint a real good the ball mommy bought two thousand ball point is one of my favorite ball points and it was like sixty seventy dollars fantastic pen.

Speaker 2: For the library and I read.

Speaker 2: I wanna say pocket vanishing point and I don't know why I think it's just a good utility pen to take all around the library take notes as you're walking around it's got that retractable field but that mate that's not really a pen.

Speaker 0: For.

Speaker 2: Everyone that's not a pen for someone who's just getting in.

Speaker 0: To fountain pens.

Speaker 2: Maybe one of the lower end pelicans with the steel nibs like the the two hundred two of five series.

Speaker 0: Arm.

Speaker 2: For the librarian something like that or you can if your budget allows for getting something like really neat and cool like a Frank and Christoph.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 2: You know beryl something like that.

Speaker 0:

Speaker 2: You know.

Speaker 0: I have.

Speaker 2: You got any suggestions for the library and I.

Speaker 0: I'm not totally sure.

Speaker 0: Not one of my problems here is that with these questions I feel like I am.

Speaker 0: I don't recommend things as widely as you like my recommendations typically seem to be very.

Speaker 0: Similar these days right yeah because I have.

Speaker 0: Yeah I feel like I can make a bunch of recommendations but I mean I don't really feel like I have anything specific for this one like I I just don't really think that I have something that can can really help.

Speaker 2: Yeah because I keep looking at the lobby studios even for doc crowd because they make a piano black of mommy studio that's got this great polished black barrel.

Speaker 0: Which would be.

Speaker 2: Great for maybe the trumpet player.

Speaker 0: Even though maybe even the left hander I.

Speaker 2: You know it's really really hard like without a budget what do you classify as a nice pen you know is.

Speaker 0: Are we talking like.

Speaker 2: A rector fifty one in like roller ball like that's an extraordinarily nice pen for a lot of people are we talking about like a lobby studio in the eighty dollar range are we looking at like a pilot custom nine twelve that's like two hundred dollars that's just a beautiful like wedding present and so it's this if the super tricky to answer these questions that's why I kind of wanted to talk through and a lot of my answers to the same like I really recommend the lobby studio a lot for gifts because it it takes a lot of boxes for gift expectations.

Speaker 0: Right.

Speaker 2: Bike you're probably not gonna go wrong if that's kind of thing you want to do.

Speaker 0: Yeah I agree I agree I I was trying to write my brain for like something that I feel would be designed specific like for a librarian they can I think of a pen that has words on it or something yeah right and I call reporting of anything.

Speaker 2: Well like some of the rector fifty ones like the rector fifty one cursive or some of the literature fifty one like metal Smith historic type things those would be great for librarians almond they make fountain pen models of those as well so you know that's a that's kind of a cool like theme theme look if you will so yeah it really just depends like it's super hard to answer these questions so that's why I I lump them all together just to go through and give a few ideas out so you know and if you're back in and also it's very budget dependent right under.

Speaker 0: One hundred dollars is one category.

Speaker 2: One hundred to two hundred dollars is like a million different types of pens like it would be impossible to narrow down.

Speaker 0: You know.

Speaker 2: But there's good stuff everywhere and I'm glad to help you out so if you have very few want to get even more specific.

Speaker 0: On those answers where can I find me Mike you can send tweets to Brad he's at down the ism on Twitter Bosi consenting questions to us with the hashtag asked EPA and they'll go into a spreadsheet for us to pick later.

Speaker 0: You can also find us on our shyness is where you'll find a bunch of Michigan a related offenses pan addict slash three one zero for today Shannon's bridal so on Instagram he's pen addict I am I Mike I am like a evil social networks you can find Brett's amazing products over it knocked out cold and I want to extend our thanks again to a way for the support of this episode and all of course thank you for listening I'll be back in two weeks prior to weave that next week the special guest until then say goodbye Brett.

Speaker 2: Goodbye Brett.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 246/Transcript

2026-06-16T11:04:45Z

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The Pen Addict 246/transcript

2026-06-16T11:04:45Z

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Speaker 2: So we ran a little bit long last week and where we're heading down that path this week but we had some nasty PA that we didn't get to last week I wanna make sure we do it so and these aren't very long one so I think what's knock these out and we'll call it a day how's that sound.

Speaker 3: Sounds good to me.

Speaker 2: All right so this is what I been wanting to get to and Michael Michaela says.

Speaker 2: When we were talking about the professional easy to use fountain pens for under one hundred dollars army was for a graduation president president.

Speaker 3: To.

Speaker 2: Move too much president of my mind graduation present.

Speaker 2: The lami studio I got like three emails on that I was like aw I'm such a dummy that's the perfect one.

Speaker 3: That's.

Speaker 2: That should be back to answer ice that should be my go to answer instead of like gum.

Speaker 2: Being challenged to come up with like the perfect pen for that price range like in the fifty to one hundred dollar price range I think the lami studio will please just about anyone who you purchase it for it's a really really quality pen made well writes well great nodes arm and get a bottle ink with that or you can use the lobby cartridges in it it just looks like the graduation gift type of pen but it's still like a step up from say like you know your traditional cross roller balls things like that.

Speaker 3: It's a good show.

Speaker 2: Yep so this question from Nick I thought was super interesting do you dial up a piston filler as the ink gets used I would like to hear from the chat room if you do that because I understand maybe the theory why but I don't see there's no need for it on your inks going to flow normally if you do that you're going to have to have the blind cap loosened arm as you go and it's just gonna be you know more chance for damage there's no need to ever do that I'm just wondering if people do I don't I don't know anyone that does there's no.

Speaker 2: Technical reason why you should arm vacuum fillers are different story but just a traditional piston now you don't need to do that and I'd I'd be surprised if we found that anyone who does that on a regular basis.

Speaker 3: Now I I would be just terrified them gonna spraying everywhere.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 2: Right so there's just no need for it armed and you're just stuff causing an extra point of failure or two when you do that.

Speaker 3: So stop at neck.

Speaker 2: He didn't say you did it but just know has a.

Speaker 3: Stop at a mosque in the thinking about it.

Speaker 2: Don't do it Nick yeah noni so Chris wants to know what's the best pen clip holder to attach to a notebook or traveler's notebook so use which won the which term arm for like your apple pencil.

Speaker 3: If it's okay like Penn looped and yes yes what I love those things that stupid study days the stick like the the the the glue on them is super strong like I thoroughly recommend a product like I have I have one I've replaced one once on my.

Speaker 3: Pro and I've had it for the eighteen months.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: So yes Sir and Alex then up super cheap like yeah I really really recommend the lunch time to look.

Speaker 2: Yes I don't use any almost amusing like a traditional travelers arm I'll just take one pen stick it through the exterior or I will put it to the letter I don't necessarily go for the.

Speaker 2: Exterior pen clips so it's kinda not my thing.

Speaker 2: Tom designing something where you won't have to ask this question okay yeah.

Speaker 3: Locate yes.

Speaker 3: Keep that also going buddy.

Speaker 2: So Ron wants to know whether any papers that work well with both fountain pens and pencils home to knock no books really do arm.

Speaker 3: Kids I'm also going.

Speaker 2: Full full disclosure I make those that be the right note pads really do like my fountain pens in these right no pads work great on in their more recent additions like in the pines and they work awesome for pencils like you don't know you basically just won't don't use something with a glossy texture like Rhodia generally those aren't the best for pencils there's a little bit more spot smudging doesn't feel as nice.

Speaker 2: Com so yeah that's that's what I would go with arm knock and right note pads.

Speaker 2: All right last one Jonathan says I recently struggle to write on a plastic logic luggage tag hotel ball point work best what traditional ball point should be in my EDC so you go first because you're wrong.

Speaker 3: All right great.

Speaker 3: I personally just don't.

Speaker 3: Like points right because they tend to be in my opinion boring so don't go boring is what I say you can just get yourself a richer fifty one slim.

Speaker 3: Which is a ball point and then you got fun and they have some great designs and that's what I'm going to say single wrong.

Speaker 2: No that's a great pen I'm I just don't use it because if I'm gonna go ball point I want more useful ballpoint and I'm gonna go to a Fisher space pen refill and because of the utility of that if I write a lot of responsibility.

Speaker 3: Right Michael right out of fishes may spend like to the point that we even bowl a bunch of laser engraved on the.

Speaker 2: Ticket yes.

Speaker 3: Right like yes I like them a lot but it's still not my go to.

Speaker 2: Right so my go to is actually that refill on the show design.

Speaker 2: Which I.

Speaker 3: Just.

Speaker 2: I can't get enough of that band that's my pocket pen of choice when I go out to just have.

Speaker 2: In case I need it like if I go to baseball practice and you know we need to write something on some kids call of so he doesn't leave it behind her in his hat I can break out that Penn and I know it's not gonna get damaged while I'm out there running around on the field too and I just like to have the utility of a Fisher space pen refills not the best writer in the world but definitely the highest utility value of any type of ball point enough that's what I would recommend.

Speaker 3: The recommendation.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah I I know you really like that show designed pens.

Speaker 2: So.

Speaker 3: It's just a little bit like.

Speaker 2: Too.

Speaker 3: Aggressive for me you know.

Speaker 2: Sure.

Speaker 3: I'm.

Speaker 2: Totally understand yes and in the chat room and this is something I very much believe in they mentioned I always use the Fisher find refills they always ship with mediums I keep a stock of fine in this weapon swapping right out fine blue Fisher space pen refill is the root.

Speaker 2: Fisher space pen refills that you should use in my opinion but Hey.

Speaker 2: I have opinions and they often get me in trouble could you say.

Speaker 3: You take maybe you have opinions.

Speaker 2: Old god you're terrible we should in the show now.

Speaker 3: If on a final show knows that is weaker related FM such panic slash two four six you can find Brad a penitent dot com and not dot co his dowdy ism on Twitter D. O. W. T. Y. I. SMM pen addicts on Instagram was also Lincoln a show us if you want to go to the sub reddit now this is a new thing.

Speaker 3: Dot com slash on slash Benedict and that's the the subreddit which is a thing apparently we're going to be hanging out and.

Speaker 3: Thanks again to all sponsors week blue apron Harry's and pension LA most of all thank you for listening I'm I'm like I am way KP on the social places will be back next time until then say goodbye brother.

Speaker 2: Goodbye Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 274/Transcript

2026-06-16T05:57:48Z

Memm: Memm moved page The Pen Addict 274/Transcript to The Pen Addict 274/transcript

#REDIRECT [[The Pen Addict 274/transcript]]

The Pen Addict 274/transcript

2026-06-16T05:57:48Z

Memm: Memm moved page The Pen Addict 274/Transcript to The Pen Addict 274/transcript

Speaker 3: Alright we got a good batch of **** TP a lot of it relates to some of the things we've already talked about the show this first one does not but I think it's a great question I want to throw it out to the listeners because I have a thought but let's see.

Speaker 3: Let let me on Twitter asks what is the best way to fill multiple samples vials with multiple aches for example.

Speaker 1: Ten people.

Speaker 3: With ten inks.

Speaker 1: Each.

Speaker 3: So hundred sample vows you need to fill Mike.

Speaker 3: There's no great way to do this but I would just go the simple route and go with the pipettes.

Speaker 3: There you they're so cheap on a lot of people given away for free pen shows you can buy them in bulk they're easier to clean than a syringe and you can go faster in filling I don't know another way to feel a hundred ng vials.

Speaker 3: More quickly them with the pipettes what do you think.

Speaker 1: Build something.

Speaker 1: Yeah we could.

Speaker 3: I mean not that that's a different answer build some you know.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 3: Cow milking system.

Speaker 1: Yeah that's exactly what would you drill like twenty holes in it you feel twenty things at a time to put some little straws in it like some tubes with a final on the top of it and you just poisoning can it fills them all in one go all like you know those them does warbling things you can get well like you fill up a hundred will balloons and add one of those.

Speaker 3: Of so like a okay so now you've got me really going off the trails here about a Turkey baster.

Speaker 3: Do you know.

Speaker 1: A Turkey baster yeah yeah I'm just trying.

Speaker 3: Just as you would like to let you guys suck up the entire bottle of ink.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 3: Into the Turkey baster and then just go to all the same boss.

Speaker 1: That's that's a quick way of doing it about building anything but I think if this is something that you do it on a semi regular basis you should build something.

Speaker 3: Yeah the chat room does have a great idea red says just go over the hotel sink and poured the bottle over your file.

Speaker 1: That's no.

Speaker 3: Not a good idea.

Speaker 1: That's not a good idea.

Speaker 3: So this one's right up your alley Mike D. mechanic de macaque me wants to know do you see think it's safe to put the high Sierra beta on my lami two thousand or should I wait for the version one release what do you think.

Speaker 1: I don't even know analysts and I quit.

Speaker 3: I thought of the perfect question for the the topics that we discussed today but I would not put beta on any of my devices that I use to do work with everyday so there's your answer.

Speaker 3: All right been Margolis you know Ben from the DC Pinchot gave us all those pens and stationery from Tokyo is which do you pick me you are murex.

Speaker 3: This is an easy question for both of us.

Speaker 1: IBM you.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: I mean that's your in ninety.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: That's what I know not is based off of and I go lyrics I mean there's just no doubt my mind Merrick's every time so if you're trying to pick one been anyone I recommendations you're not going to get a clear answer from either of us because we both have a favorite that's opposite from each other and we both stand behind those things very very much even as much as I love the mu in the am ninety the mere access for me.

Speaker 1: Now I like the small a completely smooth style.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: All right K. J. Miller who are as a tech podcast and I forgot to.

Speaker 3: But the link and it will put the link in the show notes and I'm gonna be on it soon productivity in tech I believe it is called.

Speaker 1: So tell me if I got that wrong Cajun when you listen but I'm gonna get in a show about it right now is productivity Shannon's.

Speaker 3: Yes so really really fun podcast and he's looking for desk pad notebook options he's been using the barren fig mastermind which is kind of a large plot.

Speaker 1: Had.

Speaker 3: For your desk and then he says I know studio needs coming which is the panel book which you said you were using what else is out there.

Speaker 3: So before both of these products existed my favorite is the Mormon.

Speaker 3: And Nemo sign I don't I never learned how to say that.

Speaker 3: It comes in a large like eleven by eleven by eight I guess comes in a four size and its spiral bound and it can be in horizontal or vertical orientation it's really made for horizontal orientation like a desk pad so it does have a.

Speaker 3: Spiral bound like the studio neat does where the master mind does not it's completely flat so depending on if you want the spiral are not my favorite.

Speaker 3: It's still the more Amman because I think it has better paper than the studio need one even though I love this.

Speaker 1: Profile of the CD a modest Google a bowl product of all time.

Speaker 1: She is a Mormon.

Speaker 1: Yes sorry.

Speaker 3: Sessions with the link in there.

Speaker 3: So I found it putting the links.

Speaker 1: Him may argue AM eight AM eight on you know and they act as well Nemo sign M. and the E. M. O. S. why any like literally every ability every waits to see Belle this it's none of them is none of them.

Speaker 1: How.

Speaker 3: I can I can spell that slowly laws it.

Speaker 1: Sounds Anne and and help them.

Speaker 3: Yeah like rubber gym reminds you and it's what they sowed say inside the cover it's it's the Greek goddess of memory Mike.

Speaker 1: I don't care don't terrible thing to base I don't care is Greek the terrible thing to base it on like.

Speaker 1: Whatever.

Speaker 3: So anyway that's always been my number one desk pad by far.

Speaker 1: I say like the worst the worst ever.

Speaker 3: Because of the new shows.

Speaker 1: Naturalized pinon on this list.

Speaker 1: Amazing I don't cast on.

Speaker 3: The paper it's all about the paper yeah.

Speaker 1: Okay Donald M. K. J. terrible name.

Speaker 3: They make some of the best paper in the world of our fight on anyone that.

Speaker 1: More months just a shame no one complains it's stuff.

Speaker 3: It seems no one could pronounce it so if you know where to look you can find anything Mike so here's one I don't know how to find and I'm asking the audience because I don't think such a thing exist unless it's some wack job new lors ink so Nick pick wants to know is there any permanent water resistant ink with crazy sheen out there.

Speaker 3: Does not exist I I am I'm literally asking I have no clue.

Speaker 3: You know any of the permanent inks I use are your basic carbon blacks or nano blues from sailor carbon blacks from platinum.

Speaker 3: You know I use iron gall inks but they have color variation but not sheen.

Speaker 3: So I don't know if that's not a possibility.

Speaker 3: Because I use a lot of iron callings which are permanent none of them have sheen they'll have a some really good shading and the look very pretty they do not Sheens so if anyone has an answer let me know I'd be interested for myself and I will let Nick now.

Speaker 3: So Michael Michael J. who I wanna give a shout out this is top secret might not even you know about it see I don't I don't tell you all the things a man.

Speaker 1: Michael.

Speaker 3: Working on a project might.

Speaker 3: It's the it's almost in the release stage almost in the early stage so I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1: Son of one of the secret punk constante you do miss out secret.

Speaker 3: Now.

Speaker 3: Top secret project though so he asks in this this is a question near and dear to my heart says that curriculum night for my daughter last night or teacher mentioned that they will be teaching kids proper pencil grip this year because she said that if they don't learn it by the end of the first great it's near impossible to correct in the future I am now wondering is there only one correct pen or pencil grip and if so what is it.

Speaker 3: Somebody with no there's not only one correct crap but what they're probably teaching in which everyone answered Michael in the us like rate my site was the tripod grip.

Speaker 3: Additional grip that is taught now neither of my kids so I have a sixth grade and fourth grader.

Speaker 3: So neither of my kids were taught how to grip they never had any type of homework on how to grip.

Speaker 1: A.

Speaker 3: Pencil or pen.

Speaker 3: But they were definitely taught you know letters and how to write and and all that type of stuff my daughter does not use the tripod grip.

Speaker 3: My son does use the tripod grip.

Speaker 3: My son's hand writing is awful my daughter's hand writing is beautiful so I don't think there's one correct grip.

Speaker 1: In.

Speaker 3: Being in this you know world where we see everyone right.

Speaker 3: You see is the most beautiful hand writing no matter the groups also I don't think it's important I don't think I do think they can learn later in life how to change their grip I don't think it's that difficult it's like learning Mike when I sat down to learn an architectural style hand writing.

Speaker 3: Choirs a little bit of a different grip and you can learn that stuff even in your old age like me.

Speaker 3: So they're gonna get taught the tripod grip which is actually that's great but if your child doesn't like it and it makes our hand running worse they'll figure it out eventually that's kind of what my daughter did she always had a weird group I don't even know how I can explain it but her hand writing is beautiful my son has the perfect traditional grep.

Speaker 1: It it's garbage.

Speaker 3: We have to work on it all the time for buddy.

Speaker 1: But he's got a perfect grip.

Speaker 3: And it's nothing to do with the grip it's just he just doesn't have those motions so.

Speaker 3: But I'm teacher way they're going to figure out what makes their letters look the best as they go and if they don't learn traditional tripod grip that's no problem.

Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if you have bad hunt right you can get along in this world.

Speaker 1: Yeah no.

Speaker 3: I I.

Speaker 1: You know what Mike.

Speaker 3: I was never anti bad handwriting.

Speaker 1: But.

Speaker 3: I am totally come around I am pro bad handwriting.

Speaker 1: You Hey and writing in schools right.

Speaker 1: That's right you don't you hate that you think it should be banned did you write that book on again my wife.

Speaker 3: I was about to kill you for today.

Speaker 1: Because as the silence yeah like he would try to work out what I was doing to you.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: There though I was a little confused there.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: But the please keep teaching handwriting in schools even if it's not persist cursive teacher kids how to write with pens and pencils police.

Speaker 3: All right Tony wants to know are you buying a hope in each of this year I'm assuming this is directed me because I've I have and I haven't bought.

Speaker 1: And.

Speaker 3: I am still not buying open each.

Speaker 3: It's probably the hardest thing I don't buy everything I think.

Speaker 1: About it every time.

Speaker 3: I know it's a mistake and it's an expensive mistake to make which is why it is sometimes end up buying it and then I still don't use it so I didn't buy one last year and I held out so I'm going again.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 372/transcript

2026-06-14T17:13:13Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 372
| title = We Used To Budget
| date = August 14th, 2019
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Adina Hurley]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/372 Episode 372]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_372.mp3 Audio Episode 372]
| length = 80
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 372. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN, Pen Chalet, and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm very well, Brad Dowdy. I'm very well, indeed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Are you alone in your room right now?

== Guest Introduction ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, why have you got to be such a creepster? I have my wife, Adina, with me today. Welcome to The Pen Addict, Adina.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Thank you. First time here. First time caller.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hey, Adina.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Hi.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, Adina's going to be coming with us to the San Francisco Pen Show. She's going to be attending her first real pen show, because London does not count. So, we thought as a way to kind of do a primer for San Francisco, because San Francisco Pen Show is next weekend. So, our next episode is going to be recorded live from the San Francisco Pen Show. We'll have some details about that a little later on in the episode. But we thought that it would be fun to bring Adina on, and we can answer her pen show questions, of which, looking at her notebook, she has many.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love it. I'm so excited to have Adina, not just on the show, but to see her again next week. It's been, I don't know, a year since I've gotten to be in her presence. And she's always just fun to hang out with and chat with. So, I am so excited you're here, Adina.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Thank you. I feel very welcome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We've got some news, though, right? Yeah, we've got some news, and I'm going to be getting into asking Adina about some of the things she uses before we even get to the San Francisco Pen Show stuff. So, we can kind of lay the groundwork here for that. But, yeah, the first thing, Myke, I want to get an Ask TPA done out of the gate, if you will let me, because I did a review of the Midori MD Lite notebooks last week, which is a super popular notebook, right? The Midori MD is just one of the top notebooks that people can buy. And it started coming up probably a couple weeks before I did my review of it, that Midori, the question was posed in the general sense, is Midori changing to an F-size notebook? So, here's the question from Warehouse 40. I heard Midori is switching to F-size notebooks. Could you explain those sizes? Are they no longer producing A-size notebooks? So, that's a stretch. Some of their notebook lineup is going to what's called an F-size, and we're going to get into that in a minute. F-size. But, as you can imagine, Myke, I have things to say about this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't even know what F-size is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, you and the rest of the world. So, just to give the big picture, Midori MD does so many sizes you can't keep up with. And then, within those styles and sizes, they also do different paper types, specifically their standard paper, and then they have what's called a cotton paper. Okay? So, their standard lineup has all kinds of A-sizes, all kinds of B-sizes that fit in those international standards. And it's just, like, you look at the product offerings, and, like, the number of SKUs is just kind of crazy. And then, the cotton paper is something, like, a bunch of fountain pen lovers have really latched onto in our community. Like, it's a really quality, fun, cool paper to use. Because that's the lineup that is changing to the F-size. And they were formerly made in the A-size. Now, they're going to the F-size. So, your question is, what is the F-size?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This frustrates me so much. Adina, I am a very well-known... I have a stance where I believe in standards, right? Paper, international paper sizes, A's, B's, C's. And I enjoy those standards. And I enjoy companies who live within those standards.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Although, nobody really actually does.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, this is the thing. We went on this kind of quest a while ago. There is... Even though there are standards... Yeah. No company makes them. But they say, like... Even me, right? Like, I've made, like, an A5 notebook. It's, like, kind of A5. It's, like, there's always, like, a little bit off. That nobody actually fits to those sizes.

'''Adina Hurley:''' I guess people always think, like, oh, what would fit between my keyboard and me? What would fit in my pocket? They don't think about standards.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, what was it? Even if somebody says they have an A5 notebook, there's always some variance.

== Notebook Size Discussion Shift ==

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you standardize around a general size, which is what these companies do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And what gets me so bent out of shape, Adina, is that I actually make products for the notebooks to fit in.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh, I see you right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I have a little special place in the seventh circle for those who just don't do it right. And so, yeah. I linked Midori's MD Cotton page for those two who are interested to read on. And based on what they say, the sizes of MD notebook cotton have been optimized for drawing with the range now featuring FO size, F2 size, and an F3 variant. Incidentally, and this is all coming from Midori, the F stands for figure. This French standard is based on the golden ratio for portraits and other pictures. I think they're making this up completely.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That does sound like a really convenient lie.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, okay, we're going to kind of direct the traffic to, this is our stance of what the F size is. I think that's made up. Because when you go look at paper standards, which I look at too much, you can get A, B, and C sizes pretty regularly from any paper vendor, right? Like any paper source is going to list like these international standards. Yeah. And none of them list F. But if you go to the Wikipedia page, which you know is true, Myke, you go to the Wikipedia page, they have all kinds of sizes outside of A, B, and C. They even have F0 through F10 sized. But they call that, there's a chart on there for the dimensions of F0 through F10. The header of that chart calls it a hypothetical. I've never heard this word before. But I'm guessing it has to do with hypothetical or pretend, not official sizes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It doesn't actually exist? Like, I don't understand. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this whole thing, I... That word doesn't exist. Hypothetic is not a word. Yeah. Huh. So I have more fun with this type of stuff than I should. It's really not that big of a deal. It's just more of a fun annoyance. But the problem is, I get the emails and tweets saying, Midori's switching to F. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then, you know, people are thinking it's the entirety of the Midori lineup. In the end, it's just the MD Cotton lineup. And what this is, they're more of a square notebook, really, for drawing. They're not quite square, but they're less rectangular and more square, if you'll just think of a general shape. But it's just, you know, Midori has so many products. And that's something I didn't even cover in my review. And I meant to, it was like in my notes to cover that. It's really hard to decide. And they're making it harder with this. But I don't know. It's just one of those little hills that I'll die on unfairly. With paper standards and other standards like that. But just to answer the general question, just the Midori Cotton Notebook, which before I think was only offered in three sizes. But even that, I could be wrong. You could pull up a page and probably find 15 sizes all of a sudden on it. It's switching to F. The standard notebooks, like I reviewed the other day, those are staying in the A and B ranges. So hopefully that's it for now. But I just had to talk about this because it's just right up my alley, Myke, just to complain about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Relay FM membership. We did it. We did the thing. We built Lego. It took four and a half hours to build the San Francisco architectural Lego set. But this episode is now available for Relay FM members. There is a link at the very top of the show notes which says to click here to become a Relay FM member and support this show. You should do that. And you will get a bunch of amazing perks, monthly bonuses. There's a monthly host crossover show called Fusion, which is wonderful. There's a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter. But you also get all of the Relay FM bonus specials. And this year's Pan Addict special is four and a half hours long. So you're definitely going to get your money's worth. If you would like to hear four and a half hours of me saying two by four flat piece, dark green to Brad, then we've got it for you. This one did not feature as many explosive moments as the previous one. But there is a general sense of frustration throughout about three hours of it. It was actually, we had a lot of fun building it together. It was not easy. This was a much more complex set than the London set was, I think. So yeah, please go and check it out. And if you decide to, which I think people should, I think it's fun, buy the set and try and build it along with my instructions themselves. Washing machines, pipe hole pieces, all that. The best thing about building Lego with Brad for four and a half hours is by the end of it, we have developed a new way of communicating, like just a brand new language. It's wonderful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we'll put a hypothetical wiki page up with our new terminology.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think we could. We could standardize on this. So you click the link in the show notes or go to relay.fm slash penaddict or relay.fm slash membership. There's many ways to find out more and to sign up and become a Relay FM member. And you will get this along with all of the many other bonuses that we offer. Thank you so much to everyone that has signed up. Please keep signing up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I have to ask Adina if, Adina, were you home when Myke finished this recording by chance last week?

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah, I think I was.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you want to be around him when he was done?

'''Adina Hurley:''' I think I had no.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I only had like half an hour until I had to go do another show.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah, so I didn't see much of Myke, but yeah. That day was a blowout. That was good. He seemed stressed. Yes, I was.

'''Adina Hurley:''' For various reasons.

== Pen Feedback Discussion ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I lost many hours that day. Yeah, I'm glad Mary Beth wasn't home when I was done because I finished and I just like, I just had to like sit down and not talk to anyone and just like kind of recuperate and like recalibrate everything. And that night, Myke, I couldn't go to sleep because my shoulder and neck were like sore because I had hunched over in like a different position than I normally podcast in, right? You had a Lego injury. So I'm hunched over. Yeah, so that's like a real thing. It's like a Lego injury. Oh, yeah. It's like, you know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's why I never build sets in full now because they hurt me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. The feedback has been awesome. It continues to boggle my mind, the feedback we get on this episode. So thank you all for those who supported the Relay FM membership and have listened to this episode and reached out to us and have gone down the path of actually buying this set and are going to build it based on Myke's instructions. We've already seen that. We haven't seen any results yet, but we have people that are starting to work on them now. So I'm sure we'll see those soon, but just fantastic. I love it. It was worth every minute of it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Talking about something you love, a new Blackwing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Speaking of worth every minute of it, I'll never forget when Blackwing decided to do this. I guess we're three years into it now. They did like this little montage video, like when they launched the Blackwing volume subscription and number 42 came up in it. And number 42 is very important to me, being the baseball fan that I am, and being hopefully the good citizen that I am, that it represents Jackie Robinson, who broke the race color barrier in baseball. It's like one of the biggest numbers, most important numbers in my life. I love Jackie Robinson. I love his story. When I do the Pen Addict members with the refill newsletter, every quarter I donate to a charity. I've donated to the Jackie Robinson Foundation several times over the years. It's just one of my favorite things, favorite charities to support. And so finally, we got the Jackie Robinson edition. And I was excited to finally see this come into existence. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I had to wait through the Yankees edition, the Joe DiMaggio edition, which actually I was a little bit concerned. I may not ever get my 42 edition, but it's here and it's awesome. Um, it's really simple for Blackwing and their design, which I kind of like for this edition. It's a white barrel. It has Dodger blue print. It has like a Dodger blue eraser and then a red 42, which makes the number really stand out, which that's their whole thing with these volumes editions, right? They're about numbers. And there's rarely a more important number in my life just on a day-to-day basis than 42. So I love it. The, you know, the only knock on it from a personal perspective is the core, is the balanced core, which is the pearl core, which is not my favorite. I like firm or extra firm, but hey, it's, I got my 42 pencil. I'll use it. It looks cool. I am, I'm all about it. So love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 42 is a point to a lot of people, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And 42, it means a lot of things to a lot of different people.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The answer to life, the universe and everything, isn't it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Life, it's life, the universe and everything. It's also a prime number, which is very popular when people pick out their things, like retro 51 numbers. So 42 has a lot of different meanings. So a lot of different people and mine is definitely a baseball. And, you know, it's just cool. It was a, this was an about time edition. We knew it was coming. It had to come and they did a good job with it. So that's what I'm mostly happy, happy with. That said, Myke, before this even edition was announced, like we talked about kind of like subscription overload. I went in and like, and canceled my subscription, like to not renew. Like, I think I have two more. I have this one and two more to, oh, sorry. 42 is not a prime number. That was about to correct you. Yeah. The chat room is really upset right now. Sorry. I messed that up. I don't know what I was thinking. That's really bad. But yeah, so sorry, chat room. I upset at you and I upset at the whole internet. So I'll get more email about this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is going to be a problem for you later on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it will be. That's fine. I can deal with it. This is not my first problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah, my subscription, I've stopped it. I'm going to stop my field note subscription. It's just a lot. It's like, it's a lot of pencils. So, you know, it's cool. I'll keep finding them if I find them. Oh, I'm good. This one and like two more. Like, you know, it was already paid for. Like, you know, one or two editions ago. Right. So you pay like annually. So just when the annual thing is just not going to renew. So I'm cool with that. I'll just pick up the editions that I like. Like the 42, not a prime number edition.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN. When you're preparing to travel abroad this summer, like we all are. Well, I'm traveling abroad. Brad is traveling. There will be lots of things in your checklist. But there's one very important thing that could be missing. And that is the app that's going to keep you safe and secure. When you're surfing the web online, that is ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN doesn't just encrypt your data while you surf the internet on public airport and hotel Wi-Fi. It also lets you stream and access content that normally would have been blocked in that country. So you can unblock all of your favorite websites and browse as if you were at home. With ExpressVPN's powerful encryption, your data will be secured. It's super easy to use and it runs in the background. You just download the app, click to connect, and you are protected. It uses new cutting-edge technology called Trusted Server to make sure there's no logs of what you're doing online. And it costs less than $7 a month and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. I'm going to be going to hotel after hotel over the next couple of weeks and I will be using ExpressVPN to make sure that I have a connection that I feel comfortable using. I love it because everything stays nice and speedy too, so it's wonderful. Don't travel this summer without downloading ExpressVPN. Protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months for free at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That's exprassvpn.com slash penaddict for three months free of a one-year package. Go there right now. It's one more thing off your summer or packing checklist. Once again, that is expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

== London Stationery Store Visit ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, I've got a story for you. All right, I'm ready. So, some weeks ago, Idina found a store in London, randomly, called Choosing Keeping. And she poked around it and was like really impressed with it, right? You liked it when you went there.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh, I loved it. I wanted to buy everything and I was worried a bit that I didn't understand what everything is for, so I wanted to get you in there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, we were in London. I was buying a fancy suit for our big live show that we're doing in San Francisco and I wanted to go and take a look at Choosing Keeping. So, the store, it's in London. They recently moved into a larger, into a larger space. But, I was kind of poking around and very, I was very surprised at, pleasantly surprised at the products that they were carrying. So, I'm walking down this kind of line and I'm seeing, oh, okay, they have life notebooks. That's an interesting thing to see, right? Like, they're not everywhere. So, I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. Oh, how cool. And I'm like, hang on a minute. Then they have Tomoe River paper notebooks and Midori notebooks. And I'm like, what is going on in this store? Right? Like, they have everything. And I was like, I was genuinely like, really surprised about it because the collection, even just of paper that they had, I feel like I have not seen in many shops, let alone a shop in London. Right? Like, it felt like this is a, this was a surprise to me because you typically don't see, oh, they also had Nemesine. Nemesine? Yeah. Yeah, they had Nemesine notebooks. They have all the stuff on their website, right? So you could see the brands that they carry. But I was like, I was super surprised by it because you just tend not to see this stuff very much. Then I turned around and saw their fountain pen cabinet and they had pilots, they had sailors, they had platinum pens. I was like, wow, this is, this is kind of wild. So I'm like, we were poking around in the store a little bit more and they had a bunch of like, really interesting knickknacks, like these beautiful brass tape dispensers, which I was like, kind of obsessed by, but it was 225 pounds. So like, I like it, but not that much. And so, yeah, we're like, we're poking around in the store. They had all these great inks. Like, again, it's like, they had like really great ink. I'm like, who, how is this happening? Right? Like, why is this little store, like, why does it have all of these, like it had some sailor inks in it. Um, I can't, and there were some other brands that I don't remember the name of, off the top of my head, but they were like Japanese brands that I've heard you mention before. Right? So I was like, I started talking to someone, one of the people in the store, because they could see that I was more interested and intrigued than the average person. Like they also, like they had like a really great, uh, Kaweco, um, ex, a kind of exhibit, I would call it. They had like every Kaweco pen you could ask for. They had a bunch of Lamy pens. They had all of the special editions and stuff like that. But they, even though they had those, they were not like put at the front, like a lot of pen stores would. Right? Like they were putting their Japanese pens at the front and then their German pens kind of towards the back. Um, as it should be,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' any good store.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. I didn't want to say that, but that's 100% true. So I was like looking and I was like saying like, oh, so what is like, what is your, like, what kind of like, what is this all about? Like I was saying, you have like a very, very good stock of paper, especially, right? Like every brand that I would want to see represented from Japan is here. Even the same with pens, right? They didn't have a huge collection, but they had a few really interesting models of a, you know, of a bunch of like the best. And the woman was saying to me that basically their idea is they don't want to stock everything. They just want to stock the best of what they do. And I was like, well, you did it. Congratulations. Right? Like you, you 100% nailed it. Now there's part of the story that I missed out so far, which was when I was looking in the display case at the Platinums and I came across a pen that I've never seen before. The Platinum 3776 Arushi Raden Galaxy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Arushi Raden Galaxy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'd have to look at it. I'd never seen this pen before, but I took one look at it and fell in love with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So I'm going to need a link to this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I put it in the chat room. Okay. So you can take a look. It is stunning. It is an Arushi 3776 with Avalone Shell gold furniture. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. And the price that they told me was in line with the price that I would get from someone like the Nibsmith, right? Which I was also really surprised about. They did. They were not charging MSRP. Interesting. At all. Like it was a very, very good price. It was a price so good that I kind of felt like maybe they didn't know what they had on hand. You know, it was basically in line of what I would pay from someone like Dan Smith if translated into pounds. It was about, I think about 650 pounds, which I was really very pleased with for a pen that I immediately fell in love with. Like I picked it up, took a look at it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Basically, I bought it, right? Is what I'm saying. Right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Adina's sitting right there, Myke. Yes. I have it in my hand right now. The funny thing is this is one week away from a pen show. Right?

'''Adina Hurley:''' He did the whole dance. Oh, I'll take another look around the store and then decide. He was telling that to the, yeah, it was bought in his heart already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, exactly. I immediately fell in love with it. Um, I'm being asked in the chat room what nib. Now, this is where the story continues. Oh boy, this is a story time. I love it. So, I was given a medium, they had a medium basically. And I was like, all right, I have a broad already in my 3776 nicely last. so I was like, great, I'll get a medium nib. So, get it home, open it up. I'm always like, frustrated at Platinum's boxes. I feel like they really kind of don't do a good job there compared to some other brands. Very like, boring. Um, but I, there is like a whole other question which I'm not sure about. It's like, I don't even know what to put, ink to put in a pen like this because there's so many colors going on, right? Like what, what ink do you put in a, uh, Raden pen? Right. I feel like I would want to put a shimmer ink in it but I'm too scared to put a shimmer ink in this Arushi pen that I just purchased. I think of this as my three quarters Nakaya by the way. Okay. That's where I am with this pen. It's like three quarters of the way in like quality and price I think to a Nakaya. So I fill it and I'm playing it around and I'm scribbling with it and the nib broke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wait, you need to explain that further. I know, I'm going to. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, the, uh, okay, so I need, I need the, the terminology from you a little bit because I struggle with it. The very tip of the nib, right? Okay, yeah. So on the tines of the nib, what is it called? That ball right at the very top, right? The tipping. The tipping. One half of the tipping just snapped off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh,

'''Myke Hurley:''' wow. I am. I have literally never had this happen before. I cannot understand why it happened, but it did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's very strange. Yes. That's, that's a flaw. Clearly, not something you did. Something, something happened to that pen

'''Myke Hurley:''' at some point. Yeah. Right. I don't know if it got dropped, right? Like, I don't know what happened to it, but something happened to it. Um, so I was upset. Just a little bit. I was upset. Uh, I ended up, uh, just taking the nib from my nicely last and putting it on this. Um, so I now have a slightly rose gold nib on a pen with gold furniture, but let's pretend that that didn't happen. Uh, it's difficult to see just because I couldn't not use this pen, right? So I ended up sacrificing a nib for a nib. I found out subsequently that it is impossible to buy platinum nibs. Like, you cannot do it. You have to buy a platinum pen and then take the nib, right? They don't sell them. Um, so, uh, Adina, this is where you take over because you took over the story from here.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh, I got upset for you because you loved it so much. It's so gorgeous and basically you couldn't use it. I don't think it's right that you have to take the nib from a different pen. So I got angry for you and as I usually do, I contacted the manufacturer, um, at least their UK contact. Uh, I don't have any more updates on that apart from the fact that they are, the guy who's in charge of this is currently on holiday and he should get back to me on Thursday, hopefully, because he'll be back in the office then. But I really want to get it sorted out for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's kind of where we are, right? Like, my feeling is taking it to the store is kind of pointless and taking it back to the store because they're probably only going to do what, what Idina has done which is to contact the distributor.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, unless the distributor is not going to go through with you directly and will take it back through the store

'''Myke Hurley:''' then you have to jump through that. We'll find that out once they reply. But that, the, the, the warranty information I think had this.

'''Adina Hurley:''' It sent me to their manufacturer website and for their, to the distributor. It doesn't tell me to go for the retailer. So, we'll see. Gotcha, I'm confident

'''Myke Hurley:''' that we will get a resolution to this. But it was just like this whole funny, this, I think it's a funny story really.

== Pen Issue Described ==

'''Adina Hurley:''' Oh,

'''Myke Hurley:''' but I'm not finding

'''Brad Dowdy:''' the humor.

'''Adina Hurley:''' But I don't know how you worked it out because you called me in to say that something's not right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I immediately knew.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Because something's not right with this and when I was in here I could hear a piece of metal dropping onto the paper and then we tried to find it. this,

'''Myke Hurley:''' this piece of tipping is in my office somewhere.

'''Adina Hurley:''' But we couldn't find it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh. I felt it happen, right? Like, I felt like, so the piece is lost. That's, that's like a whole other problem. I don't know if that makes it more of a problem or whatever but the piece is lost. So, it was heartbreaking. It broke off somewhere.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so you need to get this taken care of primarily because this is a unique nib design for this model of pen, right? It's got extra like scroll work on the nib. It's not the same nib etching as your, that's the normal platinum nib so swapping out like a different gold nib into this is not going to give it the same, you know, effect. Yeah, so we, we will be expecting follow up. This is gonna be, I'm sure. This is gonna be a thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A long standing story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I'm upset for you. Exactly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am trying to, or the other thing is that it's an 18 carat nib and I don't have an 18 carat nib now, right? Like it's, you know, it's not only that, it's also like a more expensive nib anyway, right? So, I don't know what the resolution to this is gonna be. I know what I want it to be. But I am trying to just like not worry about it for now. Like, cause I'm, I love the broad nib that was in my, nicely less. It's one of my favorite pens. So, giving it a home upgrade for a little bit is not the worst thing that's happened to me. But, I do expect, basically, I will be really annoyed if we do not come to some kind of resolution. Like where we are right now is like, okay, we're just gonna wait and see how the distributor is gonna fix this, not if, right? And then, then I'll start to get different types of feelings. But where I am right now is like, all right, this is where we are, right? Like the pen, the original nib is broken. I can still use the pen. So, we'll see.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, you weigh under sold the show notes. It just says, Myke has a story. And like, I'm about to like, come through the computer at them if they don't fix this. Like, I'm super upset for you. I'm on Adina's team on this one. Like, I'm starting to call people like, we're getting this fixed. Right, Adina?

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yep, yep. I love doing this sort of stuff. I don't know. It feels like I'm 70 in my heart, but I love complaining to companies and getting what's mine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, if anybody is going to fix it, she'll fix it. it's like,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' you know. And this is a, this is a technical flaw in the manufacture of that nib. So, hopefully, it'll be pretty straightforward, but you never know, right? You just, you just never know what you're going to get.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow. So, yeah, that is where I am. I'm going to be bringing the pen with me so you can see it in its current state. Yeah, I need a drink. It is. Golly, that stressed me out. It's so beautiful, though. I love it so much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't think I've actually, I don't think I've seen that model in person, so yes, I would like to see it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is it, right? I saw it and I was like, I have no idea this pen even existed. Like, and I feel like it's a pen that I should have known existed. Because it's so up my street. This, for me, like, genuinely, this excites me more than a lot of Nakayas that I've seen, which it should for the price. I mean, it's effectively the same in some instances, but, and like, you know, a lot of the technique is here, right? Like, it's an Arushi pen and it's got this beautiful, like, signature on it as well, which I love. And, yeah, I'm into it big time.

== Topic Shift - Upcoming Event ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool, cool. Well, you buried the lead a little bit in that story, which we're going to get to in just a second, which you don't know about, but let's talk about how good I'm going to look next week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay, there's something happening. There's always, there's always a thing happening. We just keep surprising each other. Today's show is also brought to you by Harry's. Did you know that the average person can spend 3,000 hours of their life shaving? That's a lot of hours. Don't waste four total months of your own lifetime overpaying and using poor performing razors. Get Harry's blades. They are razors that are so sharp you can shave less often and you're going to save money as well. Harry's was founded by two guys that were tired of paying for overpriced gimmicks. Vibrating heads, flexible balls, handles that look like props from sci-fi movies. These are some of the weird and peculiar tactics that leading brands have used to overcharge people for years. Harry's makes quality durable blades at a fair price. Just $2 per blade. To keep prices low, they cut out the middle person and bought their own factory in Germany that makes some of the best razor blades in the world for like 100 years nearly. And now they can provide these great quality blades at factory direct prices. Harry's offers a 100% quality guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let them know and they will give you a full refund. Brad, tell me something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to pack all the Harry's things for next week, Myke. And guess what Harry's has now?

'''Myke Hurley:''' What do they have now?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because I went to go order blades because the household I currently live in with the two other women who steal all my blades, I had to order blades, right? So I had to order blades and shave gel and, you know, restock all this stuff. They have the hair paste, Myke. You know, the little dab stuff that I put in my hair to make me look awesome. Oh! I ordered it from them. They have it now. I haven't tried it yet. I just got it in yesterday. Oh, so they're doing like hair products now too. Yeah, doing hair products now. So it's pretty awesome. So we'll see how that goes. We'll try that out for next week. I'll be fully, fully, you know, Harry's up for our event.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. I don't doubt that by any stretch of the imagination. As a listener of this show, you can get a free trial set that comes with everything you're going to need for a close and comfortable shave. Like weighted ergonomic handles for an easy grip, a five-blade razor with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade for a close shave, rich leathering shave gel to leave you smelling great, and a travel blade color to keep your razor dry and easy on the go. To redeem your trial set, just go to harrys.com slash penaddict. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S harrys.com slash penaddict to redeem your offer and help support this show. Our thanks to Harry's for the continued support of the penaddict. I'm Relay FM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let me tell everyone, all our listeners, what you snuck in on me, that it really has me freaked out. All right. You went to buy a fancy suit. Oh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like, I'm not wearing a fancy suit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I'm wearing it for the big show, not our show. Our show's cash.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Trust me. I know. I know. Oh, but you're going to be a part of the big show. You don't have to wear a big suit. I'm going to be part of the big show. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what do I need to think about what I'm going to wear? I usually go in, you know, just regular Brad casual. Bradual.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you're always more fancy than the average person anyway.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You wear button downs all the time. You're going to be fine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But look, it's a big day for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cash. I know, right? But now you have me stressing out even more. I was like, oh my God, there's only a few shopping days left. Do I need to go buy a fancy suit? You can if you want to,

'''Myke Hurley:''' but I'm not going to force you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's not going to happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' San Francisco Penn Show time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, let's go. I'm ready. Almost. All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, we're going to be at the San Francisco Penn Show all of next weekend. Show opens Friday?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Show opens Friday. Friday through Sunday. Friday through Sunday. In Redwood City. Sofitel Hotel, I believe is the name of it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Looks like a nice hotel. I'm intrigued about that. It's a cool hotel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Newly renovated from like two years ago. So, yeah, it's all up to date. Very nice.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is there any preamble that you want to give before Adina dives into her questions?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't think so. It's been two. I've missed the last two San Francisco Penn shows. So, it's been almost, I guess, three years since I've been. So, you haven't seen the new hotel then? No, it was under renovation the last time I attended. So, it'll be a little bit new for me. But, you know, same general size scope. I love the show hotel. The ballrooms are big and spacious. They have extra overflow rooms. And it's a good layout for a show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And the Hotel Pullman. Pullman.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Pullman. Sorry. I think, yeah, I get the, I think they had a name change or I'm getting it confused with something else. Is it a prime number? I can't remember.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm trying to beat that down now so I don't have to live through it later. Yeah. You gotta own it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a, it's a cool hotel. It's in a business-y kind of location. Uh-huh. Yeah. But there is food and stuff around. Lovely. You know, like, you know, there's, you know, more corporate-y San Jose than, you know, San Francisco style. But it's a good location. The show promoters that put it on are fantastic. They've worked with us wonderfully to get our little event into the schedule and are hooking us up with rooms and space and chairs and all of that stuff. So we're pretty excited. I am.

== Show Details ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So the live show is going to be Friday at 9 p.m. So we're going to be a late night show Friday at 9 p.m. If you want to come by, please come and see us on Friday at the Penn Show and grab a ticket. It's just so we can make sure that we're keeping an eye on how many people we're going to have and make sure we can have enough chairs and stuff. So if you're going to be at the live show, you want to come and see us on Friday at 9 p.m. at the San Francisco Penn Show, then please do come by and grab a ticket at some point during the day.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So just a clarification on that. These tickets are free. Like, it's no relation to the Relay FM show the night before that's in downtown San Francisco. I know a lot of people are still confused on that. Hey, can I get a ticket or can you hold me a ticket? How much are tickets? It's really a non-ticketed event, right? You just come to the show, show up at 9 o'clock Friday, grab a seat. But we do it for two reasons. One, we kind of want to have a headcount idea, right? In case all of a sudden we're running really big for the room. And two, we do giveaways during the show so these little tickets will be your little door price thing. So if you're coming to the show and you're there, you're going to get into the show. Like, in case, unless there's some fire hazard issue we run into. But the space is pretty large from what I remember. And I've seen the floor plan and we'll put a lot of chairs, we'll have standing room only, things like that. So, you know, don't worry about am I going to get a ticket for the show? If you're there, we're going to get you in. We'll do our best. So, you know, don't worry about those things too much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, Adina, give us new questions.

== First Pen Show Experience ==

'''Adina Hurley:''' Woo-hoo! Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' First real pen show, right? You've been to the London pen show. Yeah. But this is the first kind of big, big one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the first pen show that we would class a pen show. Like, the London show. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean, but like, the London show doesn't have any of the brands.

'''Adina Hurley:''' It's very vintage pen focused.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Gotcha.

'''Adina Hurley:''' So I didn't get the full experience. I think we went there twice. And, but I keep seeing the photos from the other pen shows you guys go to. And I'm very excited about that because it looks like there's a whole lot more to do. There's more modern brands. There's more, I guess, like indie pen makers, inks, paper. So I'm very excited about all of that. But, well, I'm also a bit worried about buying too much because I've never been in this sort of setting either. But I'm excited.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're going to buy too much. Everybody does.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Everybody does. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's a pretty safe bet that at the San Francisco pen show are where budgets go awry. Between Washington, D.C. and San Francisco because you get such a huge list of kind of what you mentioned. You get a lot more independent makers and you get a lot of vendors who travel from the Far East to attend that you won't, you know, you're not going to get in London and I'm not going to get like on D.C. on the East Coast. Right. It's just a longer trip a lot of times. So, it's hard to make a budget for San Francisco because there's just so much cool stuff you're going to run into.

'''Adina Hurley:''' What budget do you two have in mind? Don't. No, we're not going in there. It's going to go over anyway. You see,

'''Myke Hurley:''' the thing is, we used to budget. We don't budget.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think I've ever, yeah, it's been years since I've gone in with a hard number to a pin show but I've also never gone like completely dumb at a pin show so I'm not overly concerned about it. Like, I know mentally where, like, what my breaking point is and, like, I have no intention of going there this year. Like, I'll find something that I didn't expect to buy and buy it but in general, I'm just not going to go crazy just because I don't need, like, all the things but I'm sure I'll find definitely some things that I wasn't planning on getting.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, like, one of the reasons that, like, me and Brad don't budget anymore is because our collections are so large we don't see as many things to fill them as we used to. So, like, that's one of the big things for me that over time is I spend, I either spend less or I spend about the same but I come home with less things. The things that I buy now is, like, here is that king of pen that you've wanted for the last six months and now you bought it at this pen show, right? So, like, it's a different, it's kind of different now.

'''Adina Hurley:''' It's more about limited editions, I think, for you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' things that are harder to get or things that are so expensive that really you want to see them in person. Things that, like, I would have bought before but I needed to see it and hold it and feel it before I would make the purchase.

'''Adina Hurley:''' I see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you should budget and you should set the budget comfortably for yourself, like, set it within your own means and then stick to it and don't go over it.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Well, I've thought about it and I think that I have about $250 for a pen or multiple pens but we'll see. I have no doubt that I'll end up buying a lot of things around and a lot of ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' $250 is a good, like, I want to buy a new pen.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Or a few. Yep. I don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Or a few. Or a few and then that's a good budget for that. We can talk about, I mean, honestly, I think that you will be best served like using that on maybe one because of where you are in your pen journey right now. We're going to get to that in a little bit but I think that maybe like one or like the majority of that money on one pen is probably going to be the best bet for you.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's more than a good enough budget number. Absolutely. To be like super happy with like your pen show experience.

'''Adina Hurley:''' Good, good, good. Just talking as we were talking about the pen show, I think what I'm very excited about this year because we're going to a big pen show is to have Myke and maybe you, Brad, take me around and tell me all of the backstories about all of these pens and everything because I really love we went to the store choosing keeping the other week and I absolutely loved how excited Myke was getting about everything and telling me stories about why certain pens are more special than others. I think you were telling me about this Kaweco that's blowtorched by the CEO and that's why it's more expensive and it's like I want to hear all of that and explore what's out there not always see it through Myke's eyes because I guess I see his collection and I see how he looks at the pen world and I want to explore what's out there to see what I like and in preparation of this show I have been following more Instagram accounts and funny enough in following more Instagram accounts I fell in love with a pen and bought a pen even though I was only doing the prep to know what to look for at San Francisco but I just did it I gave in and bought one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah so what you just said is now going to make a lot of sense to our listeners because I have asked for help working this show at the knock table so I'll be bringing knock there and we'll be selling our pen cases but this is one of those shows where I don't want to be tied up behind the table all the time because I have other friends coming to this show like you who I want to take around and show and share you know my love for all of these products and meet these really interesting people who are making like really cool stuff and you know that you don't always get to see or you get to see it like on Instagram you get to check it out in person and you get to you know maybe learn the stories behind someone like Bung Box who Myke and I have been a fan of for years and I've gotten to meet them you know in different shows and get to talk to Daryl who makes Misubi Notebooks and why he you know he makes these notebooks and all these different stories and I want to have that opportunity to spend some time with you and our other friends who might be attending this show to kind of give you like that full experience of what the show is about especially since you're going to be there multiple days right you're not just you know going to be like an attendee who's just going to have to come Saturday afternoon and kind of you know not rush through it but you know the pace will be a little bit faster for them where you can take it a little bit slower and we can do these other things and yeah so that totally totally is right up my alley and I can't wait to be able to walk around the show with you

'''Adina Hurley:''' can't wait everyone's going

'''Brad Dowdy:''' to know what

'''Myke Hurley:''' the pen you spoke about you have to you can't like just be like oh I bought a pen and then move on like you have to talk about what that pen was

'''Adina Hurley:''' yeah that's not yeah that's not how this show works

'''Myke Hurley:''' you can't just be like oh I bought something and then never talk about it

'''Adina Hurley:''' so just because just to understand what an amazing purchase this is for me and the fact that I fell in love so hard that I let myself buy it I have to put it in the context of the rest of my collection so my other pens are a Pilot Metropolitan that I've replaced like five times because I constantly ruin them but that's one that I found and loved I found through this show and absolutely loved that's why I keep replacing it and the other one was the Twisby Eco again also through this show at the same time absolutely loved it then Myke also got me a few pens from other pen shows that he knew I would love like the Pilot Kakuno and the Caran d'Ache 849 fountain pen so considering I only had beginner fountain pens under $50 it was amazing that I fell in love with this Sailor Pro gear Sailor because I keep seeing Myke buying Sailor so I thought that should be good also it was in ivory so it was absolutely gorgeous with rose gold accents and when I saw it in the picture I was like I must have it and I was a bit like Myke should I get it should I wait to see if I can find it in San Francisco and actually try it it's it's I think it was about $250 anyway which is why I probably have this budget for the show still but I just went in and bought it and then I went through the fun experience of matching an ink with it which

'''Myke Hurley:''' everybody wants to know what nib size you're using now

'''Adina Hurley:''' generally I love medium but that one it wasn't fine so I just bought it I do like to have the variety I think I would have preferred it in medium but I love the pen either way it's beautiful it's gorgeous and the ink what I put in it was Robert Oster's rose gilt tint which is absolutely gorgeous and it works perfectly

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah you're gonna have a problem at the San Francisco pen show

'''Adina Hurley:''' no don't tell me

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that that's why

'''Adina Hurley:''' I'm worried I said I'm worried

== Brad's Enthusiasm ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' hearing the way you talk about purchasing that pen is like everything to me like I love hearing people find things that they love like that's that's my jam like that's what I do that's what I enjoy the most and yeah we're gonna have to do a lot of walking and

'''Adina Hurley:''' talking in on

'''Brad Dowdy:''' the in the early days of the show and just exploring because there's gonna be so much there's gonna be it's gonna be very very overwhelming which is always one of the challenges for a first pen show especially of this size this is a large show it'll be very busy but you know with that downside comes the benefits of seeing things you've never seen before in your life and and going oh my gosh I must have this and then going to the next table going oh my gosh I must have this that's what I'm

'''Adina Hurley:''' worried about because I generally like to buy things for myself that I fall in love with and it's very difficult to describe what what it is that makes me fall in love with it and in a pen world it's so easy to fall in love with a lot of stuff so I don't know how I'll manage that but okay let me get into my questions so now that you know all of the pens that I have what my pen collection is I spent last night cleaning flushing my pens inking them because I always see Myke doing that before pen shows and while I was doing that I was thinking and then I asked Myke and now I'm asking you as well because he didn't answer to me he wanted to keep it for the show why do you guys do that especially if you don't go there to sell them

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so I guess it's a couple reasons for me one I bring pens to a pen show for other people to try so I want to make sure they're just like ready to go right so that they've been clean that I know they're going to be in great condition and you know they'll be able to take them out and write with them right away and they might have some cool ink that you know really goes with the pen and you know they'll you know comment on the ink or something like that so like my perspective is a little bit a little bit different but I think that's a lot of people that go to pen shows do that because it is such a sharing and caring community to where like if you're going around shopping like if me and you are going around shopping on Friday afternoon right and you see a pen you really like but you're not sure and you test it at the table and you're still not sure I can like go through the mental rolodex in my head my head and say oh I know Anna has this pen let's go borrow hers for like 20 minutes and let you borrow it and write it so I guess from that perspective like the people who are bringing these pens you know we're doing it to help you know maybe educate someone who's you know never had this experience before so you want them to have the most accurate experience with testing out one of those pens right because then in the eventually you might be spending your money based on you know what I've let you borrow so you want it to be right you know you want it to be good and you know so you kind of get a good feel because that's the other good thing about a show like this is there's almost an endless amount of pens for you to try outside of the show floor right and I'm not talking about like what's on the short the floor being sold is like we can find something like you have a question about and I can go here try this and then you go oh I love it oh I hate it and then now you have that information right so that's like hugely beneficial especially you know if you're going to spend multiple days at a show to just take the time to try things you never have even seen in your life before to just kind of build on oh I like this I don't like this this is how I would use this I can't use this for that those kind of things so back to the original question that's why I kind of clean and bring like I'll bring like a fresh set of pens to to the show just whether they're just freshly cleaned or newly inked or sometimes I'll even bring a few empty pens and maybe you know buy an ink there just to to fill them up with and have something to do so that's that's why I do

'''Myke Hurley:''' it yeah I like to I do kind of a couple of things I'll bring like a small selection inked with what I use at home of like the stuff that I think is my favorite or the best stuff like things I know people will actually want to try and then I'll bring a bunch of pens I think people might want to see but I empty them all out and clean them and put them in my suitcase I just don't like having inked pens in my suitcase and I'm also hiding my crimes so I don't clean my pens very often and people yeah I was gonna me so I clean them before pen shows to kind of hide my crimes a little bit

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah I was gonna call you out a little bit here and you know it's like I was like wow is she really telling the truth I'm which I believe she is telling the truth but it's like does she know Myke doesn't really clean his pens I do

'''Myke Hurley:''' before a show I clean them before a show so like I just spent yesterday cleaning them all yeah but that's the only time so a couple of times a year my the jewels in my collection get polished oh boy that's yeah

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah we're not gonna have that conversation

'''Adina Hurley:''' so that's very helpful and I get that it's a bit of a sharing and caring and now I know that you both definitely have a very impressive collection that other people would want to borrow but what I'm curious about is whether I should actually bring my pens to the show and whether anyone will be interested in mine because it feels a bit intimidating like everyone has expensive fancy pens with good stories and I have pens under $50 and the sailor the sailor that propels me into a bit more of a cool

'''Brad Dowdy:''' group right well I I think you don't worry about that right they're your pens these are the things that you love that work well for you and you're also thinking about you know what I have these things what can my future experience is be like so I totally bring them if nothing else for your own experience to compare things to you can say here's why this is different also to like talk to other people who might be in the same situation that you were in before you bought those pens because there is going to be people there who are buying their first fountain pen ever and you can say hey I've I've tried this pilot metropolitan and I've tried this twisbee eco and here's how they work for me and here's why I like them like one of my favorite pens all time is the twisbee eco like I like hand that pen out to share with people all the time because like I'm like hey check this out here's what you're missing it's really crazy so it doesn't really you know matter if you think like these are basic pens or everyone's got all these pens because there's always someone else who is looking for the answers that you were looking for at one time and it never ceases to amaze me how many first time pen show attendees show up and how many people are coming to buy their first fountain pen and then we have get to have these conversations about okay what makes a good fountain pen and how you know what do you want to spend on a fountain pen if you're spending if you have twenty five dollars to spend instead of two hundred fifty dollars to spend and what's the best choices there so it's it's endless the opportunity to like share your love for pens with other people in an environment like this and it doesn't matter like what level you think you're on or anything like that so don't let that intimidate you and

'''Myke Hurley:''' also like somebody who's planning to take classes you should have the equipment with you that you would then want to do that stuff with at home I think it's really

'''Adina Hurley:''' important good point good point um so yeah that makes me feel way better about it you should just

'''Myke Hurley:''' bring yeah for sure like bring all the especially I mean you know I know you called it out but like people will want to see your sailor program I had never seen it before when you showed me the picture of it like I'd never seen that program before and it's a really cool one so people will want to see that plus it's famous

'''Adina Hurley:''' now oh yeah it's now the

'''Myke Hurley:''' famous program all right do you have you have more questions right a few more all right great let's take a final break and then we can answer those as well okay I want to thank pen chalet for their support of this week's show if you can't make it to a pen show go to pen chalet because they have everything they have it all pen chalet is like a permanent internet pen show they sell all of your favorite brands pelican lami pilot namiki sailor kaweko many more they're adding new brands new pens new styles all the time and they sell everything you're going to need as well as fountain pens and ballpoints and moldables and mechanical pencils they have ink and pen holders and refills and carrying cases everything they have it all and they do it with great prices pen chalet try their best to keep everything at prices that they think are awesome and they always are and they're always running special discounts you can always check that out but as a pen addict listener you know you can get a 10% off which I'll tell you about in a minute as well they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States they sell internationally as well and have great shipping rates pen chalet has low prices on high quality products and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee go to pen chalet.com click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at pen chalet at any time and also to see what is available for pen addict listeners this week and I was told by Ron that he will have various items is what he told me various items available for pen listeners this time

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yeah this is a range and it's it starts off with two retro 51s that are prices well below what any normal price should be he's got the endless recorder pen chalet notebooks which are really cool really neat products he has an oldie but a goodie here it's the Montegrappa copper mule which has always been one of my favorite pens pens that I've never actually owned I like the shape and I like the feel and I have other pens that kind of fill that need but I've always liked that pen every time I've picked it up it's at a crazy good price so yeah there's all kinds of things in here so definitely go check out pen chalet.com

'''Myke Hurley:''' do at some great prices as well so yep go to pen chalet.com hit the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict to get your hands on these offers a thanks to pen chalet for their continued support of this show and relay FM all right you know what else have you

== Pen Recommendations Begin ==

'''Adina Hurley:''' got for us I only have a few more questions but what would the pen show be pen like a pen addict episode without some pen recommendations right so I was wondering based on what I have what I seem to like which is mostly pilot sailor as well TWSBI what other pens you could you recommend me to look at or brand in between $50 and $250 do you have anything off top of

'''Brad Dowdy:''' your mind yeah I think platinum's the clear answer here and Myke's got a few you could probably test out but what they have done like one and a half true true true bodies one nib what they have done over the past couple years in that price point has been has kind of put all the other companies you know has got their their eyes open and ears perked up because they're doing such a good job with their styles and the features that they offer and the quality of their nibs except the one that Myke bought are normally like they their nibs are genuinely exquisite despite Myke's the nibs are amazing they really are there was

'''Myke Hurley:''' this one that I know that had a problem but when they don't snap off they are like just absolutely unbelievable like there's there's just like a comfort level with the with some of the platinum pens like that is unmatched like they're just

'''Brad Dowdy:''' they're one of my favorite writers and they come in cool styles that fit my personality right like I'll generally you know want something a little bit wilder you know or bright or something like that and you know that's kind of my favorite in there and then second I'd probably take a look at what Franklin Kristoff does because you can get a lot of like really wild colors you can get a lot of very normal colors and they offer so many shapes and sizes and the ability to actually try all those things to see how they fit your hand

'''Myke Hurley:''' yeah I want you to have the the Franklin Kristoff pen show experience because I think it's something that everyone should go through at some point where you basically it's like a production line they're gonna be at San Francisco I assume right I

'''Brad Dowdy:''' assume you know I didn't even look I they gotta be there yeah you're gonna start I'm just gonna tell them we're

'''Myke Hurley:''' gonna be there there's a bunch of different shapes you pick that you pick the color that you want and then you pick the nib that you want and then you try it all out and it's all tuned up for you at the end to make sure it works your handwriting style it's like a whole thing it's like but it's like a really fun experience to go through that's good

'''Adina Hurley:''' because both of these brands like as I've been following Instagram accounts of various pen stores bench online shops I've I think I what I keep coming back to is Franklin Kristoff I I think that I kept sharing with Myke a few quite cool cool models I think platinum as well if funnily enough this Monte Grappa Fortuna copper mule is it the one that was in the end oh I had it on my list yeah I think that it was a bit interesting what are the recommendations do you have I'm very happy with them so far good I was gonna

'''Brad Dowdy:''' say Monte Grappa has been doing stuff that's very interesting to me personally for like my personal style recently I haven't what's the I have I struggle I

'''Myke Hurley:''' struggle with Monte Grappa I do yeah I really like their pen shapes and designs but they typically do something on a pen

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's like oh why did you do that the one thing yeah and it's a lot of the time

'''Myke Hurley:''' it's it's the the logo yeah but recently

'''Brad Dowdy:''' to me it's been working better and they're definitely in that price range for their steel nib models so I just really enjoy the shape of that pen and I like the direction that they're going with the product so it'll be that's that's one you'll just want to want to look at and make sure you test a bunch just kind of get a feel it's a little bit different feels generally more heavy pen especially the copper obviously yeah but just you know does it have a piston filling mechanism you know which increases the cost a little bit and just how kind of how the pens feel you know does their general overall shape work with your hand but yeah that's one I would I would look at and there will be a lot of them there outside of that gosh there's gonna be so many we'll discover while we're there you know so I think those are probably the main ones like that's that's the starting point and then we kind of branch out from there like Leonardo is another brand that I have looked at who has beautiful materials and falls in that price range and the quality has been great that's a pen you might enjoy as well so we'll look at some of those

'''Adina Hurley:''' that's great I've written all of these down thank you

== Show Attendee Experience ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' you're also gonna walk past tables and see colors and swells you've never seen before and it's gonna blow your mind like that's that's another thing that you can't prepare for

'''Adina Hurley:''' it's it's good to have a list to go back to like I'm getting distracted back to the list so let's say that I have these four brands to look at I'll get distracted by other pens I will settle on one pen and I will want to buy it but a lot of the times I find in these stores that especially when you're buying a new one you can't really give it the full writing test because they're never inked so and you might try a tester I imagine or someone else's but it's tuned to someone else so how how do you what do you do in those situations especially when you're spending a lot of money on one pen

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's such a good question and it really ends up just being a discussion about what your current experiences are with pens you already haven't like compared to what this new pen is writing like what it offers what the nibs going to be like how it's going to behave and that's a hard thing for someone who's like brand new coming into a show to get that experience like you're you know you're in good hands because you have you know you can come ask me or Myke and we can like we can talk about why this pen is writing this way and does that meet your expectations in general a lot of it is just you're just gonna have to go with like that base information you get kind of quickly in testing out the pen or if you're lucky enough to find it from someone else but like I think that's a very hard thing for someone who is new and inexperienced with fountain pens to commit to spending boy that kind of money and I've spent you know two minutes scribbling you know Brad is number one you know on a piece of paper with a random ink right yeah

'''Adina Hurley:''' random paper random ink everything yeah

'''Myke Hurley:''' yeah there is it's like any purchase there is always like a little leap of faith that you have to make but you were at least in an environment a pen the pen show is the best place to buy these pens because you at least get to hold them where if you're buying them online it can be a bit trickier so like you're in the best possible place to make that kind of

'''Brad Dowdy:''' decision that's true yeah and the timing works like that's why I always implore people if they can to at least try to stay overnight so you have the time to absorb like the education that you don't know you're getting but is actually taking place every time you pick up a pen right it's hard to do that if you're rushing through with three hours to spare on a Saturday afternoon your your leap of faith is is much much larger than if you were there Friday got to test some things out got to talk to some people went back Saturday tried it out tried something out again ask some more questions and built that knowledge base to where you're comfortable doing that so that's what one of the things I recommend to first timers and understand that that's not always the case where they have the ability to spend more than a few hours at a pen show but it is a very valuable experience if you're if you're able to

'''Adina Hurley:''' yep good thing we're there all weekend

'''Brad Dowdy:''' yes we are then I think that the

== Independent Pen Makers Trend ==

'''Adina Hurley:''' significant trend that's been happening in the past years or at least I've seen it through the pens that Myke has been purchasing were these independent pen makers that really experiment and have fun with acrylic casings for pens but they don't they aren't the brands that I would know about necessarily the huge ones the pilot and all of those guys so what do you if you guys aren't around you you and Myke do you have a mental checklist that you could share with me in terms of what to look out for when buying a pen that doesn't come from an amazing big company with a big warranty system or even when buying a vintage pen that's been used by someone else yeah golly

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's a good question she's a thinker yeah but I love it though it's super smart because so there's there's two parts to this there's the modern acrylic makers let's just categorize that even though that's not fully accurate and there's vintage so let's just take let's just take these two things separately so with the modern vintage makers for example there was one at the Raleigh pen show that I was at that I had never seen before never seen his work before never seen pictures of it much less never had the chance to test any of their pens so the one of the things that I look for at first is just how that pen feels in my hand like does it feel finished like is everything I don't know even though like coming at it from the perspective of someone new you can still tell if like a manufacturing process is done well at least 90% of the manufacturing process is done

'''Myke Hurley:''' well just by picking up a pen the seams match up like does it yeah does it feel like the cap like Brad was gonna say it's like does it feel like the cap screws on and off easily right like does it thread easily exactly it's from somebody who polished evenly some someone's experience this is how you can kind of like get to understand if they've done a good job and you want to know that because you want the pen to hold

'''Brad Dowdy:''' up yeah yeah one of the one of the good parameters that I look for as well is how much effort they put into their nib offerings that is not like a cut and dry thing these days because there's lots of different options but I want to know are they taking the time to make sure I get a great writing experience with the nib as in if I make a purchase are they going to make sure the nib is smooth and that it flows well and that it's adjusted correctly or or am I just getting stock nib X in there you know what is their level of care with my eventual writing experience not just their craftsmanship with the barrel part right because they're not making the nib so are how are they ensuring that I don't just get their wonderful artwork that I'm actually going to get a great writing experience too and you kind of see you know if they believe in that level of experience well I feel more comfortable knowing that they put that much work into the pin barrel on the front end right because it's like this one cohesive unit so again those are things that are super tough like for very very beginners you got to go a little bit by feel yeah make sure that you're having a good conversation with you know whoever you're purchasing from that they like believe in their product right you have to have some faith in them as a maker that they're going to stand behind their product even though they're not going to come out directly and say that but you can tell by the conversation you you have and say oh do you do you make all these pins where do you get your blanks from you know and just kind of the natural flow of conversation you start to paint you know you start to get comfortable or maybe uncomfortable and say you know maybe this pin's not for me you know I'm not real you know you know totally content with how this is going with vintage it's for me it's a lot more about restoration because I'm not a vintage collector I'm a vintage user so I want if I buy a vintage pin I need to take it home ink it up and have it work flawlessly like right out the gate and that's always your hang-up with vintage like it's a scary thing to buy a vintage pin that you don't know is going to work so most vintage vendors and I won't say most but you can find a ton of vintage vendors like I will introduce you to our friend Jesse who restores Esther Brooke pens who I have a feeling you might fall in love with her pens and we know that she does really good work and you know that if you buy a pin from her it's going to work flawlessly for you and if it doesn't she'll stand behind it so restoration is always key for someone new getting into the vintage market so you have to have that you have to be comfortable having that conversation with

'''Myke Hurley:''' a vintage pin vendor vintage pen buying is very intimidating yeah yeah yeah and

'''Brad Dowdy:''' that's not that's not something where you see price and hand over money right there's a much discussion to have yeah because I

'''Adina Hurley:''' have seen even on the Instagram accounts I've been following a really beautiful vintage pilot pen and that was in a right price range and everything but it's like you you can't order that online if you don't know where it's coming from who's been owning it how it writes it's really

'''Brad Dowdy:''' difficult yeah unfortunately for you this is gonna be a really good vintage Japanese pen show hopefully unfortunately for me too like this is this is my weakness right is the vintage Japanese stuff so we'll see if we can get in trouble together maybe I might get in

'''Myke Hurley:''' some trouble too I think yeah this is

'''Adina Hurley:''' gonna be bad yes yep and yeah it's yeah my final question shimmery inks do they really ruin pens or is it a myth or do they just require a different kind of attention because I've just put shimmery ink in my sailor and I'm wondering about that whether I should clean it more often

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it's a myth oh good and I'll probably get some emails and I used to be on the other I'm scared I'm I used to be scared of shimmer inks but the true answer like most answers in life are it depends right so there are some that are harsher on your pens most of the general shimmer inks you buy these days from the main brands that you'd use you know diamine robert oster you know jay herban any of that stuff it's generally gonna be okay the problem is it's it's common sense that if there's particles in the ink it's gonna clog up your tiny parts in your pen eventually right it's just gonna happen so you have to be willing at you know we're not talking like every few days you have to clean your pen or worry about your pen but if it's sitting there for three months unused and you go to use it with the expectation that it's gonna that you're gonna write well you're gonna have a bad time right so there is additional overhead with cleaning on some sort of regular schedule whatever that is but in general they're not going to damage or affect your pens in any way but you just have to anytime I ink up a shimmer ink into a pen I commit to using that pen on a regular basis it's not a pen that gets set aside and used just willy-nilly you know once or twice every two or three weeks that's not gonna do your pen any favors and the ink performance is not gonna be not gonna perform well so in general I'm not scared of putting shimmer inks and almost any pens I probably wouldn't put them in vintage pens but they clean out of modern pens really easy all the shimmer inks I've used recently have been fantastic for that I really enjoy using shimmer inks which is not something I ever thought I would say personally but they're kind of cool and they do some cool stuff you're just a big fancy boy that's all I am I like my big fancy pens Myke and my big fancy inks and like I I had to make sure like I had it was just one of those thresholds that in this long journey that we have hey here's this new thing seems kind of scary I'm gonna put particles in my pen and then hope it works and not ruin anything well it really doesn't and they've been shockingly easy to clean for the most part and I've never seen any none have ever damaged any of my pens I'm also very meticulous about cleaning them not in like a crazy manner like I'll have it inked up for four six eight weeks and clean it out without any issue and use it regularly so don't be scared of the shimmer inks do put a little more thought into maintaining it than you would a regular pen perfect I'll set up

'''Adina Hurley:''' pre-mind those every two months I can't

'''Myke Hurley:''' trust myself don't trust Myke either don't trust me that's why I don't use shimmer inks that often because I just don't clean my pens so I clean themselves if you leave

'''Adina Hurley:''' it for long enough so yeah thank you so much that's been incredibly educational and I really look forward to the show I

'''Brad Dowdy:''' really oh I cannot I cannot wait this is gonna be awesome do we have anything else want to go to today no I think that's probably a wrap you know we we have a couple a couple of questions I will I will allude to them one of them in just our little recap here as we as we extra outro the pod the podcast that's another non-word that was a good word but yeah I'm very extra today but there was a there was a question about any after party meetup anything like that we're there the whole weekend Friday through Sunday we're gonna have plenty of hangout time you'll find me and Myke at the knock table a lot you'll find us wandering the show a lot if you see me talking to someone singularly in or in a group stop and interrupt me to say hi I'm telling you right now that that's okay like I want like we're there for a few days I know you may only be there for a few hours and if you want to come say hi I agree with us please I am saying that completely honestly interrupt what I'm doing to tell me hi because I want to say hi to you too

'''Myke Hurley:''' so nice if you see me run away I don't want anything no I agree with Brad completely Brad sets the great standard for us all understand especially if you see me on Saturday I'll be very tired because I am doing something I've never done before I mean guess you're doing it too Brad two live shows it's gonna be back-to-back that is gonna be a real experience I hope that we see you at the Relay FM live show if you're if you're coming out for that but I definitely if you're gonna be in San Francisco for the pen show we hope that we'll see you at the pen addict live show on Friday night very excited about that thank you again and we'll do this again next week to all of our Kickstarter backers who helped make this possible for us to get out oh I should say something about that can I real quick yes this actually is an

'''Brad Dowdy:''' update yeah I've started shipping the Burton cases a lot of people already have them in hand it's gonna be a slow process I've got about 300 cases in I think I've shipped about 180 to 200 of them so I'll probably ship one more day this week and then it's gonna be like a couple weeks like it'll be after San Francisco before the next batch goes in so I'm shipping in backer order so just hang tight if you backed us and help supported our wonderful adventures this year your case will be coming as soon as I can get them out to you I want to thank

'''Myke Hurley:''' you Dino for joining us do you have anywhere that you want to push people to like you can you now have the floor you have what is it they say on hot ones this camera this camera this camera tell the people you've got going on in your

'''Adina Hurley:''' life I have an Instagram account oh good

'''Myke Hurley:''' that's excellent that's a good start would you want to do you want to tell people how to find that Instagram

'''Adina Hurley:''' account you can find me at Adina Hurley

'''Myke Hurley:''' there you go nice to nice and easy to remember Adina Hurley on Instagram Brad is pen addict on Instagram and I am I Myke I M Y K E you can find Brad's work over at knock.co no and pen addict calm there you go I got those in the wrong order and spoke pen what's the spoke pen URL spoke design calm there you go so you can go and find that there thanks so much to our sponsors this week to find people over at Express VPN pen chalet and Harry's we're going to be back next time we're going to be the episode will come out on Friday or Saturday next week because it will be the live episode so we can't publish it before we've recorded it so it's going to be out on Friday night or Saturday morning we're hoping for Friday night but this is a later time than we usually record so I don't know what that one's gonna how that's going to end up going but so you can look out for it then and so you'll hear from us then we'll be back next time until then say goodbye everybody goodbye everybody

'''Adina Hurley:''' everybody you you

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 366/transcript

2026-06-14T15:09:36Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 366
| title = A Beautifully Told Story
| date = July 3rd, 2019
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/366 Episode 366]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_366.mp3 Audio Episode 366]
| length = 58
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' For RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 366. Today's show is brought to you by ExpressVPN, Pen Chalet, and Eero.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy, and ha ha ha, today is a Horror Stories episode. I feel like we need some kind of jingle for Horror Story episodes, because I always imagine that the logo is purple and black and something, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, it's actually not orange, and we've got like a whole spooky vibe going on in July.

== Horror Stories Intro ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Spooky July! Oh man, that would be perfect. We have to get on that. And if you're not familiar with Horror Stories, we'll link to previous episodes where we've talked about the Horror Stories. And we've started a Horror Stories Hall of Fame, which we have two entrants so far, Emil and David. And I have to apologise to them, they haven't gotten their t-shirts yet. I'd send t-shirts to everyone, Emil, you need to send me your address. And David, guess what, Myke? He sent me his address, but it got caught in my Horror Stories filter, because he was already a Horror Story. So I didn't look at it till yesterday, when I was going through the existing Horror Stories, that we still needed to discuss, and found his address. And it got looped in there. So my apologies. So we will get those out to everyone sooner rather than later. And we'll see if we induct any new entrants into the Horror Story Hall of Fame.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And yeah, we actually, there is a Hall of Fame entry on the stationery.wiki, which is put together by Alexander, which details actually all of the, like a brief description of all of the Horror Story entrants on episode 329, 336, which has spent a great effort. Including the honorary people, but we also, like, sorry, who was honoured, like who won, so that's all in there. And so if you remember, David, David spilled the ink onto his mother's carpet and stained his foot blue, which was fantastic. And Emil was the person who injected themselves in their palm by accident with a platinum, thinking they were going to inject themselves with a platinum violet ink, but just narrowly missed. But still injected themselves, which is just fantastic and terrible and super dangerous. So therefore, an entrant into the Hall of Fame. So we're going to, this is the level we're working at, right? Also, David's, David's, I have not done justice to David's story. It is incredible and full of twists and turns, which was why we ended up awarding David with the first ever Horror Story, because it just gets worse and worse and worse. So that is what I'm looking at.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, and some of these are old entries that I've been sent, like some of these dates on these emails were like 2018. So this is only something we pick up every, you know, couple times a year. We'll read off some Horror Stories. So if you ever have any, send them my way, hello at penaddict.com. Put Horror Stories in the title. I do, like I said, I do filter those off so I make sure they get saved in the right place so we can read them on the show later. But before we get there, Myke, I did want to hit a topic I've been struggling with recently, if that's okay with you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's your own personal horror story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is my own personal horror story, but not really. This is not a bad, bad story. But we talk about agendas and planners and all of those things a lot on this show and how I generally don't do well with them. And I found one that really works for me. I've never made it through this far of a year in a planner before until this one. It's the Sumkin A5 agenda that I talk about all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And the reason why it works for me is because of the weekly layout. You know, the seven days on the left side of the page and the right page empty for notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's very beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's, you know, it's soft covered. It comes in two, six months sections.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I'm having a problem, though. And I've always had this problem, and I've never chosen to solve it. You know, I've kind of ignored it and just kind of floundered. And, like, I can't afford to really flounder my time anymore. And the problem I have is I need a monthly view. And no matter what I find to use digitally for calendars, that does not work for me at all.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, what is the monthly view? Like, what are you looking to see on a monthly view?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I need to schedule things out further, like production schedules and...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. So you want a big calendar, basically.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Right. But I have to keep my weeks layout. And then I want, at a minimum, like a two-page per month layout.

== Planner System Needs ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, yeah, because the weekly one is way more in-depth. You might be writing how you're feeling about something, writing about achievements, that kind of stuff. But the monthly view is, like, from this day to this day, something's going to be happening. And on this day, I have to go to see Jeff or, like, whatever, right? Like, it's just basically a big calendar is what you're looking for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So I have my agenda. It's got all 52 weeks of the year, but I never write ahead. Right? Because I can't... It's not worth it for me to flip week to week to week to week to figure out what's going on in the future. That doesn't work. So I need... Can I get both of these things in an agenda? So that's the challenge. You want it only one book. Yes. Because I can get it in two books. And I will do that if I have to, to get what I want in a planner. What I want. I will do it if I have to. Because I can get my weekly layout that I like either in the Sumkin or Travelers also does that style, which is where I first found it. And then they also have a calendar, just a two-page-per-month calendar. But we're shockingly close to planner season, which is why I'm thinking about this now. Like all the orders for the 2020 planners are in, and they'll be arriving like in August and mostly September. Right? So I have to figure out, am I going back to some big, thick planner that I'm not going to like where it's like one day per page, which I despise, just to get the calendar that I want? Or do I go into a two-book layout to keep the weekly that I want and then have a separate calendar section, you know, either in like a smaller format?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, the two-book could work for you. I mean, you already make a product that can quite handily look after two A5 notebooks, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And that's how I have it set up. Yeah. Yeah. Because like I have three softcover A5 notebooks in my seed case. That's how I carry the Sumkin. And then with an extra A5 Notco notebook in between just for blank notes. So yeah, it's like I don't know if what I want exists. Because like the calendars, like the bigger you get, the more complex they get, right? They have essentially what I call like a one of each layout, right? Like you get into the Hobonichis, like the cousins, it has literally every calendar option you could hope for. Like that's too much. And then my weekly agenda is now becoming too little for me because magically I've come to love and enjoy it, which I never thought would happen in a million years. So I got to figure out if there is some type of setup. You know, I'll be looking at a bunch of things. So as listeners go through planner season here in a couple months, keep me in mind. And if you see something, because there's so many, the options these days are endless on planners. So it's just something I wanted to throw out there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe you should just make the Dowdy system.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? Yeah. I know a guy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've, you know, I felt recently that if you're unhappy with your planner system, just make your own.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, that's not above me to do. It just seems, it just seems like it's so simple. Like it's got to be done. And I would like to not have it in two books, but maybe it is. But so maybe I just do it myself. I don't know. It's not. Yeah. I've thought about that. I've definitely thought about that. So we'll figure it out. I just wanted to bring that up because that's something that, you know, we've talked about in episodes past just of like scheduling and planners and plannings and how like.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's interesting because I could never imagine doing calendaring non-digitally. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I never thought. Well, my digital calendars are too busy because they have family in them. Right. Right. And I don't like going in to like turn off the buttons to just what I want to see at the time. Right. I just keep all the buttons on and it's just too much. My stuff gets lost. Like my work stuff is not separated from my life stuff in the digital space.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, actually, this isn't like we're talking about it in notebooks, but like something that I do for stuff like that is I have a second app of some description. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So that's that's see, that's the solution that everything's coming to is two different things. Two is one. So, right. One is one. So I guess I'm just going to have to make it, but I'm holding out hope. I will keep on this path because something needs to change with my planning and my tasks and reminders and just for the way my life is set up. You know, I like I need to work on refining that and I need a longer term view to go in with my weekly view of of what I've got going right now. So something I'm working on. So I just thought I'd bring that up so listeners can can help me out when they run across the eight million planners that'll be coming out in the next couple of months. Maybe there's going to be one that will fit will be an all in one for me, but I'm not holding out hope and I may just like settle for the two, which there's nothing wrong with that either, because then it's just more stuff to use, which I'm good with.

== Sponsor Break ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Look, you may think the cyber crime is something that happens to other people. You may think, hey, nobody wants my data or that people can't grab it when there's like when there's bad, bad people around. But you could be wrong because stealing data from unsuspecting people on public Wi-Fi is actually one of the simplest and cheapest ways for for uncustomary people to make money. When you leave your Internet connection unencrypted, you could basically be putting your information out into the world like it's it is not a good idea to be using unencrypted Wi-Fi connections. ExpressVPN secures and anonymizes your Internet browsing by encrypting your data and hiding your public IP address. This is why I use ExpressVPN whenever I connect to any public Wi-Fi. I just want the peace of mind and it's so easy to use. They have fantastic apps that run seamlessly in the background of your computer, phone or tablet. You can just turn it on with one click and then you can safely surf on public Wi-Fi without being snooped on or having any of your information stolen. For less than $7 a month, you can get the same ExpressVPN protection that I have. And it is rated the number one VPN service by TechRadar. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee as well. So it's just always there. It's on my phone, my iPad, my laptop. Whenever I'm traveling, I just turn ExpressVPN on when I leave. I turn it off and I come home again. And I'm happy that I've been protected and had the added layer with me whenever I'm moving around. You can protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months for free at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That is exprssvpn.com slash penaddict. That's exprssvpn.com slash penaddict for three months free of a one-year package. So just go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict to learn more today. Take back your privacy of ExpressVPN. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We ready for story time?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, let me go first. So this one comes from Kelly. Kelly says, I am a weird pen person from Montana. And when you talk about your pen horror stories, I had to send in this one. I put it in the Inksplosion category under the subcategory of Eyedropper Noob. I had recently purchased a Gamma ES pen. What is that? Maybe it's Gamma Eyes. Maybe it's just a typo. Okay. I still don't know what that is. From FPR, when my wife and I traveled to northern Alberta, Canada during the summer of 2017 for a special event. Although I had never used an Eyedropper pen before, I liked that the pen was completely made of ebonite. And had that matte black kind of handmade look to it. And the price was a good place to start. I decided to bring the pen on the trip with us. Not even giving a second thought to the possibility of an inky disaster. Why would you, right? You're just taking your pen out with you all in a day. It's no problem. Yeah, no big deal. The drive north from Montana into Canada took us through the Banff and Jasper National Parks. And I think it's one of the most breathtakingly scenic drives you could ever take in North America. But I think it also contributed to coming from Fountain Pen Foible. The event... It also contributed to the coming Fountain Pen Foible is what I should say. The event we were traveling to was a religious one. And we had arrangements to stay with a couple whom we'd never met before. Oh dear. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, I don't like the sound of this. And we'd only corresponded via email. That detail, right? Like that detail we'd never met before. It's like we're setting up the awkwardness. Okay. Obviously, we were somewhat apprehensive about this. But fortunately, we had a lot in common and hit it off with him straight away. That seems good so far. However, the morning after we arrived, I decided to use my new pen. I sat in the bed. Oh, God. I unscrewed the cap and proceeded to spill probably two milliliters of black ink, some on my lap, but most of it falling right onto the white bedspread. I suppose it could have been worse. At least I didn't spill ink on a priceless family heirloom. And our new friends were completely kind and understanding about the whole thing. I found out later that the husband had a fountain pen that he uses from time to time as well. I mean, they're Canadian, so I probably could have burned their house down and they would have apologized to us for our clothes getting all smoky. But I still feel like a complete idiot. We went to Walmart that afternoon to buy some uninked bedding. Looking back, I think the beautiful mountains that we drove through and over-likely created enough of a change in pressure to force out most of the ink into the substantially-sized barrel of the pen and the cap. I learned my lesson. And while I love writing with the pen, I do not travel with it. Thanks for the show. I look forward to it every week, even though my wife thinks I'm the biggest nerd on the planet. Well, if that's the case, imagine being the wife of someone who makes this show. I think that makes you a little bit more nerdy. So, this is terrible. It's not terrible enough.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I mean, I agree. But I just sit here like this 100% could happen to any of us. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is like everyone's worst fear traveling with a fountain pen. Now, I haven't driven through lots of elevation to know what would affect that and how it would affect that. I'd be interesting to know. We have some of our listeners. I know a lot of our listeners live at elevation. I wonder if they experience changes if they're having to make that type of travel in a single day carrying like a fountain pen and how it would change it. I would imagine there's certainly some. And I just can't imagine the color of red my face would be when I had to go tell the guests who I just met the night before what I had just done to their spilling the ink on the bed sheet. That would be like the next ink I do. Brad's face on fire, I guess, would be the next ink color because that would be rough. But amazing story from Kelly. Not a horror story. Hall of Fame. I vote a long line with you. But, man, I would be just ill. I would be ill.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe if you dumped it on the carpet, we might be getting there. Right? Because the bed spread can be replaced. Or if, in fact, it was like the family comforter that had been passed down from generation to generation.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, like the grandma's quilt. Exactly. That would have been brutal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That she made by hand. Unfortunately, grandma passed. And you were going to the funeral of grandma. Oh, my gosh. Right? This is how we're getting there. Don't give people ideas. Don't give people ideas. Okay. This is how we're getting there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They'll be panicking the next time they're using their fountain pens. And we don't want that. We don't want that. All right. You ready for me? Yes. All right. I haven't looked at this picture yet, so we'll have to pull this up when I get to it. Yeah. I've opened it, but I haven't looked. All right. This is from Jim. It says, I should have sent this story a good while back, but figured this might race to the top of the pile. Jim, you know me pretty well. And I think this email is from 2018, so let me know how that worked out for you. It says, so a few months back, I bought an Omos 360 Meso from Burt Ozer through Slack. I bought it knowing ahead of time that the nib was out of alignment with the triangular grip the 360 is famous for, and that it was a cartridge-only pen, figuring I could adjust it myself or just sell it for break-even or minimal loss since the price was super good. Well, a few months later, I decided its cartridge system was too much of a hassle. Well, here are some pics, so we'll put the pics in the show notes, and I got to look at the damage that Jim is doing here. All right, so you can see the misaligned nib and the chassis the cartridge fits into. Fast forward a few months, and I took decision to sell it, but I decided it would be easier if the nib was aligned. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to remove an Omos feed, but it's incredibly hard, and even more so since the feed is usually made of ebonite. Compound this with what is likely plenty of caked ink, and, well, I had a struggle on my hands. After hours of futzing with a rubber grip, warm water, and buckets of elbow grease, I finally got the nib out and properly aligned. The problem? I ruined the piston used by the cartridge chassis. It was essentially not threaded anymore. What's worse is that I tried to use some shellac to get the rear knob to fit the screw. All that did was crack the rear housing, so I was hosed, and I ultimately just gifted the pin as is to my good friend Ralph, who was staying at my place at the time. Lesson learned. Be aware. Pin disassembly. So this is cringeworthy on many levels, and I feel Jim's pain here. It's like, so I come at this perspective kind of like Jim. It's like, you know, I'm an experienced fountain pen user. You know, I'm not a professional. I know what I'm doing. I'm not a professional repairman, but I know what I'm doing. And I can fix this, right? The first thing that always freaks me out is nibs that are more set in their barrels, like this Omos that Jim had. Me, personally, it's like my pilot and sailor nibs. I never pull those out because I'm just scared of the pressure I'm going to have to impact on them. I get scared every time.

== Pen Usage Anxiety ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Every time I have to do something like this. Like, it doesn't matter what the pen is. Like, I always feel like I'm putting more pressure on it than it wants, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And people who get paid to do this, they have the tools and the expertise to manage this. And I just look at what Jim's done here. He didn't just, like, fix a damaged nib. He managed to ruin every single part of the pen, pretty much.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, if it moves, he broke it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I don't know. I think once Jim got started, like, there was no stopping until it was just in crumbles at this point. And I get it. It's like, I get it. I've been there. And I just get frustrated. Like, I know one time I just chucked a pen straight in the trash. I was like, forget it. Like, I broke it well enough to where it was going to, like, cost more than the pen was worth to fix it. And I just tossed it. Like, I get it. So, this is something that we can all relate to. And not a Hall of Famer, though. Not a horror story Hall of Famer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it's going to happen to too many people. Well. I feel like the horror stories, they need, there's got to be something about them where it feels a little bit unique. You know? Yeah. Right? Where, like, I know that I would just destroy this pen if I was given it, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, like, everything that Jim just said, I would have totally done. Right? Including, like, every bit of damage. Like, I would have absolutely done 100% of this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Feel for you, Jim. But, uh, I don't know what you would have needed to do. But there was something else in there that would have elevated it to horror story status. A Hall of Fame status. A horror story it is. A Hall of Fame.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, it's for sure a horror story. Because he lost whatever he paid for that. For sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And the pen. Right? Like, you lost the money and the pen. All gone. True. Today's episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have all of your favorite brands. Brands like Pelican and Lamy, Kaweco and Sailor. They're an authorized dealer of all of them. And they're always adding new pens. New styles of pens. New different accessories as well. It's not just about the pens themselves. Pen Chalet have limited edition inks and pens. Right? And accessories. Carrying cases. Pen holders. Refills. Converters. And so much more. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the U.S. And sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality pens. And offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So, go right now to penchalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. And click the podcast link at the top of the website. And use the password penaddict. This is where you'll be able to get yourself a code to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet at any time. We're always talking about the deals that we have, right? And Ron and the Pen Chalet crew do a wonderful job of giving us extra special things to talk about every couple of weeks. But if you're buying any type of pen, you're buying any type of ink, anything that you need, go to Pen Chalet first and see if they have it. And if they do, you can get 10% off at any time by using the code that they set up for us in that special place. Now, the offers this week, we have a great selection. But it's one of those things where we can't talk about it. So, you're going to have to go check it out for yourself. Go to PenChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password penaddict to get the code and to feast your eyes on the very special offers we have from Pen Chalet this time. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, for this next one, I'm going to let you read. But I just want to clarify that the Anthony in this pen, in this pen, in this horror story, is our good friend Anthony from Everyday Commentary and Gear Geeks Live. So, keep that in mind when talking about this. So, this is a good one. Although, I haven't read all the details because I said, okay, let me stop now. So, go for it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a big one. So, sit down, everyone. All right. I thought I would share this pen horror story with you. It's a bit different from the normal pen destruction story, like we just had, but I thought it might fit anyway. Being a public defender is a tough gig. Low pay, lots of cases, and very disadvantaged clients. In many cases, I was dealing with mental illness first and criminal charges second. In one particular case, I spent years helping a client that was as challenging and as mentally unfortunately ill as any I have ever had the opportunity to work with. This particular gentleman possessed an outsized personality. He wore red sequined chaps to court once. He professed his love for one of the female prosecutors and almost got into a fistfight defending her honor after another defendant was not so happy with the plea offer that was given. He brought his pet iguana to court claiming it was a seeing eye iguana, a colorful fellow. But underneath all of that was someone that simply couldn't stay out of his own way. He genuinely liked and cared for people, but often his anxiety and anger would bubble up and bad things would happen. You get clients for life in the line that I do. So every time he would get into a scuffle or yell and scream and get charged with disorderly conduct, he came back to me. I knew where his triggers were and I tried to navigate the system with him to avoid those triggers. He and I developed a rapport, probably because I jumped into a dumpster one time to help him when he was threatening to take his own life. That's wild. This story has got a bunch of twists already. All right. Yep. One thing that he found fascinating was my pen collection. In particular, he loved fountain pens and I would often let him use them and even gave one to him once because he enjoyed it so much. One day when he was pleading guilty to yet another disorderly conduct, he was very nervous. He had a rough night on the streets the night before and he came to court like a live wire. After negotiating with the clerk for a delayed stay time to his hearing, I took him into a conference room so he could calm down. I was carrying my pilot vanishing point at the time. He knew it was my favorite pen, so when I let him use it, he was very happy. After about half an hour, he calmed down enough to do the plea. At this point, he and I have been client and lawyer for about three years. The judges knew him well and knew that he was my client. In New Hampshire, in order to do a plea, you need a form called an Acknowledgement and Waiver of Rights. This form spells out all of the rights someone has at a trial and tells the court that they are giving them up in exchange for a plea deal. Both the lawyer and the client have to sign the form. As we get into court, the prosecutor is dealing with a bunch of cases and we have already completed the form. We are going in front of the toughest judge in the state to do this plea. He is the kind of judge that tells defendants, I am like the Marines. No better friend, no worse enemy. You do what you promised me you are going to do and you will get all the mercy the court system has to offer. You lie to me and you better bring your own toothbrush. Jails in New Hampshire do not, for whatever reason, provide toothbrushes and the ones in the commissary are terrible. Hence, most people that go to jail are instructed to bring your own toothbrush. And it has become an idiom for going to jail. The judge made my client very nervous all of the time. As we step up to the table, the prosecutor says he is missing my client's file. I volunteer to go to the prosecutor's office and get it so he can process other cases and to keep the judge happy and get the client out of the anxiety-inducing situation as fast as possible. I leave the client, the form, and my vanishing point at counsel table and grab the file. When I come back, I turn in the form without looking at it, having completed the form about 30 minutes prior. I hand the file to the prosecutor and the form to the court and return to the counsel table. When I get back, I notice that my vanishing point's nib is out. Thinking nothing of it, I click the knock and put the vanishing point back in my breast pocket. The judge begins the process of going through the form with the client, reviewing in stern and precise terms the rights the client is waiving and the sentence he is agreeing to, which is mostly to get some kind of mental health treatment. He marches through the form like Sherman towards Atlanta, hammering on each right and eliciting a meek yes, your honor from my client at appropriate times. He flips to the back page of the form where the client and I both sign and he pauses. His eyes widen to a saucer size. Then, like the rumbling of an earthquake pre-shock, he starts at a low pitch of a sentence of fury. Mr. Scullendrine, did you see this form? I reply, yes, your honor. I helped fill him out. So, is this your idea of a joke? I don't know what you mean, your honor. Then, with a snarl that matches one of a tiger on the prowl, he beckons me and the prosecutor to the bench. There, he reveals that the signatory page of the form and around my client's signature and my own in beautiful stub italic handwriting are the letters BFF. And there is a massive Cupid heart with an arrow and a plus sign that envelopes my client's signature on my own. The judge lays into me for about a minute and I stand there dumbfounded trying to figure out how and where the graffiti got on the form. Then, I remember the nib being out on my vanishing point. Still, I am never going to throw my client under the bus so I don't say anything and endure a withering barrage from the judge. Finally, after about 90 seconds, my client speaks up from the council table 10 feet behind me. He tells the judge that he did it and that he just wanted the court to know that he thought I was a good guy. The judge mellows out a bit and tells us to do a new form but that he would accept the plea. Five minutes later, new form in hand and vanishing point carefully guarded. We do the plea and leave the courthouse.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm dying. Now, that is a friggin' story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Anthony can tell a story. Tony is just an awesome dude and I didn't know where this was going. Like you said, I kind of skim over just to kind of get a general idea.

== Story Details ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I had no idea that's what contained, was contained in this email. I am astonished at the story. I'm astonished at the links that Tony goes to to protect his clients. I'm astonished that it wasn't just like scribble junk notes on there. That's the best part.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I thought it was just going to be something but the BFF was perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That the client like genuinely loved Tony and was just making, that was his way of showing it on a very legal and precious document that had to be presented to the judge. That's a Hall of Famer for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm teetering on one point.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That the act is actually a sweet one. That doesn't seem to make it horror to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It might have been for Tony. Got dressed down from the marine level judge. Tony had to stand there and take the daggers.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'm going to make a, we're going to make a slight amendment to the rules here maybe. For me, I would be willing to put this in the Hall of Fame purely based on how fantastic the story is. And I think that's fair. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is a beautifully told story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And like the result was not what I thought.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Nope.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And if you're the one standing there, you're having a horror story moment. Like it may not be like in rewriting to us as we read it, but in the moment and you don't know how the judge is going to react to, you know, how the judge is going to react to the results of the case when like your client's, you know, well-being is on the line because of some joke that was written on the page about Tony being his BFF. Let's do it. I imagine that was a horror story for Tony. You've sold it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've sold it to me. You've sold it for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So like us, it's funny, but I imagine like if I was in Tony's shoes, I'd like, I'd be going home to change my underwear, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well then,

'''Myke Hurley:''' congratulations, Tony. I hope it was all worth it for you. You're now in the Pen Addict Horror Stories Hall of Fame. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just think these, these emails have been sitting in my inbox for like six to nine months and I've never read them. That was just like, I feel bad that we've been sitting on that story for a while. It's without the way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, one of the things about the, the Hall of Fame, the Horror Story Hall of Fame is we never know what the next story is going to be, Myke. So you never know how many inductees we have. And this wasn't equally, well, maybe not as lengthy, but this one's from Audrey and I'm going to get into it. So you ready for this? I'm ready. The day had finally come. I had just received my first two fountain pens in ink. Two Lamy All-Stars in the colors Pacific Blue and Apple Green. Of the inks I bought, I found that my favorite color is Noodler's Black Swan and Australian Roses. In the Apple Green Lamy with a medium nib, this combination scratched my brand new to fountain pen self in all the right places. I proceeded to write letters and practice handwriting in general whenever my then one and a half year old daughter and her little brother left me to have some time. Fast forward a few weeks. My daughter had to vacate the crib a few days earlier since her little brother was growing fast and no longer fit in the cradle next to my bed. She could now get out of her big girl bed on her own and was very excited to come get morning cuddles from mommy. I must have fallen back back to sleep for an hour, half hour, for a half hour or so. Suddenly woke up with my mom's senses tingling. This is like so true so far. This is totally how these things happen when your kids get their own their own big kid bed. They can now roam freely and your parents' spidey senses just go berserk. It was too quiet. I got up and checked on my son in the kid's room. No problems there. He was happily playing in the crib. But where was that little girl? In my haste to figure out what was making mommy radar go off, I had missed her when I walked past the craft room. There she was, sitting on the floor with a purple smile on her face. I picked her up off the floor, looked at the bottle in her hand and thought, call Poison Control. That is what one does in these situations, right? I found Poison Control's number off the internet and called, my daughter just drank fountain pen ink, I said to the person on the other end. Do you know what's in the ink? She replied, no, I said, find out what's in the ink and call us back if anything in it is dangerous. So I called Goulet Pens from who I had ordered said ink. Hello, Goulet Pens, may I help you? My daughter just drank Noodler's Black Swan and Australian Roses. I need to know if there's anything in the ink that could hurt her. I told the woman on the other end. Oh, God. Oh, wow. Oh, God.

== Customer Service ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can I've, okay, we have to pause here for a minute. Okay. I have worked in customer service jobs.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can never be ready for what is going to be given to you. I feel so sorry for the individual at Goulet Pens who had to pick up this phone call and deal with this situation because you are in now an incredibly high-pressure environment that you didn't ask to be in. So you're expecting to be dealing with shipping complaints, right? Like, that is what you're there to do. To answer that phone and, like, immediately be thrust into this incredibly important high-pressure environment where you need to do what is asked of you, that is just, it's terrible. That's terrible.

== Ink Incident Recap ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's rough. And the mom's, like, freaking out too, right? Like, she's trying to get all the answers, like, right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because she is a concerned mother, you must give the right answer and nothing else is acceptable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, so let's see how this goes. All right. So, oh, wow, she responded, surprise, I believe that Noodlers uses mostly natural ingredients in their inks, but here's the number for them so you can ask them directly. As my daughter played happily with her own toys, Oh, that was perfectly dealt with, by the way. She's like, not my problem, see ya.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I mean, you can't go down for that. I proceeded to make my third call of the day before 9 a.m. Hello, Noodlers Inc., the man said to answer my call. Hello, my daughter just drank Black Swan and Australian Roses. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything in this ink that could hurt her. Thankfully, he gave me the answer I was hoping for. My daughter would be fine, but might have some interesting looking bowel movements, I thought, as I hung up the phone. Now, you may be wondering why I did not convey more distress that my daughter had just drank my favorite ink, which, since trying a few others, is still my favorite and continues to make its home in that beautifully contrasting apple green pen. I'd only bought samples of inks with my new pens, and that sample bottle from Goulet Penco was only half full when she drank it in the first place. I hope this revelation is not too disappointing. Heck no, it's not. It's happy. It makes me much, much happier because I did not realize that and I didn't even think that. I did not go there at all. Obviously, I'm not a Hall of Famer. Well, we'll be the judge of that, but my story still makes me laugh whenever I think about it and hope you will get a chuckle out of it too. I have since bought a full-size bottle of my favorite color and it abides on a high shelf behind the baby gate that now stays in the doorway of my craft room at all times.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh my gosh. That was stressful. That was super stressful. I would have done the exact same thing in that situation

'''Myke Hurley:''' and freaked completely out even though it now makes sense why she didn't totally go. You can tell she didn't just totally go crazy and panicking. If it was the full bottle, she'd be in the car. She'd be at the emergency room door. There would be no phone calls

'''Brad Dowdy:''' until after the fact. Right? Yeah. So now it hits me that okay, it was probably just a sample vial and maybe it's just a little taster, a little taster of ink. But man, that's scary. Oh man, I'd be freaking out. Yeah, I'd probably be in the car on the way to like the emergency room and then calling like after the fact

'''Myke Hurley:''' trying to figure out okay, what's in this thing that could be harmful. Thankfully, nothing was. Baby's okay. Mom's okay. I'm stressed out after reading that, Myke. I think it will affect you more than me, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because I'm not a parent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you have to be a parent to like fully understand the gravity of that situation. Like I can understand it but I don't, I can't like, I can't feel it so viscerally as you were feeling it right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's the description like before you even get to the ink about the kids like wandering around the house without any barriers. Like when that transition happens, that will freak you out for months. Right, see, I haven't got that, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I've never had that. So I'm gonna, I am agreeing with Audrey basically, the bottle wasn't big enough

'''Myke Hurley:''' for Hall of Fame. Like, I know that's like a terrible thing to say but like, that's the situation, right? If it was a full bottle, if we're talking like an Ackerman ink, right? With, that's, you know, you're going in

'''Myke Hurley:''' because that's like, you got a stomach pump going on there. Like,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' you know, yeah, if that's the situation, we're probably not getting this story. So I'm glad it had like, you know. Yeah,

'''Myke Hurley:''' here's the deal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You gotta get your stomach pumped. That's kind of where we're at for Hall of Fame. No, like, that's what I'm saying is like, no one's going to tell us that story because that is just bad. Like, we don't want to hear that. Oh, maybe. Maybe. Oh, gosh. I'm, I'm stressed out. That was a good story, Audrey. I appreciate that. That was, thank you for sharing that because hey, it's hard to share those things, you know, when you're a parent and like, we all do it. Like, it is, it's just going to happen and fortunately in this situation, everything was fine.

== Topic Shift - New Story ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, should we do one more before we take a break?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is, I think, the short one of the day but I think it's relatable in the general sense but I'm going to make you read it because I will enjoy you reading this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've already scanned across it and I don't want to read it. I'm definitely not reading it the way it's written.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is from Sarah. Sarah, I've been meaning to write this in for some time to tell you this story with one of the grossest things, well, to ask actually, what is the grossest thing that's ever happened to one of your pens but instead, I'm going to tell my horror story instead. Okay, I'm a nurse so I have to deal with bodily fluids and such every time I work. The following story is why I can't bring nice pens to work. Many of our patients get out of bed so we help them use a bedpan. They can't get out of bed so we help them use a bedpan. Well, I just helped a patient off the bedpan after a usage. As I leaned over the bathroom toilet to empty the bedpan, my pen slipped out of my scrub top pocket and into the bedpan. Needless to say, this pen is a goner. In case you were curious, it was a Pilot Acroball 4, nothing too fancy. Thank goodness it wasn't because I wasn't going to get it back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm glad you got to read that one. This is for real though. Like, anytime you, like, I've always carried my pens, especially like when I was in the office, I wasn't, you know, cleaning out bedpans, but I always carried my pen in my shirt pocket, right? And you lean over to pick something up, that thing falls out. Luckily, I've never had one fall out in an irretrievable situation like this. it's, I imagine the hospital plumbing system is filled with many pens from this type of situation and that is just not something I want to be involved in. Yeah,

'''Myke Hurley:''' there are certain industries where using really expensive pens must be difficult and this has got to be one of them. Yeah,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' so, to end this on a good note, for all you hospital workers, the Pilot Acroball is a great choice for pen. It's just like the Uniball Jetstream that I recommend and you will enjoy it as long as you can hang on to it. Not a Hall of Famer. No, not a Hall of Famer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Not a Hall of Famer. Very difficult situation. Pen wasn't expensive enough. Pen was not expensive enough to get into the Hall of Fame. Today's episode is brought to you by Eero, the folk who built the Wi-Fi system that they wanted everyone to have in their homes, which would give all of Eero's customers a fast, reliable connection in every single room, even out to the backyard. It starts with the second generation Eero device, which has three 5 GHz radios. This allows for huge range and very fast speeds. Everything increased. It sits flat on any surface and connects over Ethernet or wirelessly and then your connection can be expanded throughout your entire home by adding in Eero beacons. These are little devices that plug directly into your wall, allowing you to reach every single corner of your home. They even have something now called Eero Plus, which you can use for total network protection to block malicious content. It has advanced security that checks sites against a database to check that they're safe. They have content blocking so you can choose what your kids can and cannot visit right within the Eero app. They have ad blocking to get rid of annoying ads and pop-ups and access to third-party security apps like Encrypt.me, 1Password, and Malwarebytes. With Eero, you can install an enterprise-grade Wi-Fi system in your home in just a few minutes. And if you ever need them, Eero has incredible customer support on hand to help as well. Brad, do you want to tell me something about using Eero?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The parental controls that it offers is the thing that I've mentioned in the past that I enjoy immensely. Being a parent to a soon-to-be 11-year-old and 13-year-old, they are into all kinds of stuff and all kinds of trouble at all hours of the day. that's mostly controlled by myself and my wife, but sometimes you can't control everything except the hours of day they can access the internet and Eero lets me set up a zone for their devices in like two seconds to set up and it says at nine o'clock you can no longer access the Wi-Fi network and it's a beautiful thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I feel like just a helping hand, right? That's what you want. Just a helping hand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know what else I enjoy about Eero? I enjoy that their little beacons have nightlights on them. This is a silly thing, but I enjoy it every time. It's like an added benefit, right? I'm the last one to go to bed every night, so like all the lights are off as I'm making my way from the living room to the bedroom, but there's a little beacon on my way that way I don't run into the table.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Never think about Wi-Fi again or worry about looking into the table. Get $100 off the Eero base unit and two beacons package and one year of Eero Plus by going to Eero.com slash pen and at checkout enter the code pen. That's E-E-R-O dot com slash pen and the code pen, P-E-N. Thanks to Eero for their support of this show and all of RelayFM.

== Listener Email ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, I'm going to take this next one, Myke, from Roland. He says, first off, I wanted to share with you a major accomplishment in my life. As of your last episode, which for all we know, Myke, could be like episode 290, depending on how old this email is. I have listened to every single episode of The Pen Addict. How appropriate to celebrate by sending you a disaster story. I've been into fountain pens on and off since the 90s. I picked up a full-fledged addiction about four years ago. Throughout all this time, I only used blue and black inks. A little over a year ago, I decided to expand my ink world and look for a green ink. I settled on a bottle of Noodler's Grin Cactus. I purchased it from Amazon in large part because I could get free same-day delivery. Being a Friday, I simply could not wait through the weekend. No, I needed the ink. Now. I got the delivery notice while I was still at the office, so I wrapped up as quickly as I could to get home early because I had an evening event at my church. It was an event I couldn't miss because my wife and I were two of the coordinators. I get home and there's an Amazon box. I went to the dining room table and started opening it up. I couldn't be bothered to sit down. I took the white Noodler's box out of the bubble wrap and turned it on its side to look at the Noodler's artwork. It's great as always. I opened the box to take out the bottle. That's when I felt something on my hand. I thought, that's weird. Now where's my ink? Then I heard the liquid splash in the floor. After about 10 minutes, at least it felt like 10 minutes, I realized that the bottle was broken and that I would soon have a green floor unless I acted soon. I ran to the kitchen sink to figure out what happened. It was about that time my wife got home.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' While tolerant, she is not exactly supportive of my hobby. I could see that this was not going to help things. After a quick discussion, she was on her way to our event and I started the cleanup. Sounds like he got off pretty easy there. We'll see how this goes. I should also mention I was wearing a brand new suit when this debacle occurred. A new gray suit, which now had a streak of green. Oh, dear. As I scrubbed the floor, the counter, and the sink, I called Amazon. I wish I could say I was polite, but I wasn't. After much discussion, I was appeased with a full refund of my order, not just the ink, and a promise of a $100 credit to replace any damage done. The cleanup was more successful than I expected. The ceramic tile and kitchen floor cleaned up well, except for the grout, which to this day still has a hint of green. There are pictures for this, Myke, that I have linked. I got about six or seven of them. I linked a couple of the more intense ones. The kitchen counter still had some faint green spots until we replaced them this month. Some stains on the cabinets never came out and serve as a reminder that patience and care are virtues. My dry cleaner was able to save my suit and a half dozen washing machine cycles with various mixes of cleaners, soaps, and spot removers was able to save my shirt. My hands remained green for two days. There's definitely a hand picture.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I got it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Photos are attached of some of the damage as well as the broken cap that was the cause of it all. After the cleanup and a change of clothes, I went to the church event. Of course, my wife tried to explain my tardiness, but as soon as my hands were seen, I would hear the question, green? It's worth mentioning that the Amazon rep was apparently ignorant to her authority or just lied to me to get me off the phone when I got the refund. The $100 credit never materialized, and in case you're wondering, I was able to salvage about half the bottle. I hope you enjoyed my disaster. I didn't enjoy your disaster. That was a bad disaster, Roland, but I feel for you. Like, there's nothing more scary than shipping ink, I think. When you combine that with Noodlers in particular who fills the ink bottle to the 99.99% of airspace within the bottle, any dings, dents, rustling, shaking, shimmering in transport is going to maybe lead to these extreme things happening. I also wonder if that same day shipping, how much that bottle was physically thrown through the air for it to arrive in its destination. Now, I actually think Roland is underselling the damage that this caused. Yeah. Did you see these pictures?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. It's everywhere.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, the cap is clearly cracked, right? So, that came, it had to have come during shipping. It looks like, you know, that's not something you're going to do yourself right after the fact, right? When you open the box, it's just going to come gushing out. His hands are literally like Hulk green, like, not splashed. we'll put some of these pictures in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The amount of ink that is on the floor and the wall, I can't believe there's still a half a bottle of ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What I can't work out is how did the spots in the kitchen get there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You see, there's like that big epicenter. The running of the bottle from the table to the sink would be my guess. Not that he said specifically, but that's where I would be taking it. If I opened up a package and it just started gushing, I'm running to where I can release the entire bottle from my grasp probably into the sink. So there's, it's almost, it's green, but if it was red, it would look like a murder scene, right? I mean, that's how bad this looked.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's very bad. It's very, very bad. Can you imagine standing and somebody coming into the room and seeing this? Like,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' no, I, like, I can't, I, I guess his wife probably made the right move by just leaving, letting him to clean it instead of like dealing with this nonsense that had just transpired. But this is an outrageous amount of ink spill.

== Ink Spill Discussion ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is without a doubt the worst spill that we've seen, I think. Yeah. Or at least it goes,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it goes up pretty close. The words do not do what transpired justice in my book.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So what do you think? It's pretty close with David, right? I think. like, um, hmm, but we didn't really get to see the level of damage. I greatly appreciate an individual, because this would be like me, who would be dealing with this situation, but stopped to take a picture.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because I would do that. like, there's clearly a lot more work to be done, but David said it was clearly a lot more work to be done, but we like, there was just a time where it's like, no, you know what? I'm going to take this picture and I greatly appreciate Roland for doing that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm with you. Go ahead. I'm with you. I think it's a no, but I can't tell you why. Like, this is bad. It's really bad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know what, though? Coupling it with then going somewhere. With Hulk hands? Yeah, I think that might tip it for me, you know, because it's not just the,

'''Myke Hurley:''' because you know he went to that event with the stained

'''Brad Dowdy:''' suit as well, right? Yeah, I got a picture of the suit. Suit's not too bad. It's like a big green streak down his leg and his shirt. I mean, it's relative. I mean, relative to the rest of the pictures, it's not bad. It's still bad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What I like about the floor cleanup picture is that it's like half scrubbed and he said, screw it, I'm taking a picture. Like, it's not fresh, but it's not even remotely cleaned up, but you can tell he like wiped the center of it with a towel. So he had to grab his hand with his phone with green hands too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. He could be rolling Hulk hands, you know, for, I mean, I don't know. It's up to you. Like, I'm good either way. This is a lot. I mean, I don't know that I've ever seen an ink spill quite this widespread.

== Ink Spill Standards ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think we need to set like a baseline for how bad an ink spill needs to be. Right? And I think this might be it. I think that's fair. Right? Like, so, because I feel like we're establishing a trend, right? Like, you can't just spill ink. There has to be something else. Right? David had it. David spilled it on his foot. Right? Roland spilled ink literally everywhere in his home, covered his hands, and then had to go to an event. Like, that feels it for me, man. I feel like we've got the trifecta of things there for what is like, yeah, I'm on board. I didn't think I'd want to give two Hall of Fame entries in one episode, but this is pretty much it for me, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Roland, welcome to the Hall of Fame. You have set the standards of ink spills for, all future Hall of Fames. We can say, can it meet? And I did, like I said, there's like four more pictures I have. I just enjoyed the wildest ones. I feel like ink spills have to

'''Myke Hurley:''' have

'''Brad Dowdy:''' photos.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' and they're the most common, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, if you don't have a photo, you're not going to get into the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I need

'''Brad Dowdy:''' to see it. We've all spilled !

'''Brad Dowdy:''' For some reason, I was coming back from either the Atlanta Penn Show or coming back from Knock, and I had a bottle of ink in the back of my car, like in the trunk area, but not in a box, necessarily. It was just kind of sitting there, or sitting in something and not very secured, so when I opened the trunk, the bottle flipped out right into the driveway and just busted. That's no big deal, right? It was in the driveway, it's outside, and I can hose it off. There's still a green mark from there. That's the only time I've ever done anything crazy bad, and fortunately it was outside in an easy clean-up-able spot. But yeah, golly, if I did this, I can't imagine what kind of trouble I would be in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that our partners are very forgiving, but that's next level, man. This one is. If I did this, I wouldn't want to be just like, forgiven. I have to earn that, right? Because you have ruined the home, right? And as Roland said, there is still remnants of that ink in the home.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, chat's reminding me that I did drop part of a shelf of Vanus ink. It's not the same, though. Yeah, it's not the same. Sure, but it's not

'''Myke Hurley:''' like your own personal spill. It's like a different thing. Yeah,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I haven't had a horror story level spill. This is the bar for horror story spills, I think, right? I think so.

== Show Conclusion ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, should we wrap it up there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, let's wrap it up there. If people have horror stories, where should they send them? Hello at penaddict.com. I love these stories. They're super fun. I appreciate y'all sharing these stories, and thanks for allowing us to read them on air, everyone. Some people will send them and say, hey, I just want to tell you this. Don't read it. That's cool, too. If you want me to not read it or redact your name and any of that stuff, that's fine. We can change all the info. I just appreciate that y'all allow us to have this bit of fun every now and then, because, I mean, honestly, this stuff is fun. We share your pain. We've been there. We've done that, and just to hear these stories, it just makes us chuckle, so we appreciate it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' so great? You know, you've just been there, done that. It's like Hall of Famers, they've been there, done that, and now they get a t-shirt.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Pen Addict. Thanks to ExpressVPN, Penchele, and Eero for their support. You can find show notes for this episode at relay.fm slash Pen Addict slash 366. There's a bunch of pictures that you want to go into the show notes to get for extra color in this one. You definitely want that. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com and knock.co, penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter, twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can find me on Instagram on imike. I-M-Y-K-E, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' John John John

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 413/transcript

2026-06-13T19:30:33Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 413
| title = Ana Does Best
| date = June 3rd, 2020
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests = [[Ana Reinert]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/413 Episode 413]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_413.mp3 Audio Episode 413]
| length = 83
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hey Pen Addicts, before the episode begins, unfortunately we had some technical issues, which results in us only being able to use the Skype call audio for Brad and Anna today. So, it's not going to sound as good as usual, there's going to be some weird volumes in places. I promised I'd try to do the best that I can with it, but it's a great episode and I know you're going to love it. So enjoy. Anyway.

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 413. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, ExpressVPN, and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello Myke Hurley, how are you today?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Fine and dandy, my friend. How are you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm very good. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here today though. Did we do something different for a change?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, it's been far too long because of all the disruption to our traveling schedules, but we're very happy to be joined by the one and only Anna Reiner today. Hi Anna.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Hello, how are you guys today?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Very good. You know, are you familiar with the show This Is Your Life? That's a thing that you have there too, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think so, back in the day, right? We used to have that when we were younger, Anna, right? Like in the 80s-ish it seems like? 70s, 80s?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think nowadays they do more of the roasts, so I'm a little worried.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh yeah, no, I don't like the roast style. But yeah, today is basically like a This Is Your Life for Anna. Because we're going to be celebrating and talking about the 10-year anniversary of the well-appointed desk. So that's going to be the main crux of the conversation today. It was the perfect time. Brad noticed the anniversary and was like, we've got to have Anna on the show. And of course I agreed with him because I can never turn that opportunity down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's been too long to have Anna on. People ask all the time. I don't like to inflate your ego too much. I don't tell you like every time someone asks like, oh, they're asking me to have Anna on again. But it's pretty much a weekly thing. So yeah, it's been too long and we didn't get to see each other. So we're going to explore. We're going to make you dig deep into 10 years of the well-appointed desk. I hope that's okay for you later in the show.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thanks. I'm kind of surprised because I'm not sure that there's a ton of facts to provide. I'll see what I can do there.

== Black Lives Matter Discussion ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, before we get started today, I want to talk about a post I wrote on Monday. And it's really a tough time that we're all living in right now. And I'd be remiss if we didn't take a minute to discuss Black Lives Matter and the problems that our country is seeing. And it's not exclusively our country in the U.S., but worldwide problems. And I had a really tough weekend coming to grips with everything I was seeing online.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And also just feeling guilt because this is not a new thing, right? This is an escalation that we've rarely seen before. But this is not a new. This goes back for pretty much the existence of history where Black people were not treated with equity in our world. And this weekend, we're seeing some of the worst actions by people against Blacks that we've all ever seen. And I just felt that Monday was appropriate for me to speak up, use my platform to express how I'm feeling, to say that I'm going to do better. I'm going to work harder. I'm going to make this a better country and a better situation for Blacks. Because it's really challenging to see people go through this. And I've always said that how proud I am of the diversity in our community, in the stationary community. I've felt really good about being part of a community that believes in diversity of all forms.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this is a worldwide community, right? We have listeners from all over the world. We have readers from all over the world. I know all of us in our individual blogs and podcasts and other areas have worldwide listeners. And we're all unified by paper and pen. That's what we're here for today, generally. But I don't think today's the day and today's not the time to just take that gold star from our teacher and pat ourselves on the back to say that we've done a good job. I think it's a time to shine a light on the inequality that's still happening and try to figure out what we're going to do. And I think the fountain pen community as a whole is uniquely positioned because of how we exist right now in a very humane way, in a very equal way. But I think the individually people in these groups, in our fountain pen communities, in our stationary communities, and collectively, we can change. So, like, for example, I wrote about this post. We'll put a link in the show notes about some of the actions I've taken. And I've taken more actions since then. And that's what it's going to take to help solve these problems. You know, I'm adding more diverse voices to my media consumption, right? I've always been a champion of women and of LGBTQ causes, and I've been super supportive. But I've noticed just somehow there's a lack of black voices in my social media feeds and my Instagram feeds, on my Twitch streams that I follow, on my podcasts that I follow. So I've actually made a change to listen to these voices more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's started to change. I've also learned over these past few days that it's not enough for me to say that I'm not racist, right? I live my life that way, that I'm not racist. But saying you're not racist is a passive statement. It's ticking a checkbox on a form next to your race and gender.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Also, it doesn't mean anything. That just means you as human beings should be. Right. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the statement should be is I'm anti-racist. Yes. That means I'm actively working on changing policies and procedures and laws and regulations that force inequality into people's lives. You know, we should all be living equal lives. And to say I'm not racist is not enough. I have to be anti-racist to progress and move the world forward and build these, change these rules and regulations that are in affecting, that are affecting people to support disproportionately. So it's more of a statement of action. So these are the things I'm learning. And I just want to talk about this out loud because it's not going to get said enough. We're going to continue to talk about pens and paper and stationery. We're going to have a heck of a show today. I'm excited about talking to Anna about, you know, 10 years of the desk. It's like really important to me to discuss Anna and have her on. But I just want to say that it's not the time to ask us to be quiet about what's going on in the world. And I don't think we're having much of an issue. Myke more so than some of us because he's a little bit more exposed in different areas than like myself, you know, in a wider range of things. And I'm proud to be part of Relay FM, a network that lives its diversity and works to maintain diverse voices in the podcast network. And I have Myke to thank for that. And, you know, to see people, you know, our famous stay in your lane comments that I love to use. It's like, I'm just I'm not I'm not going to. And it's that's going to be the way it is. So, you know, it's it's hard to discuss this thing eloquently in, you know, a few minutes of a podcast. And I tried to say how I was feeling in the post I made Monday. But just know that it shouldn't have taken things to get this far for me to make more active changes than just saying that I'm not racist and let not be good enough. That's not good enough anymore. So it's it's time for change. And I'm starting with myself and I I hope you all are along for the ride because you're going to see it a lot more for me, especially like on my my social media feeds and my activism being more public. And then as I normally keep my activism in the background because, hey, stay in your lane. Right. Let's talk about pens on Twitter. Well, you know what? That time has passed. We're in a dangerous time in in all of our lives. And I don't want to see it go downhill from here. So I'm going to do my part.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I echo basically everything you're saying just to underscore a couple of points. One, it's why you're hearing it here and why you will see me also talking about and retweeting things in my social media feeds. And I usually try and stay away from political current events issues. It's just a thing that I've done in my life. But there I have lines and this is past the line that I'm willing to stay quiet about because it's something that I believe in and I'm believing in more and more as the days go on. Right. About just how ridiculous and wrong all of this stuff is because I'm seeing more of it. And also, I'm working on some stuff myself as to what can I do to actively change things in my community. And that's something I have some ideas and I'm working through some things right now and hope to share some stuff pretty soon about what actions can I take with what I have, which is my voice and my influence. So that's the thing that I encourage everybody to do. Like, what do you have that you can give to others? And so, you know, that's where I'm working right now.

'''Ana Reinert:''' One of the things that I've heard a lot of people say, which is being the privileged white people that we are, one of the best things that we can do is listen and ask what we can do to help, what we can do to support.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And one of the best pieces that I've heard written or read written from our community was what Myke Madison wrote on his blog this week about a situation that occurred in his past, which he found shameful and that he wished he could have done differently. And addresses situations that I think at some point in our lives we've all faced where being white, we were in a situation that someone looked at us and assumed that because we were white, we shared their racist views. And rather than challenge someone making a racist comment, we stayed quiet instead of saying, no, dude, that is not cool. I do not agree with you. We let it pass. We let it go instead of challenging someone's comment. And that is the thing that we have to stop. We cannot let other people say those things anymore. They're not right. They can't be, they can't, we can't let it go on. And that was probably one of the strongest pieces I've read from somebody. I mean, it took a lot of guts and a lot of honesty for him to write that and to, you know, sort of come clean about it. Mm-hmm. And those are the moments where we have an opportunity to come forth and say, these are the shameful moments in our past. And it's not outward racism. It's the moments where we stayed quiet when we shouldn't have. You know, because I know that most of the people that I know are not racist, but we also, you know, in a situation where we put our own physical bodies at risk in situations where someone might be bigger or seerier than us. We don't challenge them when they say things like that. And being a woman, that can also be, you know, even more fearful. You know, when a guy says something like that, we don't challenge them. We try to get out of that situation. Mm-hmm. So now it's our chance to stand up and take those chances and say, no, we won't accept that anymore.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. I agree completely. Now's the time to put in the work. And Myke's post was great. We'll put a link in the show notes to that for anyone who has missed it. I know that had to be tough for him to write, and I appreciate him immensely doing that. All right. So now the task is going to fall to me, Myke and Anna, to transition us into a stationary podcast.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like we said what we say, and now we move on, right? Like the point has been made, people have heard it, and now we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming.

== Transition to Pen Topic ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, knowing that this is not the end of the discussion in our lives, right?

'''Ana Reinert:''' It's funny that you said that because that's actually what I titled Link Love today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wonderful. So to get into our show, I'd like to pose a question. Will you say I if you currently have a Jonathan Brooks, a Rushi Lamy in your hand? I. Oh, wait, that was only two I's. Did your microphone cut out, Myke? Are you still there, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Have you mailed it to me yet? No. No. Well, then how am I going to? Right? This is in your hand, my friend. Quite literally, it's in your hand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You might never get this pen. I just want to be perfectly honest with you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What is wrong with you? Like a massive part of your job is mailing things. Why do you refuse to mail things to me? Do I have to buy something from you? Is that how this works? No. No. You know what?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's pure laziness because I know I have to get more than this pen to you. Right? So I have to go to other areas of the house to collect other things that I've set aside.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, it sounds like such hard work. You have to look around the house.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like at least 10 feet away from my desk. Here's the thing, Brad.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If these things are causing you so much problem, send them later on. Just send me the frigging Lamy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I sent Anna hers the other day. You got it in, what, Monday or so? When did you get your pen? Tell us about your pen and your thoughts on this whole situation.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Honestly, I never actually thought it was going to happen. Yeah. When you told me that, like, you messaged me and said that they had arrived, I was like, seriously? Like, I didn't think it was, not that I doubted that Jonathan could do it, but I honestly thought he was like, I tried. I don't, I just can't be bothered. Go away. All three of you, just go. I love you, but go away. And then I knew he had lots of other things going on in his life. And then the pandemic and then the pen show didn't happen. Like, I just figured he was like, nah, I'm going to shelve that project. But when you told me that they showed up, I was like, okay, cool. Wow. And then I saw the pictures that you posted and the video and I was like, I wonder what it looks like in person. I mean, because the pictures showed, you know, 75% of the story. But to actually hold it in my hand and again, like seeing the, there's little tiny details, just like threads of color. It's like the only word I can think to describe it. Plus the, like the little, there's sparkles, like little iridescent sparkles. I'm just speechless. Like, I can't believe why anyone would spend this much time putting Urushi on a Lamy, like honest to God.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's, it's crazy.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I can see why he does not want to do it again. It was a labor of, I don't know if it's love or insanity, but probably a little of both.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think I'll, I'll have to double check with him. I think he made just made one for himself, right? Like he made the extra one for us to give away, but I think he made one for himself too, just so he will never have to answer the question again. Like he wants a reminder of how terrible of an idea this was. So he doesn't have to try again. He can look at that pen and say, no, I will never do this again. But what he did for us was pretty amazing. Like yours, I can't wait to, until we all get to see each other again, because I've been the only one to hold all three pens. Yours feels very different from ours in a refined way that I'm wondering if it comes from the aluminum barrel, as opposed to the plastic barrel. It is noticeably different feeling in, in like the most wonderful way possible.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Um, are you saying the aluminum is better?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe for a Rushi. I will not, uh, I will not.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I would like that noted for the record.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. We'll note that down for the record. But, um, yeah, there's something about that pen that is, is really special. And you're right about the colors. Like these pictures don't do it justice. We'll have to show people like there's a depth to them that you, you can't photograph really, really well. It kind of shows up on the black and brown one that we're going to use for the giveaway. That's like our single color pen has that kind of depth to it in the same shade. So it's not as noticeable as the opposite shades of the black and brown.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I can read the notes that he included about the pen details. So mine was done on a, the Lamy All-Star Bronze. Um, and the Rushi was marbled pink, which doesn't exist. So this was my first time trying to create a color, which is difficult when you're starting with brown. Tiny flakes throughout of rotten abalone. Tiny, uh, both upper and lower finials were replaced with handmade ones and this allowed for abalone inlays. Those were his notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's great. Like, okay, I'm going to take this impossible project and then I'm going to invent a new color. Like he didn't have enough trouble as it is. It's, it's pretty fascinating to be able to talk to Jonathan. I'm glad, I'm glad he is in our lives and can work this magic. Like, so Myke, I don't want you to feel too bad that you don't have yours yet because on the individual Instagram posts that I made, the one of your pen is like 2x the amount of likes of both. I think if you added up mine and Anna's, we wouldn't have reached the amount of likes that your pen got. So just know that, uh, that you definitely have the most popular of the three, but I know we love all of our pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They are all amazing. But like even because Jonathan posted a bunch of pictures as well, um, on the Carolina Penco Instagram and he very, it was very sweet. Actually said that he, he went a little extra with mine. Yeah. Um, so I really genuinely very much appreciated that and, and I could see it right. Like, cause there's details that I didn't, uh, that I didn't see until, um, the, uh, and until I saw the pictures from Jonathan, like how on the grip section of the Lamy, you have like the two inlays and then the part that's going down the middle. And there are four discs of Raden of different, of like, uh, decreasing sizes placed. And it's like, I see stuff like that. It's like, oh, that was a lot of work. Right. So like, uh, you know, I cannot wait to one day sometime in the distant future. I have this pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It will ship before Thursday.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, will it? Yeah. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or no later than Thursday. How about that? No later than Thursday, which means today or tomorrow it will ship. Well, I look forward to that. I look forward to you receiving it because I hate shipping stuff like this, that like very important things. Like even to Anna, I was like, oh my gosh, please tell me like the minute you get it because I want to know what arrives safe and sound and shipping to you is even more of, more of a stress factor.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Cause this isn't like, there's no insurance for this. Right. Right. Cause this is an irreplaceable object. Yep. All right. Let's take a break and then we can get into talking to Anna about everything we wanted to talk about today. Uh, today's show is brought to you by Harry's. Now is not the time to be overpaying for raises at the drugstore. You want to stay inside. Harry's knows that they ship directly to you so you can experience the quality of a Harry's shave in just a few days from the convenience of your own home. You should join the 10 million people who have tried Harry's and claim your special trial offer by going to harrys.com slash pen addict. Harry's is a return to what's essential quality, durable blades at a fair price at just $2 per blade. They've cut out all the stuff in the middle manufacturing blades in their German blade factory that they have. That's been honing precision blades for a century, which means you can get incredibly high quality blades at factory direct prices. And Harry's is super convenient with their blade refills being delivered directly to your door on your own schedule with or without a subscription. So Brad, can you tell me something about Harry's? Can I, Myke? Yes, I can. I would like you to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The trials that I'm putting Harry's hair paste through during these quarantine times is stuff of legend. I haven't cut my hair in three months or so. And Harry's, my wife thanks Harry's every day that I actually decide to use their product for my hair because any other day I look like Albert Einstein or something like walking around and she's like, oh, thank God you fixed your hair today. And that's all because of Harry's hair paste. So thank you, Harry's, during these quarantine times until I get my next haircut for keeping me in check.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And you can feel good about your purchase too because they have a 100% quality guarantee. So if you don't love your shave, let them know and they'll give you a full refund. And 1% of proceeds are set aside for non-profit organizations devoted to helping provide access to better health care for men and veterans. Listeners of this show can redeem their Harry's trial set at harrys.com slash penaddict. And you'll get a weighted ergonomic handle for a firm grip, five blade razor with lubricated strip and trimmer blade, rich leather and shave gel with aloe to keep your skin hydrated, and a travel blade cover to keep your razor dry and easy to grab on the go. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to start shaving better today. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Anna Reinhart, congratulations on 10 years of the well-appointed desk.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you. So I was a little surprised. It came up a lot faster than I thought it was going to.

== Celebrating Blog Anniversary ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's actually what I want to know first. Like when you realize not just, oh, anniversary coming up, but, oh, this blog has been in existence for 10 years. Like what was, what were you thinking like to yourself?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, okay. So last year when you were announcing like 10 years of penaddict and everything, I was like, wow, my tenure is coming up next year. And then this year rolled around and the world's biggest dumpster fire happened. I lost my job. The pandemic happened. Like, you know, I mean, just everything. And I was like, okay, what do I do? Do I make a big deal about this? Or do I just like quietly stick it under the rug and have a big 11th anniversary celebration next year? And I kind of went back and forth and trying to decide. And I'm like, you know, things like leading up the last, you know, two weeks or whatever, things like, you know, businesses were starting to open back up and things, you know, I thought, okay, well, maybe it'd be okay.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And so I started contacting some of my regular sponsors and kind of ask them how they felt about it. And they said, no, no, no, it'd be a really great idea. You know, people need something that would bring them a little joy, you know, and we are totally, we totally support it. We would love to help. And so I thought, okay, well, let's do this. And so I started putting everything together to do the celebration. And then all of the stuff happened that we talked about at the beginning of the show. And I was like, do I keep doing this? Or do I just like, I don't know, like pull the plug. And I decided to just keep going. Because at this point, I feel like, again, people need some light in their life. I want to celebrate the hard work that not only I've done, but also the people who have continued to support the blog, which are the vendors, the people. The manufacturers, everyone who reads the blog, who continue to come back looking for something to keep them entertained, distracted, and as well as everyone who writes for the blog. You know, this is something that gives them, you know, they're as much a part of this and contributor as well. And I need the outlet more now than ever before. So it's been, you know, as much, and I know for sure you can probably relate because you've kind of been on the same roller coaster of being fully employed and then jumping ship. You chose to jump ship. I was sort of forced off my ship. But still, doing this full time is a different, it makes it a very different job. You know, now it's a job, not a hobby. But still, I mean, I didn't think I'd be, you know, when I started this 10 years ago, I didn't know how long it would go. Maybe a year, two years, kind of fun. Who knows?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So is there an origin story to the blog? Like what made you decide to say, you know, I'm going to get this domain and I'm going to write about stationery?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, this is a story I've probably told several times. And I may have told this story, the podcast before. But I went to a presentation about a woman, that a woman did who had started a decorating a blog, decorating her apartment all in turquoise. And the site was the house of turquoise. And she basically said that at that particular time, if she could make a website all about turquoise, that the internet was big enough to have a website about any super specific interest. She's like, if I can do it, anybody can do it. And I had always been fascinated with stationery and office supplies and pens and paper and all of that. And I wanted to focus on that. It brought me joy. I knew other people that loved doing it. I was already friends with you at that point and Johnny from Pencil Revolution. And I had seen what you guys were doing. And I wanted to do it too. So I literally went back to my desk. And I started the Well-Appointed Desk. And at the time, I launched it on Tumblr and just started posting things that I liked. So it was really at that point in time, just sort of reposting like pictures of offices, cool office supplies that I found. And so it really started off just kind of a real quick repost dump for a couple of months before I kind of started writing more solid reviews and things. But I just was like, hey, if she can do it, I can do it. Like, let's just, I'm just going to do it. So after a couple of years, I moved it over to, you know, as I started writing more and more reviews and Tumblr really didn't service like comments and giveaways and things like that, I moved it over to WordPress where I could have more control over, you know, everything the way that you kind of need to as you develop things.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And it kind of went on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is the site still on WordPress now?

'''Ana Reinert:''' It is. It's still. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You've done a great job with it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thank you. I've switched templates many, many times and added plugins and things like that. And I've debated moving it, you know, to another hosting service. But at this point, there's over 4,000 posts and I just can't bring myself to move it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I haven't gone through it. And I did the math years and years and years ago. And I was like, woof, that was a lot. I'd be hesitant to do it now. And like, you know, it'd be scary to. We're definitely like locked into our platforms, you know, for, you know, our sanity right now. If nothing else, Myke, Myke Hurley has a question that I'd feel weird asking this question. So I'm going to make Myke ask.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. Well, I did write in our document too. So in the post, you mentioned that when you started the Well Appointed Desk, you and Brad were already friends. And that was surprising to me. And I wondered how that had happened. Because I just always assumed that like you were both already doing the stuff and then found each other that way because you were in the kind of pen blogging community. Like that's how I've made friends with lots of people in the podcasting community is I find out about them or we find about each other because we're in that already. So I was just keen on understanding like how that happened.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And correct me if I'm wrong, Brad, but I had had a personal blog where I had done several like pen paper related reviews before I had started the Well Appointed Desk. And at that point, Lily from JetPens, who's one of the founders of JetPens, had actually contacted me and asked if she could send me samples. And I think you had actually commented on my personal site. And so you and I had started communicating there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's exactly how I remember it. Anna had a blog called Snow Angels. That was right, right? Wasn't that the name? Yeah. Snow Angels actually still have some like little icon of yours, some black and white icon of yours floating around somewhere in some of my contacts. We've known each other so long. We've gone through so many like little avatar changes. But, you know, sometimes you can't get rid of the old ones in some places. I think I have one back from like the Snow Angels day somewhere on there. But, yeah, that's when I was I had started the pen addict and I was searching the Internet, right, for more people who were into the same kind of things. And, you know, that's where like, you know, in the heyday of blogging and I still try to do it now is like cross posting and cross promoting and linking to other other similar content. And so I would always share Snow Angels posts. And that's how I got to talking to Anna in the beginning. And then we just hit it off from there. And it's like still like one of my one of my best friendships to this day. It's it's pretty wild. How these things started that we've started these so long ago and seeing where we're at today. It's like kind of hard to wrap your head around a little bit for me. I don't know about you.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, totally. Because I remember way back then I was doing some like craft show stuff with my friend Annie. And so the two of us were like screen printing like tea towels and things like that. And Lily from JetPens had offered to do a trade with me for some of the tea towels in exchange for JetPens product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that was back in the day when JetPens was still basically they were probably just out of their apartment at that time. Right. And like like 50 percent of the SKUs were pilot high tech C's, you know, and things like that.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. Yeah. Dell pens and pencils or something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So back in back in the heyday. Gosh, I really if I think about that too much, it's like mind blowing. Like where some of these companies are at now that we started with back in the day. I want to talk real quick about how just your processes have changed from back in the day. For example, I would like I look back at my original post and it's just this very simple like short, quick, terrible photography, you know, weird grammar kind of. Let me tell you about this pen thing. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And then now I feel like I write more, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Personal specific stories. So have you seen a change in how you approach, say, just like a product review? Because you write a lot of other things besides product reviews. But have you noticed a change in your approach over over all these years?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, for starters, like there's a real consistency when we when we do reviews. I mean, we have macros for like specifics that we add to each of our reviews to make sure that there's like consistency across the board in terms of at the end of each review, we'll include a list of the materials that were used so that people know for sure. Like what paper was used, like what paper was used, what ink, you know, those sorts of details that wasn't necessarily included in earlier reviews. Like, you know, in some cases, like it was never the same paper for pen reviews or it was like I used to use them. Was it McElriss notebook? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. But I used because it was like a giant. Absolutely. Like early on, I had this ginormous McElriss notebook that I used.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, because you could get them at Barnes and Noble.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, exactly. And it was not a good notebook to use. And so now it's like I always, you know, to this day, I use the same Rodia because I feel like it's something that everyone has access to. So it's something that should they want to replicate the results would be something that was available to them. And because I've used it so frequently, then they can go back and look at earlier reviews and compare and contrast one pen or ink to another. And then, of course, now every ink is tested on coloring paper so that, you know, when we compare and contrast the colors from different brands, you know, it's like it's like there's so much more consistency and we try to keep everything. And I have studio lighting so that I have control of my lighting situation. So everything is photographed in very similar circumstances each time. So, yeah, I feel like, you know, it's like I go back now and I look at like older ones and it's just like I know that I was trying to take pictures outside. And I remember one day like trying to shoot outdoors to try to get the best lighting. And like the wind was blowing and things were blowing across the yard. And I finally hit a point where I was just like, that's it. I'm buying lights. I don't care how much they cost. I'm just doing it. I was so furious because it was like chasing things across the yard and the neighbors were looking at me like I was crazy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. That's hilarious because I would totally delay a post because I couldn't get good lighting outdoors because that's where I always took my product photography. And I was like, I can't take this picture today because it's raining and it's due tomorrow. And what am I going to do? And I just have to cancel the post.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's so funny. Photography is important in this type of work, though. Like especially when you are starting out because you have to have the visual element to draw people in so they can understand your voice and trust your opinion. Like it gets to a certain point where for both of you, your readers, they just want to know what you have to say more because you can get pictures of a pen on the company's website. Right. But they want your point of view. But you have to establish yourself first. And I think that the visual component is an important part of that establishment. So people will actually come and read what you have to say and see that you have something interesting to say.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that's one of the things Anna does best. Right. I mean, Anna, you pretty much stage like all your photos. You have like a whole staging set up pretty much. Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I do. But it's it's pretty simple. Like I don't do a ton of set dressing. Occasionally, I'll do a little bit for like sort of a glory shot. But I do tend to keep it fairly simple. And I noticed that I use the same like tabletop. Oh, just like I found I found one from like six years ago and I'm like, that's the same the same table surface. I'm like, I need to get some new table surface.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All you have to do is look at two of my posts to go. Oh, yeah, they're all the same.

'''Ana Reinert:''' In terms of like the writing style, like I also feel like I'm I've become a better writer. Like after 4000 posts. Yeah. And it's a very uncomfortable place as someone who's been a creative, like visually creative my whole life to ever describe myself as a writer. Because I feel like I've I've stepped my toe over a line somewhere like you can't call yourself a writer. You'd not go to school for that. But I feel like at a certain point, it's like. As a technical writer, like I can describe the details of pens and ink and I feel like. Maybe that's a safe territory to go into. And I hope that in many instances, I'm at least entertaining when I write a lot of my reviews. Like I try to make some of, you know, like there are cases where I've I've pushed the boundaries. With my reviews in terms of being a little tongue in cheek with them. There was a color verse ink review where I was particularly cheeky.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I enjoy those types of posts and getting to see like your personality come out in there. And I think it's important, like I definitely transitioned from a more technical writing review style, like here's the specs and all this type of stuff into trying as hard as it is to explain what it feels like to use this product. Right. Which is is hard to put in words, but I feel more comfortable these days doing that. So, yeah, I want to throw you under the bus here for a second because people enjoy taking me to task for a statement I said early on about I hate fountain pens and look at me now. I vividly remember a point in our friendship where you said you would never go over. You would never spend more than one hundred dollars on a pen. And you like had a hard stop and like you would even put this into reviews. Like, am I remembering this correctly?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I suspect I probably did say that at some point.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like in the early days.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that that's long gone at this point. Right. And there's, you know.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I pretty I jumped that shark a long time ago.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just like my I hate fountain pens idea. Like that's that's a long time ago. In Internet years, it's like infinity years ago when we said these things. So that's not only has our blogging style changed, our tastes and appreciation for different types of product has changed, too.

== Products Discussion ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Speaking of products, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You want me to talk about pen chalet now?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's do that because we got a lot more to get to with Anna. She's she's so interesting. I got I have questions.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know. Right. This this episode is brought to you by friends over at pen chalet. They're the company that sell you authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils and so much more. No matter what you're looking for, pen chalet have got it. Even if you're looking for ink and refills and converters and carrying cases and pen holders, they sell all of the accessories and the products that you've been looking for from your very favorite brands. Pen chalet believe in the fastest and most reliable customer service possible. And they also have great deals for shipping. So if you spend over $50 in the US, you will get free shipping. And if you're an international buyer, then you will get very great shipping rates, the best that they could possibly do. And I've been really happy with both the price and speed of pen chalet shipments to me here in the UK. I've bought stuff myself from them personally. Pen chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offers a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. They want you to be happy with the great stuff that you buy from them. So as a pen addict listener, you can get your hands on some special deals. You can get 10 percent off anything at any time by using a code of pen chalet. If you just go to pen chalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict. This gets you through to a special area where you will find the 10 percent code to get to save on anything at any time, but also some special offers for listeners of this show. What's catching your eye this time, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This whole page is just wrong. There's too many good deals on it. I don't understand. The Pelican M101 bright red, which is one of my personal favorite pens, is way less than I ever paid for mine. There's a Pelican M205 demonstrator. There's one of the limited that he must have found in inventory. The Pelican M120 special edition, the blue with gold trim, one of the smaller pens, but it's a really unique, you know, kind of a retro design that Pelican brought back, I think, last year. It's fantastic. And you just keep scrolling. You get to this, the Diplomat Arrows. That's not the right price for the Diplomat Arrow. So it's such a good pen. And that's just crazy talk. So you should go check out Penn Chalet today. Check out all the deals. And don't stop scrolling when you see the first deal, because this is a chock full of awesomeness today at Penn Chalet. So thank you, Ron, for your continued support of our show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's PennChalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password PennAddict. Our thanks to Penn Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, Anna, can you pull out any major turning points, like in the 10 years of the Well Appointed Desk, that you knew something was different than it used to have been? And, you know, whether you were just, you know, writing reviews one day and then, I don't know, did you ever notice any, like, big turning points?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' There was, I mean, there are moments that were, I guess, big moments for me. I mean, the first time I got asked to be on the Penn Addict podcast, it was a big moment for me. But, I mean, there were lots of things, like, you know, when we had giveaways where we had lots and lots of entries, which was always really great. When sometimes just having posts with lots of comments, both good and bad, always make us feel great. Because, you know, there are lots of times when we do posts and there are no comments at all and you're like, okay, well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I'm sure you know what I mean. Oh, yeah. You know there are views, but oftentimes people don't comment and that's fine. Yes. You know, a lot of times it's just an informational post and people read it and they get the information that they need and they don't feel a need to comment. But when you get a post where people comment a lot, it's always very nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's a great validation.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. And there's occasions where, you know, I've had people email specifically because they found the blog and want, you know, and they thought the content was really good. So they've asked me to contribute to other websites, which was very validating. So there have been occasions where it's like I was asked to contribute. And I know you have been to other websites like Fast Company and some of the other websites, which is always like, you know, I think print, which is a design publication, which is like I would have loved to get in for design. But, hey, I got in for writing for the desk. So that's okay. That's good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those are never things that would have crossed my mind ever in writing a pen blog that would come up later.

'''Ana Reinert:''' No, not at all. Like those are things, you know, because I've been, I've been, you know, job hunting and having to put together my resume. Like it never occurred to me that the well-appointed desk would end up on my resume. Right. You know, because of things like this and what it has led to in other circumstances, like. Who knew? You guys can't see me, but I'm shrugging. Like I had no idea that it would actually become a line on my resume because of all of the opportunities it presented.

== Career Impact ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Like when back in the day when I was working at the bank, I ended up getting a marketing position with having no experience, training or qualifications because I was podcasting and as well. Right. So like I was able to show that I could do something. I was a self-starter and could show like, oh, by the way, when I start something, I keep doing it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, you know, yeah, that's it's pretty wild when you think of all the real world implications are now work has has has led to. It's it's yeah. If you think about it too much, it kind of breaks your brain. So one thing I wanted to talk about, which you do very, very much is travel to a lot of pen shows. I know we're in the quarantine times right now and none of us are getting to travel and I know we all miss it very much and miss seeing our friends. But can you tell me kind of how you got started, like first attending pen shows? Do you remember the first pen show you went to and how did it escalate from there to where you're going to probably five, six, if not more shows a year?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, the first show that I went to was Atlanta to record the pen addict.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And that was a huge experience. I actually found photos. I don't know what I was doing. I must have been digging for through my, you know, my photo stream or whatever. And I found the photos from that that year. Mm hmm. Atlanta show and just yesterday. And it was, I mean, like it practically brought tears to my eyes. Look at those photos because that was the first time that I met so many people who to this day are still so important to me. You know, I met Le Reyes at that show. I met Thomas. I met just like so many people. We went to the knock shop.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm hmm. God, that was the party year.

'''Ana Reinert:''' That was the party year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One and only. That was a big deal.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. Leigh and Thomas kept me up so late showing me Nakayas that I fell asleep holding a Nakaya in my hand at a table. Like, it was just that. I mean, like that was a true turning point when I realized how amazing the Penn community was.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Just really a gobsmacked year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I will. I have a lot of stories from that year. Now that you say that that was a huge turning point year, I think, for a lot of us. But the thing I remember the most is that was our first live recording and we didn't have an audience. It was just the three of us and the Hackett brothers. And I've never been so nervous in front of a microphone than for that recording. All the audience stuff doesn't phase me. All the, you know, guesting on other shows. For some reason, I vividly remember being an absolute wreck trying to record that show in that room. Like I felt just like undue pressure for some reason. I don't know why. But that was a weird one for us. And then we fixed it next year with the, we started having audiences. So that was a, that was a weird moment for sure.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, that was crazy. And since that, that show, like after that, I think that was the show that then you, was that when you suggested that I should start helping Lisa Van Ness?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Probably. Because we had, I had just met Lisa like at the Atlanta show previous to that, where I was just a person, you know, like walking around. Like I didn't have knock to bring to the show or anything like that. And I had just met her. And like that was when she, Atlanta was like one of her first shows too, like in the previous year or two. And she had decided that she wanted to do more. And I think y'all just kind of hit it off. And then she was asking you and myself to, to travel with her to, to go to shows. And that, that was, had been a great experience for me. I'm sure it was for you too.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. Yeah. So then I started helping Lisa at a lot of shows just in order to help sort of fund the opportunity to go to shows. And so I think that year I ended up going to like four shows. And then for the years after that, I want to say I was going to at least six, seven, eight. I think last year was nine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think the topper was the year we went to Toronto. I went to nine shows that year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think I remember you saying that it's just like getting to the, that was kind of the end. And we did a lot on that event. And that was like one of my favorite events that we, we did books. We did a, we did a New York stop on that trip too. And it was just crazy, crazy cool. So, um, but yeah, to, to wrap up a year of nine shows in October, I think it was late October, early November is just like, that's a lot. Like I couldn't see doing that. Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. So I know we're all anxious to get back to, to show going here pretty soon. So hopefully you will see Anna and myself and Myke at shows in the future. We just don't know exactly when. Um, I want to talk about the current setup of the desk. See what I did there? That was an accident, but it came out pretty well. Um, you have added writers to the desk. You have added a shop to the desk. Um, tell me what it was like to bring on kind of your first, uh, partners in writing, writing blog posts there. So, uh, all good, good, awesome people, Laura, Jesse, Tina, tell me about bringing them on. What that was like and, uh, how that's, uh, helped things out over there.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, um, the first person that came on to help me was Tina, um, from, uh, fueled by pods and coffee. And she started doing some reviews sort of periodically, um, just to sort of help provide a little bit of additional content between doing shows and a full-time job. I was starting to feel stretched really, really thin. And she gladly came aboard and brought in a little bit more of the sort of creative content because she does a lot of urban sketching. So she was, um, doing more sort of pencils and like sketch materials, sharpeners, sketchbooks, um, that kind of thing, which I thought brought a different spin to the blog than some of the other stationary community. And so I really liked having that perspective and thought it was a great addition. And then maybe about, I think it was probably about a year later, I brought my friend, Laura Cameron, um, who actually is, um, a local friend of mine. She's a knitter and she does, um, the corner of knit and tee, which is a vlog for knitting and spinning. And she was just getting into pens. And so I kept kind of sort of giving her different things as she was expressing interest. And after a while, I'm like, you know, if I give this to you, you're going to have to write a review. And she's like, okay. And so that led her into starting to, to add content as well, because the longer I was writing, the less I felt in touch with sort of the experience of someone who is new to fountain pens and new to sort of the, you know, sort of all of the stationary product. And so it's been interesting to watch Laura sort of go through a lot of sort of what we went through when we first started of like, oh, I only like this one thing. Oh, wait, no, I really like these, you know, cause it's like, I think we all go through that where it's like, nope, I just like this one type of pen or this one type of nib or this one type of material. And then as you develop your experiences over time, you're like, no, I like lots of different materials depending on the circumstance or the situation or even the maker, you know? So it's just been nice to have that brought back into it, you know, because as you know, it's harder for us. Cause it's like that, again, that whole thing, once you cross that a hundred dollar threshold, you're like, you know, it's hard for me to like get real upset about the quality of a $29 pen. Like I know what to expect with a $29 pen, but for someone just getting into the hobby, like $29 seems like a lot of money to spend on a pen. Absolutely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And you're going to get that email is like, Hey, I bought this pilot metropolitan and like I'm ticked off and it's like not working. And you, you lose sight of that sometimes that, you know, that's, you know, there's, there's new people reading the site every day.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And then Jesse came in about a little, just about a year ago. And as our resident Estherbrook, vintage Estherbrook expert and ink enthusiast. Um, and so I had her take on more of the ink review responsibilities, um, which just helped to sort of spread everything out a little bit. And so as that has progressed, um, it's allowed me to sort of kind of funnel things in different directions and give everybody, let everybody sort of take a different focus sometimes. And also find things that I know specifically people will enjoy, um, reviewing, you know, so it's, it's that kind of thing of like shifting things around a little bit or giving people new opportunities to try different products. I don't know if you have that experience as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely. Absolutely. And like one of the things that I think about it in that, you know, over the years of having people write for me, I've definitely gotten past and I think you have too. But in the beginning it was very, not difficult, but it was a weird feeling to give up some of the kind of creative control, like to give up the byline on the post, right. To like, this is like my blog, it's, you know, represented by me and then to have this other content created, um, to understand that, Hey, this is only going to make things better and not to like overthink, like adding new people to the blog. Did you have a challenge? Like with just some of the control things in the beginning of like trying to, I had a problem of like being overly cautious and now I'm just like completely like they're a hundred percent on their own. And, and have like no guidance from me whatsoever. So how has that been for you?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I think initially my biggest concern was when people commented and they addressed their comments to me, whether they were good or bad. And I really wanted them to, to know, like if they were bad comments, I didn't want the writer to take it badly just because I've sort of built up a little bit thicker skin about that. But then also if they were compliments, I didn't want people to think that it was, you know, like directed towards me. I wanted them to understand like, no, this was Jesse's post. Like, please like direct your, your accolades towards the writer, whether it was Jesse or Tina.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've seen that kind of stuff a lot with like friends that write online and end up bringing on help in the tech space as well, where people get used to it all being one person. So they don't look at the byline because they just think it's all you, right? Because they've been reading you for years and it was just you. So they're just like, oh, so everything that comes from this site, it's all Anna, right? Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. So, and that's probably the biggest stumbling block. And early on, I think I did go through and make a point of like reading through each of the posts, you know, just as an, from an editorial standpoint, making sure there wasn't any issues. And now if I do at all, it's a cursory glance to make sure there aren't any, you know, it's more just like double checking, make sure there isn't anything. But it's not, I don't find tooth comb like I might have in, in the beginning.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like I'll, I'll manage the, I'll make sure the links are going to where we need the links to go. And then that's about it. Right. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' There's a good deal of trust that I, I'm familiar with their writing style and how they write. So I, I don't have to, you know, unless someone specifically asks, like, I'm not sure this, like this part right here makes total sense. Can you look it over really quick? Otherwise it's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. Exactly. Well, I think it's, it's a great fit and it's a really good feel to, to the blog. Not that it was ever not a great feel, but I, like, I think you've done it right. The way you've kind of integrated new writers over time, they each kind of have a general area, not meaning they can't do. Anything on the blog, but you know, like Tina is going to do a lot of sketch and art stuff. So like, I know when I read Tina's stuff, I'm like, Oh cool. I'm going to learn something about this today. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a really cool setup that you have going. And I, I definitely glad that that's a part of the desk now.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thanks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thanks. The other thing.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I also love that three out of four are lefties.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is pretty funny. We have, uh, I, I guess we're, we're like predetermined to have a greater percentage of lefties in our, in our midst. But whenever like I talk with you and talk to Myke and, or I'm sitting with you at a bar, you know, at a, at a hotel pen show, it's just, I'm surrounded by lefties. I'm definitely outnumbered on more occasions than not when I'm with you. All right. So one of the things that you've added to the shop is you've gotten into the merchandise and the creation of products. And you're very, very, very well known for the highly successful coloring. And I just wanted you to talk a little bit about deciding to make your own stuff to sell.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Well, um, you, we've talked repeatedly about how the coloring came out was there was a hole in the market and we figured out that we had the capacity to fill it. So we took a chance and we, we did it and it worked out. Um, and then from there we just sort of continued trying different things with the same paper and that's seemed to work out for us. So I say that very tentatively, every, like the coloring has been the most successful, like the color decks is a little bit more specific. Um, the oversize we have not made, um, as widely available just because we sort of did it on a smaller scale, um, in terms of our original production run. Um, just because it was like, we just wanted to see how it would perform. Um, so we may do a larger production run soon and then make that more widely available to some of our retailers. Um, we're still sort of in debates about that just from a standpoint of whether or not our retailers would be interested in it. And then, um, we did the dipper most recently just for picks. Yes. And that, that we've talked about before, I think, um, in that we probably won't ever have that available to retailers because it really is, um, labor intensive for its price point. It's just such a, just such a small, like it really is. We, we don't want to waste paper. It seemed like a really good way to make the best use of the paper and create a product that served again, another purpose for our community. So it was like lots, you know, many pronged solution and it's fun and it's cool and we dig it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's one of those things like when you're actually making stuff that I've had to explain to people many, many times over years, the smaller you make something, the more relatively expensive it's going to be compared to your other products. It just is. It's really challenging to make it small and inexpensive. Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. I mean, that's, it's that whole volume thing. It's super fiddly. It's super fiddly to make, like it takes literally it's me hand assembling each one of those and putting the little ball chain and closing it and sticking in the little baggie for each person who wants one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. Well, the color ring.

'''Ana Reinert:''' You are paying me to assemble that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. Well, the color ring itself is the canonical, you know, ink swabbing book these days. I use, I tend to use the oversized a lot because I have a big honking stamp that someone made for me. So, I like the space I have on there, but I do love just the traditional color ring. I think it's pretty, pretty freaking fantastic.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, yeah. And since then we have added more things like, you know, and one of the things like, and I haven't talked in great detail about it in the past, but partially because of the job that I had before. I was a little, my hands were tied a little bit about the type of paper products I could make. So, my hands are no longer tied in regards to the kinds of paper product I can make.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh-oh.

'''Ana Reinert:''' That's not to say that we will make a lot of paper products because I think the market is very saturated in terms of paper products, but it does open up the possibility. It just, like, the list of things that I could not make was very long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And just for people who might be listening the first time, Anna was a former Hallmark designer for many, many, many, many, many years.

== Design Constraints ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' And so, if you think about what you would see in a normal card shop, that is the list of things I was not allowed to do. Right. So, that's partially why the coloring actually happened because it didn't fit into any of those categories. Right. A book specifically made to test fountain pen ink didn't fit into any of those categories. So, it was, like, without anybody in the pen community realizing, I managed to skirt all of the rules. So, and the same thing with, like, the rubber stamps that we were doing. Like, that also skirted all of the rules that were in place. So, it was, like, I was having to kind of play some, do a little dance.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's great. I always love your stamps, too. Like, the little good mail stamps. I'm giving away the new ink bottle stamps this week on the blog. So, all that stuff.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And we have more of those right now on the shop. We are sold out of them again. We've sold out of them twice already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Nice.

'''Ana Reinert:''' But they should be back in either today or probably first thing tomorrow. So, if anybody wants to buy some, we'll have them in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, tell us a little bit about what you have going on on the site this week to celebrate your 10 years of the well-appointed desk. You have a lot of things planned.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Okay. This has been the most ridiculous amount of planning and, like, strategery I forgot to do. But it's actually two weeks. It is 10 days for 10 years. It's 10 days. I know. It's nuts. But so, for the next two weeks, there is a giveaway every day.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And there are 10 top 10 lists. One every day. I know. Did I tell you? This is nuts. I don't know what I was thinking. I've lost my mind. So, every day I've done a top 10 list. And when I say top 10, it's like a 10 something. So, it could be 10 favorite, 10 best, 10, like, I don't want to say top 10 because I know I'm going to get so many comments.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Ana Reinert:''' People saying, like, that's not actually.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. So, hold your comments. I posted yesterday was top 10 notebooks. Mm-hmm. And I posted it in the paper thread on the Slack group. And I was like, agree or disagree, go ahead. So, there were a lot of comments. But it was, like, genuinely my efforts of, like, these are the 10, like, best options. Like, I know there are more. But if you had to narrow it down to 10 to recommend to people. And these are the 10 that, like, I would most often recommend to people who are either just getting into notebooks. Or, like, here's where you start. Here's where you finish. Like, on the list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Ana Reinert:''' So, it's like, if you had to tell people these are the 10 notebooks you need to know about in the stationary community. Here's your list. Kind of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So. And it was a good list. I've got no comment. I read it yesterday. I thought, hey, that's a great list. Perfect.

== Desk Accessories List ==

'''Ana Reinert:''' Today's list is desk accessories, which was really hard to do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Yeah. And what's the giveaway? What's the giveaway for today?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Today is Fanta Plumo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very cool.

'''Ana Reinert:''' And tomorrow will be non-fountain pens is the list. Oh, cool. Yeah. So, yeah, it'll keep going. It's craziness.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, everyone who listens here better be reading all of that and signing up for all the giveaways because you're awesome. Your site's awesome. I'm glad we could kind of talk about a little bit of the history and the building of the site. Like, that stuff always interests me. Even if I already know the answers, I want to ask again just because I love talking about those kind of things.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Thanks. It is interesting. It's always interesting to see how people change, how things develop.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Especially, like I was saying earlier, 10 years in internet time is like infinity. Like, that's a lot of time, a lot of posts, thousands and thousands of posts, and just so much awesomeness from you. So, we're not done with you yet, though. We, being Myke and I, have been holding on to a lot of Ask TPA because we have so much to talk about these days. We're not getting to all our questions. So, we're going to put you to the test to answer some of our listeners' questions. And we're going to let these be the Ana answers. And I'll be glad to chime in if you want me to. But I want you to, you're going to take the reins on these after we talk about our good friends at ExpressVPN, Myke.

== TPA Questions ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' Today's episode is also brought to you by ExpressVPN. You might think that nobody wants your data. Nobody wants to know what you're getting up to online. But when you browse the web without anything to protect your privacy, you risk hackers, ad companies, and more collecting your data. And it does happen to people like us, which is why I recommend ExpressVPN. I mean, one of the big ones is your ISP. Your ISP can see everything you're doing. And that's something that, like, do you really want them to know everything about you? No, because they can use that data to do things that you wouldn't like. ExpressVPN runs in the background of your computer or phone, encrypting your data, hiding your public IP address. Just download the app, click to connect, and you're protected. ExpressVPN is rated the number one VPN service by TechRadar. It uses new cutting-edge technology called Trusted Server to make sure that there's no logs of what you do online. It costs less than $7 a month and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. One of the things that I love about ExpressVPN is you can also say, like, oh, I'm in a different location, right? It's possible to say, I'm here, I'm in Japan, I'm in America, wherever, and you're able to access content that might otherwise be region-locked to you. Sometimes for just really silly reasons, like a website not completely complying with GDPR regulations that are just cut off all of Europe. So, like, this is the kind of stuff that can help you as well with ExpressVPN. Protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months free at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. That's exprssvpn.com slash penaddict for three months free with a one-year package to protect your online activity today. Take back your online privacy at expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, let's knock out a few ass TPA, Myke. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, at lauryspenser68 asks, I want to get a cursive italic grind on a new TWSBI 580. Should I order the medium or broad nib to start with?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Anna, we're putting you on the spot. You have full responsibility for the answer to lauryspenser68.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Oh, good grief. Okay, well, I suppose it depends on what size cursive italic grind you want. If you want a broad cursive italic, then I would start with a broad. If you want a fine cursive italic, you could probably get away with a medium.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I couldn't agree more. It really depends what you're trying to solve, what your handwriting style is, what you want your writing to look like. And yeah, it's really going to be up to you knowing that the TWSBI, even the medium, is not going to be crazy, crazy fine. You know, it's a good medium. Like, it's very, very traditionally sized. So, if you want that wider line, broad's the way to go. I think I couldn't agree more. It really depends. Like, we can't give you a definitive answer.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, if you want to be on the safe side, I would say go with the broad. Because they can always thin it out a little bit. But it might end up costing you a little bit more money if what, in the end, you want is a finer cursive italic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lynn LG asks, I have trouble getting a good fill with the TWSBI minivac, particularly from bottles with more horizontal shapes. Do you have any thoughts about ink bottle shapes? Do you ever choose an ink with this in mind?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Okay, I might have to throw this over to Brad because I don't have a lot of experience with the TWSBI vacs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I mean, the vacs are hard just because you have to get below the ink line very, very well. Like, sometimes with pistons, like, you can skate with a, you know, like a moderate seal around there. But with the vacs, you're going to have to tilt and get, like, a full, full depth of everything down there to get the proper fill on it. But I think it comes down to more how bad do I want the ink over the bottle shape of the ink? And will that prevent me from buying the ink? And most of the times I'm going to say no because things like the TWSBI vac in particular, you can unscrew the nib unit very easily and syringe fill it. So I will forego worrying about an ink bottle shape if I want the ink bad enough, knowing that I might have to take some extra steps to fill certain pens, if that makes sense.

'''Ana Reinert:''' A lot of online retailers will also sell you empty ink bottles for a couple dollars. So if you really want an ink that comes in a low, shallow bottle, you can always buy a tall, skinny bottle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, perfect. Perfect.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I don't know if I've ever made a decision based on an ink bottle, but I tell you I would make a decision about rebuying an ink if the bottle was a pain.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? That's fair. Like, one of my biggest challenges is as much as I love Sailor inks, and I love the design of the Sailor ink pot. It's such a traditional, beautiful design. It is not the best ink bottle to fill from because it is that horizontal shape that Lynn is talking about, right? You just can't get the depth after you've used a quarter of the bottle. You're starting to get into this challenging area where you're not getting a good seal when you dip the nib into the bottle. So, like, I understand it. It's not preventing me, though. But, like, I will think about it from time to time, but it's not going to prevent me in the end, I don't think.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I used to dislike Robert Oster's tall, skinny plastic bottles, but I can get a really good fill out of those, and I think I will end up holding on to one of his bottles once I've emptied it just for some of those Sailor inks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Because they are very efficient face savers.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, they really are.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am a big fan of the Akamon ones because they have that little kind of chamber that you fill at the top. You turn it upside down and you fill it, so then I don't have to, like, stick the pen all the way down into the bottom, right? Like, it's the best that I've seen as a way to keep ink, to be able to get the bottom of the ink bottle, basically. You know, like, I've had bottles where you're kind of having to, like, awkwardly tip it and try and hold on to it, right? Like, you're holding it at an angle and still trying to, like, operate the converter, and I'm convinced everything's going to slip out of my hand, and I make a horrible mess. So I really like the Akamon bottles for that reason, because they give you that system.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Ana did a great post, I don't know, what, a month or so ago, Ana, maybe two months, where you kind of went through the history of just that bottle design in general from, like, a vintage perspective. I thought that was a super cool post. We'll find that link and put that in the show notes, because I think it was just a fun read for anyone learning about these new things. Yeah, it's very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I love that bottle. That's a great, but they're huge and so unwieldy, right? That's the other thing about the Akamon bottles is they're massive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, because they have to get the top section correctly sized, right? The top section cannot be short.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. So it just, it all compounds.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a great question. I love this question. I love this question. I'm so excited when I saw this. It comes from the real nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We're all going to answer this question, so.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just got a new old stock Pilot Mayu, still with the sticker on. Should I peel off the sticker? Should I ink it up?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, who wants to go first?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll go first, because I've done this. Okay. Yes to both things. Like, what do you have it for?

'''Myke Hurley:''' To use it. Okay.

== Mayu Pen Discussion ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so this is the vintage Mu. This is the 1970s. This is not the M90. So the question is, should I peel off the sticker and should I ink it up? And Myke's answer is yes to both.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Anna. What do you got?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I'm inclined. This is the one case where I would not peel the sticker off, but I would still use it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, okay. I guess the sticker thing is your personal preference. It would drive me bananas. I'd be constantly picking at it.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah. I would leave it on. Eventually, it's going to, just from rinsing ink out and things like that, it'll start to peel off. But I would leave it on for a little while just as a, you know, new old stock.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am shocked to say that I would leave the sticker on as well. And I'm absolutely inking it up, but I'm leaving the sticker on. I think that's the bigger question is the leaving the sticker on question than inking it up. I think it's such a great pen. You have to use it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And any modern pen, even if it's like a limited edition or some rare out of stock thing and it has a sticker on it, I'm taking the sticker off. On the Mu, I'm keeping the sticker on. Or if I got a MuRx, I'm probably keeping the sticker on. And I can't explain why other than, like, it fits the aesthetic of that pen. I don't know why. It just feels right. So I would leave the sticker on and definitely ink it up.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Either way, I would say make sure that you get a good photograph of the sticker just because the look of those is, you know, is so classic and so beautiful. You want to archive it one way or the other. If you decide to take the sticker off or if you leave it on, just to have a record of what it looked like.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Take some pictures of the pen before you inevitably destroy it by using it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And as you're wearing down the sticker, I think you're going to love it even more knowing that you did that, right? Like, that's part of using your pens, right? You're the one who has put the miles on and you know that that was your work that did that. I think it's pretty cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And the last question comes from Tim underscore Loblaw on Twitter too. What is the best way to fill a cartridge converter and get as much ink in the converter as possible with or without the nib? What is what you would recommend?

'''Ana Reinert:''' I'll go first. Syringe fill it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' A hundred percent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't think I care enough about filling to also add another piece of complexity. Like, for me, like, you know, like you just, I just fill it up and as much ink goes in there is great. Like, that works for me.

'''Ana Reinert:''' There's a couple cartridge converters that if you try to fill it through the nib or just fill the converter on its own, tend to only get like half full, which is super annoying. So if your goal is you've got a big broad nib or something like that and a half fill is going to get you a day writing and you need to really fill that up, try syringe filling it. That's going to give you at least a full fill.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the Japanese converters are notoriously poor. At doing anything to get a full fill. So that's why I tend to syringe fill a lot.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, it's funny. This question came up in Twitch and people were, like, surprised that I would say, like, syringe. And then a bunch of people chimed in. It's like, no, that's how I do it, too. And I was like, yeah, that's how you should. It's okay to fill your stuff with syringes, listeners. It's okay. You don't have to stick the nib in the bottle if you don't want to.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's okay to do that, but it's also okay to not do that and to do what I do, which is just to stick the entire thing in the ink bottle. That's how I go every time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, if I have five pens I'm sitting out to ink, I will probably have, like, two or three different ways I'm filling them just by the design of the pen, right?

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yeah, and you can use a pipette as well if you don't have a syringe. Like, usually those will fit. So if you have to do a couple of pens and you don't want to have to rinse a syringe, you know, you can use three pipettes and then rinse those all out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. They are a little bit easier to clean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. All right. We did it, Myke. We did it. We did it, Anna.

'''Ana Reinert:''' Yay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Anna, thank you so much for being on the show today. And, again, massive congratulations. Ten years is a long time to be doing anything, especially an online project like this. So congratulations. Thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, big congrats. We love you, and we hope we have ten more years and a thousand more podcasts to have you on.

'''Ana Reinert:''' I love you both, too. And I'm bummed I didn't get to see you both in person in Atlanta.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. Us, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can find us all online on social media. You can find Brad. He's at Dowdy. He's on Twitter. Pen Addict on Instagram. Anna is well, apptdesk on Twitter and wellapptdesk on Instagram. I am the only one who offers any level of consistency. I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E in both places. You can go to wellappointeddesk.com for our honors work. Go to penaddict.com for Brad. Brad streams live on Twitch Tuesdays, Thursdays, 10 a.m. Eastern. You can check him out there. Thank you so much to our sponsors this week, the people at Harry's, ExpressVPN, and Pen Chalet for their continued support of the show. And most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, everybody.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye. Goodbye, everybody.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 720/transcript

2026-06-13T07:04:39Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 720
| title = Feeding Your Creativity
| date = June 11th, 2026
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]]
| guests = [[Toni Palumbo]]
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/720 Episode 720]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/613/clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/penaddict720.mp3 Audio Episode 720]
| length = 56
}}

'''Brad Dowdy:''' From Relay, this is The Pen Addict podcast, episode number 720. I'm your host, Brad Dowdy of The Pen Addict, and joining me today is my good friend, Toni Palumbo from Feed Your Creativity. How are you doing, Toni?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I'm great. How are you, Brad? Thank you for having me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey, I'm super excited to have you. We get to talk a lot, you know, in person. We see each other at pen shows and on the road. But as I've been following you over the last, I don't know, couple years now? Yeah, two or three. I forget when we first met. Two or three. Things have escalated. And I enjoy watching and I enjoy seeing that. So we're going to get into all of that stuff today. How's that sound? That sounds great. Yeah. Just for quick notes, you're right in off the road here. Yes. Literally. We got in at 10 a.m.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we're going to, believe me, we're going to talk about this as we go. I just wanted to prep listeners. You have your coffee. I won't lie, I just finished a coffee right before we started.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' No, I have tea. I have.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, you have tea. So even better.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I have the hard stuff.

== Background in Stationery ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, even better. All right. So before we get into all of this stuff that we got to get into, I want to talk about your background in stationery. Because like I said, we just met a couple years ago, three years ago. And just met at pen shows, probably in Orlando, I think. Yeah. Orlando pen show for the first time.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah, but it was so funny because I think that was like only my second or third time at Orlando. And I didn't know who you were. And I don't know if you noticed, but everyone at our table was freaking out. How did you get a table with Brad? And I was like, Brad, what do you mean? Because I mean, I've started listening to your podcast since then. And I have a couple more that I listen to. But back then, I really wasn't listening to them. They're like, do you know him personally? I was like, no. No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Too funny. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a nobody. Nobody knows me. No. Not at pen shows. Everyone knows me. No. But I want to know how you got to that pen show in the first place, right? Like when did stationery start to become part of your life? Were you like an early in life kid who loved all the school supply stuff? Yes. Tell me about when you first like realized you like this stuff.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So I was like the three-year-old obsessed with school supplies. So my mom told me it like started that young. Wow. So I went to private Catholic school and we didn't have like, oh, the clothes that you would wear to school. So I was always the one with the binder and sheet protectors. And in it would be like Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, Target, Walmart, and every single supply I would want. And I'd make all my notes and then hand the binder over to my mom and be like, this is what we're going to do for the next two days. And she'd be like, ugh. But I mean, she was always very supportive, but it was like, okay, well, we're going to get a pen case from Target. We're going to get the backpack from Office Max. And that I always, even in school, people knew like, oh, if you need a pen, a pencil, an eraser, anything, go to Tony.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I remember like being that person. Did you have like the, the, your least favorite product set aside so you didn't have to hand over the good products? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You have to have, I call it when, you know, when I'm older and in the office, I always called it a bait cup. Like, you know, I just leave a cup out of my desk of the stuff that I didn't want.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So, you know, when I worked at theater, I worked at theater for like five years and I had a Toyo steel box with all my very expensive pens and pencils and erasers. And you mainly used pencils in theater so you could erase. Mm-hmm. And then I had like a children's school box. I would throw all the actors if they forgot their pencil, their eraser, their highlighter, and they never knew the difference. Like they didn't even notice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. They probably thought it was the greatest thing ever. Yes. And you're like, eh, eh, it's all right. It's good for you. Right. It's good for you. Yeah. So when you were, when you were a kid back in school, did you have any favorites? Like, did you, was there any particular items that, that stood out? Like I remember like back when I was in school, which is a long time ago, the original paper made eraser made came out and it was just a tragedy of a, of a product. It was a horrible product, but it was super popular. Did you have anything that you remember using or, or loving at the time?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' You know, I recently found it and I hope I didn't lose it. It could be in our storage unit, but I believe it was Bic made a pen with, it was a half circle and it was a click. It went from side to side.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And I had like a bunch of those in every color. And it's so funny because I loved the shape so much. I recently kept it. And also I just saw it like a couple of years ago and I knew that day I should have just bought it and I didn't, but it was those pencil cases that were two sided and had the built in sharpener.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And had all the little compartments. I love those. They just like popped back up at target a couple of years ago and it was really, really kiddish. And I thought, no, I won't get it, but I should have just taken it for the design alone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, for sure. You, you got like, I, as we know, I, I very much like a childish and kiddish thing. So you just got to go for it. You just got to send it, send it and get the, get the silly stuff.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Hopefully target will bring it back.

== Transition to Fountain Pens ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, so how did that escalate a little bit? Did you ever use fountain pens when you were younger? Did you start using fountain pens later? How did kind of like, not a transition, but just like learning about a new type of stationery come about?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Well, my grandmother was always buying me the Schaefer calligraphy sets when I was young. So like middle school on middle school, she bought me more in high school. So I always use those. And then around 2018, I think it was, I started bringing all of my Schaefer's back out because I was binding my own books and doing like journaling and they look so nice on the paper. And they just had a certain swirl to them that I really liked with my handwriting. So I started using those, but it was so random. I was on a black wing Facebook group and it said, Hey, anyone in your Orlando area, there's an Orlando pen show. It's their inaugural year. And I was like, Oh, that is so cool. A pen show. I've never been to a pen show. That's right up my alley. That'd be amazing. And then I went, it was just, we just Ruben and I did one day and we were so underprepared. We bought $200 and we didn't get anything. I think some poor vendor had pity on me. One of the older guys and like handed us each a preppy. Like he didn't even have us pay for it. Yeah. So, so unprepared. But from then I was like, Oh, I was hooked from, from that day to a year. I went nuts and bought several like actual fountain pens, like the Kaveco Lilliput. And I was buying more Kavecos and more Twisbys. And I was like, okay, so the next year in the Orlando pen show kind of falls on my birthday. I was like, okay, that's going to be my birthday weekend. We're going the entire weekend. And Ruben was like all groans.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' As you know, Ruben.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Not anymore.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' He's a good sport. No, not anymore. I can't say that anymore. The transition is real. So we went the entire weekend and then it just so happened that we met, uh, Tianta and Steve who are now the co-founders of the Orlando pen club and met Joe. I won a pen. I got to sit at a table with you. Yeah. And it's, it's been like rocket speed lighting ever since it's been crazy. And the very first meeting, the pen club meeting, I had approached Joe and been like, Hey, so you have Florida fountain pen. I do photography. I said, I'd love to add more product photography into my portfolio. And he's like, yeah, sure. So come on down. And I went to his place and we started doing a bunch of photos for some pens and some ads and reels. And, um, I had already known then that I wanted to start a YouTube video and channel. Um, but to begin with, I thought it was going to be more photography, but then the pens and stationary kind of took off. But then later on, Joe was like, Hey, did you ever think of doing pen shows? And I was like, yeah, but I don't know how to get to them. Like, I don't know what that entails and all. And then, uh, I believe it was, I was supposed to go with them in Atlanta and I had already committed to helping my mom with the convention. And I was like, no, no, I got to do that. But he's like, how about triangle? And I was like, Oh, I could do that. That'd be fine. And we drove up with him and his wife, Angela, Ruben and I, and took all the pens and went and set up. And I became a vendor from then on. And this past show that we were just at triangle marks like two or three years. I was going to say, yeah, yeah. Three years. That's our third anniversary.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Wow. That's super cool. That's super cool. So you got hit with, um, what a lot of first time pen show attendees get hit with what, well, you got hit with two things. One, the overwhelm, right? Like it's despite the size of the show, which Orlando the first year being on the smaller side, it's irrelevant to someone who's just walking into the show.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' That room for the first time. It's seriously overwhelming. Number two, you got the first taste is free preppy. Yeah. From one of the vendors. Yeah. And I had done like the pilot varsities before that, but then the preppy, I don't know. That whole show just set, set a whole chain of event. And I got the brass lily put and I carry that thing everywhere and it just spiraled out of control.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's a really fun one. The brass lily put, it's such a unique pen. Um, it's not for everybody, but like if it clicks for you, it's super fun. And I think I still see you carrying it. Like later we'll talk about like your notebooks and your traveler stuff. I think I've seen that when I've like looked at some of your notebooks and stuff. I've since gotten like three more of them. Yeah. As it happens. Was that the first fountain pen you bought? Do you recall like out of your own money? Like, did you, do you recall what the first one is that you bought?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Probably. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I believe, I mean, besides the pilot varsity, I think that was the first real one, um, where I was like, oh my God, I spent this amount of money on my pen. But before that, I actually have video of it because Ruben and I around the same time we started my YouTube channel, we were doing a theme park YouTube channel and he was doing a vlog. And I have footage, I believe Ruben still has it, of me buying a space Fisher pen and me walking out of the store going, oh my God, I spent like $65 on this pen. So, I mean, that's technically the first, but the first fountain pen, definitely the brass caverco.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's super interesting. Yeah. I love that. It's, God, it gets you quickly. It does. Like you start making excuses like really early on. It's like, I can't just, I can't believe I just spent $65 on this pen. And then it's like, give it a month and like you, you've just like opened up this wound and it's just, you know, now being filled with stationery for the rest of your life, which is good. Yeah. We love it. So you had already been doing YouTube. You transitioned me perfectly. Um, what made you want to start doing some of the fountain pen content?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So I thought I could merge. I thought I did feed your creativity because I thought that's perfect. It could encompass everything. My photography, my filmmaking. And I love stationery and pens. And I thought, why not? Why not try it? And I have a video from the antiquarian book fair because I thought, oh, I could, I could just group all these together under one channel and it'd be feeding your creativity. So that's kind of what I was thinking, but I had already, I knew my theater program was going to be done and that they were closing the doors on us. And I thought, you know, that would just be so cool to inspire people. Yeah. And then I've always loved stationery and I don't know, Ruben and I were talking about that the other day. I don't know what made me go, let's film this Orlando pen show this time, but it just took off.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And I mean, I have like, if you look back at the earliest videos, I have like some of the zine and I went to a zine fest that I had my own photography and made my own zines and the book content. But for some reason, the pens just took off. And I think it helped going to so many shows and recording them. Yeah. Because I didn't see it too much. And I was following a bunch of YouTubers that were doing stationery content. I was like, this is a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So just further inspired me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But the show, the show content is, is kind of evergreen in that people are always just curious about what that type of events like.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' True.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Whether you're a first time attendee, like you might've been the first time you went to Orlando, or even if now I've been to save someone like myself, who I've been to Orlando several times, I've been to these other shows several times. I still want to see what's going on because it changes every year. Like once I'm into it, it's like, I'll always go and watch that type of content. And then like pen specific content is, you know, people are always looking for information on that. So yeah, I think, I think it's great. And you were obviously like naturally predisposed to, to doing like the video content just from your background. Right. Right. Just creating that came pretty easy for you. Yeah. Generally speaking.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Right. Yeah. We thought we have the skills, why not use them? And I mean, people don't, we know how much work goes into it, but it's crazy that like we could film for three days and then Ruben takes 20 to 50 hours editing. We were at a little craft fest and I had subscribers come up to me Friday and they're like, oh my God, I'm so excited for the video. And then Saturday morning, they were all screaming at Ruben, where's the video? Where's the video? And he's like, no, no, no. It's like a combination of all three days. And I got to go home and I got to edit. Yeah. It's so funny, but yeah, it's a lot of work and effort, but thank God we had the skill for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And the talent and the love and the passion. I think one passion feeds the other, which is really fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I always try to explain that to people. It's like, yeah, not everything's a VOD. Right. You don't just throw it up there and go live. Right. So you, you mentioned little craft fest and some of the videos you're shooting from on locations. And you mentioned, uh, Florida found the pen and Joe, um, who also runs the Orlando pen show. We'll talk about that here in a little bit. Um, what did you think when he did ask you to hit the road and help with, with pen shows? Like what? That's a lot of like time and effort driving the, driving the van around. Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' The pen surprise. Oh, at the time he didn't even have the van. He had a truck. Okay. So it was even, even more of a traveling journey, but I was all for it because I've always been freelance for video and photo. So I was like, Oh great. Another freelance job. I could jump. Even at the theater, I was still freelance.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That makes sense.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. If I had a photo or video job and we were in the middle of a production, they'd be like, hand me your binder, go off. We'll see in a week. So they were always super, super helpful. The director there, Frank Blocker, he was just always so supportive of that. And he knew I had a passion and love for photography and filmmaking, just always fed into it, which was fantastic. Always would help me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you think, or did you plan on going into it when you're going out to these shows is like, Oh, I can just double up and make some content as well.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what I told Joe, like how it's great to work with you, but also I would love to film the video. I was there. I said, if it was kind of like, can I do both? And he's like, yeah, I don't, I don't see why not. And we've made it work since then. And it's been great because I've, it's like, we're advertising for him. I'm advertising for the show. We're advertising for multiple vendors. We're helping out mom and pop. We're helping out big companies by showing off their products. So it's been wonderful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I love seeing the purple van at pen shows in the parking lot.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Very recognizable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What is the longest amount of time you've spent on a van road trip?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So Baltimore took us, not this year, the previous year, 16 and a half hours. And I literally could not function the next day. I have, I'm going to, I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to tell a funny story because we were, it was our table at Baltimore. We had Rich of Riversity behind us and next to him, they kept saying Lauren, but I didn't know her as Lauren. I knew her as Lucky Star Pens. So I'm telling Ruben, I was like, I got to find Lucky Star Pens. They have that ink. It's going to sell out. And then Rich is like, are you okay? I was like so tired. So this year we did better, but yeah, it was like 16 and a half hours. We were all pretty, pretty cooked from that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey, I'm sure a lot of people just call her Fly Girl Elliot too. Just, you know, from the old Instagram handle. That's all I always have to remember, but that's, that's great. It, um, the carny, the carnival, the, the, the traveling carnival will do that to you. It will.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So, um, their longest trip is coming up St. Louis. We break that into two days, but it's like 22 hours.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So, and yeah, y'all are dropped just for people who don't know y'all are, we talking a lot about Florida and Orlando. So from the Orlando area to St. Louis, about 22. Ooh, that's rough. So leave a, leave ahead of time, but it's great. I didn't realize that you're able to like break it up. Like the freelance work that, that you took it as like this opportunity is like, well, this is kind of like how I operate to begin with. So let's just go for it. And how do you think that's been working out so far?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Oh, I've absolutely loved it. It's, it's been so incredible because now I have Penn family all over the country and then we gather all over the country. It's so incredible to think that way. And I love DC Penn show because it still amazes me. This will be year three and it still amazes me how a group of like-minded people can take over an entire hotel. And not only that, we completely sell it out and go to different hotels. Like you can't turn.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like every square inch of that hotel.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. You can't turn any which way and not see a Penn person or someone, you know, which I think is so wonderful and so lovely. And the community has been so helpful that it's been fantastic. It's been a fun, fun time. I'm so grateful. I get to do so many shows. I mean, this year we're going to close out probably at nine. I mean, nine's on the books, but I'm hoping to add maybe one or two more towards the end of the year.

== Sponsorship Introduction ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I love it. That's crazy. All right. I want to keep talking about Penn shows and another event you were at just recently. But first I want to talk about our good friends over at Enigma Stationery. So this episode of the Penn Addict is brought to you by Enigma Stationery. They offer unique items made from in-house designs along with top brands and hard to find imports. So I've been a long time customer of Enigma before they started sponsoring the show. And recently they have started to work with us and they'll have a Penn Addict specific landing page that we will send you to enigmastationery.com slash Penn Addict. You can go there and see some of the Penn Addict favorites. And oh my, I appreciate the team at Enigma putting up with me because if you go over to the Penn Addict listeners page, I have a business frog problem. And they have filled the Penn Addict listeners page with all of my favorite business frog items from stickers, stamps, pins, PIN pins and PEN pins as well. So go check out Enigma Stationery. And I was looking at some of their new items. So there's two things. And Tony, you might be into some of this. I was, I bought some little stamps from them where that you use ink pads with, and I'd been looking for different color ink pads and I didn't really notice them, but now they have a bunch in from a company called Sukineko Memento. Those are my favorite. Do drop dye ink. Are they? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I will have to get into this. There's like nine colors right now. Teal Zeal, Grape Jelly, Sweet Plum, Tangelo. I'll have to get some Tangelo going. So yeah, next order I'll place, I'll get, I bought the stamps. I didn't buy any more ink pads because I had a couple, but now that I see these colors, these look fantastic. And they got some really cool sticky notes over there. Daigo, Isshoni, Yarimono sticky notes. But what's interesting about these, they're in graph and they come in a lot of colors. So Enigma Stationery is always bringing in cool, fun, fun stuff from business frog to stamp and journaling accessories to really everything you need. So if you want $10 off on your orders of $50 or more, head over to enigmastationery.com slash pinaddict. Use the code TPA26 at checkout. That's enigmastationery.com slash pinaddict to get $10 off on orders of $50 or more with the code TPA26. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for their support of this show and all of Relay. All right. Recently, and I'm sad I couldn't make it this year, but Florida Stationery Fest happened.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So are we.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I know. I know. It was, you know, it's a busy, busy life. I had to go to the beach, you know. Beach, Stationery Fest. Vacation is important, but we have a beach next time. I know, I know, I know. But I got to make it down there because we've spoken before and people on the show know that Orlando is like maybe five hours from me, five, five and a half hours from me. So it's easy for me to get to the Orlando Pen Show and now Stationery Fest. What did you think about Stationery Fest this year? A quick preface. This is different from the Orlando Pen Show and it's more stationary focused. And we've seen over the past few years how Stationery Fests are mixing in with what we would consider a traditional pen show. And I personally love to see it based on all the things that I like and all the things I use in my daily stationary life. How did you think the Florida Stationery Fest went? Because just from an outsider, it looked kind of epic.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' It went extremely well. We were really, really excited with how many people came out and supported it. And we're like, oh, thank goodness it's finally here. Like something in our area is finally here. So we were really excited and people immediately were already like, OK, when's the next one? And the vendors were like, when's the next one? So we knew that was a good sign that everything went really well.

== Orlando Pen Show Comparison ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So compared to like the Orlando Pen Show, could you tell like a vendor difference like from like the area? It was pretty noticeable. When I was looking at pictures, it was noticeable to me. But you can only see so much from pictures. But like you felt it was a different enough crowd to be like standalone individual events.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Definitely. We had only two or three pen makers and then only two or three pen tables really that were dedicated pens. But I was really interested in seeing what crowd would come out because we do have the Orlando Pen Show built in like that audience. So I was like, I'm wondering what the crowd will be like. But now the stationary people came out in full force. But then so did the pen people. Yeah. So it was such an interesting mix. But yeah, we had some amazing stationary people that were one or two people.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And it was fantastic. And they were around our area. St. Augustine, St. Pete, Tampa, Sarasota. They came from everywhere. Jacksonville. It was so much fun to see all the stationary people kind of converge. And then also we had two or three people from California, one person from Canada that did cards. And it was wonderful to see. And it was definitely a different feel and crowd. I mean, I hosted my very first event on Friday with a make and take. And I was like, oh, my God, no one's going to come. No one's going to want to do that. And we maxed out at 43. Oh, it was supposed to be like 40, but we were able to fit the three people that came in. So it was amazing to see that. And I had gone to a stamp and scrapbook fest in the beginning of March and got one of those vendors to come to our stationary fest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And she was just it was it was fun because I haven't seen that melting pot of stationary pens and scrapbooking and stamps. So it was kind of fun to have a little tasting of all of it for people. So but she was like, wow, it's like people don't understand the scrapbooking. I was like, I know that's why I wanted you here because there's so much crossover people don't realize.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. When I went to my first stationary fest event, I it opened my eyes so much to things that I didn't really know about, but that I just had like an innate love for and like desire to learn more about this stuff. And just realizing all the creativity in our space, like we're super lucky to have all of these type of creative makers in our space and see them come together. And then to have a differentiation for, you know, you're talking about maybe going to like, you know, nine events, but like maybe seven of them are your traditional pen shows. Right. Which I love, too. Right. But to have something you can mix up and do something different and check out different classes, right? Different styles of classes are going to be at a stationary fest type event versus a traditional pen show event. There'll be some crossover, of course.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' But yeah, definitely different items at a stationary fest.

== Little Craft Fest Discussion ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I like to hear that there was enough difference between like just Orlando and the Florida stationary fest. It sounds like it's just kind of a great standalone event. Yeah. You also went to Little Craft Fest earlier this year. I have not made it. I have not made it to either of those shows, but I got to get to at least one next year scheduled, depending. Why not both? I know you're saying already. Of course.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' But definitely pick us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Definitely pick you. How was Little Craft Fest? Because that's one I find so interesting because they came out of basically like a retail operation in Houston. Yeah. And in what, three years have just blown the roof? Or two years maybe. This is only the second year. Yeah. Just kind of blown the roof off of it.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. And I'm sad that they announced an October show and I don't think I'll be able to go to it this year. Gotcha. But yeah, now they're going to go twice a year. Little Craft Fest, I think, is like the DC of stationary shows. There was 139 vendors this year. Wow. In a 14,000 square foot marketplace. Plus they have classes going nonstop. It's just like a mega con for stationary. It's a blast. I spent way too much money. I think my haul video took something like four or five hours to film. So Ruben will probably end up making an hour or two long video just to get through the haul. Oh my gosh. And I'm sorry to everyone that it's not out yet. I keep getting DMs and text messages and emails going, when is it out? When is it out? But soon, soon, very soon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Soon.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. Little Craft Fest is just a blast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I have to, I'm not going to say it, you know, with you sitting here on the podcast to make it a priority. But, you know, I'll have to, I have to get, I mean, Orlando is so easy. I can just go to stationary fest.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' No, you've got to go at least to both.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' They're different. They're definitely different. But there, it's amazing to see stationary fest. It is a difference. There's crossover, but it is a difference. And it was a blast this year. And I love how people do swaps and have a free table and everyone's up to the wee hours journaling. And it was a blast. And people were, I was actually in line for a vendor at Little Craft Fest. And this nice woman in front of me was buying a roll of PET tape. And I somehow convinced her. I was like, like eight or ten dollars for a loop. So I didn't have to buy the roll myself. And she's like, ah, we've been in the line long enough, five bucks. And she gave me a loop. Like, this is fun stuff like that that wouldn't happen unless you're at a stationary fest. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's the kind of thing. And I can see why a haul video would take that long. Because it's a little bit different, right? Yeah. It's smaller price points, maybe higher volume of stuff. So you actually, you know, you have a lot more to talk about. Just like a broader set of topics to talk about showing all the things.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And I picked a lot of small items this time, too. Like two die cut stickers from one booth. And a keychain from another booth. And one art print from another artist.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. That's super cool. Just for context, and not to put you on the spot if you don't know, that's fine. The Florida Stationery Fest, like how many vendor tables was that? Do you recall? I can look it up.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' The vendor tables were probably 80. But we had something about 55 vendors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a lot. It was.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' It was. And we did a free table that people were awesome. I had met a lovely woman also named Tony. And she was like, oh, I saw you guys putting stuff out. I went home and went and got you stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, nice.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And then we had a journaling table sponsored by Lighthouse. And Lauren Phelps donated stuff. Sam Flax donated stuff. Danielle with Happiness Handmade donated stuff so we could keep it going all weekend. And it was just so much fun to see people putting stuff together and stamping. And here, I'll take half a sheet. You take half a sheet. And let's make this spread. So it was a blast to see all that creativity happening.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you find anything that you're like, I can't believe I found this at like Stationery Fest or Florida Stationery Fest or Little Craft Fest or something that was surprised or something that was just like, you know, awesomeness overload. Just like, I have to have this.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Oh, yeah. At our festival with the Florida Stationery Fest, actually that scrapbooking lovely woman, Joyce, she has a store called Boku Creations. And she brought washi tape that is really only known, the brand is only known by scrapbookers. It has a different name. I'll have to give it to you. But it's a roll of washi tape. But there's points that you cut. So you can do like a layered, it makes a whole photo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I see. Okay. So it's like paint by numbers washi tape.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' In a way, it just has sections that you could cut and then make a whole image from it. That's cool. And it even tells you like the front end, you cut that so you're not continuing the image. And it's a whole block. It was so unique. I was like, how did I not know this? She also had like a six by six inch square of washi tape. That was one sheet that you could cut from it or just cover a book with it. And I was like, that is incredible. I've never seen that before. And then for a little craft fest, I was shocked that Ruben and I were buying like sweaters and shirts with the whichever artist's artwork on it. It was just gorgeous. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. I like that kind of stuff.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. It was so unique. And it was awesome because Ruben wore his sweatshirt the next day and the artist was like, oh my God, you're wearing the sweatshirt. That's awesome. And then I bought like so many key chains this year. I bought like 12 key chains and they really got me because I love ducks and they had like four boots just of ducks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll have to look. I'll make a racket around here. I have a duck from you. I think it's sitting right over here, but I'll reach it while I'm on here. I don't want to make too much of a noise while I'm on the show. But yes, you do like ducks.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's super cool. Just thinking about like something like the scrapbook lady with like the sheet of washi tape is like, huh, I'm sitting here thinking about that. I've never heard of that. And all I can think about is why haven't I heard that before? Because that's kind of how I use it anyway. It's just kind of like randomly ad hoc.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah.

== Road Trips and Shows Transition ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, why not in a sheet that I can just cut out? Okay. You'll have to send me the links. So we'll have these links on the show notes, show notes for y'all. All right. I want to talk a little bit more about the road trips and doing the pen shows and a few of those things and what the rest of the year looks like. I want to talk more about your YouTube channel. I have a lot of things I want to talk about, Tony. But first, let me talk about our second sponsor, our good friends over at Squarespace. So this episode of the Pen Act is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. So I've been using Squarespace. It's got to be coming up on a dozen or more years. At this point, the blog's always been hosted this year. Then later on, I added in the shop feature, which just this week, I added in a new product, a Midori MD product notebook with a Pen Act foil stamping on in the Squarespace shop. It makes it easy for me to just create that item in the store and put it for sale. I can create a SKU. I can add the inventory. I can add in the shipping weights and do all the things that I need to sell any products that I collaborate on. And I get notified when I have low stock levels on other products that I haven't been keeping up with. And I can go in and update those super quickly because Squarespace makes it easy. They also allow you to upload your video content, which is something I keep saying I'm going to do. I got to test it out over on Squarespace because you can organize your entire video library and showcase your content on their own dedicated video pages. You can even set access to like membership videos or class videos, tutorials, anything like that, which is great for online courses and premium workshops. So head over to squarespace.com slash Pen Addict for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the code Pen Addict and save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash Pen Addict. Offer code Pen Addict to get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for the Pen Addict. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. What's been the most fun Pen Show, stationary show you've been to in your travels so far?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I think it would have to be DC Pen Show last year, 2025.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I've never had so much fun filming the video. And also it was just chaos. It was. Thursday we waited until like midnight when everyone left the main ballroom and flew a drone and did my intro.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, wow. Yeah, super cool. How did I miss that?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' That was amazing. And I loved the shot just looks crazy. And I think because someone had mentioned they're like, oh, I didn't like I watched your video, but I didn't really get the sense of scale. So then last year I was like, OK, we're going to we closed all the ballroom doors and we're like, we're going to find the drone inside. So it's like a stealth mission. It was pretty amazing. It was pretty amazing. So and then we had Asterovrook launched a pen. They launched Funky Town there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's right.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I got to see how they launched a pen. It was all crazy. They had lights and music on and they gave freebies. And then they let me have the pens overnight. And we kind of reviewed them a little bit out of that to the video. Then we had a Black Pen Society meetup. And we had that in there with Paul Arano, the Grand Puba and everyone that came out. So I think that video was definitely my favorite.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' That was definitely my favorite show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that shows a great one. And I always recommend DC just because the I mean, the size can be overwhelming, especially if it's your first time. I still say kind of go for it, but go for a few hours in the afternoon.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Or go on Sunday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, go on Sunday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But it's got a great variety of vendors.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's super fun to get to see kind of everyone in one place. You know, a couple of the bigger shows in the U.S. like DC and San Fran. You get like really good representation from lots of brands, lots of places around the world. Yeah. Lots of people travel in.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' San Fran is at like the top of my list. We have not gone there yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. You'd love it. It's as crowded as DC, but a little bit more packed in, which makes it tough. So hopefully they can. I keep I'm not, you know, speaking out of pocket here. Everyone knows they need a little bit bigger space. But the vendor list is like tier one. Like it's crazy, crazy good. But DC is just as good, just different, you know. And I love DC. I was at that show. I missed the Funky Town launch. I was supposed to be there. I ran up there about when they were wrapping it up. And it was great, though. It was fun to see all that going on. And I like that you are able to mix in that type of live content, right? You can give us the show experience, too. Yeah. But you can jump in and do some pen specific stuff. Is that something that you're looking forward to doing more of? Do you like doing like the broader show stuff? Do you like to mix in the more specific product stuff? Like what do you what are your thoughts on that?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I'm hoping to do like more pen reviews and journaling reviews and different like journal. Here's my journal setup and tips and tricks. So I'm hoping to add more of those videos to the lineup as well. We've just been traveling so much. It's been get whatever show content we can and then haul video and then go to the next one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, really. Like you said, you just got back a few hours ago, literally, as we're recording this. So do you know what shows are on the calendar for the rest of the year?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. So next is up is St. Louis at the end of June. And then I'm doing a two day crop down near me in Estero. So you literally just stay and journal for two days and scrapbook and make cards and do make and takes. And you get your own like six and a half foot table and set up. I think I'm going to add a little chaos to it because I don't have my 12 by 12 scrapbook anymore. I'm going to bring my travelers and my junk journal. So I'm really excited to do that and hopefully I'll get to film some of that. And then we have DC Penn Show. We're doing Paper World Orlando, which is a one day event new to the area, which I'm really excited for. I got to meet one of the show organizers at Little Craft Fest this year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And then Orlando International Penn Show in September.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Nice. I like it. I mean, it is near the Orlando International Airport. So I feel like that's correctly named just like the Baltimore Washington International Penn Show. Yes. You're going to have to send me the link on the two day scrapbooking class because I am going to get questions about that.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And this is the small one. They do four or five days where they actually build a store in the hotel.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. My ears perked up. I think probably a lot of listeners perked up. So you'll have to send me a link to put it. I'll make sure to get that from you so we can put it in the show notes because I will get questions. We'll do.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I'm super excited.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, what else has you excited about like content? Like what do you like really want to do like in the stationary space? Like if you had like carte blanche and could, you know, film something and share that story with the world, like what do you want to do?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Oh, I would do like full on documentaries. Actually, I was in the talks with Sam Flax of Orlando. Their story is so incredible and they help so many young artists get their start just out of the kindness of their heart and just a hope and a prayer that they were going to be someone and be able to pay it back or pay it forward or both. So I would love to do documentaries. But also I want to do like international travel where we cover like the Tokyo Pen Show, the Singapore, the Dutch, the Manila and even more store tours. I just did a store tour at Papier Plume and it's gotten such a great response because the owner, Patrick, was super kind and sweet and let us just kind of crash the place on the way back from Little Craft Fest. And it was so fun just getting to interview him and hear a little bit of the story of Papier Plume and his store is just located in the most historic part of the French corner. It's just incredible. And I just that filming that video was so amazing because it made me go back to like my guerrilla filmmaking days because we literally got to New Orleans from Texas, had two hours of parking because that was the minimum. And just booked it down three blocks, filmed in the two hours and came back to the car. Wow. So and then we went to a Cafe du Monde and filmed the hall and had that whole atmosphere in the park. It was just so much fun. So I would love to do more store tours. It's crazy that the Chamberlain book mine, I get so many comments on my videos. Hey, can you go do the book mine? Yeah. And my antiquarian book fair video that still is going to come out, I actually found the only fountain pen in the entire building. And my friend was with me, one of my best friends, Chanel, was with me. And she's like, how did you do that? You found the one pen in the entire building. And the book guy is someone we go to every single year. And he's like, yeah, it just came with a lot of books. I don't really know what to do with it. And it was a Schaefer. It was a Schaefer balance. And I had Jerry Berg rebuild it for me. And now I think I got him down to like $40 for this pen. Now it's probably $400 or $500 with the repair and everything. So they're like, wow, fountain pens just follow you everywhere. I was like, I know, isn't it magical?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. Once you're in, like you see things, right? Yeah. Like you can't help like everywhere. Like in kind of unrelated, even though like books are kind of adjacent still. Like at that, you just don't expect to see it. But like someone like you, you're going to notice that. And then what's cool is someone like you or someone like me is going to ask a question about that. Yeah. Because now we have like this talking point that is like, oh, we're here for this other thing. But now we can have this conversation because I see this pen over here. And, you know, they may not know nothing, know anything about it or whatever, but it's fun.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Thank God he just wanted to get rid of it because it was good for me. But he was like, yeah, it was just thrown in a box of books he had gotten. Just this gorgeous Schaefer. Jeez. That's awesome. It had definitely been through the wringer, like the clip. I mean, Jerry Burke had to restore everything. Yeah. But it came out gorgeous. But Jerry's like, please promise that this is a desk pen. It's been through enough. And I was like, I promise. I promise. But it's gorgeous. And it sits on my desk proudly. And I have a great story with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's amazing. That's what we love the most about it is getting to tell stories. All right. Tell me what else sits on your desk because I know you're an avid journaler. I've seen some of your Traveler's Notebooks. I have some of your Traveler's Notebooks charms. What are the kind of things that you're using right now that get you excited or that gets you through your day?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So at Triangle, I was across the way from Adopt-A-Pals. They're like 3D printed little critters and animals. And it's incredible because I believe she's 13 now running her own business with the help of her parents. And her sister has an incredible ceramicist business going. But I got this adorable little duck at Triangle. So that sits there. I got a spider. I got some lovebirds. They had this amazing yet ridiculous dinosaur that kind of was our companions in the hotel room. I got me one. Ruben got one. So that has definitely been sitting there. And then finally, I got a Pengineer 3D vial holder.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So nice. Have that sitting there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I picked up my first Pengineer 3D at Atlanta this year. Awesome. I got the pen stands one. But I have the base with two in it so I could swap one out to a vial stand if I wanted to. Which is super smart. Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. I have his holder for the ink. But I mainly keep that in my kitchen where I fill all my pens. But I have cats. So I was really excited to have that. Yeah. So they're not knocking bottles over. And then I have something new that I was given at Triangle that will absolutely be sitting on my desk and or a display case. Are you ready for this, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm ready. I'm ready.

== Desk Items and Collectibles ==

'''Toni Palumbo:''' It is Little Hollow Custom and The Abyss Looks Back. Monster Finger pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Come on. That's unfair. Yeah. Okay. So I've seen these since Logan started making them. Yes. And I'll put a link in the show notes if y'all aren't familiar. That's the coolest one I've seen yet. But we'll put a link in so y'all can see these. I've talked about them before. Especially we've done a Caroline Foti did an interview with Logan and Em and we shared some pictures. But this is crazy.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And we were honored. We got to do some photo and video work for them for these fingers. So Ruben and I have been having a blast doing that. And on Little Hollow Custom, they have a reel that Ruben had done. But it was awesome because they let us customize it. And I wanted glitter and purple. And he's like, I don't think I could do glitter. But what he did, I think, was even better. It's hard to see. I'll have to send you a photo. But he somehow did a clear gloss and then brushed that so the brass could shine through. And it's just incredible. And added some gold to it. It's just really beautiful. It's quite an art piece. But it's going to also be Ruben and I's daily carry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I love it. You've got to use it, right? Oh, yeah. That's the best. A hundred percent. And I did see the video or the short of the finger coming. It was like the cemetery scene. Yes. Yep. That was it. That was good. That was good. That was so good. That was it. I love it. I love it. How many traveler's journal notebooks do you have?

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Covers? Yeah, covers. So I have the regular olive. I have the diners. I have the black wing, which I just keep looking at it. It's just so beautiful with the foilings. And the charm and the matching black wing pencils. I just can't bring myself to use it yet. And that's very bad. I want to use it. Then I have the passport blue and the passport love and trip. And then we were able to stay up till midnight in Houston and grab the new wallet size travelers. Oh, yeah. I got the brown. Ruben got the black. And we literally waited up till midnight to be able to go buy it online and then pick it up at a little craft place while we were in Texas.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I should have done that. So Sarah that writes for the Pen Act, she's like, Brad, if you get me anything to review anytime soon, you know, like this might be the one. And it's like, that's one of those, like you have to chase it down and be ready. And so it's like, sorry, I missed that one. But I'll make it up to you somehow. Wow. Which size and style do you like to use the most? Because I've only seen you carry like the smaller, like the passport size, which was pretty loaded. Yeah. Like you stuff them. Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I always have the passport on me. Now I've been carrying the blue one and my love and trip, the red one. But then I do have my regular one with me. I just don't keep it on me anymore just because it's so gigantic. And with so much. It'll usually be in my journal bag in the hotel room. But I have a massive journaling bag I bring with me. And it was so fun because that triangle, even though it's mainly, not mainly, but there's a lot of vintage there. But it was fun to find some of the vendors and some of the attendees where I bring like a gallon size Ziploc bag and just throw it on the table. And we all had at it. Grab some pet tape, washi tape, whatever you want. And it's fun because that's how you learn too. The one vendor had showed me these washi cards I didn't even know existed. And they're much easier to travel with. But then at our festival of Florida Stationery Fest, Kaleidocraft had the washi wallet that now is like blowing my mind. And so it's so fun to see like what you could find and what people are using. And people have different techniques. Like I had actually it's those stamp pads that you mentioned, the teardrop ones. They have a glitter series.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And they're super easy to travel with. And I just take them and brush the page. Okay, I see. And they add like so much just to fill in that white space.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Oh, see? That's smart. I hadn't even considered that. When you say it, and I think this goes for a lot of like the more general stationary stuff. When you say it, it's obvious. Like you just got to be willing to experiment on some of this stuff and have fun, make a mess, right? Like one of the, I had to, yeah, I had to allow myself years ago to just be more free with the stuff and how it looks and the mess and just the freedom of it. Yeah. Instead of being like very rigid. I was very rigid with my stationary in the early days. And I had to like give myself permission to just, you know, be silly with it and stick tape everywhere and color everywhere. And it doesn't matter, right? It's just for me. And it's just my way to express myself and way to feel something about this stuff, which I think at the end of the day is what we all want to do. Absolutely. Is just, you know, have fun with it. You know, it makes you feel good.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. One of the saddest things I hear is like, I'm not a creative person. You are. You just might not. Maybe you are creative with numbers. I can't be creative with numbers, but maybe you are. That's your creativity. Yeah. So it's always good to play. You have to include play in everything because that's how you kind of grow and evolve and see what works, what doesn't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's how you feed your creativity. That's right. I could say.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And that's what we're here for.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' What I've been carrying with me also too is that Tombow Mono Sand Eraser. Tombow Mono Sand Eraser. If you stamp something, you can quickly like erase that outer edge. Like if you don't clean your stamp.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And you misstamped, you could quickly clean it with that. I've been carrying that to all these shows as well.

== Pen Show Responsibilities ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, get out. Yeah. That would be a problem. Like when I see this kind of stuff, this is how you get in trouble at a stationary show as opposed to a pen show. Pen show, you could see just some wild, crazy pen. You might go check it out or whatever. But you now showed me. We've sat there at night playing around with journaling stuff of what you've thrown on the table. And then tomorrow I'm going to buy like the eraser and the washi tape and all this stuff. It's going to get you. It will. We're going to get you. What else you got going on? Anything else we need to mention? I know I'm going to see you in St. Louis in a couple weeks. You know, maybe we'll have something cooking there.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' That'd be great. Well, we don't have a officially will be announced this week, but I am now going to be the show director for the Orlando International Pen Show 2026.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Get out of town. You didn't even tell me this before show. Like I wouldn't even lean you into that. That was a surprise to me. Yay. I love it.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I'm excited. I can't wait to start working with vendors and.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Divide in and out tables. It's going to be a great show. And I'm so excited. I get to come in on year five like that and celebrate hopefully in a big way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Now you can yell at me directly if I can't make it. I'll just hear directly from you instead of literally the entire Orlando Pen Club yelling at me. Yes.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I mean, we'll still do that on Twitch. Okay. We promise, but.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Fair enough. Fair enough.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's amazing. Okay. I'm excited to hear that. That's a big job. It is. That's going to be fun, though. That's going to be fun, though.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. And I'm so excited to bring your five to people. Yeah. I think it's going to be different. We'll be upstairs. Usually we're downstairs in the ballroom. Okay. But I think we have some ideas that will really surprise people. And our show, Inc. is usually by Robert Oster. And I just want to give a shout out to him because he is so caring and giving. He's giving us like an extra hundred bottles this year for the coral reef relief that the money goes to. So I'm really excited for that, too. Bring them a nice check in the slowest part of the months in Florida. It's just amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'm always a big proponent of the charity and tying in and having a show tie in to help raise money, especially for a local or regional charity. It's super important. I think a lot of shows can and should do that. I think it's a great thing.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. I can't wait. And a couple of the stationary people have jumped in on the pen show. Nice. So that'll be fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll get yelled at if I don't ask you. And you're not going to answer me what colors they ain't going to be.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I don't think I could tell.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See? I know. I can't tell.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' I don't want to get in trouble.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You can tell me after the show. I'll tell you after. I'm really good at keeping secrets. So no, that's unfair. I wouldn't do that to y'all. I wouldn't do that to y'all. No, hopefully. Because now I don't want your secrets because then I have to hold them. I don't want them. That's right.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' But I will tell you, it is going through Australian customs and should be to us very shortly. So we'll be doing a release of what it is. And it is stunning. Okay. We did a gorgeous job. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the show is in September? September.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yes. 10th through the 13th at the Florida Hotel. The same hotel it's been in for the five years, which is awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a great hotel. It really is.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' And the staff is incredible. And I just got to learn about the owner a little bit while we were there for the Florida Stationery Fest. And he is an incredible businessman and like actual human. Like he cares about his workers, which you could definitely tell in that hotel. Yeah. That people care.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's one of the more multi-day, if you're staying for a multi-day event hotel for a pen show, it's one of the more convenient and enjoyable stays. Like I think I would pull in on like Friday morning and not leave till Sunday. Oh, yeah. Like you'd never need to. It's very good for that. So, yeah. Highly, highly recommend.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yeah. There's a – so the Florida Hotel is attached to them all. And they just added a Pop Mart. And then Lush has been there. A crazy cosmetic line that's amazing. And they're like, what are you guys doing next door? We've had like a huge uptick in people. And I was like, yeah, it's a stationery show. The same amount of people that went to the stationery show seem to have found the Pop Mart and the Lush. Oh, and the chocolate. Swiss chocolate place.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. It's a good place. It's a good place. All right. I think with that, we'll get you out of here. Any last things to plug? And we'll wrap it up. And we'll reconvene here in a few weeks.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Yes, we'll be in St. Louis. And in St. Louis, I'll be selling charms that I got to collaborate with Faber-Castell. Oh, nice. They're charm keychains. And it's in promotion for their 265th anniversary.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's crazy.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' So, I was so honored to be a part of that. Yeah. And be a little part of their history and be able to celebrate with them. So, what I didn't sell at the Florida Stationery Fest, I'm going to bring to St. Louis. And if anything's left over from St. Louis, I'll be selling online. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awesome. So, we'll keep an eye out for that. I will definitely be checking them out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Tony, thank you. Oh, go ahead.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Wait. Are you bringing those notebooks to St. Louis? Come on, Brad. Tell us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will. I will. I can. Yeah. Just yell at me. Awesome. Anyone who wants me to bring notebooks to St. Louis, tell me. Because, yeah, we'll decide how much room I need to pack.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Well, you already got two of me and Ruben, so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. All right. Well, you're the best. Tell Ruben he's all right, too.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' We'll do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I appreciate your time. I'll have all the links we talked about. I'll have links to all of Tony's stuff that y'all can go check out everything online. And I really appreciate you joining me. Thanks again to our sponsors this week, Enigma Stationery and Squarespace. I'm your host, Brad, from The Pen Addict. You can find everything I do over at penaddict.com. And until next time, say goodbye, Tony.

'''Toni Palumbo:''' Bye, everyone. Thank you so much, Brad. This was awesome. Have fun. crafts crafts Have a good one.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 496/transcript

2026-06-11T14:12:58Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 496
| title = Pen TMZ
| date = January 12th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/496 Episode 496]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_496.mp3 Audio Episode 496]
| length = 51
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 496. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hey, Myke. How's it going? Good, my friend. How are you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm very good, I think. You know, I always say that. I was like, I know Myke's going to ask me how I'm doing. I'm always going to say very good. But am I? Am I really? And actually, yes, I am. I'm very good. So, hey, it's good to be very good every Wednesday to record this show. Myke, only four episodes until episode 500.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Don't mention it.

== Reset Theme ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' As listeners can tell, we have completely not thought about episode 500. Y'all should be set up to be let down.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I think.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Look, I was thinking about this earlier. I give up, yeah. I was thinking about this earlier. Here's what we'll promise you. That we'll do it. That's the promise. The promise is we will be recording episode 500 on February 9th. That's the promise, right? That's all we have committed to. And it has taken, at points in the last couple of months, a lot of work to keep that commitment.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But that's the commitment we're making. Outside of that, we make no promises for what that episode's going to be.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, there you go. That's the best we can do. When in Rome, we'll promise. We'll promise something. All right. We had some really good follow-up this week that I wanted to get to. First bit around my theme, where last week I talked about my theme for the year being the year of the reboot. But I also mentioned that I had real trouble if that word is the word that I want to use to define my theme. And emailer Kelly sent me an email who said, I think the word you're looking for is reset, right? Because the reboot can be this big, broad thing. And I'm wanting that transition reset as I move from task to task to be able to flip this switch, kind of move into work to play or play to relaxation or relaxation to work. Like, you know, it's a reset, you know, not really a reboot. That seems that's a little bit bigger of a word. And reset, I think, is a more accurate word for like what I'm thinking about in like a little bit of a shift. What do you think about that word?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Reset's good. I still want to, I think I pushed it last time and I'll push again, foundation. It's a really good theme name that I wished I would have used that name for my theme because it was quite similar to yours in a way last year. Yes. Yeah. And I used the year of reinvention, which is not too far away from what you're saying. And in doing the review, came across foundation and realized that I liked that way more. So both of these work, ultimately, you've got to go with what feels right for you. Right. What, you know, like what makes sense to you on a poster, you know, like of your life kind of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. So Kelly had a couple of good points in the email. One was like consider creating a ritual between, you know, in that, you know, reset phase. Right. What is the ritual between, okay, work is done for the day and now I'm free. Like my brain is free. My mind is free. But like, is there something that's like a marker, right? That ritual. Right. And then secondly, I've had this before or had these thoughts before about the racing brain, right? Like the brain just constantly going as making just like a trash notebook, essentially. Right. Like just a complete garbage notebook that you can just like literally scribble in. And I mean that in the most, you know, exact sense of the word, like just grab the notebook and just draw a bunch of lines, scribble, you know, whatever comes out, comes out. And that notebook is for that just trying to, you know, rewire your brain for a second, you know, whether it's, you know, in the middle of the day or in the evening. And, you know, just try to try to escape for a second, but have like a kind of a no commitment notebook type of situation that just gets purely destroyed and, you know, tossed when you're done with it. So I thought that was some good stuff.

== Foundation Discussion ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was thinking maybe habit could also be an interest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I hate that word. Right. But that's an entire other podcast. Like I don't hate that word. Like I get the word, but like it's got some of the like hashtag productivity connotations that I. Yeah. I just can't. I can't. It's the whole thing. Which is good. Like I've tracked. I track a lot of things. Right. But like the the recurring scheduling habit and stuff, it's just the whole whole thing for me. So I like I'm like I believe in habits, but I don't like go like full like habit habit days. Yeah. In the way that I do things. It's never really worked for me in the full sense of the words. But I do know that that's a very it's a very positive term. But like I just I don't do good with it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' OK.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just me. Just me. So I like reset. I'm going to look at I wrote down foundation. I'll think about this a little bit more. But I'm still the whole point of this is like this is a process. Right. Like today we don't solve the reset. Right. But we think about it and we work on it, you know, for the rest of the year and the years to come. Right. That's that's what this is about. So I appreciate the feedback, Kelly, and I think it was very, very smart. And I like it a lot. Second bit of feedback, Myke, from another smart listener by the name of CY from our friends over at Tokyo Inklings reached out about the Sailor Bespoke conversation we were having. Yeah. And he let me know. And I think you were copied in these tweets that this is actually what we were talking about. The website, the Sailor Bespoke website was the Sailor customization that you could physically do at the Ancora shop that CY had talked about going in and doing. So this is the next phase in that original customization and building. I like to build a pin or build a gear. Right. The build a pro gear at the physical shop. This is now the online version of that. And like I asked, like, where are these pins being built and CY confirmed that they're actually built at the factory. You know, you order on site, you order through the website, factory build, like all the parts are made. It's just an assembly type of thing. And that's how they'll be able to like shift in like, hey, this is this limited edition barrel type of type of thing. He also mentioned that I forgot to mention that the Naginata nibs are available as an option on these, which is a big deal. And I saw that before and it was in my notes and I forgot to mention it. So that's one of the Sailor Bespoke nibs that they're offering with this. Obviously a premium price on that. And I couldn't get that exact premium off the website. I'm a several hundred dollars premium. But what's good about that is for someone like myself who actually has always wanted one of those nibs. The only option for me to easily get in the States was that nib in a standard black pin with gold trim. Right. Right. So which has never been something that I'm interested in for that pin. So I would hold off. And now I can look at that nib. Still just a gold plated nib. Right. The other 21 carat Pro Gear nibs for this bespoke thing you can get in the rhodium plated or the ionized plating. But I can get the Naginata nib at least in a cool barrel that speaks to me a little bit more than the basic barrel that it ships in for now. I think the model, if you get the Naginata nib and just the basic black and gold barrel, I think it's around $600 US, somewhere in that ballpark. So I imagine there'll be a little bit more in that custom thing. And I don't know that that's ever going to be something like totally worth it for me. But that is pretty cool. I think that Sailor is doing that as an option to have that specialty aspect into this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. And hopefully we get them one day. I did have a vague memory when we were talking about this last week, feeling like we'd spoken about it before. But what we had spoken about before was that store thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the thing we mentioned, I mentioned last week, like the website, when you go to the Sailor Bespoke website, the shop link is to the Ankora store. Yeah. Right. Like it's not just like to Sailor's main website. It's to Ankora itself. So anyway, this is cool. Like if they keep working on this and building on this, like, and I feel like the price is right for it. I think it could be a thing. You know, it might be something. I don't know if we'll ever, like, you know, if they'll be able to like ship to the US type of thing, like a worldwide type of thing. But it's fun to watch and see what happens here. So I think it's pretty cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe. Maybe.

== Sailor Cocktail Series Launch ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And since we've been missing out on so much Sailor news, Myke, I thought we'd talk about a new Sailor launch real quick. Yeah. One that you might be interested in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Things have changed. But the Sailor cocktail series has always been a real popular series. The first series was, what, 12, 15 pins? Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've never owned one of these. I've never had one. I've never got one of the cocktail ones.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have never owned a cocktail one either. And now they have cocktail series two. So this is five pins based on gin drinks. So I don't know what most of these drinks are outside of the gin martini. There's an Argentina, a Blue Train, a Violet Fizz, and around the world. Yeah. Great looking pins.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let me tell you right now. What do you think? This set, I think, includes the very best cocktail-themed pro gear they've ever made. Can you guess which one I'm talking about? I think the gin martini. It is absolutely perfect. I agree. It is. The main body of the pen is like frosted clear, like the alcohol. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the grip section and the end finial are olive green. And the end finial on the cap is the, what is it that is inside of the olive, the little red thing? The pit. The pit. Yeah. It's the color of the, no, like, you know when they, you know when you get an olive and they put that red part in the middle, like, they hole it out and they put it in there and oh, man, what is that called?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I don't know. I'm not an olive or a martini person, so. It's, oh.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know if it's a pepper. Is it not like a.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I always thought it was the pit. Pimento.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that's it. Yeah. I think that's the word I'm looking for. But it's pimento, the pepper, whatever it is that goes inside. But it's the red.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like that visual that everyone knows. Pimento was what I wanted to say. Yeah. So it's that color.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's, it's just absolutely perfect. It's really, really fantastic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? Like, it's, it's the least, like, visually stunning, right? When you're sitting next to, like, orange pens and mint green pens and purple and blue. But it's the most accurate, correct representation of an idea.

== Vodka Martini Pens ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's also, like, if you like vodka martinis, this is, it's the exact same color palette, right? Like, it would work just as well. Yeah. I think this absolutely, they nailed it with that one. The rest of them, I mean, they just look fun, right? Color-wise?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They look like they've done, yeah, they look like they've done them before. Especially the orange. Like, they've done a lot of orange. I think the blue train is actually one of the more interesting ones. They've done a lot of blue pens, but not in this type of setup. Yeah. The purple and the green are, you know, pretty common types of mix and match colors that they use a lot of. But yeah, I think it's cool. Like, all these are the standard Pro Gears, the 21, 21 karat gold nibs, you know, the full-size Pro Gear. They're all at the new price point, you know, which makes them probably like around $380 US.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, if you've got, you can buy, so Fontaplumo, the link for Fontaplumo in the show notes, they've got them all up here. You can buy it all five at once. You can buy a set, yeah. And it's 16, oh, that's not including VAT. Ah, you see, that's how they get you. So they're like, yeah, $390 each. You don't get any, if you buy the whole thing, they're $390 each. So it's like €1950 including VAT. So you do not really get savings for buying all five at once. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think these will be popular. This is also an international release, which means not available in Japan, I believe is how they define international. But, so this will be a worldwide release if you're interested in these types of pins. You know, you should be able to, you should be able to acquire one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And these are regular size Pro Gear?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the full, the big size Pro Gear.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Ah, $400, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We're going to talk about that in a minute with our wonderful show sponsor. I actually have a tip, a pro tip. I love pro tips. When we get into our good friends at Penchelle, let's talk about them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Penchelle sell everything you're looking for from all of the brands that you love. Whether you want a rollerball or a fountain pen, maybe you want something from Sailor, maybe you want something from Caveco or Monteverde. They've got everything. They do very fast and reliable customer service. Penchelle have fantastic deals. And every couple of weeks, you're going to find new fantastic sale prices over at Penchelle, as well as brand new products being added all the time. Penchelle also has limited edition products and accessories. So whether you're looking for refills, inks, converters, maybe you want some carrying cases, maybe you want some mechanical pencils or, you know, like whatever you're looking for, Penchelle will have it. And there's a few reasons why you should always go there first. You can get free shipping on orders of $50 in the US. They sell internationally with great shipping rates. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. And because you listen to the show, you can get 10% off anything at Penchelle by going to Penchelle.com, clicking the podcast link at the top of the website, and using the password Penaddict. This is where you will get your 10% code, and you'll be able to feast your eyes on some special offers. Isn't that right, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. And this actually has something on the list that I've been shopping for, which is the new Montegrappa Elmo 02 fountain pen. I've talked about how much I love the Montegrappa Elmo. I'm guessing I'm going to call it the 01 now. So this one is a little bit upgraded in like the trim design of the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you think, Brad, that this pen has a problem with Rocco?

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's cool. That's, you know what I was hoping that was going to happen? I like you there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I like you, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Has that gone over your head or did you get it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, I kind of get it. Like, I'm just trying to think of Elmo's pink friend. What's her name? Katie. Katie. Yeah. That's all I'm thinking about. But yes, I get it. Good memes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I enjoyed that one a lot. I'll put a link in the show if you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good job by you. So, yeah, Zoe. That's who I'm thinking of. Zoe. That's who I'm thinking of. Maybe that's like an American British translation thing. I don't know. Anyway. Oh, Zoe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I just got that wrong. Zoe, not Katie.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Zoe. There's also, I'm kind of shocked to see this Visconti opera carousel. These demonstrator ballpoints at a really, really outrageously low price. Like, that's not normally my thing, right? That style. And I know you're not a Visconti clip person, but the price is pretty, pretty great. They also have the Piniter Alchemist, which I think is a killer name for a pin. I think it's a cool color. Yeah, I don't have one of those. So, yeah. And then if you scroll down to the bottom, there's a Platinum 3776. They have a few of the celluloid models, Myke, which people have been checking out in the past.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let me tell you, one of the ones that they've got there is the Cherry Blossom. Yes. It's great. And Adina has that one, and it's awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. All right. So, let me get to you. Before we wrap up this ad, since this is still considered the ad, let me get to this. It's not a tip. It's more of a confusion in a positive way for consumers. So, the Sailor Pro Gear Limited Edition T-Time Series, the red one in the slim body is only $200. And they just came out with this pin. I don't know why the price is not $280, since this is a newly launched pin. It's, if you're into sailors and haven't been able to, you know, justify the price since the price increase, this is a brand new launch, like, within the past month. And the price is crazy low for the red T-Time Series. So, it's, you should check it out. Like, there's not many left. Oh, look at that. But it's only $200, so. It's nice looking, too. Yeah. It's great. It's a great pin. And it's as good a price as you're going to find sailor these days. And you can get it through our good buddies over at Penn Chalet. So, yeah. All right. There's my sailor tip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good one. Go to PennChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and use the password PennAddict by clicking the link for podcasts at the top of the website. Thanks to Penn Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

== Listener Email Segment ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke. A little different segment this week. We get into this, I don't know, a couple times a year, we kind of do, like, a behind-the-scenes business of podcasting, blogging, you know, business of pens type of stuff. And people always enjoy this stuff. And we got a couple of good questions in the email inbox this week that I wanted to kind of roll together and talk about this in one big segment. So, how about I read this email? Read this email. You want to read it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let me read this email. All right. I'll let you read the next one. It's pretty short. This email is pretty short, but it covers a, I have a lot to say about this. So, it says, hi, Brad. Always interested in the podcast and yours and Myke's thoughts. But here's the thing, and it's come up before, and I've never bothered to comment, but why not? So, you made an obverse, oh, this is like last week. See, this is why I should read it. I wouldn't have struggled with the word observation. So, you made an observation about the similarity of the Mayora and Leonardo pens and noted their roots in Delta. You noted that Mayora had bought the Delta name in their leftover stock. But why not go the step further and reach out to the distributors and ask what's up? We are all great admirers of Tokyo Inklings. What distinguishes their podcast is the element of investigative journalism. What happened to Tomoe River? What's happening with the newly reformulated sailor company? What's going on in Ankora? And so on. So, reading Japanese is one thing, but you could reach out as the major authority, this is in all caps, on pens, and ask the distributors at least what's up. Just pointing out the similarities is good, but as our representative, as our journalist, couldn't you use your clout and ask around a little?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, Brad Dowdy asleep at the wheel here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I appreciated this email, and I asked Nick if I could share it on the podcast. That's who sent me the email. And I said, I think this is a good podcast topic. We can address what I think about as I do my job, right? Like, what do I think about, you know, digging into things a little bit more, being an investigative journalist, and asking the tough questions, the hard-hitting questions, right? And putting on my journalist hat and going for it. So, there's a lot I have to say about this. And the first part of it comes up is, what are my goals with what I do, right? So, what are my goals of the Pen Addict, the Pen Addict Podcast, talking about stationery, and, you know, this whole business that I'm in. And while, yeah, I am, you know, one of the authorities. God, I hate that word. You know I don't like that. What did we decide I was? Tastemaker? That was the word. Yeah, tastemaker. The things that get me going about what I do are education, entertainment, and fun, right? And when you start getting into being a journalist, which I'm not, being a newsbreaker, which I'm not, it stops being fun for me, right? Like, I've done those things before where I've tried to, like, sort out, like, the dealings and the backends and figuring out all those things. And I get why people like that type of information and that type of, you know, a lot of it's gossipy, right? I just don't think it's valuable to me to spend time on. I don't think it's worth the drama that comes up from this. I understand that we're dealing with pens here, right? We're not dealing with climate change, right? Like, I'm not trying to dig up, like, all of the business details, right? So, do I passively not ask some of these questions? Sometimes, but sometimes I do ask the questions. So, let's talk about the Delta conversation from last week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wait, can I, before we do?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Please, please, please, please.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, like, I, this, you know, if someone could ask me this question similarly for all of the shows that I do in general. Like, all of the shows I do about Apple and stuff like this. Like, I consider myself, like, sitting in a few different camps of, like, pundit, communicator, and commentator. I am not a journalist. Right. And I have no desire to be a journalist. I do not reach out for comment to come to any tech company. Neither do I entertain it, right? Right. Like, I don't want a PR person blowing up my inbox to try and suggest to me why they're doing the thing the way that they're doing it. Because, by and large, because, look, this is the thing of, well, right, like, companies are only ever going to tell you what they want you to know. Yep. And so, asking for comment all the time constantly is kind of pointless. I feel like there is more interest in us just talking about how something makes us feel and what we think might be going on inside. Like, we can pontificate what's going on inside. And, like, every now and then, it's like on one of my other shows, you know, some of my tech shows, I get to talk to people that work at Apple. And that can be interesting for sure, right? And, like, from the way that we like to approach it, we try and just have conversations rather than, like, why don't you come on and give us a keynote? But, you know, it's like, I don't know. I feel like that there is more to be said from an entertainment perspective from the two of us talking about what we think and how things make us feel than there is really trying to, like, hunt down the answers. And, like, I'm not saying that it's wrong, right, to suggest what was the name of the person you didn't put in the document? The name of the one? Oh, Nick. Nick. Like, I'm not saying that what Nick might want here is wrong, but it's a different kind of thing. Correct. So. Yep. I'm happy. Like, we're happy that Tokyo Inklings exists because every now and then they uncover a thing that we want to talk about. That's exactly right. But I don't want to be the person chasing down Lamy's PR person to try and understand where their colors are this year, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. So, yeah, I think the commentator name is kind of what I landed on as well. I'm not a journalist. I'm not an analyst, right? Like, I'm a commentator about this. So, the Delta thing specifically, before I run back some of the things you just said, because I want to expand on them a little bit more on where I do get information from.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The night after we posted the Delta, last week's podcast, I got a text and said, hey, I have all the Delta information you want. Here it is. And told me all the information.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Did you speak to Deep Throat?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Down in the car park?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and it's all told to me in confidence, right? So, like, it's no longer, it's not going to be a topic on the show. Like, I'm not going to repeat what was told to me in confidence.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, just because I don't talk about the questions doesn't mean I don't have the answers either, right? So, I'm not going to share all the information I have, again, because it goes back to what do I enjoy doing? And it's not getting into the weeds of the...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, frankly, you have the information. You could now share that information. Right. Confidence is nothing if you are that type of journalist. Right. Like, you know, if you feel like there's a story to be told, you can tell the story, right? Right. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I have, like, literally no interest in repeating anything about that conversation. So, Nick mentions about Tokyo Inklings. We obviously love CY and Jacob. We had great follow-up from just the conversation a minute ago, right? That, like, they're, like, really, really good friends. And they have a really, really good relationship with a lot of manufacturers over there or a lot of people in the businesses over there. So, I wanted to discuss, like, where I do get information from. So, like Nick mentions, you know, maybe ask the distributors at least what's up. The distributor is the last person you want to talk to. The distributors are some of my best friends in the U.S. All my distributor friends are going to listen to this. I'm not talking about you specifically, but I'm talking about your job. Your job is to be the PR arm for the companies you represent. So, there will never be any information I get from a distributor that's not, that doesn't have a public relations spin that I can repeat. Sure, I will get stuff, again, in confidence. That is not something I'll ever repeat. And I've never, you know, I've never gone back on my word with anyone that I've ever talked to about business stuff. They told me I can't repeat it or this is, you know, on background. Like, it stays there, right? I'm not in the business of reporting that information. Companies would be nice to talk to. But, again, like Myke's deal, the bigger the company, the more impenetrable they are, right? Like, you're only going to get, you're going to get, if it's a big company, you're going to get talked to my distributor. And, well, that's a no-go because the distributor is only going to give me the PR version of what I want to know. And small companies are willing to talk because they have a more direct relationship to the customer, which gets us to the retailers. That's where we get the most information from. Because the retailers, their number one priority is to take care of their customers. And if they have information that needs to be available for their customers, they're going to do their best to share that. So I get most of my, like, inside info from retailers. And the same thing goes, I think, for, like, CY was able to go to Ancora, work with the salespeople there, and figure out what's going on, right? The retailers are willing to share kind of the ins and outs of what's going on. And, you know, nothing from Sailor Corporate's coming down about this, right? You know, Tomoagawa is a public company. Jacob's able to get the paperwork dealings. And the sailors, a public company, get the paperwork dealings and figure out what's going on business-wise there, right? That's really, really valuable information, and I'm glad they get it. But if I'm going to go to someone, I'm going to retailers. Those are the people on my speed dial for, let's say, the dirt, right? Not stuff that I need to share, but, like, hey, if I really need this information, and I think it's really, then I'm not going to get it from a distributor or from a company. I'm going to ask a retailer because they're going to know a lot. So that's kind of how my, you know, if I need to find out information, that's how things work. Because you have to realize when you're dealing with a company or a distributor or a retailer what their endgame is, right? And a distributor's endgame is to sell as much of their companies, the companies they represent's product. So what are you really going to get from them, right? Nothing bad, right? Even if something's going wrong, like Platinum Curidos, you know, this is no knock on luxury brands, but when we had a problem with the Platinum Curidos, when it came out, it was impossible to get information, right? I'm asking luxury brands. Luxury brands is going back to Platinum. They're telling me Platinum's not telling them anything. What am I supposed to do, right? So, and no one wants to have any negative publicity, so you end up getting nothing. We pretty much got nothing out of all that until it was just like, hey, we'll replace any crack feeds through your retailer. So, again, I get through retailers to get that information. So, I think about all this stuff. This is why this was an awesome email from Nick. And I love this email. But it's so complex to say, to take, why don't you just ask them into what the reality of the situation is, one. And the desire for me to spend my time doing that, too, right? So, it's almost nothing good ever comes out of spending all of that time doing that. Nothing positive will come out of the amount of time. It's just not the right balance to really dig into that stuff for me. And then that's why I'm lucky we have people who do do that, right? So, we can just comment on the things. So, there you go. I think I covered what I wanted to say. But, yeah, like it's super interesting. Like we all want to know. We all want to know like the gossip, right? We all want to be the pen TMZ, right? Ooh, drama. And it's just like I used to get involved in that. And I've had my regrets and made some mistakes back in the day of just like leaning into the drama. And I just don't do that anymore. It doesn't do it for me. I'd rather just help people on their pen journeys. And if we can figure out other things about how the business side of things work, we'll share them. But like I'm never going to go like full journalist mode and nail some of this stuff down. It's just not in my best interest.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The next question came from, I don't know. You also haven't put this person's name. Oh, I'm sorry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is from Carol. So, I told her I would answer this on the show as well. Carol has two questions. And this is kind of related but a little bit different.

'''Myke Hurley:''' One, have you, this is to both of us, but have you ever found a brand or item that you first reviewed and used only to find months or years later it was worse or better than you originally thought? If so, do you hand or have a way of communicating this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, I'm trying to think if I've had a product that I was really, really happy with in the beginning for even a lengthy period of time and then something changed. I couldn't really come up with one. But I would 100% communicate it, right? Like these are living, you know, items that get used. So, right when you're dealing with products, like things change over time to where the story is different from at day 100 than it is on day one. It's hard. Like I can update a blog post all I want, but that only kind of helps for like future like searches on the blog post. I would rather just talk about it here on the podcast. I don't know that we've ever like. Well, I think. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The easiest way I can answer this is kind of, but it's slow. Like I can't think of any product that I've used where like all of a sudden, maybe, but for me, all of a sudden my opinions changed. My opinion changes over time. And I talk about that. Like when I first got a vanishing point, it was like, oh, this is incredible. I love it. And then the more I used it, I was like, actually, this is uncomfortable for me. And then I followed that through on the show over time. Right. It's like this originally blew me away. But then I started to find other stuff that I liked as much, if not more, and then realized that like it isn't a comfortable experience. So like that's kind of like for me, it goes more slowly. I can't think of a time where I've had something where I've like done a big 180 on it all of a sudden.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I found, I have one. Do you remember my Optima that was in the Shoptima? Yep. So what happened with my Aurora Optima clear demonstrator is it snapped in the middle, right? There was a weak point in the barrel to where one day it just snapped. And this was an expensive pen. It was a pen I wanted very, very badly. And I ended up having to send it back, you know, basically did like a warranty claim on that. And I got it back. And like it's fine now, but it's never been fine in my head to where I'm comfortable with it. As much as I loved it in the beginning, I now like it less and rarely use it because I went through this whole experience of it. Now, I have a different Optima that I use, the gray one that we got at Fountain Pen Hospital. I use that one all the time, but I never use my demonstrator Optima just because it has like this cloud over it. So I talked about that here on the show, right? Like how this was a problem that some of the Optimas had that I found out after the fact that, yeah, this is something they'll fix and replace. But it doesn't mean it's not annoying. And it changed my opinion of that pen, even though I use a similar model for that. But yeah, so we communicate that on the podcast is the easiest way for me. But, you know, that's just a little bit lucky that we have this outlet to share those. Because if I had a blog post and then updated the blog post, who's actually going to really see that unless I like resurface it to the top?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, yeah. Okay. And then there's the second question. Have you ever been so taken or so repelled by a brand or item that you find that you're not balanced enough to provide a fair assessment? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've talked about this one a lot. The Vinvestis pen that I received early on, like right after their Kickstarter, is I think one of the only pens I've ever received. Tested it out and sent it right back saying, I can't use this. Like there was nothing good is going to come out of me just eviscerating this pen in a review. So please, here, have it back. So, yeah, I've talked about that. They've changed owners like three times now. The previous owner would basically like verbally attack people who reviewed the pen badly like in mails and direct messages. And I've seen copies of these things. Again, it goes back to the previous thing. It's like I see all these things. But it's like I don't really need the drama to like have a spend a whole episode going through like back channel Vinvestis emails. Right. But now they have a new owner. So, like that's done. But it's still the same pen. And so, like, I just don't have any. They've changed the pen. They've made a bunch of modifications. They're actually getting some more positive reviews. But, like, I just have zero desire to to mess with that again. You know, it's just kind of one of those. Like, I'll give products a second chance plenty of times. But there are cases that I won't as well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I have an example for you, too. Estabrook.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Which one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, Lincoln, you didn't talk about the company for a while.

== Estabrook Controversy ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Sure. Right. Oh, yeah. So, the Robert Rosenberg period of Estabrook. They were banned from the show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Because there was some issues.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And Kenro, as a distributor, was banned from reviews. And I told them. Like, I just straight up told them. Like, but I don't sit here. And, you know, we're not going to sit here and just, like, discuss that every podcast. Right? You know. But there was a time where I would not work with Kenro. And they know this. This is not a secret. And this is not, you know, not public information. But it was like, while this man is an employee, I'm not going to review Kenro products. And he was gone. And we just, we turned the faucet back on again. And they respect, they respect why I like. So, when you work with a distributor, even though, like, it's the PR arm, they understand where people like myself, good distributors understand where someone like myself who reviews products has an opinion, takes a stand, and they respect that. I could not respect them anymore for listening to me and going, Brad, we get it. And we'll talk to you soon. Yep. Like, it's one of the best outcomes I could hope for. You know? And, you know, as soon as the situation was taken care of, we had an email, we had a phone call, we turned the faucet back on, and everything's good to go. Like, it's this mutual respect that we have for working with each other.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. And again, like, on a similar note for me personally, like, again, this happens a lot in tech. People are like, oh, you're biased. Yeah, of course I am. Yeah. Like, humans have bias, right? And I never claim to be an unbiased person. Like, I have biases. And I lean into my biases. Because MKBHD was talking about this really great one. So I was trying to find the video and put it in the show notes. It's like, if you pay attention to my content, you know my biases, use that as the baseline for any opinion you want from me. Exactly. Make up your mind about what you think I'm biased from, and then go with it from there. Like, for example, you know, people would obviously think I'm biased towards Apple, because I am. If I say something's bad, you know it's going to be bad, right? Because if I, you know, like, if I even feel that way, then imagine how someone who is more neutral would feel. So you can use that as a bias and then go on from there. It's like, I really like this way of thinking about it. Like, to try and, for people to say, oh, I'm not biased, you're wrong.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. So, like, I always say I'm biased against bad products, and I'm biased towards good stationery. That's why when there are bad products, and there's plenty of them, I just choose not to spend my time discussing them. That's a bias, right? It's like, but I don't get enjoyment about that. MKBHD had a great tweet just this morning. He's like, hey, you know, my Pixel 6, like, something's wrong with it. It's not, like, I don't know if it was the battery thing. I haven't pulled up the tweet yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, so he says, he's like, I can no longer recommend this product. Yeah, my Pixel 6 Pro has slowly gotten so buggy since launch in October that I can no longer recommend it at $900. Combined, the latest botched update has been a bad experience. My sim is back in my S21 Ultra until the next review.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this is, like, the biggest tech YouTuber there is, or one of them, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I sent this to some friends and was like, there are people at Google PR whose head is on fire right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But this is how you do it when you're in his position. That's how you gain trust. It's not that you're biased for Google or for Apple. It's that you're biased towards honest representation of what your experience is, right? Like, that's my bias, right? So I just, it doesn't mean that the product is perfect. It doesn't mean that you're going to like it. It means that, hey, I'm sharing with you my experience. And hopefully this bulk of experiences that I've had makes you understand where I'm coming from, where my biases are, and what you should take from this information. So, you know, I think that was, that tweet just this morning, like a couple hours ago, like really resounded with me. I was like, yeah, that's great. That's how you do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So there you go. Good stuff. I enjoy talking about this stuff because, like, context is so hard. We talk about that all the time. Even just, even though I can sit here and ramble, you still don't cover, like, all the context that goes on in these decisions and what happens behind the scenes and, you know, all the stuff we enjoy talking about. But yeah, like, you know, just to put a bow on it, you know, if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing, I'm not going to do it. And being an investigative journalist is not something I enjoy. And talking about bad products is not something I enjoy. So I'm biased in that I won't talk about those things or won't do those things. So there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Let's finish out today's episode with some hashtag Ask DPA questions. First comes from Claudio, who asks, something for newcomers to the show, like this, like a kind of quote, got your first Lamy Safari for a while. Now what? So you've had a Lamy Safari for a while. Now where'd you go?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I almost want to do a whole episode segment on this. Then maybe I'll do that later because there's a lot of places to go. Right. And I don't think I'm going straight into like, you know, the Twisbees that that kind of like roll into that next category of pricing or the Pilot Prayers that go into the next category of pricing. I almost want to think about jumping this up into like a completely different category. And I got to put some thoughts behind this because I don't know. It might be too aggressive. Right. If you if you like the Lamy Safari spending like one hundred and fifty dollars on a pen would be like pretty rough. I mean, I have a move.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A general idea. My expectation is somebody who is, you know, they've had a Lamy Safari for a bit. They're probably using cartridges. Right. It'd be my expectation. So my jump, like wherever you would be to get a bottle of ink, like a pen where, you know, you are buying it with the intention of you will fill it. So that's why I would actually go Twisbee next.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think no, I think that's I think that's the right answer. It's probably too big of a leap that I want to make.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And so I think the next logical step for me is like now you get to because like once you've had a Lamy Safari for a bit, you are now over the initial fear of a fountain pen. Right. The next thing you've got to get over is the fear of an ink bottle. And so I think something like a Twisbee Go or a Twisbee Eco and a bottle of ink like that feels like the next step for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think you're I think you're exactly right. And for some reason, I want it to be the next step from a Safari into like a different design or a different feel or gold nib. And I think that's probably just too far of a leap. Right. You're going from probably, you know, nine times out of 10 cartridge Lamy Safari. Well, let's try a bottle of ink and a piston filler next. Right. That type of thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because until you've done that, you can't go further. I feel like because it's all too intimidating. Yeah. And then you also you unlock the second joy of fountain pens, which is finding an ink that you like. Right. Right. I'm the pen addict now. It's like that meme with the captain thing. Yeah. Yeah. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. I'm the pen addict now. So, yeah. No, that's good. Question from Jeffrey. For new fountain pen collectors, is it better to go new or restored vintage?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I think we're the wrong people to ask this question to, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, because we only have one answer and it's the right answer. Yeah. I mean, if you're new and you're buying restored vintage, I think you're just setting yourself up for trouble. Yeah. I don't. If you're new, you're going to buy new until you have this base of knowledge.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Understanding. I mean, like I'm this way, really. I have never gotten enough enjoyment out of vintage pens, even restored vintage pens. Yeah. And I. New old stock is a different thing, right? Mm-hmm. I've had that a couple of times, but yeah, I'm not sure about, I'm not sure about restored vintage in general. Look, people love it. It's a great thing, right? And there's some stuff that you can't get, like all of the Estabrook nib stuff, right? Right. Like the old stuff or like the old Parkers and, you know, we have so many friends that collect those and, you know, like, and that's a big thing. And I get it, but I've never been that kind of person, especially when there's already so much great new stuff. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So like that's, yeah, it's, I don't see how I could ever recommend or it would be the right thing to say, hey, the first, you know, pen or two you buy should be restored vintage. It's just such a different beast and it's a different mentality and it's great. Like I have plenty of restored vintage pens that I enjoy. Like I have a Parker Vacumatic that I enjoy that, you know, was restored. Like I would only, I'm not, I'm not someone who, you know, works on their, their vintage pens. So I buy restored vintage and like, I get it. But if you're new, you just have to go. You have to go new. I, I'm just, I guess I'll die on that hill. But, and I don't think we'd get that much pushback, but we'll get plenty of, I love vintage. And like, I get it. Like you should, you should love vintage. It should be your third pen, you know, get, get a, you know, you just, you need some time to do that. That's, that's a really, really deep into the pool to jump in from day one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I think that there is a place there. I think that there's obviously great communities there and there's really fun, cool, quirky things you can find, but I agree. It's like, take the advantage of the advancements in technology to make the on-ramp for yourself easier. Then go into like, you know, the on-ramp of, of Alami Safari, right? Which is a mass produced product, modern mass produced product. Then maybe look at vintage later on down the line. Right. Yep. And finally today, Josh writes in and says, I just listened to episode 494 where Myke mentioned he is scared of rubber Oster bottles. I'm in a similar position with ink samples and have dumped half of one on my desk. It's cleaned up now. I believe I found a better solution. I use Legos to create a holder for my ink samples. I'm sure of a bit of tinkering on some architecture sets. You can make one for a rubber Oster bottle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's brilliant. I know Kimberly, who writes for the pen addict, does that. She put one in her, one of her posts and I think it was an ink sample one. I can't remember if it was an ink sample Lego holder or an ink bottle Lego holder. But you can modify them, Myke, to fit around the different shaped bottles that you have and add a little bit of safety.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I could put the rubber Oster bottles inside of my Penwell Traveler. Oh, that one that I have. Not the Traveler. The good one. The big one. That's not going to fit. Craftsman? I'm looking at it right now. There's no way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If I pop the foam out, it will. No chance. No chance. I think it would. I will, whatever you want to bet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it would.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's, when you take the foam out, that's, all right. The diameter of the bottle is much larger.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. Are you going to test this now?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't have any ink here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I don't have my bottles. I just put away my Oster bottles of ink right before the show. But I have my Penwell sitting right here and I'm looking at the circumference of, after you remove the interior, no chance. Zero. Zero percent chance.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's possible, but you're going to know more than me. Nevertheless. Follow up for next week. Yep. Never mind. Nevertheless, I think it's still a thing that, okay, Tony, just try it. It doesn't work. Yeah. Nevertheless, I would like a product like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I mean, yeah, you just need like some old ink wells and like have bases, but then you're like transferring ink into these bases. I don't know. But yeah, need some, need some pen holder, need some pen holder style ink bottle holders. But the problem is they're only going to fit Robert Oster inks because that's kind of like one of the few tall skinny bottles, right? Yep. But they're one of the hardest to fill. It would be a Robert Oster pen ink bottle holder.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What I would want in that product is like it to be on an angle too, so I could more easily get the bottom of the ink. Oh, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just destroying people's desks one idea at a time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh-huh. Do what I can. All right. If you'd like to send out a question for us to answer on the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA or use question mark RSTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, twitch.tv slash penaddict, where Brad streams three times a week. He is penaddict on Instagram and Dowdyism on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. And you can find some products that I produce at cortexmerch.com. Theme system journals are flying off the shelves right now. So if you still think you might want one, go get one. I will include a link in the show notes to a YouTube video that my co-founder, CGP Gray, put together of how he uses his theme system journal. So it's completely different to how I use mine and how Brad used his. It's because this is the great thing about the product. Many people use it in different ways. I'm thinking about making a video of my own now too, which won't be as good as his, but just showing like this is how I do it because I haven't seen his videos. Like we use this product completely differently, which is very funny to me. Like the two people that work together to make it use it completely opposite. But yeah, that's kind of the point. That's good. Yeah. So much to Penn Chalet for their support of this week's episode. And of course, thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 489/transcript

2026-06-11T10:24:04Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 489
| title = The Radiation in This Pen Is Not Harmful
| date = November 24th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/489 Episode 489]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_489.mp3 Audio Episode 489]
| length = 50
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 489. Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Hello. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hello, Myke. Hello, Brad.

'''Brad:''' How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm very good. I'm very good. Happy to be here. Happy to talk about pens and paper. And what was the old intro you used to say? All the things we... What was the...

'''Myke:''' Pen and the analog tools we love so dearly? Something like that?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Classic Myke Hurley intro. We miss those days. We miss the nickname days, but it's good stuff. It's good stuff.

== Stationery Correction ==

'''Myke:''' It's still part of the actual show description, which is, The Pen Addict is a weekly fix for all things stationery. Pens, pencils, paper, ink, you name it. And Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley are into it. That's written weirdly. We should maybe adjust that. Join as they geek out of the analog tools they love so dearly.

'''Brad:''' We're into it, Myke.

'''Myke:''' We're into it. We're just like the way it's... Pen, pencils, paper, ink, you name it. And Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley are into it. It should just be like Brad and Myke are into it. That should be what it is.

'''Brad:''' Who wrote that trash? You. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to guess. That was like 10 years ago.

'''Myke:''' While we're on this, I think it was maybe two weeks ago, I had to correct a stationery that you... You did.

'''Brad:''' That's not either of our faults.

'''Myke:''' You did stationery with an A.

'''Brad:''' No. You did. It was in Google Docs. You wrote it. Google did it. Google does not like analog tools as much as we do, Myke.

'''Myke:''' Google did it, yeah.

'''Brad:''' Google likes sitting. Google does not like analog tools. So I will not...

'''Myke:''' Google likes people to be stationary in front of their computers. Yes. Not stationary with the stationary.

'''Brad:''' Yes. We've had to train our doc at least twice. Like all of a sudden it will lose the E version of stationary and want to change everything and sometimes we miss them.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, there's no way you could have done it wrong. No. Never.

'''Brad:''' Never. Never.

'''Myke:''' What happens if it shows up on the website? Whose fault is it then?

'''Brad:''' I don't write in Google. Google, so... I mean, are you talking about like the Panatic website? Yeah. Yeah, I don't... No, because I never write anything in Google.

== Google Docs Training ==

'''Myke:''' What do you write in?

'''Brad:''' Ulysses.

'''Myke:''' Right, okay. He's still in Ulysses. Okay. I remember you were on that a while ago.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. You just have to train it once, you know, to not switch your E's to A's and like it's good. Google, they don't play that game.

'''Myke:''' I feel like for you it would be beneficial just to have like a text expander snippet that just always naturally corrects it, right? So like...

'''Brad:''' It's funny because I do have like the stock list of like commonly misspelled words just to... And I'll be like, I'll like type in like because or something and type it wrong and then I'll hear like bloop. Like it changed it automatically. I should have that for the stationary one as well. But it doesn't matter with Google.

'''Myke:''' Well, also you never get it wrong. We've already established that.

'''Brad:''' True. True. True. I mean, like a lot of things in this show, I never get anything wrong, Myke. No. That's true. This is probably actually... Is this a big show of Brad gets things wrong? Probably.

'''Myke:''' I think that is the foreshadowing that you have established.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I mean, this first topic that we're going to talk about, I didn't get this wrong. I just didn't know the answer to. And it turns out we have an amazing answer and I'm fascinated by what we came up with. So we had a question not that long ago around someone wanting a Tomoe River product or let's say a fountain pen friendly product in a steno type format, essentially top bound, wire bound, fountain pen friendly notebook. And I kind of really didn't know, right? Like you can get the Rhodia pads, but they're not really like the steno style. They're staple bound. You know, there's other glue bound pads that I use like from life, the bank paper, but there's nothing like a steno wire bound option until I was sent a really cool link from Toroco, which a lot of people are familiar with on Etsy, the Toroco shop on Etsy. They're very popular. Turns out, Myke, Toroco Reporter A5 Tomoe River paper notebook, completely fascinated by this.

'''Myke:''' So they, what is this Etsy store? Do they resell stuff mostly? It looks like they resell stuff, but they also make their own.

== Etsy Store Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' I think yes to both, right? So yeah, like the, the, the reporter notebook is a Toroco design, right? Yeah. And I've heard a lot of people talk about the notebooks that they've gotten from them, but I would never thought to go check out the shop for.

'''Myke:''' Oh no, it looks like they make all of their own stuff. They just have different brands. So they use Cosmo air light paper in some product. I see. These look really nice. I wonder why it's on Etsy.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Cause this is like, like top tier, like construction. Like you can tell just the cut and the binding.

'''Myke:''' Some people use companies like Etsy and eBay and stuff as like, you handle the taxes for me. Cause this is a company about Taiwan. So like maybe they have a Taiwan, a store for Taiwan and then for places outside of Taiwan, maybe they sell on Etsy. True. Like I know that you remember we were talking about that VAT stuff a long time ago. Like, right. I know that Etsy got a bit of a boon during that time because it's like, well, if you just sell on Etsy or eBay, they'll take care of the tax part for you. So you don't have to do it anymore.

'''Brad:''' Well, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, this is, I mean, this is like a pretty big shop for like an Etsy shop. This is like pretty sizable, I think. But this product, Myke, is, is killer, right? Like it's a top spiral bound, like a double ring spiral reporter notebook with the 68 GSM blank Tomoe River paper in it. And I think it's like, how many pages is it? I think it's big. It's like, you know, like the 150, 180 pages. Like this is a no joke size reporter notebook and it's only 17 bucks. And like, I'm just kind of fascinated that this exists. 112 sheets. 112.

'''Myke:''' 2 to 4 pages.

'''Brad:''' Yep. So yeah, really cool. So thank you. Of course, me being me, Myke, I didn't, you know, note the name of the person who sent this in to give them full and proper credit for this.

'''Myke:''' Not that you were wrong about that in any way.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to take full and proper credit for this. I found this on my own.

'''Myke:''' Oh, good work, Brad. Please, you put the effort in there.

'''Myke:''' This is a product though. It's like, this looks great. But for how long is it going to be great? We don't know. Maybe we'll find out next because the Tomoe River successor paper has been thoroughly reviewed, right?

'''Brad:''' Our good friend, Jacob at Fooday Fan, also Tokyo Inklings podcast. Jacob, so the Tokyo International pin show was two weeks ago, one week ago. My time frames are a little bit off these past few weeks. So it was recent, Myke. Yeah. And at the show, several people were able to get their hands on samples of Sansin, which we talked about, you know, Jacob and CY's discussion on the Sansin purchase of the Tomoe River brand. And the samples were available for, you know, I think people got like sheets, right? Like, I don't know that there was like definitely like there weren't necessarily like notebooks and things like that. This was like a pre-launch kind of, hey, test this stuff out, see what you think. So Jacob, we'll have a link in the show notes to Jacob's review, but he did a full paper test of Sansin's Tomoe River, the new stuff, the new new, the previously new Tomoe River, and then the old Tomoe River. So he did a comparison of all three. And the results were positive, right? He liked it. He thought that it did a good job. It had some features that were definitely improved over the new Tomoe River paper, right? And thinks it will be, you know, pretty well received, you know, when it actually does launch. So I think it's going to be pretty cool, pretty popular. The.

'''Myke:''' Yep. Like he said, Jacob said it was his favorite. It's his favorite of the three. So this is, you know, I think we have the tendency, like this happens in all kinds of communities, to catastrophize change. Right. Change equals bad.

'''Myke:''' But it turns out maybe in this case, at least depending on if you have similar tastes to Jacob, actually this change is a good one.

'''Brad:''' Right. And this new paper is comparable in size to the original Tomoe River Techo paper, the 52 GSM, which is my preference. I actually like the thinner, the thinner old Tomoe River paper. So, yeah, that he, like he, I trust his opinion, like very, very much to, for him to say like, hey, this is really good. Like, I'm excited to try it. I just hope they, they come up with a new name before they launch it. Like, hopefully this was the, this is the alpha or the beta name. The name being Tomoe River's successor. Like, that's just, that's not me saying what this paper is. That's what they're calling it. They should call it. He says it's the name.

'''Myke:''' They should go fast and furious on it and call it Tomoe, like T-W-O. We did that joke. Did we? Oh, man. Yeah. I'm so predictable.

'''Brad:''' You did, you did that joke. Yeah. So, yeah, I think you, it was probably like a fever dream at night, one night.

'''Myke:''' No, I'm just, I just don't have very original jokes.

'''Brad:''' But no, I did, I did this, I said this back when we were talking about this, what, a few weeks ago, that please don't call it anything with Tomoe River in the name. Although I get why you want to call it anything with Tomoe River in the name, right? But my preference.

'''Myke:''' Why, if it's good and it's similar, why not just call it Tomoe River? Why not just call it nothing else except this is Tomoe River paper? Like they did last time. Because it got changed, right? Like we just mentioned that, right? They changed the paper and they just kept the name. And people ultimately were happy because it was close enough. Why not just call it Tomoe River? Like why even give it a different brand at all if the paper's good?

'''Brad:''' Because then I always have to have a comparison. Well, but this isn't for you. And that this would separate me. No, I agree. That's the problem, right? I just want the notebook paper that fountain pen users use from the new Sansan brand to be called something. Not Tomoe River. But they'll never do that, right?

'''Myke:''' I would actually just like it to be called Tomoe River paper personally. Because then I just know what I'm getting. And it's just the end of that.

'''Brad:''' Maybe just T3. We're on round three of this. And I don't know. But like from Sansan's perspective, business-wise, right? This is more than a stationary paper, right? We just look at it from the lens of, hey, this is our favorite fountain pen paper where actually that paper is like a much bigger business that's, you know, used for different things, right? Which is why they would want to keep the name.

'''Myke:''' They bought brand recognition. It's one of the things they purchased. Yep. I agree. They're not going to change it. No, I think they're just calling it Tomoe River successor in the time where they have both of them. And then as soon as they're completely switched over, this will just become Tomoe River paper. That's what I reckon will happen.

'''Brad:''' Fair enough. Fair enough. I think you're right. I would just prefer.

'''Myke:''' Really, all they bought was the brand. That's exactly right. Because they didn't keep the machines. So why would they buy it and then just give it a new name?

'''Brad:''' I agree. I don't disagree with anything. I'm just saying. I understand. My preference would be, I would rather them call it sans and paper.

'''Myke:''' As a stationary communicator, it would make your life easier.

== Map of the World Confusion ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Which Tomoe River do you mean?

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's like, you know, I have to be like the 2021 iPad Pro. Yeah, exactly. So trust me, I feel you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 2018 iPad Pro. The iPad Pro with mini LED display.

'''Brad:''' That is very true. Very true. We have it easy compared to the digital world.

'''Myke:''' Maybe.

'''Myke:''' All right. What is this? What is this that you've given me? What is this? I don't understand what this is. I've read this thing and I've looked at the thing and I don't understand what this is.

'''Brad:''' All right. So we're going to share a link in the show notes today. And let me read the email. Okay. And then we'll get to the link. So this is from John, listener of the show. Since the question in August. I don't know what that means. That's probably Google. Who knows? I'm already in trouble. I have listened to all the Pen Addict episodes and have purchased an embarrassingly large number of pens. Welcome, John. You're one of us. Thanks to you and Myke for introducing me to the area. My Christmas card featured a pilot, Mew. How cool is that? You inspired me to create a tool to see the world of inks better. Below is a picture that shows about 1400 inks in a perceptually friendly way. Sweep over an area in the top graph and the ink brand and names are revealed in the table. The graph on the right encircles the selected inks and puts them in the context of all the inks. You select one brand on the top and select all of the inks in the top graph. The plot in the lower right shows you how the brand covers the spectrum of colors. So in short, this is pick a brand and it will show you their color representation of their current ink offerings across the color spectrum. Right. So if you're looking for this brand, do they have a color in this range? Right. So John sent us a link and the data comes from Fountain Pen Companion and the colors are the crowdsource hex codes. So, yeah, lots of caveats implied. But this is a tool that John built just for fun and wanted to share with us. And I've been messing around with this. And you can change like the plotting of the colors from colorfulness or lightness. Right. You can check off like if you go to like Ackermon where you know they only have about 30 something inks. Right. You can see that's a good place to start is something small.

'''Myke:''' They have more of the oranged brown.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. You can see. Oh, boy. I get it now. They really only have. So tell you where I got lost.

'''Myke:''' I have thought that this was like a map of the world. I don't know why. And I got very confused. Yeah. But now I understand. It's like a color spectrum. It's a color spectrum. Brown to red or something.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, light to dark, top to bottom, and then the colors from left to right. So you can see where these things are represented. You know, it's just like it's a fun thing. Right. And then you can, you know, then you can figure out like, okay, do you want to plot that over pilot's inks? Yeah. And you can see, you know, where pilot fills in some of the gaps that Ackerman doesn't have. Like in the yellows, like pilot has a bunch of like different yellows and oranges that Ackerman doesn't have.

'''Myke:''' So like if you were trying to use this, you could be like, oh, I tend to like blues. And then you can kind of have a look at, oh, this company has a lot of blue inks or whatever. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Speaking of which, let me click Robert Oster for the blues. Robert Oster. There's loads of that.

'''Myke:''' There's a lot in there. I think the benefit of, for me, what I like about this is it shows the benefit of freely available and open data. Yes. When you have data that is available from something like Phantom Pen Companion, you end up with people being able to make things with it. And you can, maybe that thing isn't worth it to you, but it could be worth it to someone else. But by having this kind of data set, it also helps people who are collecting the data understand like what can we do to maybe make the data better for people to use. Like it, there's just, I think there's a real benefit to having this kind of open and freely available data. And this is an example of that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's really fun. And I'm sure there's, there's like more things we can do with it. Cause I'm just sitting here clicking all the buttons, but I like, I like. This is a fun thing.

'''Myke:''' Now I understand it. It's before I didn't get it.

'''Brad:''' I like seeing the scope of things. Like you click on bung box and they like have like almost like an equal representation. Like they're really heavy on the reds and pinks, but then across the board, it's like super like evenly represented across all the colors. Like when I was looking at Ackermann, there's like huge gaps in the range.

'''Myke:''' Weirdly, basically every single brand of the indexes in orange and red.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Let me see. And let me pull up Robert Oster again. So yeah. Orange and red. Blue and purple. Seems very popular. A lot of green. Hmm. Oh, let me do Noodlers. Hang on. I'm looking at this.

'''Myke:''' Like diamond is like, it's like a million colors. Yeah. Yeah. In the red and orange area.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's red and orange and then purple. That's the Brad Dowdy effect. That's what we'll call that. Yeah. That's what it is. But yeah, it's red and orange and then blurple is like the next, it's the line between blue and purple piece on most of these.

'''Myke:''' They seem to be the two big groups. What is also interesting to me, because like there's a.

'''Brad:''' Except Robert Oster, they're not as high in blurple. They're more in blues and.

'''Myke:''' They've got a lot of green. More green than others do. Yep. So it goes, it goes in height. I don't really know what the axes are here. Right.

'''Brad:''' So lightness towards the top. Okay. If we're on the same colorfulness setting.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. On colorful. Because on the far left column, which is where a lot of the reds and oranges are, every brand, it like goes really high there. Right. And that doesn't reach those heights with basically any other color. Right. Right. So anyway. It's really weird and really cool. And if you have no idea what we're talking about, you've got to go check the website out. If you haven't looked at the website, there'll be a link in the show notes. It's just ink map. You won't have any idea what we're talking about. This would just sound like nonsense.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So separate from this, John sent me a link to an interesting data point. And I don't have a direct link. And you would have to do some, you know, you'd have to have Fountain Pen Companion pulled up side by side. But there's a range of pink inks that he wanted to pull out from here. And he says, I've also attached an interesting sweep of the colors that show hope pink, which is a diamond color, and hellfire, which is a noodler's color, being almost the same color. So you can, if you like bright pinks, you can be hopeful and have the hope pink, or you can have hellfire and be the same pink color. So that was, that was, that's my kind of data point that I like. It's like the same color, but what does the name represent to you when you put the ink on the page? And sometimes it's hope and sometimes it's not, Myke.

'''Myke:''' This episode is brought to you by Hello. Hello make incredibly comfortable buckwheat pillows. If you've never tried out a buckwheat pillow, they really give a new level of support for your head and neck. They do not collapse under the weight of your head like a traditional pillow. It's not like a feather or foam pillow. They stay cool. They stay dry. Because instead of like a soft filling, they have these buckwheat holes is the name of the filling. The thing I could most closely describe it to is like a kind of like beans in a beanbag kind of thing. Uh, but it gives you a really fantastic level of support, but it's not, the pillow's not hard. Like it's malleable, but once you've got it into the shape that you like, it just stays there. It's really, really amazing. It's very different to a regular pillow, but it comes with so many advantages. You don't need to flip the pillow over because it always stays cool and you can have the pillow be just the size that you need because you can very easily add and remove the filling. I've been sleeping on a hollow pillow for many years now, and I am, I'm 100% sold. I'm never going back because I get a level of comfort from that pillow that I've never experienced from any other. And for the first time in my life since I got the hollow pillow, I have just one pillow. I was always like a multiple pillow person because I could never get the support that I wanted just from one. Like I'd have to do a thing where I have like, kind of like half have one pillow and then put it over the top of the other one. So I get like, yeah, I hated it. But now with my hollow pillow, just one pillow and I've got exactly what I want. Super comfortable. Hollow pillows are made in the USA with quality construction and materials. The certified organic cotton case is cut and sewn for durability and the buckwheat is grown and milled in the US as well. Okay. So here's the deal. You may be curious to try one of these out and you should, and you can sleep on it for 60 nights. And if hollow isn't for you, just send it back for a refund. Just go to hollow pillow.com slash pen addict, and you can get your own buckwheat pillow today. That's H-U-L-L-O-P-I-L-L-O-W.com slash pen addict. And if you buy more than one, they have a special discount of up to $20 off, depending on the size that you opt for. They have fast free shipping of every order. 1% of all profits are donated to the Nature Conservancy. And with this hollow pillow, you can just give it a try. And if you love it, you keep it. If you don't, just send it back. Go to hollow pillow.com slash pen addict today. Our thanks to hollow for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' Three nights, Myke. That's how long it took me.

'''Myke:''' Three. That's not bad.

'''Brad:''' Three nights. Yeah. To make the adjustment. You know, night one, I was like, what is going on here? Night two was, oh, I get it. Let me do these things. Night three, I was in. Like, I slept like a rock. That was it. And I, like, this pillow just never should be moved from my bed. And if it does, I hunt people down.

== Gift Guide Introduction ==

'''Myke:''' Fair enough. So every year on the pen addict, we do a gift guide. And every year on the show, we've had the wonderful Anna Ryan join us for it. Unfortunately, we couldn't arrange for Anna to be here this time. We could not make the scheduling work, which is a real shame. But we felt that we needed to do a gift guide of some description. So we're going to do a mini gift guide this year. What are the rules of the mini gift guide, Brad?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So since it's just you and I this year, and I wanted to simplify it, right? So I built out four tiers of price points. And within those tiers, you can only choose a singular item, right? You can't, like in the past, we've built a kit, right? So, or sometimes we've built a kit, right? We say if you have $100, you can get, you know, this pen, this ink, this notebook, kind of like, you know, a starter kit or whatever. But this is the idea of, hey, in this price range, what one thing should I look at for, you know, a stationary fan or someone new or an artist? Like I said, like there's no, there's no rule on like the type of thing. Like you could choose all fountain pens. You could choose no fountain pens, right? It doesn't have to be for any particular type of user. We're not trying to solve for, hey, this person uses fountain pens on Tomoe River paper and fancy inks, right? We're not getting that specific. So we're just picking price points.

'''Myke:''' I sent my own mini challenge. Oh, did you? Which was to not pick an overlapping product category. So only one fountain pen, you know.

'''Brad:''' So yeah, I went first. Yeah, I went first. And I kind of did the same. Like I was actually thinking I might not even have a fountain pen. But it turns out that I did because I think there's a good one. But yeah, like if you picked fountain pen.

'''Myke:''' I did pick two fountain pens. So you can ignore everything I said.

'''Brad:''' Oh, you did. All right. Myke's a liar. He's already breaking the rules. Yeah. There was no rule to only pick one category and then not use it again. So let's start out. The categories, I'll read them all. I just did under $25, under $50, under $100, and over $100. So I thought that was kind of a good range to get a good amount of stuff.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I was very thankful for this because I feel like I'm always pretty bad at the gift guide, which is why I love having Honor. I'm sad that we couldn't do it this time because between the two of you, you come up really interested in stuff. And I'm just like, hey, have you heard of Field Notes? You know, that's kind of like my contribution each time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I thought your challenge was going to be not to pick Retro 51 or Sailor. You actually succeeded, so I thought that was going to be your challenge. I purposely didn't do it.

'''Brad:''' Although that Retro 51 steam liner, that's pretty hot.

'''Myke:''' I don't think I've seen this.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, you should go look that up before we dig in here. But it's a train-based one. And, you know, all their travel and vehicle and planes and space ones are always good, and those are good. All right. So we're going to start in under $25. We'll go in order here. We can alternate who goes first. But under $25, I went with a notebook, specifically the Musgrave Pencil Co. notebook, which is just a design stunner. And I think it makes a great gift because...

'''Myke:''' It's a pencils only!

'''Brad:''' No, it's not. Pencils only! From... I have it on good account that it's really good with a lot of pens as well. It's not pencils only, Myke.

'''Myke:''' Get out of here with that pen.

'''Brad:''' No. But...

'''Myke:''' It's just pencils only.

'''Brad:''' I will say this. It's expensive, which makes it a good gift, which makes us like, hey, I don't want to buy this for myself, but will you buy this $22 notebook for me? And I think it just... The design of it is super clean and nice and a little bit retro-y, like in Musgraves, kind of like a throwback kind of way. It's got this beautiful yellow cover and reddish-orange print on there. It has a dot grid interior, and it's just nice. Like, I would... I think this is kind of like a great gift type of item. Like, it just shows up and, you know, someone who's into notebooks or pens, and they see this and they go, ooh, this is nice. I really like this. So, yeah, $22, Musgrave notebook. Very, very well done. I might even, you know, have to go shopping for myself for that one. I have not ordered those for me yet, but, you know, just saying, maybe I treat yourself. That would be Brad's treat yourself is the Musgrave Pencil Co notebook.

'''Myke:''' I have picked the most fun you can have for under $20, so I went even lower when it comes to stationery, and that is the TWSBI Go.

'''Brad:''' So, that was really smart. When you saw this, I was happy you put this in here. You are an unabashed TWSBI Go lover.

'''Myke:''' I am a big fan of this product. I think that it is a pen that all pen addicts should own because it's weird and fun, and you do not have another pen like it. You just don't. You never see springs. When do you see springs? No one sees springs in fountain pens. This one has one, and it's the main design element of this pen. If you don't have a TWSBI Go, you really should get a TWSBI Go because they're just really, really great, and they have tons of different nib options. They go from extra fine to stub 1.1, so it might be an easy way to try out a different nib size than what you've already used. They're fun, and I think a design like this also breaks down the barrier for somebody new to the hobby because it is not a fussy-looking pen. It is a very utilitarian-looking pen that is, I think, pretty forgiving, too. So I think, yeah.

'''Brad:''' To your point, I think why this is such a good pen is that if you know someone who's like a Mont Blanc user, right? You know the Mont Blanc users out there, and you drop this TWSBI Go on them, they're going to smile, and they're going to love this pen because it is so different from your classic fountain pens, and you could just buy this on a whim, and I think someone would love it who's not into this, who doesn't listen to the Pen Addict podcast, who's not really into this stuff, but kind of has an idea about fountain pens. I think this would just be the biggest pleasant surprise for a lot of people, so I thought that was a really, really good choice. Thank you. All right, so I'm going to make you go back-to-back here on the under $50 category. You go first. This is another one where I saw Myke's entry, and I just nodded my head. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Penwell Craftsman. Now, this is kind of a cop-out because, I'll be honest, the models that I like are more expensive than $50, but you can get one for $50, so they do the wooden one is $50, but I like the ones that are made out of, I think they're made out of stone, and I have one with a brass weight on the bottom, which is more expensive. It's like $89, but I think that this is a really nice addition to the desk in whatever material you get it in, and I really love this product. It's made by good, made better, and I think we've spoken about this before. I think it's a really great example. It's concrete, says Tony. Thank you, Tony, for the correction there. In my brain, concrete and stone are basically the same thing, but I understand why they're not.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I think that's a good argument.

'''Myke:''' And so, yeah, I just think these are super, super fun and a really nice addition to the desk. I think they're really classy, and if you're working on something and you want to put your pen down, this is a great way to put it, a great place to put it. So it's a really nice way to turn any fountain pen into a desk pen, but temporarily.

'''Brad:''' And I think it's a really smart gift item too, right? Like, I think, like, these may not be something that you necessarily buy for yourself, but I think the people who you would consider giving this to would thoroughly enjoy what these pinwalls are and what they do, and, you know, to have, like, a desk accessory, I think is always, like, a good gift item. Like, I went for an accessory as well. I went for a pen pouch on this one, specifically the Galen Leather Slip and Zip, which is a name. It's a great name. It's a four-pin pouch, and it's $43, and it's, you know, a leather pin pouch where it's a singular pouch with an insert for your pens, so you can slide the four pens into the rubber bands of holding, if you will, and remove them from the exterior pouch and, like, have them on the desk or, you know, wherever you're working, and then when you're done working, you can just load them back up into their little sleeve and then put it into the exterior pouch, zip them up, throw them in your bag, and I think it's a neat design as opposed to, like, your traditional, like, fold-over, you know, like, book-style type of cases, which we all love, right? But it's something a little bit different, and I think it's unique in that fact that it's a little bit different style of carry, and you can fit any types of pens in it, right? You know, fountain pens, regular pens. You know, you don't have to be a fountain pen person to use this, and it's really, really nice, well-made, and good stuff from Galen, so I really like them a lot.

'''Myke:''' This is a nice-looking product.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I think it's neat. Like, it's classic, but it's kind of got, like, a unique idea to it, and I appreciate that, and I think, like, any pen lover, like, both of those gifts, right, we're shopping for people who are into this stuff, and then we're giving them accessories. To where we moved to under $100, Myke, we both chose pens. I chose my one and only fountain pen here. The Kaweco student needs, I think we need some love for the student. We already give it a lot of love. We've given them a lot of love here on the show. It has gotten reviewed on the Pen Act several, several times, and for, like, a $60 fountain pen, this is probably focused at someone's, who's more getting into the hobby, right, who has dabbled with their Twisby Go's or their Lamy Safaris, and wants kind of that next step-up pen. This is a traditional-sized Kaweco fountain pen that is beautifully designed. It's classic. It's got modern colors. It has, you know, you can take the full-length ink cartridges, if you want, or the full-length converters, I should say, right? It's not the pocket-sized Kaweco that we all, you know, think of when we think of Kaweco. We think of pocket pens. This is a full-size pen, but at a really, really good price, and a lot of colors to choose from for a gift, and it doesn't break the bank. It's way under $100. Like I said, it's about $60, I think, something like that. I'm not looking at it, but I love the colors. I just got a red one in myself, so I'll be checking that out, but I love these from the moment they came out, and I think this would make, like, kind of a good classic gift for someone who is into this a little bit, and wants to kind of turn it up a little bit, so.

'''Myke:''' In my opinion, the only acceptable colors of this pen are the two-tone ones.

'''Brad:''' Yes, I agree. Yes, yes, yes. I'm specifically referring to the two-tone ones. They have solid black and solid blue, but all of the, I call them the music series, even though that's not really it, but the jazz, the soul.

'''Myke:''' Inexplicably, the Kaweco student has black, blue, clear, red, vintage blue, white, and vintage yellow, and then 20s jazz, 30s blues, 50s rock, 60s swing, 70s soul.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, buy one of the music-themed ones.

'''Myke:''' The music ones are the only good ones. I don't know why the student has a music line, but it just does.

'''Brad:''' Agree. And I don't know why the red cap is called 30s blues, but, you know, there you go.

'''Myke:''' You think it was right there, you know?

'''Brad:''' But they only do two of these a year, right? Like, this whole series didn't come out at once. They did two to start with, and then they did two more last year, then two more this year. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' So, like, the soul one was the only two-tone one. It was just called Soul. And then they put a number on it when they brought the other ones in.

'''Brad:''' So, yeah. So, yeah, the ones I'm talking about are the two-tone ones. Thank you, Myke. I think they're the best looking, and they're just great pens.

'''Myke:''' I've picked what I think is the best pen you can get for under $100, which is the Studio Neat Mark I.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Good call here. And I went the other way. I chose this pen for my next category, but this is the right answer, I think, for you in this category. Why do you love the Mark I so much?

'''Myke:''' Well, I can give you one. It's this. That's part of it. Nice. The beautiful sound it makes. This pen is built around my favorite refill, which is the Schmidt P8126. It's 26, right?

'''Brad:''' 8126 is the preferred. Thank you. They always ship. Most other companies ship with the 8127, but we talked them into the 8126 for this pen because it's a little bit finer.

'''Myke:''' A little bit finer, but same performance. P8126. And, you know, this is the refill that you'll find in Retro 51s, either the 26 or 27, which is just either 0.6 or 0.7 millimeter tip diameter. And just overall, this is just a pen, which is fantastically well made with just beautiful attention to detail to the point where most companies you see that have a retractable pen that uses this refill uses the knock that Schmidt created, which is terrible. Correct. It is spongy and looks really bad. You know, like, I think, and this is, different people think about it differently. I think there's like a retractable squire, like the Baron Fig squire. Mm-hmm. And I believe they use the Schmidt knock. Mechanism. Mechanism. That's what I was looking for. And what you'll notice is it has this kind of like silver cuff around the top. And that is the Schmidt mechanism. Like, that's just what it looks like. It's how it comes. So it doesn't look very good. Yeah, it's like a two-step mechanism. And it doesn't feel very good. So I'm looking through Baron Fig's website. I don't even know if they still sell that anymore.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I wouldn't have a clue.

'''Myke:''' So the squire is, I actually really like the squire as a pen. Oh, yeah, it's a great pen. I actually can't, I'm looking at the website now and I cannot find it. So maybe they write the right, oh, no, there is squire click. And they, honestly, in my opinion, like the squire click, it kind of ruins what is otherwise a really good looking pen by having the little silver cuff thing on the top. Anyway.

'''Brad:''' Buy the regular squire. Buy the regular squire.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, buy the regular one. Do not buy the click one. The regular one's great. The click one, I don't like the mechanism because the mechanism doesn't feel very good.

'''Brad:''' There's a reason why someone like Studio Need and other companies make their own mechanism.

'''Myke:''' But there's also a reason why this pen took an extra year and a half to get onto market. And it's because they were making their own mechanism. Right. It was incredibly difficult things for them to do, but I believe it was worth the work. I think that this pen, I'm very confident this pen would not have had the success that it has had if they would have used the standard click mechanism. So, yeah, I really, really like the way this thing comes together. It's absolutely fantastic. And it's why we're making a Cortex version. It will be on sale in limited quantities in December.

'''Brad:''' Awesome. It's a really cool pen. Lives on my desk as well. And I couldn't recommend it enough. It's a good gift. It's like a good surprise gift for someone who you don't even necessarily have to be into stationary. Like people who are like into tools and toys. Definitely. That's the kind of stuff. And that's what I picked. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I picked for my over 100 is the Tactile Turn Stealth, right? So they just sent this to me, I don't know, a few weeks ago. And I'm just completely enamored with it. I like everything that Tactile Turn does to begin with. But this Stealth model with the all black and the red bolt mechanism. Love the red. So here's the unsnapping of the bolt. It's really nice. It's a really fun thing to play with. The interesting thing about this, well, before I get to that, they have the clip has like this like digicam, you know, kind of stealth radar looking thing on here. It's really cool.

'''Myke:''' I just read this.

'''Brad:''' What?

'''Myke:''' Did you read this? Like this is one of the most interesting and weird and cool things I've read on a pen page before.

'''Brad:''' Read it, read it. Because I mean, the pen is literally in my hand. So you probably read it. But what do you got?

'''Myke:''' A subtle glow. For the first time ever, we're offering an optional tritium back finial. Tritium, tritium? Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that gives off a green glow without needing exposure to light. The low energy beta radiation isn't powerful enough to penetrate the skin and is completely safe for everyday carry, commonly used in watchmaking and gun sight applications. Just that wording, I've never read. Like, don't worry. The radiation in this pen is not harmful to you. I've never read that before.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So between like my COVID booster shot and my tritium radiation here, my bat signal is like pumping right now. So yeah, I have the little tritium little add-on on the back end of the barrel. You don't have, it's an optional piece, right? It's like, it's a $50 upgrade. I actually don't know that it's worth the price because tritium glows in the dark, but it's not like light sensitive. So you don't see it like in the daytime, like sitting here at my desk holding it, you don't see a green glow unless I turn off the lights, right? So it's a cool- They've been doing a great job with their- They really have. Their seasonal releases. They really have. And the best thing about them is, right, they're limited only in the timeframe that they're available to order. And they run them for like three months. Like you have like three months to decide, hey, do you want this pen? And then it's kind of going away.

'''Myke:''' They're really, really different.

'''Brad:''' Yes. They're very well thought out, very well put together. I like stories, Myke. And they put together, you know, something unique with this one. And just like they've done with the past releases that I keep holding off on, holding off on. But I have the standard length. And then, you know, this is not a cheap pen, but again, this is like fits that tools and toys category. And like good fidget stuff. I'm sitting here clicking it as well. So it's the model I have is a hundred. The model I have is like 200 and something dollars, but you can just get the standard non-tritium version for $179. And I think it's totally worth it. It's a great writing pen. I just got some Pilot G's refills to put in here, which I prefer over the Pilot G2 refills. So I've been using it a bunch. It's been in high activity on my desk. And I think it would make a great gift. You know, if you're like, that's a pretty expensive gift, right? Like this is a kind of a fancy pen. And I think it's just really well done and worth the money. I love it.

== Mini Gift Guide Completion ==

'''Myke:''' This is really cool. So that was the mini gift guide. I think there's some good stuff. No, no, no, you didn't go. Oh, sorry. Platinum 3776. Yeah, it is. That's for some reason, I just put the Mark one and the tactile turn together and then thought it was done. Yep. If I was going to give somebody a fountain pen to buy, if you don't have one of these, you should have one. The issue with the Platinum 3776 for me is by and large, the colors and designs are really boring. So like if you can find one of the more colorful ones or the special edition-y ones, even stuff like the Nicely Last and stuff, which is what I have, where it's like demonstrator and it's purple and it's got like a ridge design on it. Because typically they're just like boring, standard acrylic colors. So if you can find one that's a little bit more interesting to you, then go for it. Even if it's just like you see like a red one and you're just like, oh, I like red. Like, you know, like the Chartres Blue or something.

'''Myke:''' But ultimately you will not find a better nib. You just want, in any price category, Platinum's nibs are just the best. I've come around to this in the last couple of years. I mean, you stack it against anything. Like you will not get a better nib for, I don't know, they go between 170 to 250, depending on what you get. You're just not going to get a better nib than what you will find in that pen. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And to kind of put a bow on like the thought process beside choosing this pen, I think a lot of people who are getting into this price range, into this style of pen, into this type of nib, generally look at Pilot and Sailor first. And I think both you and I over the past few years realize that Platinum 3776 should probably be like your first entry point into that price range. Or at least should be

'''Myke:''' in the conversation more. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like don't discount this, how great this pen is. Like for me, my hangup was always the lightness of it. Like it is a lightweight pen, right? Like Pilots, like acrylic barrels have a little bit more density to them and Sailor's, I mean, and this is slight, they're all lightweight pens, but this is a lightweight pen and it took me a while. I was like, is this really worth the money? And it turns out, yeah, like it's really, really great. I have the Chartres Blue Rhodium Trim UEF nib is one of my all-time favorite pens and I really only acquired that like in the past year,

'''Myke:''' year or two. Yeah, mine is the Nice Lelass with a 14 karat gold broad nib and that nib is just, it's the best stock nib I've ever used.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. All right, Myke, now you can wrap up our mini gift guide.

'''Myke:''' Now the mini gift guide is complete. I hope that you'll find something in there for either yourself or to buy a pen addict in your life. To wrap up this episode, let's do a couple of Ask TPA questions. Sounds good. And this one, this is like an ultimate gift guide one that comes from Fibber. True. If someone offered to you to gift you any pen of historical importance, what or whose pen would you select?

'''Brad:''' You go first because I like your answer and mine is, mine is not as specific.

'''Myke:''' I really racked my brain on this one. Yeah. And I was thinking about like important things in human history. That's where I was going to. Like, you know, I've got to come onto the show and I've got to sound really important or do I go like sentimental? No, you know what?

'''Myke:''' Let's take it as if I'm actually being asked this question like it's a real possibility to me. I'm going to want something that is important to me and the thing that I care about most. I want the pen that Steve Jobs would have used when he signed to return to Apple. Like he would have had to sign a contract with Apple to come back I want that pen. Whatever that pen was that he used to sign that document that put them on the course to where they are now. Like that's what I would want.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. See, that's cool and I still like I couldn't come up with like the singular one event type of pen but where I came at it from was, hey, you know, some of the people that I enjoy their work say, you know, like Joy Division and Ian Curtis and one of the pens he used to write his lyrics in his notebook. He used just a basic, he used just basically, essentially a found ballpoint to do most of his written work or a marker that Jean-Michel Basquiat used to write in his early sketchbooks. Like just one of those types of pens that a creative person that I love used to create the thing that I ended up loving, right, as opposed to like the specific event pen was where like my brain got stuck. I could never come up with a one specific thing. So yeah, like I would like to have like an artist or some type of creator, a tool that they use to create the thing that I ended up, that ended up making a difference in my life, right, that I like was really passionate about or cared about a lot. So it would be, you know, like an Ian Curtis pen that, you know, he wrote some of the lyrics and like something like that would be really, really cool.

'''Myke:''' That would be really nice and it would be meaningful for you. You could like put them on the wall with the album or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

'''Myke:''' All right, and Michelle asks, in Back to the Future 2, Marty stands in the rain and gets a mysterious letter. It's from Doc writing to him from 1885. Marty reads the letter in the pouring rain but the ink doesn't run. Were there any waterproof inks in 1885?

'''Brad:''' Absolutely. And actually, they were probably primary waterproof inks because that's where iron gall inks came from. From the trees and the nuts falling and the boiling of the water to turn the raw materials into inks that then presented a permanence onto the page. So, I would say, you know, waterproof inks for at least documentation, right? Any water-based dye ink that people have made for thousands and thousands and thousands of years is going to exist, right? People can, you know, people could just, you know, grab a stick and smash some leaves and write with it. It's going to be, you know, just a water-based ink and it's going to run for waterproofness. but once people discovered that certain materials could be turned into ink and then that lead into permanence, yeah, 100%. So, that was probably very commonplace, especially for any type of writing or documentation. Books, you know, official paperwork, anything is all going to be written in some type of iron gall ink. You just hope, like, aside from the movie, you hope long-term that there's different like acidities with paper and those types of inks that hopefully don't destroy things but as far as ink permanence goes, yeah, 100%. That's a real thing.

'''Myke:''' Wow. Well, there you go.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' You just made it onto an IMDb trivia page or something. No,

'''Brad:''' no. I think that's pretty straightforward. Like, any nut-based iron gall inks are going to be permanent and those were essentially, like, boiled over a...

'''Myke:''' You're a nut-based iron gall inks. Yeah, you are. No, you're... Oh, dear. Well, that's it for this week's episode. Yeah. If you want to send in a question of your own, just a note, tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or question mark AskTPA. If you're listening to this at the right time, happy Thanksgiving if that's something that you celebrate. We'll be back next time. You can find us in a few different places. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash four, eight, nine to get links and information about today's episode and everything we spoke about in the gift guide. You can... What else can people do, Brad? Ah, they can go and follow you on Instagram, you're penaddict. They can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com and twitch.tv slash penaddict where you'll find Brad streaming multiple times a week. Brad is dowdyism on Twitter. I am imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you to Holo for the support of this show and to you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 488/transcript

2026-06-11T10:22:38Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 488
| title = Your Warranty is Voided
| date = November 18th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/488 Episode 488]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_488.mp3 Audio Episode 488]
| length = 59
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 488, and today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey Myke, how's it going? Pretty good, my friend. How are you? I think good, to be determined. We'll see how this show goes. Alright, that sounds like a threat. Yeah, it does sound like a threat. That's what I'm saying. Threatening. That's the energy you want. I know, I am ready to get after you a little bit later in this episode. We're just going to hold that thought. It's in my head.

'''Myke:''' We were chatting before and Brad kept, I don't know what it is, but Brad keeps saying to me, like, I'm in trouble for something. And I don't, I have yet to understand what that might be. I guess we'll find out. We have some follow-up on a state of stationary conversation that came through from CY. Did you want to talk about this?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so it was, I need to go, I'm actually going to go back and listen to that episode and take some notes, just kind of see what I said. Because, like, I wrote a whole bunch of notes for that episode. But then when you, when you're talking about it and thinking about it, you kind of lose track of, of how it's going, right? It's really hard to put all these things in your head and get it, get them out in a coherent fashion as I'm doing right now. Like, so wonderfully. But one of the bits of feedback I had was from CY. He says, I think y'all are missing the Chinese manufacturers on innovation. I would venture to say that hundreds of thousands of new fountain pen users have been introduced to the fountain pen world thanks to their innovations in manufacturing at scale. Pen BBS, for example, introduced lots of folks to higher end filling mechanisms for less than $50 loads of color options and now nib sizes too. On the Japanese side, I'd say that the Kakuno was industry changing as well on introducing kids to fountain pens. So, yeah, like, one of the points I made to him was when I was considering innovation and the discussion around innovation, I didn't consider scale, right? I was thinking more of design innovation as opposed to, like, manufacturing scale innovation. Because really the only manufacturing scale innovation we're seeing right now is, hey, we're buying a ton of gold nibs and they're costing us more than ever, so we're going to charge more for them. And that's our scale right now. It's like, I think about Pelican when I talk about this. It's like, they have to invest a lot of money in natural resources. And even at the scale that they purchase things, it's still, like, very, very expensive and those costs get passed on to us. But in the getting new users aspect, I like the idea that CY presents that, okay, are we getting more people using fountain pens because there is actually a scale, like in China, for example, to where the fountain pen market can be more widespread? And does that lead? And does that lead? I hope that leads to actually more design and technical innovation with scale innovation leading that way. And his point about PennBBS, you know, is similar. And that's why I like brands like Twisby, right, for their low-cost piston mechanism and Opus for a low-cost eyedropper filler mechanism, relatively low-cost, compared to, you know, like if Montblanc came out with an eyedropper, you know, it's going to be, you know, $700,000, where you can get an Opus eyedropper filler eyedropper for, you know, $100. And you can see if this type of system is interesting and works well for you. So, yeah, I think the scale is beneficial in that it gets the product into more people's hands. And the benefit of getting it into more people's hands is then you find out the small amount of people who it registers with on a different level, and they start thinking about products differently down the line, right? That's my hope for manufacturing at scale is not the scale itself, but the access it gives to someone in an office somewhere who gets an idea because they were part of the receiving end of this economy of scale, but then takes that and works it through their head and actually create something new and innovative down the line, you know, 10 years from now. So, like, I think that's a very positive thing.

'''Brad:''' So, that's the way I look at that. But other than that, like, the feedback was positive, you know, it was pretty tame. Like, I must have done a halfway decent job, which is a miracle in itself, Myke, that I didn't get raked over the coals for much that I said last week.

'''Myke:''' I thought you did a good job. Maybe you'd said a bunch of things that were wrong, but everyone just thinks you're right. Do you ever think about that?

== Troubles with Feedback ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, that's the, like, the person who yells the loudest is the rightest. Yes. Yeah, well, I'm always willing to admit when I'm wrong or when, you know, my opinion needs to be tweaked and changed. And this was a good perspective because it wasn't something that I considered, which is why...

'''Myke:''' I think CY came at it from just a completely different angle to what we were thinking about, but it's also very valid.

'''Brad:''' Right, and that's why I was saying, like, that's why I like to do this publicly, and that's why I keep myself accessible. Like, you can reach me because then we can have these conversations. It's like, hey, did you think about this? And I was like, you know what? No, I didn't. And, like, I enjoy having those conversations.

'''Myke:''' How's Nano Como going?

'''Brad:''' Wow. Wow. So, good up until a couple days ago. I've had some life events that have put a damper on my riding. It has stopped it cold for reasons that life is more important right now for me. But, like, right up until, say, Tuesday, I was going pretty good. Let me get my notes out here because I did a little calculation on Tuesday. Tuesday, because Tuesday was the 15th or the 16th, whatever. We passed the 15th, which is the halfway point of the 30 days of November. So, I've been through 15 days. I had missed three days up until that point, and I had written 16,500 words in 15 days. So, a little over 1,000 and something words per day, 1,100, whatever that means. So, like, I was feeling pretty good about that, and now I'm in, like, a rut of where I'll have, like, several zeros in a row. But, like, I'm not actually worried about that because I am actually enjoying this product. This product? Project.

'''Brad:''' Words are going to be hard today, Myke. You'll just have to keep me in line. What I'm finding is there is no way I'm stopping what I'm doing, right? Even though I've hit a wall as far as time goes right now, right? I don't have the two plus hours a day that I need to be able to, or the mental capacity to be able to sit down and transcribe a novel. That said, after, like, the first three days, and I mentioned this last week, I have come to, like, love doing this. I miss when I'm not writing. I think about, you know, like, if my day is going along and I'm very busy, and I think about, hey, I'm pretty soon going to have this window to write, and I'm going to enjoy it, right? Like, that's an interesting place to be for me. Like, it feels good, and I'm learning things as I go about my writing, about my time management.

'''Brad:''' I'm thoroughly enjoying the products that I'm using. You know, I've finally gotten into some non-fountain pens, right? Like, I use the Kaweco Sport Gel Roller, the Ombre Edition that we have talked about, you know, probably about a year ago. I use that for a segment in the book, in the writing. I've used a mechanical pencil for the first time. So, I use the Wingback Mechanical Pencil. It's something they sent me. It's a new product they got. I don't even know if it's on a Kickstarter or if they're just selling it directly. But it's kind of a shorter stainless steel mechanical pencil neural grip, and I love the pencil. But what I've learned from it is that my grip pressure is much, much more intense with a mechanical pencil because I'm pressing really hard to make sure the lines are dark enough, right? So, I can read them as I'm writing them. And then I stopped after two pages of that, which is about 600 words.

'''Brad:''' And normally, most pens will – I'll go for five pages, which is about 1,500 words. But my hand was so tired using the pencil. And, like, I learned this, right? Like, I use mechanical pencils all the time, but I'm not just, like, constantly writing, you know, sitting down and writing for 30 minutes to an hour in a row. What do you think the difference is?

'''Myke:''' Like, why do you think one type of thing hurts more than another?

'''Brad:''' In this case, I really think it's the darkness of the line on the page, right? I wanted to be sure I'm getting a dark graphite line.

'''Myke:''' Right, so you're pressing too hard.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Whereas if I'm using a fountain pen, even if it's small, I'm using a blue or black ink most of the time.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

== Paper and Ink Contrast ==

'''Brad:''' And that, you know, that is visually easier on the eyes on this ivory-colored paper or cream-colored paper, I guess this probably is, than a graphite. So it comes from me wanting to see the words that I'm writing.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And you just kind of do it accidentally until I got about, I was really, I noticed it pretty quick. I was about halfway through the first page. I was like, huh. You know, like, the pencil itself is not bothering me, but my grip pressure is. So then I switched. I wanted to, I kind of doubled down. Right after that, I didn't go back to a fountain pen. I have the Tactile Turn Stealth pen that they sent me. We'll talk about that. Well, maybe I'll do a whole breakdown of that next week.

'''Brad:''' And it has a Pilot G2.7 millimeter refill. I was like, okay, let me go, let me see if my idea is correct, that it's just the pencil, and use a standard pen, right? A gel pen instead of a fountain pen. And I wrote three pages with that pen, no problem. So, and that had us a dark black ink. And it really was this idea of me forcing my hand onto the page to just get this darkness, you know? And it's like a subconscious thing, right? You don't notice you're doing it. Yeah. But your eyes are telling you as you're writing, it's like, I want to make sure this is dark enough for me to read. So, even if you're only writing with like 5% more pressure, anything like that changes how your hand and grip feels. So, yeah. I am going to try a wood case pencil soon just to see how that works for me. To see, am I going to have like the same feelings of like intensity on my hand pressure as I'm writing. Because I'll choose a little bit darker core, a little softer and darker core. And the wooden pencils are lighter anyway. And I can hold it a little bit further back. I don't know. I have a feeling that I'm going to get the same results, right? Because it's almost a subconscious writing.

'''Brad:''' Separate from that, I learned two things about some fountain pens that I use. One, my Nakaya Piccolo and Kikio Blue has a stock EF nib. I can get 400 words a page on an A5 page without like any pressure at all. So, the day I used that, I only wrote three pages. But it was 1,200 words, which is kind of crazy if you think about it. You look at it, you don't think it's that much smaller than some of the other pages. But in totality, by the end of the page, that's what it came to be, right? Yeah. I actually noticed it. But, you know, I'm just kind of freewheeling my word counts, right? I'm not counting my page. I did an estimate in the beginning. And I get just over 300 words a page, no matter what pen or nib size I've been using. But this one was noticeably smaller. So, I made a point to stop and count. And like the first page I counted was like 408 words. And the second page I counted was like 410 words. I was like, wow, I guess I get 400 words a page in there. So, I did allocate for that when I was adding.

'''Brad:''' The most recent pen I used, and this gets into the broader topic of what am I learning.

'''Brad:''' As I'm doing this, I'm learning I'm enjoying switching pens and inks a lot, right? But I don't do that on a day-to-day basis because I'm not writing this many words necessarily in a consistent fashion. So, the last pen I've used was the Pilot Custom 823.

'''Brad:''' And mine has a fine nib that I had ground into, a cursive italic nib. And this is the best pen I've used so far. It feels great in the hand when you're writing with it. It's like well-balanced. It's not too heavy. It's not too light. I don't use it posted, obviously. The vacuum mechanism. You're a monster. Yeah, I'm not a monster. I don't like that.

'''Brad:''' So, the vacuum mechanism gives it a little bit of added weight, but not too much to where it's a heavy pen. The grip section and barrel threads are all very soft. It's hard to describe how that feels, but it's a smooth, slightly tapered section. The grip threads don't get in the way. It's just exceedingly comfortable. And the nib, this is the first nib I've used, the first modified nib I've used, right? I've used all... Oh, what is this? So, it's a fine nib, but I had it ground into a cursive italic, right? So, it's a little bit squared off, but still small, right? Like, my words are small. I haven't taken any pictures of these recently, but I'll take... I have some catch-up pictures to put on with, like... I'm going to do the Nakaya and the 823 and the pencil, just to show some of the differences that I've had. Because I've been kind of keeping track of some of my favorites as I go. And this 823, I could write the entire book with this 823. I see why this is... I mean, we already know it's such a popular pen, and it's a pen that I rave about, and it's a pen that I love. But I love it because I heard so many good things from other people who were using it before me. And, you know, this is the Neil Gaiman pen that, you know, a lot of people talk about. Like, he writes some of his work with, and it's just good. It's just good. I dare to say it's probably one of the best bang for your buck pens on the market, even though it's, like, very expensive. You know, it's around $300, give or take, I believe. I don't know if the price has really increased. I just haven't looked. But based on all the other prices of other things increasing, this becomes almost best pen in any category for, like, a hardcore fountain pen user. Like, it's just that good, that quality of a product. So I've been loving that. So that's led me into kind of the last little topic on NaNoWriMo, and that's the using of things. And I am just searching. Not searching. Searching is the wrong word. I am just avidly going through my collection of pens and wanting to ink up literally everything that I have. But I ran into a problem, Myke. I pulled a trick straight from the Myke Harley playbook. I went to ink up a pen. I was like, oh, look at this.

'''Myke:''' I'm already unhappy with the categorization of this. You inked up the pen, and it was perfect, and you loved it, and you had a great time, and everyone was happy.

'''Brad:''' It didn't exactly go that way. So I was like, oh, I haven't inked up my 1911 standard tangerine. So the small 1911 tangerine in a while. And I've always loved that smaller size pen, right? It's a great writing pen. So I was like, okay, this one's going into the rotation. So when I got the 823, I pulled out the Montegrappa Mia, which is about to go in the rotation, and then I pulled out the 1911, which I wanted to ink up. So I unscrewed it, go to ink it up, and guess what I find? A converter stained with dried out ink that I somehow stored without cleaning, which I never, ever, ever do. I don't do that. And all I could think about was this is one of Myke's pens that he's left inked for a year. This is unacceptable. And just like now I know how you feel. I never have this, though.

== Pen Storage Issues ==

'''Myke:''' This never happens to me where I'm like, oh, here's a pen that I like. Whoops, I left it for a year, and it's all dried up. This never happens. They all get used. They just have ink in them for a really, really, really, really, really long time. But they get used. So this doesn't, I don't have this sensation of, oh, no, it's all dried up.

'''Brad:''' Well, I mean, this sounds like a location argument to me, Myke. Like, mine was actually put away. Yours is theoretically, I mean, like, air quote used because it's not put away. It's in the big block of madness.

'''Myke:''' That's the life hack, isn't it? You don't put, never put them away. And then they get used. Then they don't dry up. You see?

'''Brad:''' So right before the podcast today, I tried to clean it out as best I can. So it's sitting there soaking for me to check back out after. I had to disassemble the converter. It was just all caked up and gunked up. That never happens to me.

'''Myke:''' The only pen that has ever happened to me, genuinely, is the Pikachu Lummy Safari, where I had, I think it was the Pilot yellow ink in it, and it just all crusty and stuff, and I didn't want to do it. And it's like, I was like, oh, I don't want to. And I did do it. I cleaned it all out, and I put one of the Sailor Ink Studio inks in it instead, which is better to it. So I have had that. So I will say this. The only time I've ever had that where it's like it's got all dried and crusted and terrible and gross.

'''Brad:''' And that's funny that you say that because this was an orange ink. It actually might have even been Fire on Fire, and those yellow, orange, red inks are going to be, are the crusty ones, right?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, Fire on Fire can get like that. Mont Blanc Lucky Orange gets like it too, so I have to keep my eye on it.

'''Brad:''' Oh, that's a different level. That's a different level. That's like it's the ink is basically solid. Yeah, it's the greatest ink in the world, like crusty-wise, compared to Lucky Orange. And I use Lucky Orange. It's great, but you don't use that pen for a week. It's just, it's growing stuff.

'''Myke:''' Yep. Nice. Yeah. Tasty.

'''Brad:''' So that's my update. I actually have, I'm staring at three new pens I want to ink up. It's fun that I'm thinking about like future review pens, right? Like I always try to test things out, some before I review them. So this is a good way with the Nano Como, copying, inking up pens, you know, testing out new inks and pens as I go.

'''Myke:''' I think you're finding out something really interesting here, to be honest, which is like, I don't know if we would have suggested that the custom 823 would have been so good for this job. Like this is like a different thing that you're working out here, I think, which is like endurance, like for endurance, which is like a different, could be an interesting thing to include into reviews.

'''Brad:''' Like, yeah, and like I mentioned, I mentioned last week that like my physical endurance is changing as I go through this. Like I remember the first few days, I would just complain about my wrist and my grip and my fingers. And, you know, you know how if you grip something for too long, like you can't, you know, release out your fingers, they get all stiff. And like the physical aspects of my hand have improved to better handle my writing.

== Physical Endurance Changes ==

'''Myke:''' You're becoming stronger every day. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Unstoppable. Yep. All right. This episode is brought to you by Penn Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, refills, inks, converters, accessories, everything you're looking for, they've got it. And they are an authorized dealer of all of your favorite brands. Penn Chalet believe in giving you the very best service that they can. So they make it fast, they make it reliable, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US, but they sell internationally. You can ship all over the world. And they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high-quality products that they offer to you at the lowest prices that they can. Penn Chalet is running special discounts twice a month, close-up specials as well, as well as adding new styles of products. You're always going to find new pens, new stuff over at Penn Chalet, so it's always worth checking back in. So go right now to PennChalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website, and enter the password Penn Addict for this week's special offers, and also to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Penn Chalet. What's jumping out to you this time, Brad?

'''Brad:''' Big Bennu party over here at Penn Chalet. Oh, Big Bennu Energy over at Penn Chalet. Big Bennu Energy. So there's several models that I love here. My favorite Bennu model is the Euphoria, which I have reviewed on the blog. Wow. That one is going to be one that I will be inking up to use in the book. These pens, they really are very striking. They're not for everybody.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, but they don't look like anything else. If you want to have a pen, like, genuinely, if it's something you want is I want to have a pen that looks like a pen that nobody else has, you can go get a Bennu.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I tell this story a lot, and I'll share it again. When I would work at pen shows for Van S, and we'd have tons of ink and tons of pens, if we had Bennu pens, I would sell more Bennu pens to people than all the other pens combined. It's just, it's a really cool pen that comes in all these wild materials and wild shapes. So, like, the Briolette is just, like, a crazy price right now. It's kind of the smaller torpedo-shaped one. And then that goes in huge contrast to the Grand Scepter, which may be one of the most popular Bennu sizes.

'''Myke:''' This is my favorite design of them, to be honest.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, this one passed through my hands, and I sent it on to Sarah, but when I got it, I was like, I could get into this. And then I kept the Euphoria for myself to review. It's actually the most traditionally shaped, but has all the Bennu wild features in there as well. And then they have the Bennu Supreme, which I've never tried, which is their more, the most normal-looking, and I mean that in the best way possible. These pens are wild. These are great prices. They are eminently enjoyable. I love my Bennu pen, and I think they're fantastic. One more thing. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, Myke, the Stipula Netto Patented Filling System Pen Care Filling Ink Pot that you can get at just an amazingly low price.

'''Myke:''' So, if you want to check these out for yourself, go to P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T, penshalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict. So, thanks to Penn Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM. So, how's knock shipping going?

'''Brad:''' It was going great up until this week happened. I had finally, I had gotten down to like 150 orders, which I'm pretty happy about. And then I just hit the wall, what, Tuesday, Monday, Monday maybe is when I, or whatever, one day early this week. I was like, I finished my day. I was like 150 left. I was like, yeah, I can probably get these done like in the next week, 10 days. And then I've just hit the wall since then. But I should have time this weekend to catch that up. And I have received the kind of final batch of goods from the factory. So, I'm going to have some big inventory updates for a couple of products, like a couple hundred more cases, like Lookouts and Pencil Cases, some things that sold out early.

'''Myke:''' So, this is stuff that you had to pay to get released. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

'''Brad:''' So, it was already built and they just hold it. Like, it's just, it's how that business works. So, yeah. No, they just hold it until I build the whole order. They go ahead and build everything, save it's 500 cases. And then I'll say, okay, ship me 150. And then in two weeks, they'll send me whatever I want. They'll just send me whatever after the big batch is made. So, yeah. So, I have those in. And so, what's going to happen is once I finish this round of shipping and get to just, you know, a handful of orders coming in a day left, I will re-inventory the whole shoot and match. And we'll kind of have one more big round of final send-off stuff. And then, you know, we'll see where we're at from there. That might be the time where, you know, the site, you know, everything is listed as sold out. And then we'll have, like, maybe a last hurrah in Atlanta next year or something like that. With anything else I can scrape up and, you know, all the things, all the one-offs and two-offs that it doesn't really benefit to put on the website at this point. So, it's – everything's been going really good as far as that goes. You know, it's just put me behind because there was so much love for all of our cases. And I appreciate everyone – appreciate everyone's kind words and hope everyone's enjoying their cases. Yes.

'''Myke:''' It says you're never going to get rid of it all. Every time you sell out, there's always going to be more. You're just going to be – you're going to be closing this company out for the rest of your life.

'''Brad:''' I know it's not going to happen until next year. So, it's going as good as I hoped other than just, you know, the shipping is taking a long time. And I appreciate – everyone's patience has been excellent.

'''Myke:''' It's slow. It's just a slow process when you've got one person shipping out hundreds of orders. Like, it's the time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And this isn't, like, a prepackaged good that I can just do in bulk. I still, like, literally inspect every case. Right? That's the time process. That's one of those proud things about NOC that we did is how we do our QC. And it's just time-consuming. Right? It just is. Like, I'm physically touching and inspecting every case still to this day. Wouldn't have it any other way.

== Previous Sponsor Discussion ==

'''Myke:''' So, last week, we were sponsored by Kenro Industries. And we were talking about the – You were sponsored by them. No, we both were. I mean, it all came around and went around by the end for me anyway.

'''Myke:''' And they were showing off the Estabrook Pink Sands. This is not part of that. Like, the reason we're talking about it is because I have one. You purchased one. I purchased one because I was really intrigued by it and I wanted to see it. And there were so few of them, I was kind of like – Well, they only made 50, right? And I wanted to show – It's all sold out now, I believe. Yeah. It's sold out that day, I believe. I ordered it on Wednesday and it arrived on Friday, which I do not understand how they did that.

'''Brad:''' I was shocked to see this in the show notes today. Put it that way.

'''Myke:''' I did have a funny thing too where it kind of went missing for a few hours. So it was FedEx delivering it. And they said they'd delivered it, but they had not delivered it. Like, they said they left it outside the front door. It was not left outside the front door. And then a few hours later, like, you know, I checked the mailbox and stuff. A few hours later, Idina checked the mailbox again and a slip had arrived in the mailbox and said it was left to someone else. It was really weird. I don't know what happened. I feel like maybe the driver had a target and just said that they delivered it and then just brought it later on in the day, which is strange.

'''Brad:''' That's just how fast it was. Like, it broke the space-time continuum.

'''Myke:''' It shipped out on Wednesday, I think, which is what. But the reason I was concerned about this specifically is there was only 50 of them. If one was lost, there was only 49, right? So it was like a bit of a concern. So I would say overall, like, body of the pen kind of looks, feels as I would imagine. It's like my other SD, you know? Like, I don't know what they call their acrylic kind of pattern, but it's kind of like, I don't know, like broken glassy type. Yeah, kind of mosaic-y. Mosaic is a good one, yeah. So it's got that similars to it. The color is very vivid.

'''Myke:''' I would say it's definitely more of a coral pink, like the body of the pen itself. And it feels great. But the reason I bought this is for the nib, right? So the nib has got this coating on it, which it's difficult to describe. Like, it's a kind of rosy, goldy pink color, I think is probably the best way to describe the color of the nib itself. And so, yeah, it looks fantastic. I mean, and it works just as great as my other rest of work. And so I was just really intrigued by this nib. And it honestly looks to me like it's kind of like a, I don't know if this makes any sense, but it's like they made the nib out of some kind of pink material. Like how a gold nib looks like it's made out of gold, right? Right. This looks like it was made out of something. It doesn't look like they painted it. It doesn't look like it was like energized, you know, or whatever. Like it really has a look to it that it was made from something. And that something just so happened to be pink in color. Yeah. So it's very impressive.

'''Brad:''' That's a very positive comment I take. Yeah. A takeaway. That's a very positive takeaway, I think. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Like it doesn't look like it was plated. It doesn't look like it was colored. Like what is it? Rhodium? Is that it? Remedium? That's like a, what am I thinking of here?

'''Brad:''' I mean, there's rhodium plating on like the pins that I get, like my Nakaya that's sitting right here. Like it's anything that's silver looking on a gold nib is usually rhodium plated, but it looks natural.

'''Myke:''' I feel like I might have had like a Franklin Kristoff nib once, which was black. And it looked like they'd applied something. Yes.

'''Brad:''' Traditionally, a lot of the black nibs. There's been some improvements in that technology in that process. But yeah, when you and I were initially buying black nibs, you know, after about the fifth time you've used them or cleaned them, you start to get like gray and it like starts to rub off and things like that.

'''Myke:''' It was more really like, because again, I don't know how, I've only had this for a few days, really. I don't know how it's going to hold up over time. I'm super intrigued. You know, there was like a care note in there where it's like, all right, just be gentle when you clean it. Don't use like shimmery inks or whatever. Mm-hmm. Which honestly, I feel like every pen says that, right? And I understand, right? Because like the margin of what is a shimmery ink, you know, like is wide. And so I think it's probably just in everyone's best interest to be like, I'm not covering that. Your warranty has been voided. If you're putting solid things into the ink, like this isn't, I'm not going to, you know, this isn't for me. So I don't hold that against any pen maker that says that, to be honest.

'''Myke:''' So yeah, but like with those, with those, like the black nibs that had in the past, it looked like someone had put something on the nib. You know what I mean? Yes. Like it was being coated. Oh, totally. This does not look like a coating at all. That's what I find so impressive about it. So I'm really intrigued. Obviously, this was difficult and or expensive because they only had 50 of them. And I feel like that was 100% a thing of like, this is how many nibs we can get. Like the nib care card was from Heinz nibs. They put that in the box, right? Right. So that came from them explicitly. So yeah, I chose a Sailor Ink Studio 731, but I'm not sure this was the right choice. So it's like a- Isn't that an orange? No, it's like a vividy pink. It's like a pinky. But I'm not sure. I think this might be a contrasting color pen, actually. Okay, sure. It's so pink. I don't think I want pink ink, but I don't know what to have yet. Like for example, my 1911 Wicked Witch is all purple, right? Right. And I have a green ink in it. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. Wicked Witch. But I think I might go for maybe a really bright blue or yellow with this. So it's like corally still. I'm thinking of getting ink which is themed for this rather than matching. I don't think the matching is working for me from a visual perspective.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Theme as opposed to match. Theme appropriate ink. But yeah, it does match, but it's not matchy-matchy, right? It's a coordinating ink.

'''Myke:''' And also because there are technically two pink colors going on here. The body and the nib, they match, but they're both two different types of pinks. And we're adding a third. It's too many. It's too many pinks. Yeah, I can see that.

'''Brad:''' It's starting to clash. Yeah, I think your bright blue would be good. I think so too.

'''Myke:''' There's one of the Sailor Ink Studio inks that we have, which is a really bright blue. I love it. Let me see if I can work out which one. I don't know if it's in my, it's in one of my kind of, the 141 is really beautiful. It's like, it looks like the ocean, like a bright blue ocean.

'''Brad:''' So yeah, might go with that one. That's the call. That's the call. Well, good. I'm glad you like it. Every time I click on the links, I'm like, man, that's a good looking pen. It's a good looking pen.

'''Myke:''' I'm genuinely really happy that I had the curiosity. Yeah. Because, you know, they sponsor the show. And so, you know, I suggest take it with a grain of salt. But what I'm about to say, I really love these Estabrook pens. I think the Estee is an excellent pen. And so I do recommend, like, if you find one that you like the aesthetics of, it's worth going in on. I think they're great. And I think they're doing really interesting stuff. Which actually brings me to something that I wanted to ask you about. I saw a review for the Edison Gold Spot Newark Orion Nebula Diamondcast, which is quite possibly the longest name of any pen that I have ever seen. And that's because there seems to be quite a lot going on here. Like, there's, like, three different companies that have come together to produce this pen. That's exactly right. And what I wanted to ask you is, the diamond cast material that this pen is made from, is that the same material that Edison is, that Estabrook is using?

'''Brad:''' That's correct. So the diamond cast is from McKenzie Penworks. And that's who makes the diamond cast material. So, you know, there's different, you know, just like if you have a Brooks, you know, primary manipulation, you know, there's different recipes. You know, there's just different recipes for, you know, each diamond cast material and different, you know, concoctions and things. I just, I don't know why.

'''Myke:''' I thought that diamond cast was an Estabrook thing. I didn't know that they were buying it from someone. But that makes a lot of sense because it's, comparing it to Jonathan makes, because Jonathan makes his materials for lots of different pen manufacturers. Right. I just didn't know that. I didn't, I don't know if I've been sleeping on this, but I don't think I'd heard of McKenzie Penworks or it hadn't logged in my brain.

'''Brad:''' Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. And maybe I didn't explain it well enough to you just to say that, yeah, this is, this is like someone making this product. And then other, you know, pen manufacturers using their products to manufacture their pens, just like, you know, what the, the Tanzanite Estabrook I have. I forget the exact name of it that I, that I, that I really love. One of the first ones that they did in the first batch was kind of a teal green and blue one, which came out great. And then this one, the Orion Nebula, which is in the, the Edison Newark, which is Goldspot's model. So yeah, there's three different things going on with this pen. It is one of the best pens I've bought in a long time for my personal use. So like, this is like, again, this is kind of like Myke saying, Goldspot sponsors the Pen Attic blog. And, but I bought this pen from them, you know, regular price.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, like these pink sands, I paid my own money for that. They didn't send me that. Which is kind of funny. I ended up probably in the hole, honestly. Yeah, right. On that one.

== Estabrook Pens Review ==

'''Brad:''' Right.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, no doubt. So yeah, like I just purchased this as normal. You know, I have a 10% off code at Goldspot. And like, that's what I, that's how I got this pen. But it's just cool. One of the reasons I bought it, aside from the looks, which we'll, we'll circle back around, because that's what I think gets a lot of people, is the shape of the pen. So I love a pen model called the Edison Beaumont. It's one of their original models. And it's a smaller sized pen. Not a small pen, but in the scope of all of their fountain pen shapes, it's one of the smaller ones. That's not considered like a mini size pen. It's thinner, shorter, lightweight. And the Newark is just a slightly bigger version of the Beaumont. And I had some comparison pics in the review. And you can see in there, both lightweight pens. And having that shape that I know works so well for me, and then ramping it up with a material like the Orion Nebula, I tried not to buy this pen. Like, this is how my process goes these days. And I talk about it a lot, is like something comes on my radar, and I like fall in love with it immediately. And then I just, I don't do anything, right? I just think about it for a while. I don't run and push the buttons like you did last week. Jamming buttons as fast as you can.

'''Myke:''' Sometimes you have to do things for science. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you do.

'''Brad:''' So what I did was I actually bought one of these to give away for Penn Act members. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to buy one for me too.

'''Myke:''' The material, the images that you have is really beautiful. It really, the colors look so great.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like, this is kind of one of those pens that just ticks all the boxes for me. It's kind of like, it's really got everything. This is why, also why I love like steel nibs. Like, I don't need a gold nib to feel like the most satisfaction I can get in a pen having a gold nib. Like, I can love a pen even if it has a steel nib. Like, it's not a downgrade to me because the writing experience really, really works for me with steel nibs and the firmness of steel nibs. And it's, the material is one of those that you just have to stop and look at the pen every now and then because, like, you'll be writing away and it's like, oh, let me spin this around in my hands and check out all the magic that's happening here. It's a really spectacular material in a pen shape that I love. And, you know, just the way it feels when I write. So, yeah, it was an all-around winner for me personally. I'm a big fan of this pen. This is going to be, this is a, I'm trying to think of all the pens I've bought this year, which is not that many. Like, there's two that really stand out as kind of like the top of the heap and like heavy rotation pens. And that's this pen and then the Blizzard of Visconti Homo Sapiens.

'''Myke:''' This is a big surprise to me. I mean, like, just because of the way you described it, it feels like it might have been too small and or light for me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, a lot of people don't like the Beaumont shape because it's smaller and lighter. But I've always leaned towards those smaller, lighter pens. And despite the fact I was just raving about how the 823 writes, which is, I'd say that's above, that teeters on the large size of pens. It's maybe not like the biggest, but, you know, that's enjoyable too. But there's just something about these smaller pens that really clicks with me. And the Newark shape is definitely one of them.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I think this is cool because I feel like I don't hear about Estabrook pens as much anymore. So, like, I'm really pleased to hear that you've got a new one that speaks to you. Or Edison pens. That's what I meant, Edison pens. I get those Edison, Estabrook, and Estee. Trust me. It must be worse for you, for sure. Like, I mix those up so much. Yeah, I feel like I haven't heard about a new good Edison in a while. Like, they were all the rage, you know, a number of years ago. Because they were doing something that really nobody else is doing. They were, like, the innovator of the acrylic.

'''Brad:''' And filling systems. Like, Brian Gray really, like, leaned into unique filling systems. And still offers all those unique filling systems.

'''Myke:''' One day I'll get mine repaired. One day I will get mine repaired. But what I wanted to ask you about for this pen, the Newark Orion Nebula Diamondcast, is about the price?

'''Brad:''' Yes. It's a premium with the diamondcast material. So, the stock, what you would think of as a stock Edison, is, like, the basic acrylics, like you were talking about. So, the stock acrylics, which are still, like, beautiful, just standard acrylics, are $169, which is a great price, honestly. Nice. For, like, custom-made, like, you know, small batch manufacturer pens with steel nibs, like, that's the price, right? That's what this range, you see a lot of people in this price range. It's a great price. So, the upgrade is, what, so that's $65, $66 of an upgrade. That's, you know, a third of the original pen costs or so. Is it worth the upgrade? I mean, for me, it wasn't even in consideration. Although, before this one released, I almost bought the green one. There's a green Newark and just the standard acrylic. Because I like, again, it's a shape thing for me. It's a pen shape thing. But, yeah, like, you have to think about the Diamondcast Premium. Because it's an ultra-premium price point. For this pen, the Estabrooks are an ultra-premium price point. Like, they go from, like, what, $170 to around $300, if not more. Because it's a bigger, wider pen, right? The Estabrooks, especially the Oversize, it's a wider diameter, longer pen. So, it requires more material, right? So, there's an even bigger percentage upgrade. So, that's just a personal thing. You have to decide, is it worth the upgrade? So, this one was $225. And, like, I mean, everyone's different. I didn't blink. Like, it was a non-consideration for me. The difference in price. Like, I just thought it was just easily worth it. Like, not even questioning any... To me, they were the same price. If that makes sense. I don't know how to explain it other than that. It felt worth that extra premium for that material. And that was the least of my consideration, was that price difference.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, they have got you covered. They do this by combining cutting-edge design with world-class engineering to make it easier than ever for you to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to create a beautiful, modern website. You start with one of their beautiful, professionally designed templates, use drag-and-drop tools to make it your own, and customize the look and feel, settings, all the products you have on sale, basically everything with just a few clicks. And all of Squarespace's websites are optimized for mobile as well, so they're going to look great on every device. You get free unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, there's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade. You get access to 24-7 customer support, you can grab a unique domain name, and take advantage of SEO and email marketing tools, and so much more. Squarespace can let you do anything you want to do with a website, whether you want to announce an upcoming event, promote a business, publish a blog post, publish your artwork, or even just take the idea that you have and give it a place online so people can find out more about it. Squarespace has everything you need to make this a reality. It's why I've used them. It's why Brad's used them for a decade, over a decade, both of us. So it really is just the place to go if you want to put something online. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code PENADDICT, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict, and when you decide to sign up, use the offer code PENADDICT, and you will get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of the Pen Addict and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' All right, I did a review on my Squarespace blog earlier this week, Myke. Like the Diamondcast from last week, as passionate as I am about talking about that, Edison, X, Goldspot, Newark, Orion, Nebula, Diamondcast, Myke, I love gel ink pens, especially microtip gel ink pens from Japan, and I want the Secura Balls line to be one of the next great pens, but it's not there. It's not there.

'''Myke:''' I hadn't realized until you said it. When you said it out loud, I realized how much I hate the word ball sign. It's really bad. It wasn't so much of an issue when I read it, but when it said out loud, I do not like it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and this is a ball sign ID, right? So that's a whole different, you know, You go to ID the ball sign,

'''Myke:''' I've always lost the point, you know?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. But this is Secura's, once again, repeated attempts at getting, breaking ground in the gel ink pen market. A very tough competitive landscape that is dominated by Pilot, Uniball, Zebra, and Pentel, right? I don't know that anyone would argue that those aren't the top four gel pen manufacturers, and then you have this whole subset of manufacturers that is just kind of picking at the crumbs of whatever those big players leave behind. You know, your Secura's, your Oto's, your Ray Mays, your whoever. You know, and I kind of want one of these pens to make a difference in, you know, kind of like nip at the heels a little more. This one's close. It's not there. I think there were some inconsistencies in the refill, but they have changed. They have made a barrel that works, and they have a refill and an idea for the inks that works, right? The ball sign ID uses...

'''Myke:''' Ball sign.

'''Brad:''' Ball sign. Lennon toolbar. Ball. It uses the mix of black plus a color ink, right? So that's black and purple, black and red, black and brown, black and green, black and blue, right? That's a very cool thing to do these days, and it's a .4 tip, and it writes really well. It kind of writes like a Uniball RT1 refill, and it just needs a little bit of tweaking. Like, it's a little expensive for a little bit lower quality barrel. I feel like they do something which none of their competition does, really, and they have a metal clip, but then they don't match the nose cone of the pin with that metal same aesthetic, right? Some pins have a plastic clip and a plastic nose cone. Like, that's fine. Some pins have a metal tip and a metal nose cone where it matches. This has a metal clip and then a plastic nose cone that doesn't look like it fits the quality of the rest of the pin. So, like, I really overanalyze these cheap jet-link pins because I think the market is interesting. It's like, if Secura could, like, tighten this up, like, five or ten more percent, like, this could be, like, a really good, like, competitive pin. I don't think it's there yet, but you can tell by how I talk about it and how I review it that I really want them to do something to, like, you know, like, poke the bear at the top, if you will. But, I mean, Secura is a big enough company on their own for their other products. So, this is, like, a sub-product for them, almost. Like, they're, you know, they're the Secura Pigma Micron people, right? That's the whole thing. Like, that's kind of their deal. And I'm sure they sell, like, tens of thousands more jelly roll pins than they do this pin, right? Because that's what the kids buy. But this is, like, that office supply core pin that all the other competition has on lock. And this is kind of their attempt at that. And I just see it, like, it's close. And, like, I want these types of things to continue to, like, be a thing and improve. I wouldn't rate it above any of the other pins that I mentioned yet, but, man, it's close. Like, it's getting there. It's like, come on, Secura. Like, I'm trying to pump you up here. It's like, you're close. You are really, really on the right path here. But there's some changes you need to make.

'''Myke:''' All right, let's finish out today's episode of a couple of Ask TPA questions. The first one comes from Nibs On Point, who asks, I just found my first fountain pen from what was 30 years ago. I remember Myke's first fountain pen from the show, which was the yikes fountain pen of all knowledge, in case you like a memory. What was Brad's first fountain pen?

'''Brad:''' I wouldn't bet my last dollar on this being my first, because I think I had, like, a Platinum Preppy. You know, I tried, like, the Platinum Preppys and the Pilot Varsities, like, your disposable types, before when I was just testing things out. But the first one that I remember kind of reviewing and kind of trying to decide if this is a thing, and I remember not even, like, totally liking it, at the time, was this Lamy Safari, and it had, like, this chartreuse barrel. I think it might have been a limited edition at the time. And the review's up on the blog. I'll have to go find it, but it has to be that pen. And there were fountain pen reviews before that, but that's the one that sticks in my mind as my first, because at the time, like, the Platinum Preppys or the Pilot Varsities, like, didn't really leave, like, a mark on me, right? But the Safari did, because at the time, I didn't get it, right? It didn't, like, click with me. And, like, I'm sure that review says as much. Like, there was no, like, oh, my gosh, this is it type of thing. It was like, okay, y'all wanted me to try a fountain, like, a real fountain pen. I did, and it's a pen, and I'm just going to stick with my gel pens, I think was probably kind of how the review went. And this is me not even recalling it from probably, I don't know, it's probably been 10 years ago at this point. But I'll find it and put it in the show notes. What was the model name again? I don't know. It was, like, this bright yellow green. It's, like, a chartreuse-y looking color, but I don't know the official name of it. I probably just did, like, Lamy Safari fountain pen review. So we'll just have to look at the date. But that's what I consider, like, my first fountain pen. And I don't have that one anymore. I ended up giving it to someone. I kind of wish I did have it, but not a big deal. Do you want me to read this?

'''Myke:''' It's not very long.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. All my reviews were really short back then. Okay, go ahead.

'''Myke:''' So many readers of this blog are fountain pen fans and have been trying to get me on the bandwagon for the longest time. This is from November 24, 2008. Well, the time has come to get my seat ready because I am really enjoying this Lamy Safari I ordered from JetPens a couple of weeks back. Fountain pens always look beautiful and interesting to me, but I had stayed away mostly because I felt I didn't have much use for them. What good was spending that much money on a pen that was just going to sit in a drawer and collect dust? RIP. If you couldn't tell by the majority of my reviews, I'm a micro tip ink pen fan. Fountain pens are big and messy, right? But the more I read about them and the more I thought that I could get proper use out of one and the Lamy Safari looked right up my alley. In looking at the models available, this lime green body with chrome clip, that's the model, really caught my eye. And as good as it looks on a web page, it's even better looking in person. The plastic barrel is sturdy and looks like it could take a pretty good beating and any other concern I had with fountain pens. I also wasn't sure what nib size to order, but this one came with a fine nib and that's working out great for me. I think any nib size larger than that would be out of my comfort zone and the next one I order, yes, there will be more, will have an extra fine nib. As expected, the ink flow is excellent and the writing experience couldn't be smoother. I'm going to have to tweak my writing style a bit to get the best use out of the pen. Spoiler alert, Brad, you didn't looking at the image.

'''Myke:''' I'm going to tweak my writing style a bit to get the best out of the pen because one thing I found is that my normal writing style and angle, my south to north strokes, come across the nib a bit and I lose the ink on occasion. Ah, you may have changed it a bit. Nothing I can't correct and heck, maybe having a fountain pen will make me want to work on my cursive handwriting again. Overall, I couldn't be happier with my first non-disposable fountain pen purchase and unfortunately for my wallet, I think there will be more to come. Oh, little did he know.

'''Brad:''' What a review from young Bradford.

'''Myke:''' Man, that's like November 24th is next week. That's kind of fun.

'''Brad:''' 2008, 2008. So that was one year into the blog because the blog started a year before that, like right around that day.

'''Myke:''' 13, oh my God, 13 years ago. I'm pleased we found that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, we're coming up on the 14th anniversary. I want to say like the anniversary date is like November 29th. Right. So this will be the 14th anniversary coming up here in a couple weeks. So yeah, that was good. That was good. Like I was more positive on it than I recall. I got most of the details right except I was a little bit more positive there that there would be more in my future and you know, it escalated. Yeah, it escalated a little bit.

'''Myke:''' And TJ asks, this is a longer question. Now that I'm almost a year into my first fountain pen ownership, I realized that I'm starting to need to learn different things. For example, I've gotten to the point now where I have a lot of pens, a lot for me, about six, and I don't use them all every day. Recently, I saw some articles that said you should store fountain pens horizontally and definitely not with the nib or tip pointed down. Is that accurate? I'm willing to believe it, but I had assumed that storing them nib down made it easier for the ink to stay in the nib so it would be more likely to write after not being used for a while.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, logically that makes sense, right? So nib down would lead to that, but it leads to other issues as well, such as like pooling in the feed to where if you have it stored nib down that when you get the pen out to write it, it's going to really just kind of like spew all over the page. So horizontally is the best. You will get people to swear by other ways, but I don't store my fountain pens that are inked any way other than horizontally.

'''Myke:''' I store them nib up.

'''Brad:''' And Myke stores them nib up, which you're just like, that's fine too. Like there's no wrong answer, but you're going to have to manage things. Yep. Sometimes my pens need a minute, right? Right. So Myke has to plan on priming his pens. Like if he picks one up that he hasn't used in a week, it's probably going to take a second to start writing, right? Like that's the sacrifice that he makes for that. If you leave them nib down, you're going to have to like, you might want to start on a paper towel to suck out all the ink that's just kind of pooled in the feed. Like it's not going to run out the nib or anything like that. That's not going to be the problem. But the problem is you might just have like a heavy application of ink like for your first few lines because it's not balanced.

'''Myke:''' One of the things that made me comfortable to store my pens like this was we were at one pen show. It was one of the early pen shows. A very good friend of the show, Thomas Hall, he was showing me a pen and it wasn't starting. And he aggressively shook it. Yeah. Like took the end of the pen and just put the cap on and just one big like bang, right? Like just like, ah. Yeah. And then it started writing. And then I was like, well, if Thomas is going to do it, I'll be fine to do it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I'd say 80% of people are going to say horizontally. And then there's room for other options for other reasons. Yeah. I don't like how much space they take up when they're horizontal. Yeah. Right.

'''Myke:''' That's why I store vertical. And if you are going to store vertical, you should store vertical up, nib up. Honestly, to be honest, most of the vertical storage solutions if you're using fountain pens only work that way because the cap is too large to go inside the slot that they've created in there.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. Yeah. I would have, nib down would be like only in case of emergency. Like that actually makes me nervous to store a pen. I'll tell you what I do. It would make me anxious. A nib up I could do.

'''Myke:''' My pen well. My pen well craftsman that I use. But that's like, because that's in use. I don't, when I'm finished writing notes, I take it out and put it away. But like right now, I have my, my pink sands Estabrook in the pen well craftsman because I'm using it. And it's just like, right. It's where I put the pen for the time being. But then I don't know why

'''Brad:''' that angle makes me feel more comfortable than just like straight vertical. I don't know why. I agree with you. Even though it's the same,

'''Myke:''' same effect. But I wouldn't leave a pen in that overnight or like for a couple of days or whatever. It's just like, yeah, it's an in use product. Yeah. Cool. So a good question actually. I like that. Yeah, it is. It is. We'd love some more questions by the way. Please send us some tweets or in the discord. Hashtag AskTPA on Twitter. Question mark, AskTPA in the RelayFM members discord or email them to hello at penaddict.com because we have to, we might be pre-recording an episode in the next couple of weeks. So having a bunch of AskTPA would be great for that. So please, please send them in. If you've got any questions or if you want to hear us talk about anything specifically, it doesn't have to just be a question to be like, hey, I want to know more about this. So hashtag AskTPA on Twitter or question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members discord. Thank you so much to Squarespace and Pen Chalet for the support of this episode. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com and spoke design.com. Brad is also penaddict on Instagram, Dowdy is on Twitter and you can always find Brad streaming over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I am at imyke and you can find really beautiful, fantastic journals and notebooks at cortexmerch.com. The end of the year is coming so you want to make sure you have your theme system journal. I'll just say it right now. If you want one by one, if you want one by one. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' We do this every year. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' We got a lot of them but who knows? Cool. No. Yeah. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 487/transcript

2026-06-11T10:21:44Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 487
| title = The State of Stationery
| date = November 10th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/487 Episode 487]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_487.mp3 Audio Episode 487]
| length = 61
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 487. Today's show is brought to you by Ooni Pizza Ovens, Harry's, and Kenro Industries. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey Myke, how's it going?

'''Myke:''' Pretty good, my friend. How are you?

'''Brad:''' I think pretty good, you know, to be determined. We'll see how this show goes. That'll affect my read the rest of the day.

'''Myke:''' I'm pretty excited about today's topic.

'''Brad:''' Oh yeah, you think?

'''Myke:''' Why wouldn't I be?

== Introduction ==

'''Brad:''' Well, I mean, because it's going to be me rambling incoherently for like 30 minutes.

'''Myke:''' Right, that's fair enough.

'''Brad:''' You're like, yeah, that's accurate.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I mean, that's what I tune in for.

'''Brad:''' Oh, okay, yeah. You know me, the man with the clean copy, right, is this guy right here. So, we're just going to ramble for a while on the state of stationary, Myke, and that should be an interesting topic.

'''Myke:''' I mean, it doesn't really seem no different to any other episode, but we'll find out. True. How's Nanokomo going for you? Good, I think. Do you want to think of Pericomo is now what I think of whenever I say that?

'''Brad:''' You, yes. Me, not so much. But yeah, go with that. That's what I think of. Yeah, that sounds right for you. I get that. Nanokomo, to me, just sounds like super fake, made-up thing, but that's what I'm good at is super fake, made-up things. Or we can go with Nanokomo. I like that, too. That sounds like Kokomo. That's it. Yeah, that's definitely up your alley. Like, this is strictly you, right? Like, that is... Aruba.

'''Myke:''' Let's keep singing. Why does... Why? What has happened to me where I just keep finding new songs to sing on this show? I don't know why this has occurred. I think you're to blame, though.

'''Brad:''' I mean, I'll take the blame. I don't do anywhere else. I'll take the blame. Like, it's fair. Blame well-placed, I think. So, we'll take it. We like the distractions every now and then. It's good to have fun on the podcast, Myke, and that's what we do.

'''Myke:''' So, is that where you want to go? Straight down to Nanokomo?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, let's go straight down to Nanokomo. God, this is going to be a problem for 20 more days after this.

'''Myke:''' You're lucky I'm taking some time. Actually, no. It's all of November, right? I'm here for all of November. So, you've got this.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. All right. So, overall, I have to say it's going well. Okay. I have not been perfect. And, you know, when we talked about me trying to do this and then did a quick update last week, I talked about how what I am trying to do is not a creativity problem, which is what the traditional Nanowimo helps people with.

== Nanowrimo Progress ==

'''Myke:''' You do not have writer's block issues.

'''Brad:''' Right. So, for me, it's solving – it's a time management, you know, equation that I'm trying to solve, right? So, how can I find the time to write the words that I want to hit to reach a goal by the end of November, right?

'''Myke:''' And also, there is – so, you know, people might say, well, there's always a time management issue with Nanowimo anyway. But one of the benefits of Nanowimo is creative fulfillment, you know? Like, you might not worry so much about spending a lot of time because you're on, like, a real kick and, like, the words are just flowing out of you. Right. You never get that because all you are doing is just transcribing, you know? There is never a moment where you can be like, oh, man, I can't wait to get this part done. Like, it's not going to – there isn't any real difference in that.

'''Brad:''' Right, and the challenge that I have is I really – like, a 15-minute block doesn't do me any good where if I was doing Nanowimo, I could be sitting in the carpool and banging out, you know, 200 words, you know, on my phone real quick and then, you know, catch that later. And just do that a few times a day and kind of get to a spot. But with me, what I'm having a problem with is trying to fit in two-hour blocks. And that's probably the wrong way of looking at it. Like, I get that, right? I should take my 30 minutes when I can and write two pages or one page. I can get, like, one page done. You know, 300 words takes me about 25 minutes. So I don't have these stop and start blocks. I'm having to find these huge blocks of time to sit and write. Right, and this past Saturday, I had no time and, you know, just, like, literally no time to, like, stop and put the pen to the paper because when I wasn't doing whatever thing I was doing on Saturday, I just wanted to sit. Like, I didn't want to be writing. Like, I wanted a break. So, you know, I didn't have that much time. So I was like, okay, today's going to be a miss. So I got zero on Saturday. But I also knew Sunday I would have a decent amount of time to at least, you know, get back on the goal, if not more. Which my goal is 1,500 words a day. That's five written pages. That only puts me at 45,000 words for the month. So, you know, that's around, that's what I'm shooting for. So I would love to hit 50, and I still can. So when I hit these zeros, like, I don't necessarily plan on making it up the next day because, like, that's, you know, a snowball. That goes downhill really fast. You can't get behind any time, which I think we talked about last week. So Sunday I caught up with 2,400 words, right? I didn't do, like, a full 3,000 that would have taken two days worth of writing into one. But I got 2,400, and I was like, hey, I feel pretty good about that. So, and then I missed yesterday. So I've already missed a second day, and I'm already trying to make up for it this morning. So I've been writing before we got online this morning. So it's figuring out when the times are for me to write. And my days are so busy. My days are so chopped up. Like, I don't have a lot of bulk in physically handwriting this book. I need to feel like I have a certain writing setup for at least, you know, 30 minutes to an hour to commit, or else I'm not going to sit and do anything.

'''Myke:''' See, this is why I would ask what the desired result is of this. Like, do you want to have done 50,000 words at the end, so you've done that over the month? Or are you really trying to just do some every day? Like, they're two different things, and they have different solves for them.

'''Brad:''' I am... Do you see what I'm asking you? Yes, even though I kind of see them the same thing. Because if I hit number one, I'm generally going to get... I'll be happy with number two, even though I didn't do it every single day.

'''Myke:''' Exactly, but that's my point. At the end of it, if you've hit 50,000 words, but you skipped 10 days... Right. Is that the achievement that you want? Okay. Yes.

'''Brad:''' I want the bulk. I want the bulk. You want the bulk.

'''Myke:''' All right. Cool. Then, yeah. Yeah. All right. So how much time does it take you every day to do the daily quota?

'''Brad:''' About two and a half hours.

'''Myke:''' Okay.

'''Brad:''' So, and I've been finding the time at night to do that. That's a lot of day, man. It is. It is. That's a lot of time. So, and, like, during, like, the daytime, say, like, your waking hours up until, like, say, early evening, my days are generally full, right? Mm-hmm. So what I've been doing is I've been writing at night, say, from, like, 8 to 10 p.m. or 9 to 11, trying to get as much as I can get done. And I can get most of it done during that time. And I'm, like, okay with that. Like, that's worked out pretty well. The thing, honestly, that's keeping me going is that I really am enjoying doing this. You know, it doesn't feel like a chore or torture or anything like that. That's good. But as I've gotten into, after I got to about day three, I realized that I'm kind of enjoying doing this, that I can zone out, and I don't, I just end up writing the pages and not necessarily have the count, even though I generally know in the back of my head what the count's like.

'''Brad:''' So, yeah, it's, I'm actually really enjoying it, and that makes me want to push to finish it and, or at least meet my goals. And, you know, I like using the pens. I like, I like using the paper. I'm enjoying reading the book again that I chose, which is The Bone Weaver's Orchard. So, I'm at, I'm to the point now in the book, even though I know the story, I'm at the point where I can't read the book fast enough because I want to remember what happens next, even though I've already read it, you know? So, that keeps me going. That's like, well, I got to write the words so I can keep reading the story because I'm enjoying the story and writing the words about it. So, it's like this self-fulfilling prophecy type of thing that's wanting to push me to move it along because I am enjoying it that much. So, it's a big learning experience, right? This is a very different thing for me. Um, it's still physically hard, right? By the time I get to, like, I'm good for about four pages when I get to the fifth page when I'm doing it all in one session, say like that two, two and a half hour block. When I get to the last page, my hand is exhausted, right? Like, my wrist is just tired and I have to push through to get to that fifth page. But if I'm going to do it, I can't, I don't like stopping short on a day. If anything, I'll want to go to the goal or over. But like, I don't really do great with like a 600 word day. Like, that wouldn't, I tend to not start those days. Those days end up being zero, probably more times than not. And that's probably a mistake in the way I'm trying to figure this out, right? So, like, I had maybe about 45 minutes before we jumped on today between all my tasks this morning and when we started recording. So, I got 500 words down on the page. Awesome. So, I'm already behind from yesterday. So, I will have a block of about maybe 45 minutes this afternoon. And then I won't be free again until 7, 730 tonight. And then I'll write some more. So, it's really, it's really figuring out the time management. Really letting myself free up to write for 15 minutes. 15 minutes is all I have, which I haven't been doing. Like, I haven't figured that part out yet mentally because I do like the properness of, you know, making it look good. You know, does my handwriting look good? If I'm writing in the car, is everything going to be worse? And, you know, I'm not going to be able to hold everything, you know, how I want it laid out. And, you know, I'm all convoluted trying to write. And do I just get frustrated? Like, that's a negative for me. Like, if I get, if I'm ever frustrated writing, like, it's not going to go well. And, you know, that it either looks bad or I'm uncomfortable. So, I haven't really pushed those small time frames very much, which is leading to some misses. But, overall, I'm happy with the mindset that I am enjoying what I'm doing. And I wasn't sure I was going to, to be perfectly honest, right? All right. So, let's talk about some of the tools that I'm using. Not too much. It's still, obviously, a work in progress. So, I did some quick math, just so you know. On the nine days that we've had up until now, I've done 39 pages, 300 words a page, 11,700 words. So, that puts me at, like, 1,300 words a day. So, that's, like, the scope. That doesn't sound bad. But the more days I miss, the worse that number looks, right? Yeah. Like, it's harder to get that number up than it is to, than it is to lower it and make it look worse. So, anyway. I've used, I kind of pick a different pen per day, right? Like, I'm not basing it on chapters or pages. But, like, about every five pages, I switch. So, I've used one, two, three. So, I've used nine pens so far. So, we're on to day 10. I'll be using my 10th pen. All been fountain pens so far. I will soon switch over to doing some more standard pens, some pencils, just to see how that goes. Like, what I'm, am I going to enjoy writing with that? Am I going to enjoy, like, the process as much as I've been enjoying using my pens and inks?

'''Myke:''' Have you had any hand fatigue?

'''Brad:''' Definitely.

== Pen Materials Variation ==

'''Myke:''' I'm wondering if it'll be any different with different material, like, different pens or pencils or whatever.

'''Brad:''' Yep. That's totally what I want to try to gauge. I didn't, what I should have done at the beginning, since all the fountain pens are kind of different, you know, different shapes, different weights, different feel, to kind of have, like, just a feel rating. Like, say, like, a one through ten, when I'm done with this session, was, like, you know, did I feel pretty okay? Like, not so great? Or, like, really terrible? And I didn't track that. Because there's been some days where I've barely been able to finish. So, yeah, I want to know with some of these other pens and pencils, how or if I notice a difference in the way I write with a fountain pen nib versus a standard pen or pencil. So, we'll see. That will be coming up soon. Maybe next week we will discuss that. So, yeah, I've, you know, knocked out three pens so far. Like, I've drained them, you know, from whatever they were inked up with. So, that feels good. So, like, overall, big picture, I'm happy with how it's going. I'm still working on figuring some things out even ten days into it. But I'm going to keep going. Like, there's no end in sight. I'm just going to see how far I can get and how much I can push it.

'''Myke:''' All right. Let's take a break. We've got a lot to get to today. All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at Harry's. If you're heading back into the office, you might think it's time to get back that fresh, clean, all-business look, and Harry's can help. If you don't know Harry's, it's time you do. Harry's was created to be different from other shaving companies. They craft high-quality, long-lasting blades with durable weighted handles that make a close, comfortable shave quick and enjoyable. And because Harry's insists that you shouldn't have to choose between a great shave and a fair price, they just give you both. With refill blades that start as low as $2, it is an easy decision. And new Harry's customers get their starter set, which includes a five-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and travel cover for just $30. It's a $13 value, I should say. You get all of that stuff for just $3, which is an incredible deal. Plus, Harry's offers a whole range of amazing face and body care products delivered right to your door. Brad, I know that you love Harry's, right?

'''Brad:''' I do. You got to get the deal. It's like the biggest no-brainer deal of all the deals. And as you know, Myke, I'm back to the office, right? Like my desk in my room. And I want to look good every time I show up to work. You're streaming. I do. Big, big streaming boy over here. Got to look good. So it's funny. Still to this day, as old as I am, I still only shave every other day. And Harry's makes me look awesome every stream day, which happens to be Tuesdays and Thursdays is when I'm the most clean shaven. And I thank Harry's for that.

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'''Brad:''' Big topic today, Myke. Chunky. Chunky topic. Interesting topic. So I have titled this segment of the show The State of Stationery. And that's a big, broad, bold topic. And my thoughts contained within are not necessarily big and bold and broad, but are just kind of my current thinking on where we're at right now. Like, we got to a couple of questions last week for the show that weren't directly related, but you can see the links to them. And we were going to go through them last week. And I said, give me some time to at least think about this. You know, rub the two brain cells that I have together and see what I can come up with. The first question from Blue Magister. Are we in peak pen? Not much new tech, but endless variations of existing products. Where is the innovation going to come from? And then a separate question the same day, shortly after, from Doc Krog, both of these on Twitter. I'm always interested to hear your guys' thoughts on the rise in cost of materials. Field notes just sent an email talking about their soon-to-be-raised prices again. Is this just the way things are? Oh, this is just the way things are, of course. But where do you guys think this trend leads? Right? So those are big questions, right? That's not a 240-character response type of questions. But these are the types of questions I love because I think about this stuff all the time. But don't really have, like, the deep knowledge inner workings of the big pen companies, right? Like, we don't necessarily know. Like, I'm not going through, you know, pilots annual reports to see how the pen business is going necessarily. But I look at it more from, you know, where I sit and almost from a consumer perspective to kind of get a feel of where I think these are, right? Like, I'm not an analyst, right? I'm not writing documentation and getting all the numbers. But I'm just kind of thinking about how I feel about the industry right now. So I thought I would try to tackle that a little bit today. How's that sound?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it sounds awesome.

'''Brad:''' All right. So I tried to think about this with a little bit of a breakdown in mind. Kind of three categories to go through. At least this is kind of how I think of stationery for me personally. And, you know, there's, again, this is an open-ended conversation. I'm not saying any of this stuff is factually correct or accurate. It's just kind of how I see it, how I kind of feel about it. And I would love to hear some feedback on this. Tell me where I'm right. Tell me where I'm wrong. Tell me what else I need to be considering. So things like that as we go through this. So three categories I decided to break this conversation down were your standard pens, right? The stuff you buy at the store or your basic, you know, $1 to $3 pen, your gel pens, your ballpoints. You know, they could be just the basic stuff off the shelf. They could be, you know, something you buy that you go on the hunt for on the internet, stuff like that. Then the second category I listed was specialty stationery. I think a lot of us are in this realm to where, like, this is where things like the bullet journals come in and the Midori Traveler's Notebook come in. And we'll talk about what I feel is like the specialty stationery. Retro 51, they're in this category, right? So there's a specialty stationery category. And then the third category, I separated out completely fountain pens and inks because I think they deserve their own category. They're also the most complex slash least insignificant, least significant category, despite what we think about fountain pens in the big picture, I think. So we'll explore that a little bit more. So my one caveat in all of this, and well, I say one caveat, I probably have a lot of caveats, right, Myke? Um, I'm super biased towards stationery, right? Like, I love stationery. Like, maybe my glasses are rose colored right now, right? So keep that in mind. Like, we've talked about bias in the past, like review bias way back in the day when that was a thing, when pen blogs started to become popular. And I was like, yes, I'm biased. I'm biased towards good stationery. So you should keep this in mind.

'''Myke:''' MKBHD had a really good video about this once talking about bias in tech. And what he said that I liked was everybody is biased. Mm-hmm. Learn what you think they're biased about and then kind of stack it against other people and then your own biases. And then you can kind of like understand you kind of like over time of listening to someone or watching someone or hearing somebody's opinions. You can get an idea for how they match with your opinions.

'''Brad:''' That's exactly right. I agree with that. I really liked that idea. Yep. So that's the way we always think about it. It's like, I have opinion about a product. That doesn't mean like the product's good for you. You should take my opinion in the context with, you know, some other things you read and other opinions and other reviews and then build kind of an overall idea and then see how that fits with you, right? You don't take anyone's direct word for it. You just kind of build the story and figure out if it relates to you well. So yes, very well said. All right. Let's start in the order that I listed these categories. The store bought slash standard pens. I love this category. This is my favorite category. I've mentioned this recently when we were talking about the OKB48 vote that was going on for the most popular ballpoint pens in Japan. So I just think it's a great category. There's a ton of just years old, decades old products that live here. The products we know and love, the Pilot G2, the Uniball Signo, the Pentel Energel, all of those pens. Is there a lot of innovation here to kind of tackle the first part of the question that we received?

'''Brad:''' I think people will jump to say no, that there's not a lot of innovation here. I can't argue with that because what we see on the shelves are that companies are just quick to slap some new colors and new barrel skins on. Except notably the Pilot G2, which has not changed in what, two decades now? I don't even know how long it's been out, but it's been a while.

'''Myke:''' I think that's to its benefit now.

'''Brad:''' Yes. It's the most popular gel ink pen in the world.

'''Brad:''' Sales wise. And I remember back when Pilot claimed that and I actually got them to send me the details behind that and like the press and the links. And I remember getting that back in the day that it was actually like seemed like a valid test that they did to come up with this marketing line. And it seems to be real. And yeah, like, you know what a Pilot G2 looks like, right? So should they change it? Who am I to say? Like, obviously not, right? They seem to be doing pretty good. But also in these categories, you get some innovation that kind of does change things like ink formulations, right? The Uniball Jetstream kind of came out of the ether when the Uniball Signo was popular and the Uniball Vision was popular. And there was nothing really unique for a ballpoint pen ink. And Uniball spent the time and money and research to put forth the Jetstream. And it's become a core product now, not just a fluke product. You know, I think that's innovation. Same thing goes for the Pilot Friction. You know, some people may hate that pen and, you know, rightfully so. But what it is, is real and it works well. And it changed how some people use pens and they love the Pilot Friction for what it is. So you also have to understand I'm looking at this through the U.S. market, right? I'm looking at this through the market I'm in. And in Japan, there's way more innovation and there's way more positive reception to the innovation. I don't know about in the U.K., but in the U.S., you would never go to a big box retailer like Staples or OfficeMax and find a multi-pin, right? You just wouldn't. Those types of things don't exist. But in Japan, all of the big companies have huge wide varieties of multi-pins and allows the consumer to mix and match and build things. And they have all these more specific products to solve more specific problems. You know, it could be those multi-pins. It could be faster drying gel inks. It could be like the Kukuyo Beetle Tip, like a split tip highlighter, different types of markers. All those things in Japan are highly innovative. And over there, they're practically normal, where over here, people would freak out. It's like, oh, what is this pin? I don't know what to do with this. And, you know, that's not how we stock the office supply cabinet. And it's too expensive, even though, you know, it's $3 instead of $1, right? That's a huge deal for like an office. So, I think the innovation really is there in that level of pin. And we see it time and time again. Like I mentioned before, the OKB48. Like we see things on that list that we've never seen before. Someone like myself, who is really, really into this stuff, you know, last year, one of like the top five pins was a pin from Zebra that I had never seen before. And you could argue is, you know, the Zebra blend innovative. I don't know, but it's at least new and it's different from the Zebra Sarasa that they always have available. So, in that category, I'd say there's a moderate level of innovation. I'd say, based on where you live, regionality plays into how you feel about that market, right? I would argue that in the U.S., most stationary users that aren't listening to this podcast think it's just the same stuff every year on the shelf. And I can't necessarily argue with that, but I could nitpick it and, you know, see some things that we don't normally see. So, the second category, specialty stationary.

== Specialty Stationery Growth ==

'''Brad:''' I think this is where, like, the nerdery level and the geek level turn up a little bit and you really get, like, those passionate consumers. Like, the passionate stationary users that are using stationary products all day, every day. Where the previous category, they might just, hey, want a nice, you know, Pilot G2 every now and then because it helps with their notes. Something like that. This is where the people, like, are digging into the tools that will help them do whatever they want to do better. Whether that's note-taking, journaling, work, anything like that. But this is where, again, like I was alluding to earlier, this is where you have the bullet journal that was a really niche product that grew into almost a mainstream stationary product, right? As far as, like, the path from brand new product to mainstream, the bullet journal crossed that threshold. People know it.

'''Myke:''' People just know it. Like, you know, so many people in my life are aware of it as a thing, as a concept. Even though, as we spoke about on the show in the past, what most people think of as a quote-unquote bullet journal isn't actually a bullet journal and then it became this whole other thing. Right. But the idea of bullet journaling is a whole thing. Like, coloring, you know? Yeah. All those kinds of things, they come about every now and again. But they're still specialty things. Not everybody does them, but they've hit the mainstream. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And, you know, I threw in things like the Traveler's Notebook, right? It's a real niche product, but it's very popular, especially for those who love it. And that's where you have these customers that, like, spread the word, right? These are, like, the super valuable customers here in this realm that they take these products very personally. I put in Retro 51, you know, Spoke Design, all the Kickstarter pins, Hobonichi. Like, these are the products that make the biggest difference for the people who, like, really, really nerd out about this kind of stuff, right? Like, these are your passionate consumers. And this, I think, out of the three categories I listed is where we see the most innovation in the past decade or two, you know? But, you know, where are we at? Like, Blue Magister's question is, like, are we in the peak of this category? Like, have we really kind of hit, like, the top of the mountain here? And where are we going to go from here? I think there's more to come. I think it's also fair to say there's already a lot that has happened here and a lot currently going on here that makes it look like the top.

'''Brad:''' The consumers that shop in this category have a high level of knowledge. They know what they want. In general, they want the same thing over and over again. Once they discover the thing, they like the thing to stay the way it is, you know?

'''Brad:''' There is room for growth there. But the customer base is smaller, right, than the store brand pins and the smaller version stationery that I was talking about before, right? It just is. Like, that's just a fact that this customer base is not as wide as your office supply stores. But this customer base is rabid for these products, right? Not only are they going to be great customers, they're going to be, you know, evangelize the brands that they, you know, support. So these new and innovative products are always going to be given a chance, right? Whether they break through like the Bullet Journal did, that's a different story. But you have to start with the original innovation first. And the previous category, if we're going to look at have we peaked? So if I break down the store and standard pins, have we peaked there?

'''Brad:''' If we haven't, we're pretty darn close. Specialty stationery, I don't think we've peaked. Even though we have a lot right now. And that may be the rose colored glasses thing. And that may be because, you know, I'm always interested in finding new products and new tools that work. And we've had so many great successes from this category. That maybe we've peaked, but I'd say less so than the previous category. The previous category may have peaked, but there's still innovation. This category I don't think has peaked. And there's a greater realm for innovation. And I hope we continue to see it here.

'''Myke:''' Who do you think is going to do the innovation?

'''Brad:''' We don't know. That's the point, right? Like in the next five years, who's going to be... Does Retro 51 get a competitor in five years? Who's going to come up with something new on Kickstarter that's not the scribble pen?

'''Myke:''' It's probably through the Kickstarter realm, I think. I think more of these companies are going to come up, you know, like small companies that come from an idea and grow into a thing, you know? Right. Because it is, in a way, probably now, both easier and harder to do that than it was before. Yes. Harder in the sense that there are more people that want to do it, but easier in the sense of it is more possible now than it was before. Because to start a company like this doesn't require personal cash injections. The issue is now that there is a flood in the market. This is the same in all of these types of business, you know, all like small business realms like this that can be started by a couple of people.

'''Myke:''' But yeah, I would agree with you that there is more of a desire in the specialty world to innovate than there is in the standard pen world. Right.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. Because the consumer has taken a step from the first category if they want to get into the second category. They've made a knowledge step. They've made a purchasing step. They've made these different decisions that put them in a different category. And therefore, they're out searching. But like you were saying, like for the past 10 years, you know, we've been able to have high percentages of innovation, innovative products come out. And now, like back to the original question is like, what are you going to show me that's different? And, you know, the customers are out there for that, but I don't know what that is. Right. Like that's what I'm hoping and waiting and what we're all waiting to see. But I still think when you have an individual behind it instead of like, say, a large corporation that could an individual can move faster and and break things, as they say, to see if something really innovative works. And I think this is where we're going to get it.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode, we're going to come back to this, but let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens, the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal or gas. So you can make restaurant quality pizza in your own backyard. The temperatures that an Uni Pizza Oven can reach, it's 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius. This is what makes you cook pizza that is restaurant quality in your own backyard in as little as 60 seconds. Their ovens are incredibly easy to use. They're really portable. They'll fit into any outside space. They have a couple of models that people really love. There is the Uni Coda 16. This can cook up to 16-inch pizzas. It has an innovative L-shaped burner at the back. This is a gas-powered oven, and it will give you even heat distribution with its design. There's also the multi-fueled Uni Karu, where you can choose to use wood, charcoal or gas to cook your pizzas. Their ovens start from just $299, and they're free shipping to the US, UK and EU. Brad, tell the PanEgg listeners why you love your Uni.

'''Brad:''' It is the coolest pizza oven ever. It's one of the coolest accessories ever. The way it works and the amount of time it takes to cook your pizza to perfection is magical. It's just one of those products that puts a smile on my face any time and every time I use it. Not just the smiles on my face, but when we show other people what this does, it blows their mind, and they want to check it out for themselves.

'''Myke:''' So you should. Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Uni pizza oven, which is up to $50 off an Uni Coda 16. Just go to uni.com, that's O-O-N-I dot com, and use the code PENADDICTFM21 at checkout. That's PENADDICTFM21. When you're there, you'll also find a great range of accessories, from peels to cutters to oven tables. Everyone wants one of these things, and that's why they're in such high demand. It is the perfect tool for the job of cooking fantastic pizza, so don't miss out. Uni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own backyard. Go to uni.com and use the code PENADDICTFM21 for 10% off our thanks to Uni Pizza Ovens for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

== Fountain Pens and Inks ==

'''Brad:''' Now comes the hard part, and this is why I put them in their own category, fountain pens and inks. This is the conversation we're about to have. It's full of context and full of nuance, and everything can but this, but that. I get that. This is a really complex category, but I think it's important, at least for us, to put it in context with the rest of everything. So the first question I posed, is this market healthy, the fountain pen ink market? It has to be. Like, I feel like it is. You know, I'm not a retailer. I don't know what their numbers look like, but I see the conversation and the product launches and, you know, kind of the rolling through of products and how things are operating. It seems healthy to me as an outsider, even though, you know, I have inside information and context. I don't have, like, business, like, info. Like, again, this is not an analysis. This is a thought process of what I feel, and it feels like it's healthy. Is this market innovative? I would argue no. And that is challenging to say. Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm certainly not certain about it.

'''Myke:''' I think it's way harder to innovate in this category, I think, than some of the others.

'''Brad:''' Right, right. So the key why I think the market's healthy, and then as it relates to innovation, I do think we have a constant influx of new customers wanting to learn about fountain pens, right? I think I see that, like, when I go out to pen shows, even though it's been a couple years, I see that. I see the conversations that I'm having online or in my email and people trying to figure things out. You know, fountain pens do have a barrier to entry, right? Like, it takes a lot of extra to get into it for the first time, but once they get in, people seem to really be attached and taken by what fountain pens can offer. You know, how they improve your writing, how you can customize the writing experience, and I think that is growing. So, like we were just saying, where is the innovation? And I want to be clear in kind of how I describe this because you can yell at your speakers, you know, well, this is innovative and that's innovative. But for this market and this conversation, mainstream fountain pen innovation, where's the mainstream fountain pen innovation that we're seeing? I'm not talking about Myke Stack nibs, right? That's micro. Like, that is on such a tiny fractional level that doesn't move the market as a whole, right? You know, innovative doesn't mean new or different. Innovative means, you know, it has to, like, move the market or be a sustainable business on its own, right? Standing on its own. Stack nibs, yeah, sure, they're innovative, but that doesn't change the market. Does that make sense? So, I am looking at it from a bigger picture, from the bigger brands. It's really who, out of all the big brands that we can name, and we can name 20 or 30 off the top of our head right here, who was moving the needle, right, from an innovation perspective?

'''Brad:''' I came up with the Platinum Curie Dust. I thought that was innovative. Even though retractable fountain pens have been around for, you know, 50 plus years, what they chose to do with that, I thought was innovative. Yeah, I agree. They changed the price point of what that product can be. Now, they may have failed, right? And maybe that goes against some of my sustainable, like, innovation has to be sustainable. It may not be a long-term failure.

'''Myke:''' It just had a bit of a stumble at the start.

'''Brad:''' Like, I think we're still in wait-and-see mode on that. But I felt like that was good innovation. I don't, like, I would love to hear what other people think are innovative. And, like, again, we're not talking about a nib grind, like, or something like that, or, you know, just, I don't know, some of the really, really small niche things. I'm talking about bigger picture fountain pen markets. Like, who is doing innovative things that are making real change? So, the small makers are, I think. You know, this is a different conversation than the big manufacturers, right? The smaller makers are able to be more nimble and just try different materials and different finishes and different pen shapes. And the new ink makers fall into this category, too, right? There's new inks. There's a new ink every week or every day, it seems like, popping up all over the world from the Asian market to the European market to the U.S. market. There's growth, right? And the market's healthy. And there's opportunity. Is there innovation?

'''Brad:''' I don't know. I'm shrugging my shoulders. You can't see me. Maybe. I don't know. Like, who is pushing the boundaries of what we already have? Like, who is on the edge of doing something really unique and different?

'''Brad:''' You know, I look at some of the Pinaferina stuff as one that comes to mind. Like, they're pretty innovative. But it's a really, really high-end market, which we're going to talk about that in a minute. But for the most part, your fountain pen brands that are known, it's generally the same stuff, you know, with different colors, you know, a few different finishes, things like that. And I'm not saying that's bad. Like, I don't think that's bad at all. But if I'm being asked, is Pelican innovative? I don't think they are.

'''Myke:''' No, I don't think so. I mean, one of the issues I think that can stop this kind of thing for brands, say, like Pelican is part of their charm is that they're old-fashioned.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, that's coming up here, Myke. Like, that doesn't mean that they're not the best fountain pen company in the world, right? Those are two different questions. So now we get into, like, the price. And that's where Pelican comes into this conversation and a lot of these other brands. So the cost of raw materials and manufacturing costs are, it's unequivocally rising. Like, it just is. Across the board, no one is immune from this, you know. And how, thinking about what we do and these manufacturers, how does this affect us? What does it mean for the future? I wish I knew. Okay. It's a super interesting question. So here is where I light myself on fire and ruin my inbox, Myke. Because this is the one statement I would like to make, and I'm comfortable making it. I don't know that I have it completely fleshed out. But my gut tells me, Myke, that for the health of the fountain pen industry, nothing over the $200 price point matters.

'''Brad:''' And here's where I'm coming from.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' This is the $0 to $200 price range has been and always will be the driving force in the fountain pen tree of life, if you will. We all go through that range. Which, if someone's starting with a Montblanc 149, they're not necessarily in this market, right? They're not in what is sustaining the fountain pen market. What is sustaining the fountain pen market is the person who buys a Platinum Preppy decides that this is pretty cool. What's next? What can I explore? And then they buy a TWSBI Eco. And then they buy, you know, I don't know, a Pelican M205. And then they buy a Leonardo. And then they're just kind of blown away by, look at all these options now. But that space, I think, is the most important space, right? Because once you get past, like, $200, you're getting into, like, specialty markets and luxury markets. And that's what I was talking about with Pelican before. Right. And I love these markets. I shop in these markets. You shop in these markets. There's nothing wrong with these markets. I want my fancy Nakayas and my fancy Namikis. I want them. But those aren't the things that dictate the health of the market that we're in. Those may dictate the health of the luxury market and the luxury end of these companies. But I think the under $200 price range has to carry the bulk of the weight for these companies, right? From, like, a percentage of sales. Like, that has got to be where the money is made. And I'm willing to be very wrong on this. And I would love to hear any commentary. But this is – that's the way I feel. Maybe it's because it's, you know, just my personal feelings and that's what I believe in. But, you know, for every sailor in Platinum and Pelican that sees their prices increase, you know, these are big companies. Like, take Pelican. If gold goes up in price, do you know how many nibs they have to account for?

'''Myke:''' I don't, but I imagine it's a lot.

'''Brad:''' Same with Sailor and Platinum and Pilot. Like, that is enormous amounts of money. Like, these are all huge operations. And so, as those prices increase, sometimes out of reach, and let me be fair, to no fault of their own, right? You know, there are different ways to look at it. But, you know, if raw materials go up, consumers are going to get charged more. Is that Pelican's fault? Eh, I mean, again, context, nuance, there's lots of conversation. But as these prices go up, we start seeing a backfilling of the places that they used to hang out, right? You start getting Leonardo's or Mayors or Tibaldi's, like, backfilling these vacated price points that I used to – it used to be Sailor, no-brainer, for, like, you know, $140, $180, Pilot the same way, Platinum the same way. Well, they're gone now, right? They're up and out of there.

'''Brad:''' And you get new brands backfilling. Why is that where they're starting, the Leonardo's of the world? Well, that's where I think the most – the biggest impact consumers are in the fountain pen world. So, you know, you have those type of companies. Or you get more established companies like Lamy and Twisby who just double down in that $0 to $200 category all day long, right? Lamy comes out with, you know, 10 different pens that have, you know, one has a different clip from the other one and one has a different section from the other one. It's not innovative, but they are hammering that price range because their competition isn't there anymore, right?

'''Myke:''' They're owning it, like it says.

'''Brad:''' Like, I want an ultra-premium Lamy pen. Lamy says the market is not there. Our market is here, and we're just going to double down on it constantly. So, in five or ten years, there's going to be another rotation, right? There's going to be a rotation. Maybe Sailor and Platinum come up with a new pen once they realize that they're not getting as much impact. They're not getting as many new customers because there's no path for them to get to $0 to $450 like there is for them to get to $0 to $200, which is more comfortable for a lot of people. So, do we see innovation caused by just like a market reset because of the market factors that they're also having to deal with that are causing their prices to raise and for them to vacate their previously popular price points where they used to be the dominant player? So, it's interesting, right? So, like I think about it, like am I sad that I didn't buy a new Sailor pen this year? I don't know, a little? I love that brand, right? But that ship sailed, right? You like how I did that? That was pretty good. I was going to say it.

'''Myke:''' Yep. I didn't explain it.

'''Brad:''' It's no longer a good value proposition for me. Once I start considering spending $450 on a pen, well, I'm wanting to answer a different question than what Sailor has always provided me for, oftentimes much, much less than that. So, I've kind of moved on, right? So, you know, if I'm going to take that money, I'm still going to buy my high dollar fountain pens, but I'm going to explore somewhere else that I haven't been before. Like I bought a Visconti Homo Sapiens this year, right? I've never owned one. They're a very expensive pen. It doesn't necessarily have to do anything with the cost, but Sailor is no longer that value to me that it was previously. So, are they going to do something two, three years from now to get me interested in a $140 pen? I would bet on it eventually, right? Because they can't just cycle out of these price points forever. They're going to have to come back. So, it's just like the life cycle, right? These luxury goods makers, they're just subject to these raw material costs, and that cost is not going to come down, right? No one goes, hey, the cost of gold went down, now our pens are cheaper. That'll never happen. But I don't think there's a shortage of companies that are going to step up and fill that void. So, maybe there's innovation there, but we'll see. And it's certainly slower because of these big behemoth companies that play around here. But I just think we're going to continue to see the change in this sub-$200 market, which I think is great. And then everything else is just, you know, luxury market, and that's its own separate market. All right, before we head to an ad, real quick, I want to follow up on the Pinaferina thing that I mentioned a minute ago. I think they do some real innovative stuff, again, at a real high price point. And hopefully, you know, the goal is, like, these are like concept car type pens, right? That's not the thing that's going to move the broader needle of the innovation, of the market. But it could trickle down to, like, get some better innovation in the lower end, which I think is what really is going to move this market in the end. And see some innovation, figure out how to, you know, reduce the impact of the cost of the raw materials. And I certainly have hope for this category. But I think where the innovation is going to happen is in that sub-$200 price range.

'''Myke:''' You know, I actually do think we have something pretty innovative to talk about in our next ad break, at least something I haven't seen before. Yeah. And that's, so this episode is brought to you by Camero Industries, who are introducing Estabrook's newest Estes, the Pink Sands, which is limited to just 50 pieces worldwide. This exclusive pen is a nod to the natural beauty of some of the most enigmatic beaches around the world, found in places like Greece, Bermuda, and Indonesia. What's more, a pink nib was created in collaboration with Heinz Pens, as H-I-N-Z-E Pens. That's unlike anything else in the market right now. The Estee Pink Sands will feature all the usual bells and whistles that you'll find in the wonderful Estee line. It is blended and turned with a mix of pink sands colors and a highly polished finish. A sleek clip provides a clean accent for the cap and slides easily to your shirt pocket. The fountain pen is also available in a complete range of points for the way that you write, so you can find all the nibs that you're looking for. To add to their mystique, the Estee Pink Sands will be the very first to introduce the all-new Chroma nibs, this time in a coordinating shade of coral. So you need to go and see this pen. It's really stunning. If you want to get your hands on it, you've got to be quick because it's limited to just 50 pieces worldwide. 49 now, because I bought one. As soon as I saw it, oh man, I fell in love with this. I mean, the thing for me that I really love is the pink nib. I've never seen this before.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so I've gotten to know Jim Hines a little bit over the years. And one of the first, maybe the second time I met him at a pen show, like he didn't have them the first time. And this is like four or five years ago, I'm guessing. Like the second time I met him, he's like, hey, look at all these nibs that I've done. And they were different colors, like red and blue. And over the years, it looks like he's perfected the process of having this type of finish of this coating on the nib. It looks like extremely natural built into this pen. And that's like the highest compliment I could pay. It looks like it belongs there, right? It looks like it belongs on the nib. It looks fantastic. I think it's really, really cool.

'''Myke:''' It's a nano ceramic coating. And they say that even with the most corrosive of inks, it will not use the finish, lose the finish, I should say.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so this is a great combination. Like I love the pen, you know, like I love the design, you know, I love the bright colors, the pinks.

'''Myke:''' Beautiful pinks and like it's got that crystal-y look. But honestly, what sold me was the nib. I'm like, yeah, I want to see this. Totally. So it's only 49 now. 49 available worldwide.

'''Myke:''' So go check it out yourself at Penn Chalet. Go to friends at pennchalet.com and you can see the new SD Pink sounds from Estabrook. Our thanks to Camero Industries for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

== Ask TPA Segment ==

'''Brad:''' Huge, huge follow-up in the Ask TPA. Are we ready to go there? Are we done talking about the state of the industry? I figure like we just scratched the surface and I'll probably have plenty of follow-up once the emails start rolling in.

'''Myke:''' I'm looking forward to everyone telling you why you're wrong. Yeah, I'm good with that. Like I'm okay with being wrong. Because that's good because that means we're going to find some stuff. Yeah. So I think it was last week Gil asked, is it Diamine or Diamine? And we have some follow-up via Alan.

'''Brad:''' Alan sent an email to the Diamine Corporation to get the correct spelling. And straight from the email, they spell it D-Y-E-Dash-A-M-I-N-E. That's the phonetic spelling. Phonetic spelling. Thank you. The phonetic spelling, Diamine. So there you go. Thanks for that clarification. Thank you, Christine, for responding to Alan's inquiry. And thank you, Alan, for taking up the mantle of figuring it out. Now I'm going to have to break myself. It's like the Sino-Signo thing. I finally say Signo all the time. But you say both of them for a while until you can officially convert over. And I was always a Diamine guy. So I'm going to have to cut over to Diamine and feel free to slap me down when I say it incorrectly.

'''Myke:''' I'm happy that I was right.

'''Brad:''' You were. Myke was right.

'''Myke:''' Skyblue asks, I just got my first pen, a Twisby Go, a first fountain pen, I should say, a Twisby Go, and I've run into a problem. I'm left-handed and I have found that I keep accidentally rubbing off the ink that I just wrote as I write down a line. Any tips for lefties to keep this from happening?

'''Brad:''' Well, as the resident lefty, I think you should go first.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, so I think one of the things that's the most important is the way that you hold the pen. I developed a kind of like an overhand grip so that the nib is actually more facing towards me when I write. Now this is complicated if you want to try and handle this, right? It's like you might have to change the way you hold a pen. Right. This is a big question. Yeah, that is hard work. And you might not enjoy it, but it might be, Skyblue, just a slight tweak in the way that you hold the pen could be a big help. The other thing you want to do is make sure you have quick-drying inks. So I went through this a long time ago. And I got a bunch of suggestions from other left-handed people on the show and ended up settling on the Pilot Hiroshizuku line of inks when I was really kind of starting out. And also at the same time trying to adjust my kind of writing style and grip. They dry very quickly. So that would be my recommendation. Try getting some Hiroshizuku. They have great colors and they have really good ink. But it dry really fast. And that really helped as I then also kind of changed my grip up a little bit. And that kind of helped me take it to the next part. So that's what I would recommend. Start with some Hiroshizuku. And then see if you can see how things go from there. But it is tricky. I'm pleased that you bought a Twisby Go as your first fountain pen. And you didn't like buy something mega expensive. And then realize it's not for you. This is a difficulty especially for left-handed people.

'''Brad:''' Yep. You definitely want to think about the ink. And paper is also a consideration. You know if you're using a coated paper like a Rhodia. It's going to no matter if you have a quick-drying ink. It's still going to dry longer than it would to a non-coated paper. So, you know, we can feel free to email me. Hello at penannic.com if you want some paper recommendations. But, you know, things like Midori and Life and a few of those other brands. They're going to be a little bit quicker drying than something like a coated paper like a Rhodia. Or even like a Lloyd Charmer would be a good choice. And while still remaining fountain pen friendly and handling your fountain pens well. So, yeah. It's complicated. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' All right. And the next question comes from Chucklestuff who asks, How do you temper the desire to buy everything? I've been into fountain pens for about two years and have steadily built my collection. My problem is that I ordered six pens last week and I have my sights set on more.

'''Brad:''' I mean, I'm there, right? It's a time thing for me. A time and discovery thing. You know, I'm lucky enough to be able to try and test out a lot of things before I buy them. So, I know what I like in a pen and what I dislike. So, I'm able to chop down the list for my personal collection of pens better. Sure.

'''Brad:''' Just understand that when we talk about FOMO, there's always going to be something else down the line. That you don't have to get things today. Like, Myke could not wait for that pink pen. Because it's kind of perfect for him. Like, I see why Myke wanted to jump on that Estabrook. But, like, if you're hedging, you're like, oh, well, if you're buying it because it's limited and it's not going to be there, you know, that's how you kind of, like, temper your expectations. Knowing that, hey, there's probably going to be something cool down the line, you know, a month or two down the line that might fit me better. Whereas, this is a perfect fit for Myke. Maybe it's not a perfect fit for me or for you. So, you think about these things. At least, that's how I think about these things. In that, there's always going to be something else down the line. If, you know, I can wait today, I'll hopefully be rewarded tomorrow. Whenever that is. So, you know, don't overextend yourself. Be very careful about that. Figure out, out of all these pens that you've decided to buy, figure out why you like certain pens and why you dislike certain pens. And don't hesitate to rehome, resell anything, the pens that you don't like, to keep your collection manageable. And then narrow your focus when you go shopping later. Just don't get caught up in the hype or the FOMO because you're always going to have an opportunity later. And it took me a long time to realize. It took me a long time to get there, to be perfectly honest. Years and years and years of just buying everything that flew across my screen or I saw in person at a pen show. So, and now I think, like, for my own usage, my tastes have become more refined and I'm more locked down on this is exactly what is going to be good for me. That way I don't have to question it later after I've bought it, right? That's the worst thing to do is to buy something because of the hype and then question yourself later on why did I do that? And it turns out it was just because of the hype, not because the pen was a perfect fit for you. So, it's a lot to think about. It's not easy. I'll admit I'm being caught up in this stuff for sure.

'''Myke:''' If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, you can send an email to hello at penaddict.com or you can send a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. I would like to thank Kenro, Uni, and Harry's for their support of the show. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, and twitch.tv slash penaddict. Brad is penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. Brad is a penaddict.com. I'm Michael. I'm Michael. I'm Michael. I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 494/transcript

2026-06-11T10:19:49Z

Memm: improved speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 494
| title = The Centre is Twisty
| date = December 29th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/494 Episode 494]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_494.mp3 Audio Episode 494]
| length = 74
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 494. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. What is that? You can't even see me. I'm not even like funny looking or what did I do?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hi, how are you? Happy nearly new year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, we're not even supposed to be here today, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, we're on that road now, baby. We're on it. We are on it. We're hitting that 10-year 500 mark.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Nothing's gonna stop us now. This has been part of the road to 500 is the transition towards music as part of the show. Gotcha, gotcha. That's unfortunate. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you what I tried to do for you for episode 400? I don't remember if I told you this. Yeah, that I tried to license that music. Yep, yep. And they wanted like thousands of dollars a year for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But the way you told me the story was like they kind of considered it, and then they came back with a really outrageous price.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it took... What was the name of the song again?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's All My Little Words by The Magnetic Fields.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, there you go. And I wanted to try and get that... I don't even remember why it was. I think it was like your dream theme for the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought it would be a good intro music. Like I contacted the publishing company and they just... It was... The terms that they wanted were wild. It was like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So much money and only up to a certain amount of downloads and then we'd need more to give them more money. And it was like, yeah, this isn't... It just sounds nightmarish. And it was kind of funny that after that message, because I like emailed them a bunch of times before they got back to me. And then I just ignored that email because it was just like felt like a joke to me. And then they kept emailing me afterwards. And we're like, what do you think? Do you want to do this? It's like, no, this is not happening. I don't know if they tried to like hardball me or whatever, but I was just like, this is so far out of the realm of what I was willing to pay for this. Like if I was willing to do like, I don't know, a sum of money, maybe like, I don't know, like a grand a year or something, which I would do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or even like a fixed one-time thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, but it was just like, it was all the terms that they wanted.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just like, this is not, you know. Yeah, music publishing and licensing sounds just like a nightmarish job. Yeah. Like just trying to track all that stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. The best thing, by the way, if anybody ever needs to license music for anything, I use a company called Epidemic Sound. And they're great. Like it's a lot of like indie musicians and stuff. And they put their music on Epidemic Sound and you can license it and you can license it like across multiple avenues. Right. So I have like podcasts and my Twitch stream. Like if you ever watch my Twitch, this is where all the music comes from. And all of these artists, they publish their music on Spotify and Apple Music and stuff, which is fun because then some of my wonderful keyboard club viewers have created Apple Music and Spotify playlists of the songs that I use. And you can like listen to them. But yeah. Anyway, so it gets you around a lot of the music license and stuff. Nevertheless. Hi, Brad. Hey. How was Christmas?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was good. How was yours? Did you get any stationary gifts? No, never do. Yeah, same.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like I never get stationary gifts or technology gifts because why would anybody that truly loves me would know that that's too hard for them to try and attempt, right?

== Gifts and Stationery ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I always put this in here every year because everyone wants to know, right? Everyone wants to know, oh, what pens or what did you get for Christmas? It's like literally no stationary ever for years. It's just not how it works these days. Unless there's very rarely once in a while I'll ask for like a pin gift. Yeah. Right. I remember, gosh, probably five years ago for Father's Day or something I got. I picked out a pin for my wife to get me. And that's kind of like the last kind of gift pin that I've ever received. Like it's just not my move. But what I love, it's like we talked about it on Twitch yesterday as everyone else telling me what they got. And, you know, everyone's just getting in. It's fun to see so many people getting into fountain pens. Like someone got a Pilot Metropolitan in their stocking and they said like this is the greatest thing ever. And that just makes me so, so happy. You know, it's just really, really cool. So to see, you know, people really getting into this stuff and able to have, you know, some cool gifts during the holidays and, you know, get them into some new things that they maybe wouldn't buy themselves. Like a fountain pen or a calligraphy set or some random notebook. And it's very, very, very cool. So I did give a gift of stationery this year, Myke, to my wife, who I think I've mentioned on the show before. Her favorite pen, and it's not close, is the Pentel Energel. The standard Energel as you get from the store, the 0.7 millimeter gels. Because a couple of years ago, they started making them in some better colors that she really likes. Like teal and navy blue and purple and some cool colors like that. And so she just loves how they write, loves that they're retractable, and loves the colors. So Pentel of America back, I don't know if you remember this, on the St. Jude raffle stuff. They gave, they had a new 20-pin set that they donated for us to raffle. And my wife tried to steal it back then, right? She's like, oh, this is for me, right? Like these are my pens. I'm like, no, we're doing this to raise money for the kids. This is mine? Thanks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I bought that set for her for Christmas. I think it might have been her favorite gift. She's already like cracked them open, decided what color she likes the most, and labeled one for work purposes already. I'll put a link in the show notes I just put on Instagram. Oh, that's fantastic. Because she has pen thieves at work, like as we all do, right? Anyone that works around other people, you cannot leave your favorite pens laying around, or they will vanish like in a split second. So she has labeled her, she has gotten the label maker out and put her name on the pens. So, you know, it's... Just to confirm, your label maker here is in Comic Sans, is that right? I'm gonna, I'm not gonna commit, I'm not gonna confirm or deny that. Once I saw that, I was like, oh boy, where did this come from?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am about 97% sure that that's Comic Sans.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am too, and it's not my work label maker, because it's out in the shipping department, and it is not set to Comic Sans. But when I saw that, I was like, this is gonna be an issue.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But she doesn't care. She just doesn't want people, maybe she thinks people will be embarrassed to use it, not because of the name, but because of her font choice. So, anyway, it's a hunter green, or a forest green color, which they don't normally do. So, if someone steals this pen, I mean, they're going down, because you can't just buy this color off the store shelf. Plus, it's got her name in Comic Sans on it. So, you better, hands off, buddy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's amazing. So that's the deal. So that was her favorite present. And, you know, her and my daughter were, like, going through all the colors on Christmas Day, trying to figure out all the new colors that she didn't have. And it was just cute, and I loved it. So, anyway, that was kind of the only stationary activity we did for Christmas, but it was well worth it. Well worth it. So thank you, Pentel, for showing me those, and I was able to grab a set for myself. Next up, we're gonna be talking a little bit this week. I'm gonna be talking more next week about my planner setup for 2022.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Please, I want to know more about it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but I wanted to kind of lead into it this week with a few planner topics, a few little short topics. Chronodex 2022 has released. I am never not going to link what Patrick Ng does at his Scription blog for creating and releasing the Chronodex formats for free. I remember he had a little challenge getting them out last year. They were a little bit late, but he is ahead of the game this year. So he does six months at a time. You can go to the link we have in the show notes. Look at the Chronodex images that he always puts on there, which are mind-boggling of... It's a mind-boggling system, right? Like, I couldn't... Can't even really describe it. Yeah, it doesn't really work for me. Yeah, you have to go look. I would be scared to even attempt this, but people love it. It's complete Instagram fodder. Like, it looks better than any bullet journal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe the best way I could describe it is aesthetically pleasing time blocking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's a good way to do it. But for those who aren't familiar with it, it's in a circular format, almost like a clock face. You know, hence kind of the name. And, like, I've never really read the rules to attempt to understand it because it looks like I would have a panic attack trying to manage it. But it's really great. And he does this for free. Like, he puts these out for free in the formats for you to just print it out on your own paper and build it. You know, a lot of people will print them out and make them for, like, their traveler's notebooks. I know that's what Patrick does a lot of times. So, and he's just one of the good ones. And I always want to send this out there in the world because I know he puts a lot of time in it. And I just want to make sure it gets shared because he is super cool. Yep. Yep. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Secondly, you dropped in a note here that I have started my Hobonichi. Yep. So, here's the problem with that, Myke. I really want to start it more, but they don't allow me really until January the 1st. So, I'm a little bit…

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is it condensed?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, the end of the year part? No. So, like, the one that I have is the Hobonichi Cousin. And it's essentially three distinct sections. So, you have your monthly layout, right, which is your month calendar over two pages, right? You open it up. You see a month. Okay? So, that's the first section. Your second section is a weekly section over two pages, right? So, this is a, you know, what, a pretty good-sized section where you see a vertical week split over two pages. So, they started that on December 27th, this Monday, because it rolls the end of the week into the first. So, like, they had to cover that week if you're going to start it on January 1st. And then the bulk of the book, you know, probably three-quarters or at least two-thirds of the book is one page per day. And that one page per day is fixed for January 1st. So, like, that's the first day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you can do the weekly planner part, but you can't do the daily part. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it was driving me crazy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which one did you get, by the way? Which flavor?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's the A5 Cousin, which is the single big book for the full year. Like, there's different models where you can get, like, the first six months or the second six months. Or you can get the Techo, which is the A6 size, which is the smaller. So, this is an A, like, your traditional A5, probably. Like, you have the Crossfield, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, the Nanami Crossfield. It's, like, a little bit bigger than that as far as page count, I think. Okay. So, think of it like something like that, but a little bit, maybe, like, another hundred pages or so compared to your Crossfield. So, it's a pretty sizable, chunky book, but it's all in one. It's not split into six months and six months.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, it's just straight up Hobonichi...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cousin. Cousin. Cousin. Yeah. I forget what the split version is called.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's really hard to find them. Because they have Techo, Cousin, and Cousin.

== Hobonichi Planning Products ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, it's original.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. No. So, there's still... Okay. So, like, I'm trying to find... Basically, what I'm trying to do right now is find a link to put in the show notes. And every single link has taken me to the Techo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Because that's the classic. That's what got this started. You know, the whole Hobonichi has a thing was the Techo. Even though these other products existed, what made them popular was the singular, smaller, A6 Techo. Mm-hmm. So, you really have to look up the Cousin. I can find the links for you to put it in there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think you're going to have to, man. Because I'm on their website and I can't even find it. The entire website is just Hobonichi Techo for everything I can find. I can't even find it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're on the 1101 site? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I'll find it for you. They usually have, like, a breakdown. So, it's A5 size Hobonichi Techo cousin. Well, that's day free. Yeah, there are all kinds of split. They're... You know what? It's not listed in the header. So, I wonder if it's sold out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the issue that I'm having. The header only has Techo up there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like, it's all it has. So, now... Okay, I'm on the site. We're doing this live.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is it day free?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hobonichi... It's... No, it's original. Original? So, they're calling this original. Um... Okay. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because now it says Techo original.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But that's A6. See? Yeah, this is frustrating. I know, I know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is why they need that friggin' map that you... It's too confusing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will tell you the split volume one is called the Avec. So, the Avec is the first six months and the second six months. So, you don't have a big chunky book. It's not a Techo, right? That's what we're saying? I mean... A Techo is a general term as well. Of course it is. Mm-hmm. So, I can't really say. So, here. I'm going to click on Cousin.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. One page per day. A5 size. Techo. So, Techo is generally just like the planner, the word for planner. But everyone calls the small one the Techo and everything else by the other name. So, I found the link for you. All right. So, this is the one we're doing. This is what we're doing right here. So, it's the A5 Cousin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is way too confusing. I love this in the live chat in the Discord. Catherine says, I'm getting flashbacks of Myke and Brad building Lego.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, man. That's true.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you see... That is true. All right. I've gone to this page and it calls it the Hobonichi Techo Cousin, which is what you said you didn't have.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because you got to... I have the cousin. So, I'm using the term Techo to talk about a specific model which is not factually correct. So, I can blame you for this confusion? Sure. I'm down with that. Good. Because Techo just means like... I think Techo just translates like into diary. So, it can be like a product name and a descriptor. Right? Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. And this is why you have to have a buying guide.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they have. They usually do when they launch. Yeah, they do. They usually do like a big... You know those maps? Like city maps? Yeah. You know, like the... That you get at the government office. It's like, hey, here's the city map.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But now it's like a big grid thing. And like, I'm going to put that link in the show notes too. It's honestly... I find it scary. Like, the amount of information. Yeah. But, hey, if you build a product which is really flexible and customizable, this is kind of what happens when you end up with a line. Because they've ended up with a line. It's like, this is product creep. And I'm not complaining. Like, this is actually a good thing. But, you know, I...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's intense. Yeah. Yeah. They release like the roadmap a good month ahead of the product launch. So, people actually have time to figure out what they want to buy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Every year. So, like in August, we'll get like a map of, you know, we'll get the chart. Right? And then that's getting you ready for the next month when it's time to order. So, you actually know what you're doing when it's time to order. Right? It's become a thing. It has definitely become a thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, look, all of it's worth it, right? Because at the end of the day, you end up with a fantastic product. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which you have.

== Episode Length Discussion ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. And so, we'll talk about it more next week when I can actually get into the meat of the book. And I start using it. So, we'll save that further discussion next week about the internals and how I'm using it. Cool. But I'm very anxious, which is why I keep fidgeting with the early days, like the pre-January 1st days that I'm allowed to use. I keep fidgeting with them because I'm anxious to write something on the 1st, which I could start. So, that's a whole topic we'll talk about next week. What about you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I've got my theme system journal set up, which is a product that you can just start whenever you want. You don't have to wait for the journal to tell you when you can start. Because it is, in essence, much more of a simple product. Obviously, this is a product that I make.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You don't have a roadmap for ordering?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Don't. At least we don't. Yeah. Who knows what the future might hold? You know, as I was saying all that stuff a minute ago, I was like, is this my future? This could be my future. I don't know where it's going to go. But I think there's a possibility of it, especially of all the ideas I have in my brain. I've got a cool idea I want to tell you about when we're not recording later on. I want to see what you think about it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, you already had another idea that I haven't seen come to fruition yet that I really want. It's going to happen this year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. I'm hoping by the end of January, I'll be able to place an order for that product. Brand new product, not theme system related. Cortex brand product. So yeah, I just wanted to plug the journal for a second. It's available now. We have stock. Now we have more stock on the way. So you can buy with confidence. If you know, I know in the past, the journal's gone out of stock. You can buy with confidence. If you want to buy with extra confidence, you can subscribe. And we keep stock for the quarterly subscriptions, right? We do stock management. So we make sure they never go out of stock. So if you subscribe, you'll always get one on a quarterly interval. But the theme system journal is a product that helps you with your yearly theme. It helps you stay on course. It helps you be more productive and achieve what you're looking to achieve. I built this book over many years of trial and error. I'm really, really happy with the quality of the product at the end. And I think that many pen addicts will too. I would say, you know, like for pen addicts, it does a good job with basically anything, right? Yep. And, you know, but things will vary. You know, if you use like really sloppy inks, you might struggle. But outside of that, I think it does a really good job with basically everything I've thrown at it. And I've thrown everything that I own at it. And I'm happy with it. Yeah. But yeah, really, it's all about the theme system. Like the system of the idea of basically it is a, you know, loose structure. And it just allows you to kind of spend some time reflecting every day. And we give you just enough structure to give you something to keep coming back to. So you don't have to come up with it on your own. And if you want to read a little bit more about what that is, you can go to themesystem.com. And it's all laid out there. We put examples and stuff on the website. So if you've maybe thought about it and you haven't tried it out before, or maybe you tried it and bounced off, this could be a time to come back. Because we're about to enter a new year. So we really appreciate it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Two things. Two things. One, will you put a link into the Cortex podcast where you talk about your themes? Yeah. The most recent episode. That needs to go in the show notes for everyone to go listen to. I have not listened to it yet. So do not spoil me. I plan on doing that before next week. Secondly, do you start a fresh theme system journal no matter what on January the 1st?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. Because you write your yearly theme in it, right? And we have space for people to write multiple. But I always start a new one. Because also, I always have a lot of them. So I'm never like, you know. But yeah, I like to start a new one at the beginning of the new theme time. That would have been my assumption.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I don't even start one January 1st. I started mine like two weeks ago. Okay, fair enough. Right. Basically, you know, like when we recorded the show, I'm like set on what my theme is. So as soon as we recorded the show, the next day I set up my new theme system journal. So mine was set up a couple of weeks ago and I started it. Love it. So go check it out. All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. You know Pen Chalet. They have all of the products that you need from all of your favorite brands. Whether you're looking for something from Pelican or Pilot, maybe Sailor or Kaweco. Whether you want a mechanical pencil. Maybe you want some refills. Maybe you want some inks. Maybe you want a beautiful fountain pen, ballpoint. Whatever it is from whatever company you're looking for, go to Pen Chalet and check it out. Here's a couple of great reasons. Every couple of weeks, they have new discounts. They're doing closed out specials and adding new styles of pens all the time. They sell internationally with great shipping rates and they get free shipping on orders of $50 in the US. So that's really like an easy thing to do with Pen Chalet to get to that price because they have so much wonderful stuff. So go right now to PenChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password Pen Addict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Right now, they have a year-end inventory reduction sale with tons of great deals. But of course, there are some special deals for Pen Addict listeners. Isn't that right, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is maybe the longest list I've ever seen on here. I haven't made it to the bottom yet and I've been looking for a while. So there is all kinds of sneaky stuff in here. So as I'm going through this list, again, I have not made it to the bottom of this list yet. The, where'd it go? The Mayora Aventus fountain pen is a really, really cool fountain pen. This is the company that spun off from, one of the companies that spun off from Delta, which we spoke about last week. The price point for these pens, I think, is lower than even I bought my last one for. So it's like, with discounts, it's crazy good. There's a Pelican 205 petrol in here that's on sale. There is something that I never, two things I never see on sale. One, the Lamy 2000 ballpoint in the, what do they call this? Like the Texas, like the light colored model. It's like a wooden model. Yeah. I forget the exact name of it, but it's on sale for like, it's normally not even that available. They also have Lamy 2000s on here, which never go on sale. The actual fountain pen version. The actual fountain pen version is cheaper than I bought mine eight years ago. Something like that. Right? So like, I think I paid more for mine six or eight years ago than they have it listed for right now. And I still haven't gotten to the end, y'all. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Retro 51s on here too. Like ones that I'm surprised that Ron even has stock of and they're putting them on deal. I haven't even found it. And 3776 centuries.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the Kenshu, like the final version of that series, the 3776 Kenshu is the one that they took all the design elements of the Kung Fu and the Shi Yun and all those and morphed them into one pen. This was an anniversary edition that was very expensive and now it is discounted. Yeah. Retro. This is, I haven't finished the list yet. It's, it's crazy. Y'all should go check this out. I'm going to check this out again after the show and see if there's anything I need to check out. Like these Montegrappa Elmo fountain pens, which is, that's a pen model that I love and they changed the shape of it. So I wanted to check out the new version of that. They've kind of upgraded the previous Elmo, which I loved and kind of like fancied it up a little bit. So I want to check those out for myself. So yeah, great, great deals at Penn Chalet right now for y'all to check out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. You can go and check them out for yourself right now. Go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Penn Addict to get your hands on those deals and 10% off anything at any time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Next topic, Myke, I am sure Matthias has been yelling at me privately. Like I haven't talked to him, but Matthias, our good friend at Blystiff and at stationary.wiki made a post on December 23rd that I've been holding until this podcast to talk about. Like I didn't share it on, I didn't like fawn over it on Twitter. I wanted to, I didn't, I didn't put it in my misfilled links on the weekend because I wanted to talk about it with you and make sure that, that you saw what Matthias did for us for the, the blog post is nearly 10 years of the Penn Addict podcast and it's kind of not what you think. It is a chart. Matthias has charted the time lengths of all of our episodes for the entirety of the run of the podcast. What would you like to say about this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I love the work. It's fascinating. It's interesting to me. This stuff is always interesting to me. I don't know what happened between like 2016 and 2018 because it feels like there was a bit of a swell in episode length. But I'm pretty happy that, you know, from 2017 onwards to now, like we're pretty consistent with episode length, which is, which makes me feel, feel good. Like, because one of the things that you could see is that like over time, the episodes get shorter, which would suggest that we're running out of stuff to talk about. And I don't think that's happening. Like the trend, there's like that blue trend line has gone down a little bit, but that, I don't know, that feels pretty stable between 60 and 70 minutes, you know? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like Myke and I, I mean, it's, it's kind of an unwritten rule, but we talk about it from time to time. We would like to hit about 55 minutes on every episode, knowing that we always go about 60 or maybe like 63.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is for me a one hour show. And I feel like-

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a one hour show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' More than that is too much, I think. Yeah. If on a consistent basis.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But we also couldn't hit 45 minutes if we tried.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. Even when we tried, we don't never do it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We can't do that. We's like, okay, we need a quick one today. 58 minutes, right? It's like, I got a hard stop at 11. Let's go and let's do about 45. It's always 58. It just is. It's really cool to see. I do remember the beginning, like we had like 27 minute episodes and 32 minute episodes. And I was like, there's just no way we could do like less than 45 minutes now if we tried. But we're pretty locked into that 55 to 65 range. And I'm really happy about that. Like I feel good about the length of show. That's kind of how you and I lay out the show, like trying to fit those blocks into that. If I know we're going to run short, you know, I'll ask for a little bit more topics or have some more STPA and things like that. But I love the consistency that this is. And that plays a big role. And I think why people enjoy the show, they know they're going to get me and you for about an hour every week. And we're going to cut up about pens and, you know, then we're going to move on and we're going to do it again next week. And we never overload the topics too much to, you know, to just, you know, to have like an hour and a half show one week and 30 minutes the next week. Right. It's very well balanced and I'm very happy. I was very pleased to see this. So thank you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What you could say is after you do 494 of something, you get kind of consistent with it. I'm not going to say good at it. I think we're good at it, but I don't want to speak for other people. But we've worked it out by this point.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like I can do, I can pretty much, when I write a show doc, I can time it in my head. What that we're going to hit like the hour mark.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Watch this episode end up being like 42 minutes long or something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't think so because this next topic, Myke, is broken my brain and it's, I'm a, I'm flummoxed. So, um, friend of the show, Craig Mod, I just like saying that he's really not, uh, I just want him to be. So like, I'm, you know, I'm, that's the new year's resolution, you know, like talk about the things that you want to happen and they'll just magically happen.

== Manifesting Future Projects ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' What do they call that? It's like, um, it's like putting something out in the world, but it has a name, but I don't remember what it is. Like when you, you put something out into the world and hope that it happens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. There is a word for it and I'm blanking. I'm blanking. Manifesting. Manifesting. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you know what, Brad, we just manifested that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So future friend of the show, Craig Mod, I follow, I'm a, I'm a member of his, I'm subscribed to him and follow him on Twitter. So he posted this, he posted this link on Twitter, an intriguing Christmas present from IA, which we'll get into IA in just a second. The notebook for writers where the guides disappear, leaving nothing but plain, clear, aligned text. Do you want to give the IA background for people who don't know? Like just the general overview? I mean, I can, but I figured you might be even be better.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. IA, um, what is, uh, now I want to remember what, what it actually stands for. Is it Intelligent Architects? Maybe. I bet I don't even know. I think that's what the IA stands for. Um, but I don't remember. Anyway, IA have been around for a really long time in the kind of app space. Their main product, uh, is something called IA Writer, which is a mostly Markdown focused, um, text editor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That was my first big boy writing app when I got a Mac. And it is for a lot of people.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They've been around for such a long time. Yep. Um, that I'm trying to find, I don't know if, I actually, I don't know if IA stands for anything anymore. Um, but I think it used to, you know what I mean? Like, I think it used to stand for something. And then over time they've, they've kind of moved away from that a little bit. Um, but they are like a company that does a bunch of things. Like they are. Digitally. Yeah. They are a consultancy company. Yeah. Um, and they work with a lot of brands on strategy, design, code, and that kind of stuff. But they also produce their own product, which is IA Writer. And that's like their product that they put out to the world. And it's a really, really nice, um, seemingly simple, but full of features, uh, text editor. I think they were one of the first that did like, um, uh, syntax highlighting in a Markdown editor. So structure, like in color and stuff. And they've had, they had, they've made some, I don't even remember what it was, like some weird moves in the past where everybody got mad at them for a while, but then they came back and everyone was cool with them again. But anyway, IA Writer has been like a consistent, uh, really good text editing application.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And one thing you can do, this, this is not a digital podcast, but one thing I have done once I moved off of IA Writer for my writing is they actually allow you to download their font for free. The, um, I forget the name of the font and you can import that into like your other writing apps. If you like, yeah, they made a really, they did a good job. So I use that font pretty frequently. So anyway, Craig is obviously buddies with the IA people and they sent him this notebook. And normally those things just pass my eyes and go, okay, thanks for the notebook. This one is different in that it has raised, it's a lined notebook, but the lines that we would normally think are printed are physically raised on the page. And I'm having trouble with this whole, with this whole concept until I see it in my hands because like Craig's text, and I, this is from the, from the packaging, the guides disappear, leaving nothing but plain, clear, aligned text. So you basically have blank guidelines that you can see as you're writing. But the theory is that once the words are on the page, those things vanish from view, not like physically vanish, right? They're, they're scored into the book as, as best as I can tell, right? The lines, is that a fair way to say it? These lines look scored into the page, but by the time you write and have a full text page, you just, you stop visually seeing. It's not like the lines are like physically vanishing. I don't, I don't see how they could physically vanish when they're scored into the page. I am desperate to get one of these. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't really know what it means. Like my, my thought was like, does it change the composition of the page? Like as you write on it, does it like weigh the page in such a way that the, the lines actually disappear? Like I couldn't tell, right? Right. I don't know. They've said like it's made for fountain pens as well, which is just like a bananas thing

'''Brad Dowdy:''' to say. Like, yeah. So like everything that is happening here is like really breaking my head. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So it's a product that they are working on making commercially available.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. I thought at first, the way Craig was talking about it, like, Hey, we just, you know, I made this for like their best customers or whatever. It's actually going to be a physical product.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Something I can't tell Brad is how big it is from these images.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It looks, I'm going to go with smart sized Myke. Like I don't know exactly what size it is, but I'm just going to assume it's smart sized.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is that when, did you mean that they make it up as they go along? Like, yeah. Like the system journals. Yeah. A5 ish. You reckon it's just a five ish. I mean, I would hope so if it's a writer's book. My concern would be that it's pocket size.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I don't think that's the right. So it looks like it's five by seven to me. Yeah. Just looking at how many lines are on the page. It may be shorter than that. It may, it may be like B6 ish. I don't know. We'll see. Um, but yeah, it's whatever it is. It's smart size. It's, it's, uh, you know, well, we'll, we'll, you better believe I will, I will handle that bit of information once we physically get, once I physically get one. Um, but it doesn't look to be a five size. It looks to be smaller.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So here's what I'll say right now. This looks like a notebook built by a design agency. Yes. That's not always a good thing. Correct. We'll see. This feels very concept-y, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And we'll see. So this is going to be one of those times where I'm actually like, I'm going to reach out and try to get one where I don't normally do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But around the time that they do decide to make it commercially available, they will want to have it in your hands if they believe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I'm just going to order one if it becomes commercially available, but I'm actually going to, I haven't emailed them yet. I've just put myself on the mailing list and look at all the stuff. Like they didn't, they don't look like they're ready to send, but I'm going to attempt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' When you see a product like this and you put yourself in the mailing list, do you use an email address where they could recognize you? Nope. Oh, interesting. That's not the move I take. Like if I'm signing up for like an app beta or something, I will use my RelayFM email address in the hopes that they recognize me and give me the access.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Obviously, when I directly email them, it will definitely come from the pen addict. If I'm signing up to a newsletter that I know is going to be more of a general newsletter, right? So like, that's how they say, sign up for our newsletter and we'll say, you know, when this is going to launch. I put it in, I direct that type of content into my feed bin. So I have a feed bin address that comes into my RSS feeds. So that's how I read newsletters.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, no, I will always try and do the like, I want you to like, please notice me kind of thing. Oh, yeah. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah. I'll do that differently. Like if I ask them. As someone says in the chat, the do you know who I am technique.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Which is exactly what it is. But subtle. But subtle. And you don't say, hey. You just send it from that address, but you don't say, hey, I am this person. You just say, hey, you know, I notice things you think. Yeah. So I'll try to get one. So we'll see. I'll shoot them an email. They don't know who I am from Adam, but, you know, maybe I can get ready for the long term follow up on this. Well, I can I can pull some strings in the relay chat and bet I could get some contact, some legit contact information.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would say, yeah, you probably could. I that's generally not my move, though. I reckon Federico probably knows them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I don't roll that way, though. So. But you could. But I could. I could. I'm I'm tempted more than this because it's so different. And what they're telling me doesn't add up. Yeah, I can't walk it out. And I want to see it for myself. And but they're like. Yeah, this isn't just like a one off thing we're trying. Like they're like in like we're going in on this. And I want to see what the deal is. So, yeah, there you go. All right. Semi related notebook news. My plotter interview went up on the plotter website. I had a really fun time working with them in the kind of like a private beta test of the plotter. And part of that program was doing an interview with them to be published on their website, which is now upped up up up. It's now up on their site. I linked it on the penatic blog for those to read. It's a fun interview. It talks about like, you know, just my general background in stationery. But it talks about some of my thoughts on the plotter. And I don't know. I enjoy talking with April very much. They do a really good job. It's one of the most pleasant experiences I've had ever, like working with like a pre-launch product. Like they were very thorough and very diligent and, you know, knew exactly like the type of questions to ask. And we're very good about the whole process. And I think it's a really neat product. The thing is, and we're going to talk about this probably when I start talking about the Hobonichi, is how I'm going to use the plotter going forward. Right. That's the question I'm at right now. Like these last two months have just been a disaster as far as productivity and efficiency and actually working. So I'm ready to get, turn the calendar and get into a better work cycle and see how the plotter fits into that. But I think it's a great product. And I thought it was a fun interview and wanted to share.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I like that they called you a stationary therapist. Which I never heard. I really appreciate as a phrase.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I could get into that. Right. Because it's like content creator. You know, that's like just like, it's almost like a creepy word these days. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, it's the problem with it is it's too, it's too simple because it's so broad. Right. It is. It is. But I do like that there is a word for it. Like I like the content creator exists.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. I make content. Right. Yeah. I make content. Like I'm not denying that. But like, I don't know. I just tend to say I talk about pens on the internet and that I lead with that. And then we just figure out from there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like something that I may be trying to say sometimes that I like is that I am a professional communicator. But that's about as broad as content creator. But it's just something that I like to say.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But stationary therapist, I can get behind that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. You are a stationary therapist. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So I'm good with that. So.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. When you need to set up your new website for stationary therapy.

== Unboxing Segment Introduction ==

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's the last thing I need is another domain that I'm not using.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, when you eventually decide to create a new one, which is literally only a matter of time, go to Squarespace because they are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Squarespace really have everything from tools to make websites and online stores to managing them with marketing tools and analytics. They've got the whole kit and caboodle. You are covered with Squarespace. You can combine cutting edge design with world-class engineering. That's what they do. Right. So you get all of that. So basically with Squarespace, you will get yourself free unlimited hosting, top of the line security, award-winning 24 seven customer support, domain name registration options, SEO and email marketing tools, beautiful templates that are instantly customizable with just drag and drop tools and clicks. So you can customize the look, feel settings, the products you have on sale and more in seconds and everything is optimized for mobile. And they have great iOS apps where you can look at all of the stuff behind the scenes, but also make edits to the site. They really are amazing. Squarespace will let you turn your big idea into a new website. Whether you want to promote your business, publish a blog post, create a portfolio, announce an upcoming event and so much more Squarespace are the place. Me and Brad have been using Squarespace for over a decade now because it's so easy. I know when I have an idea, when I want to put something online, when I want the world to see something, I could just spin up Squarespace website. I can get it done super quickly and get it out to the world. One of the things I love is something you will benefit from is their free trial. If you go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, you can sign up for a trial. You don't need to give them your credit card information and you can build your whole website and make sure that it feels right for you. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict when you sign up for a plan and you will save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the penaddict and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Can I give Squarespace a shout out for their support as well? They do a good job. Like, you know, not everything goes perfectly all the time. And sometimes you have like little foibles you need to figure out. And I had a comments issue crop up all of a sudden. And I don't know why. And where people couldn't leave comments. So I had people test. I collected that information, put it in an email to Squarespace. Squarespace. They looked at it and they didn't just give me the stock. Like, hey, have you turned it on and off again? They looked at my information, said, do this. And I did that and it fixed it. And then our ticket was closed. Like, that was it. That was our communication. It wasn't like, okay, I've tried all these things and that didn't work. What's the tier two thing? Like, they took my info. So they said, press this button, do this, and tell us if it worked. And I'll be like, yep, that worked. Thank you. The end. Like, it doesn't get any better than that. So I appreciate their support is generally helpful like that. So it's really cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. All right. New segment on the show. Mm-hmm. Myke unboxes things. Yeah. And I am very anxious to see what's about to happen here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We don't really do this very much, which is kind of surprising, really. But I think it's just because we're both just too excited when new stuff comes in. But I had something arrive today. I thought I would keep it for the show. I believe it's my drill log.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I haven't opened the box yet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Watch it not be. That would be great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, it's some socks. So I got my knife here. By the way, I love my James Brand knife.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a good. They do good stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you remember that? I bought it a really long time ago.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I lost my little bitty one, my little pen knife that they make. Right. It's about an inch long. And I've lost that because I love it so much and would carry it around.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I actually also, by the way, so I own the, what's the name of the one that I own?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, man. I'm looking on their website now, but now I can't find it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, now they have more. When we were buying them, it was like one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Knives, product knives. Now they had a bunch when I bought mine, but now they do have way more. It's the, not the Carter. It looks like it, but it's not the Carter. The Folsom?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Folsom is the original.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So that's what I have. I have it in the green, but I just bought the Draplin orange and black one. Oh, nice. Yeah. I couldn't not buy it. Because I have a few of them and it's so cool. And Stephen has, because he's done two of them. The Elko, which I think is the one that you have. Mm-hmm. And he's also done one of the Folsom ones. And Stephen bought both of them, I think. And they look really good. Yep. And I have the Folsom one at home. I'm at home today. But I wanted one for the studio. And so now I've ordered one of the DDC ones.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Perfect. So good. Now you're going to make me go look after the show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, they're really great. They're really, really great. Yep. So. Highly recommended.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's now an EDC show. I guess so. Although this drill log, if this is actually a drill log in the box, that could be a weapon.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I'll find out. I have no idea. All right. You ready? Let's do this thing. Let's do this. All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you hear this? Probably not. Yeah, barely. This is like some serious tape.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Then it must be because I made the same comment when I opened mine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like structured.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like band-aid tape. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Where it's like got cross fibers, but it's soft like a band-aid. So this is totally the drill log.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's really. I was really impressed with the tape too. I did a whole Twitch stream where I was just messing with the tape.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I've got some foam. Oh my God. There's so many boxes. Yes, it is the drill log.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. You must have bought a lot of pieces, parts.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think you bought like the kitten caboodle type of thing where I already had a bunch of the stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Let me check. Yeah. It's just some paper. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Very nearly stabbed myself. Good. That's fine. All right. I've got some paperwork here. One is a little thank you card. One is how to maintain my drill log.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm not going to read that. Who maintains pens? Am I right? Not me. I mean, they sent that to the wrong person.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I've got a writing paper block and it says present for you on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. I have that right here on my desk.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you. And then I've got three little boxes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Should we start with the little boxes?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yes. I know what one of them is. I don't know what the second one is. You must have ordered something extra.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We'll find out. All right. One is...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. That's one nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Oh, did you get two nibs?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I have the double-sided pen, so...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, well, there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I thought two nibs would be important.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, there you go. Yeah. Makes sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So then I got the other nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you have a 0.5 and a 0.8 nib. I believe I... Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I believe I went with the two sizes. Mm-hmm. That was what I wanted. But again, this was a complicated thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'm going to stop right here and say that I still can't believe you back this. Because this wouldn't have been a topic... I mean, a product that I would have picked for you. I got my color puddle. Oh, it's also cool. That's what I was wondering if you got here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The color puddle is a lot smaller than I was expecting the color puddle to be. Yes. But this is a serious piece of metal they've got here. This is one of those things which is way heavier than it should be.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So it's about... For those playing at home, it's about the size of a roll of washi tape. But weighs... I don't know. It weighs a lot. As much as like a roll of pennies.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, and it comes with a little pipette thing so I can...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Has it got the weight?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So a color puddle is like a... It's like a little ink holder to where you can have like six different colors of ink in a little container on your desk and where you can dip in and out of the different colors.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's that. It comes with a little thing so I can refill it. I guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not going to try the color puddle. Like a little ink palette. Like an ink palette. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And now I guess this one's going to be the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, it's in a box in a box.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, Brad, it looks good. I got the black with the kind of orangey grip section.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yeah, I would say that's orange, not red. It's nice. Like, it's very nice.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I got the one that's like twisty.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They have all the names, but it's complicated. Sorry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But just the center is twisty.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I guess I can just put these on somehow. Mm-hmm. Oh, are these caps? Wait.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So you'll unscrew. It is a capped pen, right? So the nibs do have caps over them. So you'll unscrew both black ends.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then you'll dual-wheel lightsaber it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And can I screw one? Yeah, I can screw one cap onto the other. Nice. Yep. Nice. I will say, again, I've forgotten a lot about this product, honestly. Mm-hmm. I'm surprised it's capped because it's not like it's going to dry out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but it also protects the tip. Like this was the best design. Right. This was the best designed non-standard. I'm going to call it a handle.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't remember if you said this. You probably already did. But like my brain wants to put my fingers on the place where I should not be putting my fingers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. Like that's the only part I want to touch.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's an inch. It's more than an inch probably counting the threading of the nib. It's a long nib.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. I can immediately see a problem with this. Okay. It is both too small and too big.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So if I don't cap the, if I don't post the cap, it's too small. Yes. Where I have to hold it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If I post the cap, too big. You will get used to the too big. Okay. Because it's not heavy. No, it's not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The balance is good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So that one works the best when it is posted. Like I said, this design that you got is my favorite design. Yeah. From a functionality perspective.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that was why I ended up going with it. Like we were talking through all of the different ones. And this made sense to me. Because I remember I wasn't going to back it. Because they didn't have this at first. And then they added it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I got to test all of the shapes and the barrel shapes. Except for the elongated straight barrel. Which they didn't make until after the campaign started. Which I ended up getting. I got the elongated one. Because that's the only one I didn't have. But the one that you have is my preferred barrel. Okay. Especially for dual wielding.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm opening the writing paper block now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. This is just a pad of paper. Why did they include this, do you think?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was some add-on. Like I didn't even realize it was coming in the box. And when I was opening it, the chat was telling me that this was like some kind of like bonus thing. That value add. Yeah. Whatever.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like thank you. We made more money than expected. Yeah. Exactly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was one of. What do they call those on Kickstarter? Stretch goal. Yeah. But it wasn't a stretch goal. Because I don't think they told anyone.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean. Because it wasn't a thing. I don't think. Like if we make this much money. Right. Right. This is the kind of stuff you can do when like you overperform to the point that you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've made some extra money in your margins. Yeah. So you can put some money back in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thank you. It's a nice block of paper I'll keep on my desk. I haven't tested it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pretty thick paper.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's nice. It's like 150 sheets. It's a. Yeah. It's a chunky block. It's a brick.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's no joke. So what? Should I go get some ink now then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think you should. And then we're going to have a conversation. So you go do that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What kind of ink shall I get? Is there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you have a recommendation for me? That's a great question, Myke. I don't. So we're going to have a problem. So grab at least two different brands, if not three. All right. So we want to look at brand. And or style. Will I go get some ink? Grab. Okay. You have a shimmer ink, right? Surely I do. Yeah. Yeah. If not. Grab a normal ink and a weird ink. At least.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool. BRB.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So Myke's going to BRB. And here we're going to find out the biggest challenge that all of us drill log owners have is finding an ink that works. So we're going to circle back on this in a future podcast. I told Myke beforehand that I am going to have to work on a list of compatible inks because I'm already getting emails. And I know Jacob went through this in the beginning. Like there are ink consistencies that work well with the drill log and that do not work at all with the drill log. So there's going to be, we're going to have to make a master list of some kind for drill log users of drill log friendly inks. So we're going to have to work on that as a group. So I remember one of the first inks I grabbed might've been Shinkai and it would not attach to the nib to get a good ink flow. But then I've had other inks that just grab on and just, you can write, you know, a half a page or so with it. So we're going to work on that. So we'll, we'll have a, we will eventually get to a drill log master list. So is Myke back yet? Did he find any inks? He has not. So he only has a few inks. I don't know if y'all remember last week or two weeks ago, Myke has like three inks. So this is going to be a struggle for him. Although he could probably carry them in one hand where me, I would have to relocate into the closet of doom and grab one of the 200 plus inks that I have. So we're going to test brands and subsets of brands and figure out what works the best. I'm most excited to try and I haven't yet. I'm back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My home office is a disaster right now. So that took a little bit longer than I expected.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let me finish the one statement I was going to make just so there's a continuity there. I was telling the listeners, the thing I'm most excited to try for myself is my iron gall ink collection. So I'll be looking forward to testing those. So my explanation, Myke, is this is going to be a challenge. We're going to have to make a master list of some kind of what inks work and what inks don't because there's going to be some complete rejection of inks on this tip. They're just not going to flow right on the nib and then you're going to find something that's going to be perfect. Do you also have a way to clean the nib like a glass of water or something?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I brought a microfiber cloth. Is that not going to do the deal? Am I going to need water?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Probably want a little bit of water because they stay in the grooves. The ink stays in the grooves. So you're just going to want to swirl it around.

'''Myke Hurley:''' BRB times two. All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So as Myke BRBs, I have the long barrel with yellow green anodized drill log. I have not tested this yet because I'm going to sit down with a bunch of inks and try to determine what's the best brand. I think Jacob referred to the surface tension of the ink and I don't know how to measure those types of things. That the ink that you dip it into has to have a good surface tension to actually attach to the metal and allow it to flow down the drill log, the little grooves in the drill log to the page. So we're going to have to figure that out. Not all inks are going to be good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Myke. Okay. Well, I've returned with some ink. All right. Should I start with the 0.8 or the 0.5?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 0.8.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And what ink?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you want to know the inks I brought?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've got three. I've got Mont Blanc Lucky Orange. I got Emerald of Chivor. The Gioban Emerald of Chivor. Is it Emerald of Chivor? Did I pick up the right one? Yeah. And Carla Inks Foxy Neon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Do you remember those? Let's start. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do Lucky Orange in order. Lucky Orange, Carla, J. Herbal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that would be, if I'm guessing, that's going to be in the order of performance that I would think, but I have proven myself very wrong in my ink testing that something I think is going to be good is not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How submerged does it need to be?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All the way. All the way? Up to the, yeah, get up to the top of the grooves because what you'll find is the ink starts working its way down the grooves. You will actually, as you write with it, you will visually be able to see some of the the grooves. Chad is asking me to stream it when I do my ink test and I will.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What do I do about the ink that collects at the bottom?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just kind of tip it on the edge of the bottle, right? Yeah. Just kind of, you know, you don't necessarily need to wipe it off, but you want to get the bulk of it to run off.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my God. This feels amazing. This is beautiful. This is weird. Right? It's very weird. Because the ink flows inconsistently in a way I am not used to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And you'll get, you will learn as you're writing with it that you can rotate it. I just did that, Brad. In the clockwise way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Because I had, I was, the ink wasn't flowing, so I rotated the nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So gravity will help the flow down those channels, right? There's channels in here and a little twist actually makes a difference. So what you'll eventually find is you'll want to find the ink that will allow you to write several lines in one dip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I've had inks. I'm writing way more than I expected. There is, this is performing vastly better. So it started out really inconsistent. Sure. Like, the flow was weird, right? And it was almost like there was water on the nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because the ink was also spreading on the page. Right. Because it was too much. But now I am writing really consistently and it looks like a regular nib. And I'll say the feeling, I've got a panel book today in front of me. The feeling of the nib on the page, I'm using the 0.8, right? It's very smooth. And yeah. Like, if I had this in a fountain pen, I'd be very happy with the way this feels.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. So now you need to remember.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Does not work with the nib flat down on the page. Like, easily. Like, I have to have some kind of slant on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So like, the ink has to travel down the grooves and then down those notches and then into like the cone grooves, the lines. So there's actually a flow to this ink, right? That's why you see the glass nibs have that swirl on them, right? They hold ink and then the ink also travels down as it's getting pulled by the page.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I would say on a panel book, I reckon I could fill half a page.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Then, so what we would now want to know is Lucky Orange is a keeper. So like, that goes on the good list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Because it's flowing pretty well, pretty consistently. I kind of just run out. So I kind of, I divide the pages into three when I write and I've filled up a third of the page, like of a vertical. So I reckon I could maybe do, let's say like a third of the page, not half because it's run out now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And based on my experience, I'd say that's a reasonable output. And then you just dip it again and you keep going.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I'll say my initial impression from using the ink is it performs way better than I expected. And I, I've thought I would need to be refilling way more than that. All right. So I've rinsed it off now, dried it off. Dry it off. Yep. My only concern for me personally would be having an ink bottle open all the time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, for you, yes. Because I would be worried about that for you as well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But surely that's got to be a thing for a lot of people. Ink is not a thing you want to spill. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But when I'm using this, I'm going to be dedicated. Right. True. True.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like I never spill over my drinks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like I'm going to take 30 minutes to do this thing with this nib and this ink bottle open and then close it up. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I guess if I was going to be doing this as a thing, I would end up knowing where the ink bottle goes. Like the ink bottle has its place.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And you're going to want, like, if you're really writing and you're not thinking about it as much, you just want to pick, like, once you found a good ink, make sure it's like in a good bottle. Like, to be honest, as much as I love Robert Oster, you're going to tip one of those over if you're not paying attention. Oh, I would never do that. Because they're too light. Like, yeah. Where, like, the Mont Blanc Lucky Orange is a small 30 milliliter glass bottle. It's short and stubby. Right. It's not going anywhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I hate refilling from Robert Oster bottles. I'm terrified of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Because it's like, I've done it. They take two hands. It takes, like, three hands, honestly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've done it many times where I've caught one. You know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I've mixed up the Emerald of Shavuor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And sticking with the 0.8?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think, let's do all 0.8s.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because, so we have a baseline.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' My expectation is, I didn't think Lucky Orange was going to be that good. My expectation is that the Emerald of Shavuor should be very good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad, I got a problem. What? I can't submerge it because the opening is too short on the bottle. It's too narrow. I can't get the thing in.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The grip of the dual wield is wide. Okay. Well, if you can't tip it or anything, then we can fire that one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can I screw this into the cap?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I don't think I'm going to be able to use Emerald of Shavuor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. That's fine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The opening isn't, it's not enough. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So like my, the shape of my pen is more traditional, but yours has almost like a wider grip section.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will, I can test that one. I will, I will get Emerald of Shavuor for my testing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've been able to dip just the very end. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Kate's saying you could use the puddle, but let me tell you about the puddle. That's a whole other ammo. I did not enjoy the puddle.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because the puddle only allows for you to dip the very tip of it in, which I've done, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. It depends. So the puddle is for like real, like legit, like artistic type of writing where you're mixing a lot of inks and just going back and forth just on the tip of the drill log where the tip is just going in and out and switching inks. And it'd be a very colorful, useful thing for anything but writing because you're not going to get the writing. And Kate, you'll see it when we show pictures of the puddle. It doesn't even, it barely gets past, barely gets like halfway up the cone. So it's really like a dip and write and dip and write and dip and write.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've been able to get this to work to the point where I've been able to get ink on the very, like about all the way up to the top of the cone part. So I'm writing of Emerald Chavor right now and it's performing just as well as the Mont Blanc. But I don't see any shimmer in it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's fine. You might when it dries. It's also a thin line, right? Thin lines meter how much shimmer you're going to see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And that's run out now. I would say I got like a quarter of the amount of ink down on the page as I did when I could submerge it fully. Okay. So I'll tell you right now, using that puddle, that would drive me mad. Yeah. For me, I just thought it'd look nice and would be a nice desk trinket. It is. Especially considering the weight of it. That makes it like, I'm actually pleased I bought it for that reason.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, it's really cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like it feels like a good fidget toy, but it's not fit for purpose.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not for writing. It's for art, in my opinion.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which I think is the point, because what it reminds me of is the, I don't remember what it's called, but the art is like the wooden thing that you put your thumb in. A palette.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Palette. Well, yeah. But yeah, I know what you mean.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's what it reminds me of. All right. So that was Emerald of Chavuil. So the last thing that we're going to try is one of the Kala Neon inks. I have the pink.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this is a pigmented ink, which is different than your Lucky Orange, which is standard water-based dye-based ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Honestly, like one of the reasons I wanted this Drillog pen is for inks like this. The type of ink that you do not want to leave in a pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And that's what I was saying, like my Iron Gall inks. I want to test them because I'm anxious. Because I would like to have a bottle on my desk of Iron Gall ink capped when I'm not using it, but to uncap it and just use my Drillog when I want, that will be really, really exciting for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. It's laying down very thick immediately.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It does take a minute to kind of get its correct line width, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But like the ink is like raised off the page. That's a lot. Yeah. But it, oh man, this is fantastic. This is great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you're having good, once you get past the initial bulk of the ink, which it's unavoidable, right? Like it's going to be heavy in the beginning. You want a consistent writing for several lines and that's how you know it's going to be probably.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So I'll say with this ink, it has settled in, but it is still a little bit more than the Mont Blanc, like just the amount of ink that comes onto the page. Right. But this is allowing me to use an ink I otherwise couldn't use. And I really like these neon inks. I'm going to tell you, Brad, I'm into this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. I'm shocked. So what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to figure out what works the best. Like you were going to come across an ink. You're going to dip the nib in there all the way up to the top. You're going to put it on the page and it's going to write half a word. And you just got to go, you know what? That ink is not going to work with this nib and just set it to the side until you find one that does. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What inks did you find that were like that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I need to get them back out. I haven't tested in a couple of weeks. I haven't tested since I got my new pen model in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So here's something I've noticed with the neon. Right. So it's used. It's gone about the same distance as Mont Blanc. However, the tip is still really pink. Like there's still ink on this, but it's not flowing down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So that's the pigmentation. Yeah. Right. So every different ink chemistry is going to handle this nib differently.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Big success for me. Good. I really like this thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it's going to be fun for you to do like some short notes and writing with. Once I find, once I do some ink testing, I'm going to try to write in my book copying that I failed at in November, but I'm still working on. Yeah. I'm going to see like what it's like to write like several pages with a same ink and kind of get some good testing. But I got to test inks first.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What a super cool looking thing this is too. It's cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's cool. It's not for everybody, but it's cool. It's cool. It's like this, this reminds me of when the pen type A and B came out. Right. Like it is really not for everybody. Like not everybody should go buy this thing, but the people who are into this kind of stuff will probably like overly like it. Right. You have to be really, really like it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Quite committed to pens and inks before you even start this process. Like, you know, like for me, if there were inks that, like if I didn't have inks I couldn't use, I wouldn't want this. Because this is not a better experience than my best fountain pens. Right. No, no, no, no. It's different. But it's because I have a selection of inks that I'm not comfortable putting in my pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I want to use them. So not an ease of use product. Right. This is a difficult to use product.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I mean, you've got to have water around. You've got to have a cleaning cloth. You've got to have all this stuff, right? Like just around, which you otherwise don't typically need.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. This is cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. I'm glad you like it. So there'll be more experimentation. I will come up with a good list and we'll try to get other people who have drill logs to come up with a good list of, hey, this line of inks works the best. So there's some work to do on that front because I know there's some frustrations out there right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to try it. I'm going to use the puddle too, though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You should try the puddle. And you will immediately see the challenge that you have with it. I tested it and I gave up really quick just because I didn't see a way out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because the thing is, right, like if I just committed to one ink, I wouldn't need to clean it off every time. Right. Right. Like because you would just be like, all right, I'm done for the day. I'm out of ink now. I'll put it away. And then tomorrow I'll dip it back in the ink again and I'm good. Yep. But if I use the puddle and wanted to change, I'd have to also keep cleaning materials consistently around too. Because if I'm using like a black ink and a red ink, as soon as I dip the nib in into the red, it's going to turn the ink black. Because it's still going to be a little bit left on the... Yeah. Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The puddle is not for the way you and I use pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But like Nick Stewart, who like I follow religiously and manipulates inks, like he's going to be all, like he would be all over that, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, also like if you...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or Anna would like just manipulate stuff.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, somebody who has a creative journal experience, right? Mm-hmm. So like I'm thinking of like Bujo, right? Yeah. You're sitting down and you're spending your time. But you could have one pen and six inks and you just got to have a little vial of water or whatever. And you can do all of your colors and all of your layout with just the one pen. And you've got this little thing here. That's cool. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm... I would tell you, I was, you know, like listening back to the show, trepidatious about this. I wasn't sure if this was for me. I think this product is for me. I like it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. Good. Well, I hope so. I hope you continue to experiment with it. I know I am. I'm really just getting started.

== Year-End Reflections ==

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've realized why opening things on the show is a bad idea. Well, not a bad idea, but a complicated.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Whenever I do unboxings on Twitch, I always have to like clean up afterwards because there's stuff everywhere. All right. We have blown Matthias' line chart out of the water with this episode. We're going to start the upward swing on the median line after we have this length of a podcast. So we should probably wrap it up here. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So this is going to be the last episode of the year. So happy new year to everybody out there as we move into 2022. We wish you prosperity and happiness and health as we move into the next year. And obviously as well, I hope that you'll come back as we are on the road to 500-495. It's going to be our next episode. Brad, did we decide on something we were going to do for episode 500? Of course not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why would we ever do that ahead of time, Myke? We should probably think about that. We should probably put some brain cells on that because it is really close.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's coming up real soon. It's coming up real soon. And we were into February, right? Because then it's- Yeah. Because don't forget as well, that's also our exact 10-year anniversary of working together on this wonderful product. Crazy. So thank you, product. I don't know why I called it a product. I looked down at the drill log and then said product. So there you go. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 494 to get the show notes for this one. There's a lot of good links for this episode, so you might want to check them out. But also your podcast app of choice should also have them listed in there if you're using a good one. If your podcast app of choice does not have the show notes, I recommend you try out a different podcast app. You're using a bad one, if that's the case. Because I think even the bad, even the ones I would typically have considered the bad ones have the links now. So if yours doesn't, I recommend trying out something else. The official platform apps will at least get the full podcast data feed. Like Spotify does it now. Apple Podcasts does it now. But we recommend Pocket Casts, Overcasts, Castro. Basically, all of the apps that are linked on the episode pages, they are the ones that we recommend. So you can try it out for yourself if you're not trying it already. If you want to find Brad and Glein, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back in 2022. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Bye, Brad. Hello?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello? you

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 461/transcript

2026-06-11T10:15:51Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 461
| title = Shimmer is Now an Add-On
| date = May 12th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/461 Episode 461]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_461.mp3 Audio Episode 461]
| length = 63
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 461. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Ooni Pizza Ovens, and the Kanilea Pen Co. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey Myke, how's it going? Very good, my friend. How are you? Good, good. Are you properly caffeinated this morning?

'''Myke:''' I'm about 25% of the way there.

'''Brad:''' Oh, okay, yeah. I need to work on that too. I need a little caffeine boost, although I guess I am kind of amped up just because it's podcast day and that's what I do when it's time to talk about pens. Like out loud, like outside of my head, Myke, I get to say these words out loud. I think people listen, although they're not in this room currently.

'''Myke:''' I'm currently drinking. I've been trying a thing recently. It's known as a dirty chai. Mm-hmm. Latte. Gotcha, gotcha.

'''Brad:''' Very nice. Let me ask you though, are you drinking that nearby a sunset over the ocean?

'''Myke:''' I'm not, but I could be.

== New Sailor Pro Gear Release ==

'''Brad:''' You could be, Myke. Could be? Could be, because there's a new Sailor Pro Gear, big release. Sailor Pro Gear caught me off guard this week, Sunset Over the Ocean. This is a worldwide limited sailor release in the vein of, you know, how they've done like the elements, the earth and the sky or the air. I think they called it in the ocean. And, you know, that's where I got my last king of pen, the big bright blue one, right? This is all the shops, all the product lines, all the people get this one, you know, from, you know, the Japanese market to the US market to the European market everywhere. What are your initial thoughts on this pen?

'''Myke:''' Um...

'''Brad:''' That's exactly correct. Again, two weeks in a row, Myke, you were exactly right.

'''Myke:''' It's funny how I do that. I like that they have a Pro Gear option. I like that the blue has some sparkly going on in there. I think it's a specific type of finish. Somebody contacted us about it. I'm sure we'll have more deets in a minute. Um... And I like that there's a red finial just because why not do something different, right? But, I mean, I don't know why it isn't like more of an orange than a red if it's a sunset, right? Yeah. Which definitely feels a little on the red side of a sunset. Um... But I would say overall it is a nice looking pen. Uh... It's not... It's just not one that does it for me, and I can't really tell you why, but I think that's sometimes the point. If you can't explain it immediately, it just hasn't landed with you.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I think it doesn't hit with me as well because it's just like a collection of parts that we've seen before, right?

'''Myke:''' MetaShine, Brad. That's this...

'''Brad:''' MetaShine.

'''Myke:''' This finish of a very kind of like glittery embedded into the pen.

'''Brad:''' Right. So they did this color, the blue barrel color, like in the blue dwarf last year is maybe a little, little, little brighter. But, um, this maybe has a little more depth and maybe a little more translucency. But, you know, I... It's... Yeah. It's fine. Like, it's awesome. Like, if I didn't have any of these, I'd say this is awesome. If I have these, I like the ones I have better. You know, I think that's fair to say. Let me read you the little marketing copy, Myke, just so... Maybe this will change your mind. A beautiful ocean sunset at the end of the day, marking the passage of time and showing the promise of a new tomorrow at dawn. The setting sun reflected on the sea signifies change and transformation and reminds us that everything in life has an ending. It's kind of a downer. Why does it have to do that at the end? This is the official copy. This isn't run through Google Translate. This is the official doc. It's like, wow. Yeah. Beautiful sunset. Like, not a stitch of red in this orange sunset photo image. Not one pixel of red. And then you're going to die.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I don't like how we guessed that until it's the end. It's a bit... It's a bit of a downer, Brad.

'''Brad:''' It's cool looking. If I was to go for this one, I'm... This would not be a king of pen version for me. I'd get one of the smaller versions. Smaller of the two versions. I tend to like those. But I'm also saying that as someone who has a blue king of pen.

'''Myke:''' Is this the first king of pen released since the price increase?

'''Brad:''' That's an interesting question, Myke. This is a partial price increase.

== King of Pen Pricing Discussion ==

'''Myke:''' Okay.

'''Brad:''' This is... The king of pen pricing is actually what threw me off on this. Because I was like, oh, that's not the new king of pen price. So I went and looked at the pricing on these. Sailor, I don't even look at the price anymore, right? I know kind of the ballpark. We've gone over how they had like a 25% plus increase this year, which is fine. But these are listed lower than the new MSRPs that they came out with in 2021. But higher than previous versions, if that makes sense, right? So this is a non-existent price point release. So the standards... Let's just talk about the standards. That's the easiest one to... That's the main... Probably the main line pen, right? It's the middle price pen. So the MSRP on those is $450, which makes them what? $93.70? Is that right? So like 20% off of that. $360. $360. Sorry. I'm looking at the numbers here.

'''Myke:''' I can't do math on the flyers.

'''Brad:''' I was. I wasn't looking at the numbers, even though I have a link in the doc. So that makes them sell for $360, where all the... Like the North American Lemon Editions that came out, the Habanero, the red sparkly one with the 2021 edition, the MSRP on those is $490. And that was the big price increase push that they had, right? So those would be more like $380, right? $390 for those. And I'm just confused now. Like I don't care either way, but they raised the price, said, here's our new price across our product line for 2021. And then introduce a new edition at a lesser price point. It's like midway, right?

'''Myke:''' Between the old prices and the new prices. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Okay.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I mean, I don't have any commentary on that. I don't want to be like price point guy, but now I'm just confused. Like I don't like to be confused when I'm like talking about products because now there's three active price points. Yeah. For just say like a Sailor Pro Gear standard. There are currently three price points because retailers aren't sold out of the previous editions at the previous price point. They have new limited editions that got hit with the full price increase. And then now this is a third price point for theoretically the same pen model. Now there could be like a quantity volume thing, but normally if you're going to do like a across the board price increase, it just is, right? There's not like a modification. Well, we're making, you know, 10,000 of these instead of 2,000 of these.

'''Myke:''' Maybe there's something, an argument that can be made to like materials, like depending on the materials used in the pen. Like Sailor don't have to have just one price for all of their products. Yeah. Right. Like if they use, I'm not saying that is what's happened here, but like, you know, if they use a different, if they use like a metal finial or whatever, it's going to cost more than if it's acrylic or whatever.

'''Brad:''' Right. And that's what I'm saying. You know, this one is a World Ride release. So they've, maybe they got, you know, some economy of scale with the pricing on this. I'm just saying it adds confusion to the consumer. Even though in the end, I fully don't believe it matters. I'm just like, that's interesting. And it's just another little thing. So a little weird. Like the pen, it'll do well. You know?

'''Myke:''' I can imagine this being one like the Lighthouse where I didn't want it. And then I saw it and was like, oh man, you know what? I wish I would have got that. 100%. 100%. I could imagine it. I could imagine the blue finish, like the sparkly finish, the Meta Shine, could have to it something quite cool looking that doesn't necessarily come across in the imagery. Like I could imagine that being the case. But just looking at this here, it isn't really one that floats my boat. Right.

'''Brad:''' And I'm a well-renowned orange guy, but like one of my favorite color combinations is different types of blues and reds together. But for something about this one, it's not hitting right in the imagery. But like if I saw it in person, I could see ending up with like the middle size one. I definitely don't see King of Pen in my future on this one. But I said that about the Tangerine too. And that was just, that was a really good decision. I really like that pen. So there you go. All right. So that's our sailor talk.

'''Myke:''' So the, we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago, the Lego member special that we have recorded is going to be published on May 13th, which is tomorrow as we're recording this. So most of you will be hearing this when it's either going to be out within 24 hours or it's already out when you're hearing it. So this is a special bonus episode that we do every year for RelayFM members. You can go to relay.fm membership to learn more and sign up. Or you can click the link that's in the show notes of this episode in your podcast app, and you'll be able to sign up and support this show. If you become a RelayFM member, not only do you get access to these extra special content shows, you also get access to some other stuff that we do, crossover shows. And we have a show called Backstage and Fusion that we do every month, which are just for RelayFM members. Backstage is me and Stephen talking you through our tips and tricks for starting a podcast of your own. Fusion combines multiple RelayFM hosts from different shows every month to talk about a topic. And you also get access to our RelayFM members Discord, which is a fantastic community full of wonderful people. It's a safe, moderated space. It's something that we really built into something wonderful over the last year with the help of all of our fine moderators there. And you will get access to our Lego special where me and Brad built the Paris set over, was it three and a half hours, I think is the length of the show?

'''Brad:''' About three and a half. We didn't kill each other. Got close, though. As shown by us being here today. Close. Showing up to work today. Close.

'''Myke:''' There are a couple of moments where I really lost my patience with you. It's a very fun episode, as always. And so you can go check it out. So yeah, Relay.fm membership to learn more about our membership. You can sign up on that page. Or if you just click the link in the podcast app, it's the very top link in your show notes. You'll be able to sign up and support the show. And we thank you all so much for your support if you do that.

'''Myke:''' All right, let's take our first break of this episode and thank Squarespace for their support of this show. They are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace has you covered. They combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish your place online and make your ideas a reality. Squarespace has everything you need to create a beautiful and modern website. You start with professional design. The templates are beautiful. And you just drag and drop everything around. They have these wonderful tools to help make it your own. You customize the look and feel, the settings, even the products you have on sale if you want to run a store with Squarespace with just a few clicks. Everything's optimized for mobile as well, so your content automatically adjusts so it's going to look great on any device. One of my favorite features when designing a Squarespace website is in the designer itself, you can click these buttons to shrink the website, like to shrink the design view. So you can see like, okay, this is what it looks like in a desktop. I press a button, now it's tablet size, and I press another button, now it's phone size. So you can actually do all of that design work without needing to have a plethora of devices in front of you. It's really clever. With Squarespace, you'll also get free, unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, and dependable resources to help you succeed. There's nothing to patch, install, or upgrade. And they have award-winning 24-7 customer support as well. They'll let you quickly and easily grab a unique domain name. And they have everything you need for SEO and email marketing to get your ideas out there to people. You can use Squarespace to turn your big idea into a new website, showcase your work with their wonderful portfolio designs, publish your next blog post, promote your business, announce an upcoming event, and so much more. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict to sign up for a free trial with no credit card required. When you're ready to launch, just use the offer code penaddict, and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at squarespace.com slash penaddict, and use the offer code penaddict to check out to get 10% off your first purchase. And to show you support for this show, our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of the penaddict and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' One point you reminded me there about Squarespace that we never usually talk about is how seamlessly it works on mobile devices. Like, I don't have to do anything for my blog to just show up and be easy to use for anyone reading it on, you know, mobile devices. You're not having to zoom in.

'''Myke:''' You don't have buttons that don't work, like none of that stuff.

'''Brad:''' You don't even have to think about it. Yeah, it's just frictionless. Works perfectly. All right. My pen cases are not frictionless, Myke, because I've added friction to them by adding more pens to slide in and out of them. My experiment to last one fountain pen, I knew it would not last long. I knew it wouldn't. Like, it's a given. That's not how I roll.

'''Myke:''' No.

== Myke's Ink-Up Routine ==

'''Brad:''' I made it like three, four days. I don't know if that's a record. But, like, I inked up. I cleaned all my pens so I could use my Namiki Yukari Milky Way, which we talked about recently. Mm-hmm. And I love that pen. It needs to be used. It's an important pen to me, personally. I just love it. It's just one of those quintessential me pens.

'''Brad:''' And I'm using it and using it. And all I'm thinking about when I'm using it is, well, I missed this pen, too. And I need this pen to do this thing. And I need this pen to review this thing. And it's just on and on. And so we're up to five inked fountain pens now, Myke. So I went from 10 to 1 to 5 in the span of, like, six days total. So, you know, whatever. Exponential growth. But it's because I have some really awesome pens that I miss. So aside from the Milky Way, which I inked up with Pilot Orozhuzuku Tsukiyo, which is a little bit... I don't know if brighter is the term than Shinkai. Maybe greener, but it's not a blue-black. But it's a really, really good bluish-green that's been the only... It's the perfect ink for the Milky Way. It's the only ink I've ever inked up the Milky Way with. And it just stays that way. Like, that's the one. So I'll clean it out and then redo it. The pen I really wanted to get inked up next is a pen I probably should review. And it's the Kasama Una Ultum. Which we've talked about on the show before. It's that Ultum material, which is that thick amber. Like, we saw Ian Schoen come out with some Ultum barrel pens recently. And this Kasama is just a really big, thick pen with a titanium torched grip section that's extra long. Like, it's a really lengthy grip section that's metal. And a super concave grip section in the grip area. And it's just kind of a fascinating pen to use. And on top of that, I bought it from Mark Backus. And it's got a Blade Turk grind on the M nib. So it's this kind of cool, not really architect, a more easier to write with architect nib. It'll give you a little bit of additional style in the horizontal lines than in the vertical lines. So there's a little bit of differentiation there. A little bit opposite of stub nib. And I ink that up with the Sailor 50 States Delaware. Because I haven't tried any of the Sailor 50 States inks yet. And I've had Delaware sitting here trying to figure out what to do. And it's one of those magenta-y purple ones with a green sheen. Which I really, really like. And, like, I don't need another one of these inks. I think I have, like, two or three of those inks already. But it's kind of a good fit for this Kasama. So between the Milky Way and the Kasama, like, those pens, like, I just love them. They're, like, my pens. They're the pens that I want to use, right? If, you know, for some reason, you know, I have to get rid of all the pens I own. And can pick, like, a handful to keep. Those two definitely make the list, right? Those are coming with me. They're my pens. They fit everything I like about a pen.

'''Brad:''' So then I needed a big, bulky, wide nib wet pen to do some writing with. Because I generally write small. And that's what the Milky Way writes small. The Kasama with that grind on a medium nib, it writes kind of a medium, fine to medium, fine line. I needed a big nib, which I always like. So I broke out my Nakaya Long writer. This is the black hairline one I think I've showed you a picture of. We've talked about it before. Bought it a couple years ago or maybe last year. It has, it had a broad nib when I bought it. And I took it right over again to Mark Bacchus. This is just very convenient at the Raleigh Pen Show when I bought it. And he put a stub nib on it. So this is like, this pen is hard to describe. Because it's way bigger than any pen that I normally use lengthwise. Right? The Kasama is much heavier. But the Nakaya is much longer. And it's kind of like a paintbrush. And I wanted to do some things with my writing to do that. And I also always have to have a pen with Robert Osterfire on Fire inked up. I just do. I know that's my own ink, but I love that ink. I'm not going to lie. For what reason? It's an awesome ink. I'm going to self-high five myself on that one. Okay. That was excellent. Excellent ink.

'''Myke:''' Don't do that too much, Brad.

'''Brad:''' I know. I know. It's perfect. I did break my wrist that one time.

'''Brad:''' Too aggressive high five. But that big, dark pen needed a bright ink coming out of it. So I used that.

'''Myke:''' Yep.

'''Brad:''' So as I go through this, I think a lot of you will be familiar with all the excuses we make to ink up these pens that we like. You don't have to have a really good excuse to go ink up another pen or to get out a marker or a pencil or a gel ink pen. This is what we do. We're pen addicts for a reason because we can't help ourselves because, you know, luckily in my case, I've gotten to experience a lot of things. And when I'm not getting to experience that thing and it's sitting right around the corner from me, well, all it takes is for me to stand up and go grab it like the spoke icon in purple and silver, which I've had sitting on my desk and I was using it to test out if long international ink cartridges, Myke. So you're familiar with the short international ink cartridges that come in, you know, like almost any pen you get, they'll just pop in a little ink cartridge, especially for like the smaller pens like Kaweco's. Well, you can actually get long cartridges from a few companies. And I had a Pelican Edelstein Tanzanite ink cartridge sitting here that I wanted to test how it fit inside the spoke icon because it's a cartridge converter pen. And I was certain it would fit, but I'd never physically tested it. So once I did saw that it fit, I was like, well, let's just think this bad boy up. And this is how you end up with like 50 pens inked because of a stupid test of trying to fit an ink cartridge into a pen barrel to see if it works. And now, well, that blue black would go nice with this purple and silver pen. And right, wouldn't it, Myke? Like, I feel like that's the right thing. And then, Myke, sometimes...

'''Myke:''' I feel like you were trying to explain this to me in a way to like somebody who won't understand. You know what I mean? Like, you know, and sometimes you're trying to explain this stuff to people and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but no, you don't get it. No, I get it.

'''Brad:''' I'm trying to make myself feel better at the same time and know that I'm racing towards 10 pens inked again and going to have to clean everything. I'm going to have to break out the scorched earth method again in like a matter of weeks at the rate I'm going because I had to ink up, Myke, the Twisby 580 AL Prussian Blue with a 1.1 millimeter steel stub nib to review the Pannonia Vatacor Vatacucor Cotton Candy ink, which it turned out to be an awesome ink, one of my new favorite inks. I love the color. Love the color. And that pen in that review is exactly what needs to happen. Yeah, it's kind of perfect. That's the pen for that review. It's like this muted blue with like a muted pink in a demonstrator and it just works. Like, that's the move.

'''Myke:''' As you can imagine, there was a conversation about this ink at home this morning.

'''Brad:''' I cannot wait. Like, that was on my list to ask. How did this conversation go? Because when I was reading, so Pannonia, the founder, it's in my article. I forget his name. I apologize right off the top of my head, but you can look it up while I'm rambling. It's Mate.

'''Myke:''' I don't know the right way to say that.

'''Brad:''' So he mentioned growing up, the only thing he ever saw for cotton candy color was white, which makes complete sense, right? It's made from white sugar. You know, all the stuff we see that's blue and pink is just all, you know, food coloring and dyes. And so he's like, I never saw pink cotton candy till I watched the Cartoon Network when I was a kid. And I was like, oh, cotton candy can be pink. So how did this conversation go at your household? Because the maker of the Pannonia ink is Romanian.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's a Romanian brand. So this is why I brought it up. I was like, oh, Brad's reviewed this Romanian ink. And I sent Odina a link to it because my wife, Odina, was also born in Romania. And we were just chatting about it. The Cartoon Network thing is particularly interesting to me because I feel like I hear from it also from Odina lots of stories about Cartoon Network and growing up. It seems like maybe more than in some parts of the world, it seemed to be quite formative for her. I would assume it's because it was the main kind of bridge to American culture. Because, you know, like communism fell in the early 90s in Romania. So they, you know, they had the revolution and it was a big deal as the rest of the world was able to start kind of coming in to what was then a previous like communist country. So I found it interesting. We were looking at it. The ink itself looks kind of cool. I just like to see it. I feel like I don't feel like there's a lot of Romanian companies in this hobby. So it was nice.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it was really cool. And I'm very impressed with the ink. So I'm going to get some more to try, you know. So that, you know, normally a lot of times I'll do these and I'll keep them for a week or so, a week or two. Like if I've done an ink review and if it like really sticks, then it'll just kind of sit in the rotation for a while. And I think that's what's happened with this one. It's a really, really enjoyable ink and ink color and a good match in the pen.

'''Myke:''' Have you tried any other inks from this brand?

'''Brad:''' I haven't. But that's at the top of my list. Like as in I'll probably be ordering some this week. So looks like good colors. And he does something interesting where you can buy the ink or you can buy the ink and he'll add shimmer. Like it's a like it's an ass shimmers now like an add on, which I find hilarious.

'''Myke:''' I assume this is if you buy directly from them, right?

'''Brad:''' Yes, yes, yes, yes. Not the not like the wholesale to retail. But I think if you just buy directly, you can do that as far as I read. So that led me down the path. So those are my five pens inked. My excuses for inking them.

'''Brad:''' I'm very happy with the situation. And probably by next week, I'll have five more pens inked on top of these. And then a month from now, we will yell or I will yell about how I have too many pens inked up and we will rinse and repeat throughout the year and throughout the rest of our time here on the pen addict because this is what we do. Last little bit. Another reason why I can't ever just have one pen inked up is because for paper testing, it's important to have different fountain pen nibs and inks to test. So my fine pilot nib in the Namiki is only going to tell me so much about the different papers I'm using right now, which I'm testing in the Midori MD cotton pad and the Morimond Gliffy, which is the hardbound notebook companion to the Morimond Croquise that I was fawning over, you know, weeks ago. So Morimond sent me some of the Gliffys to test out. There's more testing to do. I need to do some side by side comparisons between the new Gliffy that's in these hardbound covers. It's really good for fountain pens. Like it's really good. It just feels different than the Croquise that I was just absolutely head over here. heels for, right? Like, which is fine. Like they can be different. I just want to be able to try to determine this.

'''Myke:''' Your expectation from what Morimond said to you is that it's the same paper in a different form, like in an actual notebook format, right?

'''Brad:''' I don't know that that was my crystal clear expectation. I was hoping that that was the case, but they call this product Gliffy and they call the other product Croquise. And is that because of the way they're bound or because of the paper inside? I think theoretically Morimond is saying 60 GSM cream paper is the same for both of these. And I'm trying to determine if that's actually the case to me right off the top of my head. It feels slightly different. Like the Gliffy page feels softer. And the thing that I loved about the Croquise paper, it was, is a very firm, kind of like a crispy feeling paper, which, um, you know, that's an official, official term. It's on their marketing mic. Um, right next to the sunset picture and death. Um, it's crispy. It's crispy. So yeah, I, I got to figure that out. So I have these all sitting side by side and I need like, like need air quote, need all these different fountain pens and inks and nib types to test it out properly, just to see the results that I'm getting. So, you know, that's, uh, that's how a pen addict escalates from one pen to five in the matter of days. And there's no ends in sight. Like I shouldn't fight these things, right? These are just not things we should ever fight. Like we do a podcast that has like, you know, we're on episode 461, Myke. I shouldn't worry how many pens I have inked up.

== Cleaning and Maintaining Pens ==

'''Brad:''' All the pens, ink all the pens.

'''Myke:''' But that's what I do. But people tell me not to do that.

'''Brad:''' Well, no, there's a difference.

'''Myke:''' Next week, by the time we've recorded next week, my plan is to have done the, I don't know, biannual cleaning and refilling of everything.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Ink all the pens, just clean them on occasion. That's the issue. Yeah. It's not the inking of. Okay.

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'''Brad:''' You know what else you don't have to clean, Myke? You're a good Uni customer. You don't ever have to clean this oven because it is on fire and just burns all that stuff off of there.

'''Myke:''' Oh, yeah, yeah. You can just basically just dust, right? At the end of it. You just clean it up.

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'''Myke:''' So we had a RSTPA question. We're going to do some more in a minute. But this was one that I felt warranted maybe breaking out into just a discussion topic rather than a simple answer to the question. The question came from Jack, and Jack said, some pen shows seem to be planning to happen this year. What is the first pen show you will be attending?

'''Brad:''' I don't know. I'm not anxious to necessarily get back out there. And we've kind of covered this a little bit. I'm moderately tempted if a show is in driving distance, like maybe later this year, like fall, winter time. Yeah. I have no desire to travel through an airport or fly in an airplane, even though, you know, like all the science points to, you know, all the proper mitigation techniques and the way that the, you know, the airflow works on the planes, everything looks good. But it's just being around that many people when I don't have to is the real reason why. Like, I don't have to be there. So just wait. Like, why? Why rush? I, I, I'm not in a rush. Put it that way. Would I love to go to three pen shows between now and the end of the year? Absolutely. Like, I miss being out there. I miss seeing all my friends. I miss talking to the vendors. I miss hanging out at the hotel. But I don't have to be there for my job, right? So, you know, can I do my job better if I was there? Maybe. But like, I don't have to be there. So I'm not going to force anything. So that's why right now I have no shows on the calendar for the remaining of the year. Or theoretically that could change. I kind of doubt it will. But I, I'm open to that changing. But I don't know that it will. And it's certainly not going to be before this summer. Like, I'm talking like September, October, or later if something works out. Like, I'm not anxious to go to San Fran or DC or to any of the shows earlier in the summer than that. I'm just not ready for that yet. Just because I don't have to. Like, I'm, I'm okay.

'''Myke:''' I, like you, right, would love to be able to do these things. To go and do them. I can't imagine being this year any kind of large gathering thing. Conference, Penn Show. I can't imagine doing that this year. Next year seems very likely. You know, like, I'm not vaccinated yet. I'm hoping that before the end of this month I will have booked my first jab. And so we'll be fully vaccinated. I don't know, in like a, you know, a couple of months from now. Because we, we do it like 12 weeks apart here. So, you know, by kind of the end of the summer I should be good. I just don't think that the world will be in a place kind of in 2021 to pull off one of these things with complete success. And, you know, and, and without fear of, of people getting sick. Like, and also just from a comfort level for people of getting back to normal. Like, I could imagine by the end of the year, say in most places in the US and a lot of places here in the UK or in, you know, other countries in the world. That you would be able to do something like this. And it wouldn't be too tricky. But, you know, you're inviting travel from all over the place to these types of events. And I just think that it's maybe just a bit of a push. Like, more of a push than is needed. I think that if we just give it the best part of six months from now. Maybe a little bit longer. Kind of into 2022. I just think that it makes more sense to wait.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And to backtrack on my comments. I'm saying this as someone who is fully vaccinated. I'm at both shots and I'm past like the waiting period. Like, I'm done.

'''Myke:''' There's societal norms that need to come back, right? Yeah. It hasn't been an incredibly long time. But it's been a long enough time that we all kind of just need to re-acclimatize a little bit.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I think the rest of the questions surrounding this are actually more interesting. Like, do we think there'll be a change long term with pin shows, like, going into the future? You know, do you think people say, let's just scrap this year, right? Let's say next year. Do you think people are going to be hesitant? Do you think the pin show calendar is going to remain full and the attendees and vendors are all going to want to attend? What are your thoughts on that?

'''Myke:''' Because the long term is dependent on the medium term. So, in theory, in the long term, there's no reason why we can't return to pre-2020 events and stuff like that, right? Yeah. There's always been sicknesses and illnesses and even pandemics, right? Like, it's depending in different parts of the world, I've had more kind of experience of this than others. But this just becomes a part of our lives if we get booster shots for coronavirus like we do for the flu, right? Like, it will just become a thing that we do, right? And it's just when you get your flu jab, you may also get a coronavirus booster. And that's just the way that we deal with this now into the future, which seems very doable. Yeah. So, in theory, from my perspective, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, in the long term, I don't see why we couldn't return. But the long term, I think, is dependent on the medium term. Because if either A, there is something else that happens, some other kind of delay that pushes it further, right? Like, we could still be having a rocky period for a while. We don't know yet. You know, the last 18 months, things have changed so rapidly at points, you know, in ways that you never would have expected. So, anything like that could still happen. But there's also kind of, like, if in the medium term, people don't want to do these things because societal norm changes, or vendors decide not to go because they think there won't be much of a market, it could reduce the amount of pen shows that are feasible. And if that reduces, then the long term changes because the medium term was affected. So, that's what I think it is, right? Because, like, as a vendor, are you going to take a gamble on cost for the first one that you go to? Like, could you go back too soon and there won't be that much of a market? Or could you go back too soon and everything gets shut down? Or maybe there's, like, a boom opportunity for those that are first because consumer spending is up. So, it's hard to make that decision, right? But that's what I think the decisions that people make kind of late 2021, early 2022 in regards to this specific thing, I think will dictate what happens going on after that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and I think the vendors are the ones with the real questions, right? Even though, like, I've been a vendor at shows, I consider myself more of an attendee, right? Like, I don't have to necessarily do it as a vendor. So, like, attendees can make a much simpler calculation than vendors do. And I think that's where some of the challenges are going to lie. I think, you know, next year, I think we're going to hope. I mean, I'm knocking on wood. Hopefully, we have a pretty normal year. And when shows are back and, you know, if, you know, the pandemic issues have gone by the majority of the wayside, like, I think shows will be fine and vendors will be fine and it'll be an enjoyable experience. I think maybe overall, like, the short term, maybe not medium term, but, like, I could see, you know, the weekend visitors being a little bit less as opposed to, like, the day trippers, right? Where we've always said, if you can go, make it a weekend, you know, come in Thursday night or Friday morning and leave Sunday afternoon. You know, that might be a few less, but maybe that wasn't a huge number anyway. I don't know. That's just my thoughts. I think it'll get back to mostly normal next year is at least my hope and desire. So, you know, just the vendors, I think, have the biggest challenge just from a cost perspective.

'''Myke:''' Because there's a cost, right? There's costs in multiple ways. You've got to get there, but then you're also bringing all this stock and stuff. And, you know, it becomes, it's quite an expensive affair. You've got to hope that you'll make your money back. It's not really the cost of the table so much, I feel like. No, no, no. It's the other costs surrounding it. That's minuscule.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yep.

'''Myke:''' Yep. Yeah, and I don't know.

'''Brad:''' So, it's a good question. We'll keep addressing this probably through the year. We'll probably have this come up a few more times, especially once shows start to happen again. We'll get some reports from people who were there and what was it like. Yeah, I'm really. The changes that you saw.

== Future of Pen Shows Post-Pandemic ==

'''Myke:''' I'm really intrigued to see how some of these pen shows go. To my understanding, there are some in this summer, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, Raleigh is happening in June sometime, but that's a smaller show. That seems way too early. Yeah. Which is, you know, it is pretty early. But the two big shows are San Francisco and Washington, D.C. They're both in August. So, that's when we'll see. And then I think Chicago is in September.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. August, September feels to me like the very earliest that something like this could happen. Yeah. But to me, for my personal taste, it's still too soon. I wouldn't go.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, if I lived in San Francisco, would I make, do a day trip or like a spend, plan on an afternoon there? Yeah. But I'm, me, I'm not traveling across country to go to San Francisco in August. Mm-hmm. Right. I think those are the differences where we're at now. Where next year, you know, that calculation will probably be different.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's going to be an interesting one to track.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. You know why, Myke? Why? It's interesting because I can buy some pretty cool pens online too.

'''Myke:''' Oh, look at you. You're so smart. Look at that. It's beautiful. This episode is very kindly brought to you by the Canalea Penco. Canalea Penco make stunningly beautiful pens inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and connect us with nature and they embody that in their products. The execution of these pens, though, is what truly sets them apart from the rest. Every single Canalea Pen is handmade in a process that means that no two pens are ever going to look alike and every nib is tuned before it ships to a customer. So Hugh of Hugh and Carol make sure that every single nib works great. So you're going to get something that's perfect and unique just for you. And we're going to remind you about something that they've got right now, which is truly very special. To celebrate their fifth anniversary, Canalea have created the Honokalani Mailei Lei. This design of the pen that they've got here is really fantastic. It is inspired by Hugh and Carol's first ever trip to Hawaii. It's based on these stunning visuals of Honokalani Beach with crystal blue waters and glistening black sand. And these elements are captured beautifully in this pen, which has these wonderful clear like parts of the blue acrylic with these beautiful black like kind of rock like sand kind of ribbons, I think is the way we described it before that kind of flow through the body of the pen. You should go to their website and look at it. It's fantastic. But what makes this pen even more special is the band that they have around the cap. It's designed to evoke a lei made of Mailei leaves crafted in Argentium silver. A Mailei leaf lei is used to signify special events in one's life, which makes it the very perfect accompaniment for Canalea's fifth anniversary pen. This model featuring the Mailei lei band is only offered in Canalea's classic style of pens. It's got like the larger cap to the body. But the Honokalani colorway itself is also offered in the classic pinched and classic slim models as well. So Canalea pens feature Yowa number six nibs and you can buy steel or 18 karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They offer sizes from extra fine all the way to 1.1 millimeter stub. And every pen ships in a beautifully packaged keepsake box. There are also many more beautiful models of Canalea pen for you to check out. There truly is one for everybody. If you order now both the Honokalani Mailei lei with or without the band so that you can get the Honokalani as well, will be shipped within four weeks. And a portion of every sale will be donated to the Maui food bank and a homelessness resource center in Hawaii as well. Go and see for yourself right now at Canalea pen co.com. That's Canalea pen co.com to choose your aloha today. And Canalea also wanted us to send a special thank you to listeners of this show for the wonderful reception for the Honokalani so far and for all of the messages they've received congratulating them on their anniversary. Brad, I have not been able to put this pen down. I'm using it right now. I have fallen in love with it.

'''Brad:''' Here's what I want to say. And this is a general, well, it's not general, it's specific to the Honokalani. So Canalea doesn't make pens. They execute on a vision and they execute on a story and they try to tell that. And I think this pen is one of the best executed in quite some time. And that's saying a lot because they're all generally executed very, very well for what story and vision they're trying to tell. This pen feels like I have the ocean in my hands and just dug my fist through a big, big pile of black sand. It looks like I'm right there. It's really cool. I love this pen. I think it's exceptional. They did a great job with it. I think it's one of the best executed in some time.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Something I didn't mention on that note. When I first opened this pen, I opened the pen box before I looked at the related materials. And when I took it out, I was like, oh, that's like black rock faces in a blue ocean. And I looked at the image and I was like, yeah, that's completely correct. That's exactly what the image is. So that was quite an interesting experience. So our thanks to Canalea Pen Co. for the support of the show. You should go check out their wonderful pens right now, especially this new one. Let's round out today's episode with some hashtag ask TPA questions. First one comes from Winter Charm from the Relay FM members discord. I currently have a Lamy 2000 extra fine and was wondering if anyone had ink recommendations for it. As my pilot Hiroshizuku Kompeki is finally running low. So it's time for another ink. I want something fancy that stands out a bit, but it's okay to be used in a work environment. So not too colorful. I'm hoping for maybe a gray ink that has some kind of fun splash to it, but also won't jam an extra fine nib. So nothing too shiny, but a tiny bit of sheen is okay. What do you got, Brad?

'''Brad:''' So gray is traditionally a tough ink color to get exactly what you're looking for in an ink, right? So you can get like a good standard gray that's like a good writing ink. And it's like, oh yes, this is gray and it seems fine. Or you can get these grays that have all these weird offshoots and almost like these pastel-y undertones and just some wild, wild stuff. The best thing I can tell you if you're looking for a gray for the Lamy 2000, which is, I think it's a really, really good choice to be honest. Go to Kelly's blog at Mountain of Ink. And I'll put the link directly to the gray ink page. So, and I think there's two inks in here that I've-

'''Myke:''' Can I just pause you for a second and just once again underscore how incredible a resource Mountain of Ink is, the website? It's so good.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I brag on her every week in refill. Like she does, she's really exceptional. Kelly's just the best.

'''Myke:''' Kelly provides a service to the pen community.

'''Brad:''' Absolutely. Absolutely.

'''Brad:''' So yeah, so she has a gray ink page and you can do this for any color. And there were two that stood out to me and I'm just saying the ones that I've used. You can go and sort through all these reviews. Click on this, on the swab, take you to the review. The Diamond Earl Gray is a darker gray ink, which I think is really, really good for work, right? It may not have this ultra character type of stuff that you want, but it's a good gray, good shading. It's dark. It's going to be dark enough to read at work. The second one is an ink that surprised me when I use it. It's Robert Oster, Australian Opal Gray. It's a little bit lighter than the Diamond Earl Gray, but it has some interesting characteristics to where you get some like purple undertones and some just really interesting looks. So go check those out and get some ideas from there. But those are two that I've used that I would certainly recommend and that would work in the Lamy 2000. I think the Earl Gray might be a better choice just from a readability and an extra fine nib. But if you had a broader nib, the Australian Opal Gray might be a good choice.

'''Myke:''' Let's do another question about the Lamy 2000. It comes from D Green. Hypothetically, this means it's not hypothetical. Hypothetically, if a new to you Lamy 2000 find was quickly becoming a favorite, even though it wrote a little wide, but it took a tumble and then wrote slightly broader and more scratchy. Who would you send it to? To get it writing perfectly again?

'''Brad:''' Number one, I like all these Lamy 2000 questions. Number two, you're in pretty good shape, not because you dropped and broke your pen, theoretically, hypothetically. But if, say, if someone were to do this, that's a decent enough pen and a pen that a lot of people have experience with that you could send it to almost anyone to get it taken care of. So I don't know where D Green lives, but, you know, if you're on the East Coast of the United States, for example, you could send it to Mark Bacchus. If you're on the West Coast, you know, you could send it to Gina at Custom Nib Studio. If you're in Europe, you could get in touch with Applebaum and have Annabelle take a look at it. And so, you know, tell me where you are, email me, and I can give you some specifics. But, like, there's so many people I would recommend for this work because I don't think it would be a massive challenge to get this fixed, especially from what you're saying. This would actually be an easy fix for anyone, I believe.

'''Myke:''' All right, Compasaurus2 asks. It's funny that there is another Compasaurus. Anyway, new to fountain pens, but enjoying them immensely. My pilot Metro seems to be unscrewing itself. Am I doing something wrong? Also, how do you feel about demonstrator pens?

'''Brad:''' So the Metro, the only thing I can think of is the Metro is a snap cap. And if you're uncapping it but putting a twist into it, that could be, like, a telling factor. Otherwise, you shouldn't be doing anything wrong. That threading is strong enough to hold tight while you're writing with it, right? Unless for some reason you have, like, an ultra, you know, pressure handwriting that could cause some type of tension there. But I really, really doubt that's the issue. I bet it's some form of twisting when uncapping. Because I think, am I, now I'm second-guessing myself. Do those actually have a snap cap? I think they do. So that would be my guess. Otherwise, you're probably doing something wrong. Because that should not be happening.

'''Myke:''' It's the way you're storing it, right? Like, there's something going on with the way that it's being stored.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, like, if you put it in a, like, in an active, if it's actively moved, like, in a pants pocket, right? Where you clip it and it's always going to be slightly moving. Then, yeah, it might get a little bit loose. So how do you feel about demonstrator pins? Give me all the demonstrator pins. I'm 100% in demonstrators. I understand why people don't like them. I'm on the opposite end of the ledger. I could have every pin be a demonstrator, just about. I love them.

'''Myke:''' All right. Next question comes from Side Rose, who asks, if you were to pick, this one was pretty much for me, but if you were to pick a specific ink to sponsor a Formula One team, who would you pick? I'll first go with Monteverdi, California Teal for Aston Martin. I was, at first, frustrated to see a California ink sponsoring Aston Martin, who is very much a British team. But then when I looked at the ink itself, it's kind of a green of a pink sheen, which is, that's exactly Aston Martin's colorway this year. I have two answers. I was thinking about this for, I think, too long this morning, as I was preparing for the show. So, one is kind of a joke. Actually, I have three. One is kind of a joke. This is probably one for F1 fans, which is, considering Ferraris seem to love bright green so much, I'll give them some Ackerman 28, because clearly they love bright green now. This is a joke, which is dead for Brad, but it's very… Yeah, I got nothing. But F1 fans will get it. Fire on Fire for McLaren. McLaren's papaya orange, they call it, but I think a good orange ink they need. And I would go with Sailor Ink Studio 223 for Mercedes, because it is a really nice gray ink, which has got some, like, purple-green in it, which would look particularly good on Lewis Hamilton's car, because they are a gray and black. The livery of the car is gray and black. Mostly black now, but it's got some gray, and it used to be more silvery gray than recently. They changed it for a good reason over the last couple of years. But Lewis wears… He has a lot of purple in his helmet, because he's sponsored by Monster, I think, is the reason for that. And so, that would work very well for him. So, now my three.

'''Brad:''' I love… That was my favorite one, because I went and looked at that ink, and, like, I went and looked at the car. So, you're right. Like, I know F1 from, like, a headline perspective, right? Like, I recognize, like, three of the driver's names and, you know, some of the teams. So, I went and looked at the F1 team colors. Like, they have, like, all the cars, like, on a page.

'''Myke:''' So, if you look on that website that you've put in the notes, right? So, you've got all the colors. They've got all the cars here. You see Ferrari. Yeah. It's number four on this list. It's all red, right? Click. Yeah. Click it. And take a look at the actual picture.

'''Myke:''' And they've got that big green M. So, there's a couple of things about this. Oh, wow. Right. Here's some controversial stuff for this. So, one…

'''Brad:''' And it's got an arrow in it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Well, one, you'll notice that it's not in the actual official coloring, because they can only have this in certain places. Because this is a company called, or an organization called Mission Win Now, which is one of the worst logos ever created in all of human history, because it just looks like Mission Win Now. It's so bad. Like, their actual written out logo. And Mission Win Now is a collaboration effort between Ferrari and Philip Morris, the tobacco company. Now, tobacco companies used to be the big sponsors for Formula One. Sure. Right? But when tobacco… Then tobacco got outlawed for advertising. Right? You can't advertise tobacco anymore. So, that was a big loss, actually, for Formula One. So, Philip Morris and Ferrari created this company, which is really nebulous of, like, fostering innovations for the future. But they don't really seem to do anything. Like, I can't… But so, they've created this thing together, and for some reason, an incredibly unknown reason, they decided that they were going to make the Mission Win Now coloring on the Ferrari this year bright green, which is horrific. Yeah. But also, it's not on the, like, official livery of the car. I think, one, because it's so ugly, like on all the imagery. But two, they actually cannot have this logo in every part of the world. There are some parts of the world where they take it off.

'''Myke:''' Terrible. That is terrible. Ruined the Ferrari car this year.

'''Brad:''' I mean, if you're going to make it that bad, at least, like, at least make it Italian green. Right? Like, make it the Italian flag green or something. Yeah. Yeah, actually, they could have gone away with that. It's just a bad logo and a bad location and a bad color. Right? Yeah. It's just a bad design decision. So, I looked at this. I looked at the main page, right? The 1 through 10 team list. I couldn't really think of any inks, but I thought of two pin things right off hand. One, the McLaren that you did the Fire on Fire ink. Like, just the main page image looks exactly like the roadie Bondi to me, which is a blue and orange pin. And that's, like, all I see when I look at that car. And second, if a pin company were to sponsor, like, to be the headline sponsor, not just, like, a side sponsor, of any team or any car, this Alfa Tari car, the way they have their logo looks like it could be something from Mont Blanc. Like, I could see a Mont Blanc logo being, you know, swapped out for Alfa Tari's main logo here on that car that looks like a Mont Blanc car to me. So, that's my takeaways from this. But I wish I, F1's one of those things that, like, I might slow roll into in a few years like I did soccer. Let me tell you. But I can only do so many things at a time.

'''Myke:''' I mean, if you're intrigued, watch Drive to Survive, the documentary on Netflix. Because that's what's getting so many people like us hooked on the sport now.

'''Brad:''' Exactly. Exactly. So, no, that's all I've heard. And I just haven't had time to do it. And, like, I'm super tempted. Just like I was super tempted by soccer and fell in head over heels. I know I would get that way with the way F1 works and operates, too. So, yeah, be cool.

'''Myke:''' And then let's bring this right back around to the beginning of the episode. All right. Given Sailor's recent price increases to the small and medium-sized pens, does that change their order in your top five 100 to 200 and 200-plus categories?

'''Brad:''' Absolutely. So, I haven't looked at these lists in a little bit. And they are ripe for disruption now. And that was the thing always with these lists is there wasn't a lot of change in this list because there wasn't a lot of movement or there was nothing new that necessarily came and took out these spots. So, you know, looking at the top five fountain pens from 100 to 200, it's the Platinum 30. This is what I had them ranked one through five. So, I had the Platinum 3776, the Sailor 1911 Standard, which is the small one, the Pilot Vanishing Point, the Lamy 2000, and the Pelican M205. So, this is a wide range. And there's a lot of options from 100 to 200. That's almost too big of a range. Sailor 1911 and Standard would be out completely because they're not in that price point anymore. Yeah, I think Platinum 3776 is still the best, probably in that range. But they're one price increase away from being over $200, right? Like, they're up to $180 something now, $188 maybe, where before they were in like $160s, something like that. So, you know, and...

'''Myke:''' I think my question to you is do you revise the entrance in the categories or do you revise the category amounts?

'''Brad:''' I think it's both. Like, I wouldn't revise the amounts to forcibly fit groups, right? I would revise the amounts because that's what the market says is a popular range now. Yep. Right? So, like, I think this range should probably...

'''Myke:''' If all the pens that were $200 are now $220, then... Right. You know what? Like, the market's changed.

'''Brad:''' Right. So, this range should almost be $150 to $300. Because sub $150, the only one in this list is the M205 now. Every other one has increased in price. Some all the way over $200. The others on their way, right? So, I think this is actually a bracket change. Um, and even then, like, the Sailor 1911 standard would not be on that list. Um, you gotta include things like the Leonardo Memento Zero. You know? Things like that. And then you probably still keep, like, the Vanishing Point and the Lamy 2000. Just because of what this list is trying to say. Um, you know, it's not a personal preference list. It's what, like, I would recommend in this list to people, you know, starting out in this hobby. And then that shifts the $200 to $500 price range as well, right? Like, the... Like, is that the proper... I've never liked that price range anyway. Because there's so much variance in there. And you're paying for different things. Because in that wide of a range of price, it's, like, the Pilot Custom 823 and everything else, to be perfectly honest. Right. In that price range. Which, that would still be the same. But, like, would I add something like the Montegrappa Mia or the Montegrappa in there? And the answer is yes. One of those would get added in that list. Because I think that's just a good recommendation pin to just jump straight into, you know, a pin at that price point that would give you a good experience, right? That's what I'm trying to solve. That's the question I'm trying to answer with these lists. It's, like, okay, I'm going into this price point. What's gonna... Where am I gonna get my money's worth and have that level of experience? And, you know, I think some of this stuff needs to be switched around.

'''Brad:''' And Sailor would probably make the second list. But I don't know if it would be... It might crack the end of it. You know, because I think you're starting to have a different value proposition for a $400 Sailor Pro gear than a, you know, $300 Sailor Pro gear. So, you know, it's something to think about and something I should explore. I need to explore a little bit more because I think it's time that these lists got shook up a little bit. Those two lists in particular.

'''Myke:''' All right. If you would like to send in a question for a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. Or you can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. If you become a RelayFM member, go to Relay.fm membership or click the link in the show notes. You can sign up. You will get access to the Discord. Plus our wonderful specials, including me and Brad trying to build a Lego set for three and a half hours where I have the instructions and he has the pieces. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. Maybe you want to build along with us. Maybe you just want us on in the background and have that wonderful sense of joy and mild frustration for a few hours in your life. It's a big fun time. You can find our links for this episode at Relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 461. You can find Brad online at PenAddict.com. He is at Dowdeers. I'm on Twitter and at PenAddict on Instagram. Brad streams live on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern time over at Twitch.tv slash PenAddict. I'm at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E on Twitter and Instagram. I stream live every Friday over at Myke.Live where I build custom mechanical keyboards. You can go and follow me there as well. We'll be back next time. Thank you again to Canaleya, Penco, Uni, and Squarespace for their support of this episode. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 523/transcript

2026-06-11T10:14:05Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 523
| title = Average is Good
| date = July 27th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/523 Episode 523]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_523.mp3 Audio Episode 523]
| length = 62
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 523. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and the Kanilea Pen Co. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy. Brad Daddy. Yeah, I did it, didn't I? What was that? I messed it up. Yeah. Is that a Freudian slip?

'''Brad:''' Uh, well, I didn't want to think about it too hard, but since you said that, now it's an issue, so thanks for that.

== Introduction ==

'''Myke:''' Thanks, Brad Daddy. Good morning, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Myke, how are you? I'm good. Now I'm weird, but I'm good.

'''Brad:''' I mean, we do do a weird, this is kind of a weird podcast, which we're going to get to talk about specifically a weird thing that happened to us this morning. So, uh, we'll, we'll talk about that momentarily, but first we got, we got some follow-up from last week, Myke. Um, we were talking about pen cups, right? A very simple, easy thing to do that is very difficult to solve sometimes when you're looking for the exact thing. And we forgot to mention one thing that we both know very, very well. Our good friend Julia, um, from the Make Do podcast, um, also makes ceramics, including pen cups that we both own. Like we have. I don't have one of the pen cups. Okay, I have one of the pen cups.

'''Myke:''' I have, Julia made me some mugs, so I have one of her incredible tentacle mugs. She gave that to Adina, which is just unbelievable. And then she also made me a podcasting Don mug, which is a real treasure of mine. But yeah, Julia has made, I put an Instagram post in the past, um, these like pen cups that have a ridge in them. And while they are awesome, this is not what I wanted for my use. Like these always felt to me like stuff for your really nice fountain pen, where I needed something like tall, where these aren't tall.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. They kind of have a, this, so I have one of those and it's kind of like, um, the front side that say that's, that's like facing you. It's like a half size, right? So it's like a half size wall. So the pens like lean back. It's not just something you're going to throw in and it's going to land in the cup and you're going to be happy with that. Right. It's, I didn't think it was an answer for what you were looking for, but I thought that was a good, um, a good add on to the list for people that are looking for cool desk accessories. And, um, Myke from independence, uh, reminded me of that on Twitter after the episode, I was like, Oh yeah, you big dummy. Let's mention that because like, it's sitting on my desk, you know, as we speak it, what, you know, what's in mind, Myke. So this is kind of the antithesis to, uh, your fancy fountain pens, my, my loaner pens, you know, the bit click loaner pen. Um, I keep like 10 of those in that little, uh, pen holder. So it's kind of the opposite of what you're thinking it should be used for. Yeah, it's cool. And it looks good in that mug.

'''Myke:''' Like the mug's green, the pen's orange. It's like, cause I always saw that as like a place for a fancy pen because it's got that, the slot taken out of it. Like it feels like it's presenting something.

'''Brad:''' Right. So you can lay a pen across kind of like the cutout in the front of the, uh, of the holder while other pens can stand vertically behind that. Uh, if you, if you wish, it's a great design. I love it. Super useful, super fun.

'''Myke:''' So I think I remember Julia bringing one of these to Atlanta and giving it to you. If I'm remembering, right. That is how I got it. I remember seeing it at the time and it was like, wow, that's a cool thing.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And I know I have a picture on my Instagram. I'd have to go dig it up. Um, if I could actually find anything on Instagram anymore, but that's a whole other issue, Myke. Well, we won't wade into those waters. So did you end up going with, end up going with anything? Uh, did you order anything that we, we talked about last week? What'd you get?

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I got the E and M pot belly pen pot from Colt pens and it's perfect. It's exactly what I needed. Like 100% nailed what I wanted. It now is sitting on my desk and I have a few things in it and I've cleared up the desk top a little bit. It's perfect. This is just what I needed. It has a little rubber foot, like a rubber base too, which is just really good. So it doesn't move around. Like this is a great little thing for the low, low price of eight pounds, 65 pence from Colt pens. So I'm a very happy boy with this one.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, those are great. I, I highly recommend E and M products. Um, as we, as we mentioned before. So, uh, yeah, that was good. Um, that was good. I want to do another quick followup real quick, Myke, um, before we get to the end of the day. To something we really want to talk about the pen type discussion we had, I thought this is a real quick followup. We can sneak in here. The conversation, like the feedback I got on that conversation from last week, discovering, you know, trying to discover like, what is your pen type and trying to, you know, think about things when you're buying things or selling things, you know, what really fits your taste and your wants and your, your, your needs from a stationary product. And one of the recurring bits of feedback that I got is on a lot of people's list, you know, like my checklist was okay, material and shape and feel. And, you know, further down the list was nib and filling system. A lot of people, their list starts with the brand and I didn't even consider that. Right. So a lot of people's personal collections are brand centric, um, whether it's Pelican Parker or pilot or whatever, Nakaya, uh, retro 51, you know, that's, they start their checklist. Okay. What's my pen type type? Well, is it a Pelican? Then yes, I proceed. Right. Like if I'm a Pelican fan. So I got some good feedback on that and I thought that was smart feedback that you and I, I don't know if you and I would definitely would consider because I'm, you know, we're kind of brand agnostic. You know, we end up liking brands that make pens that we like, but we don't start with the brand first. I think that's fair. Right. Yeah. So I thought that was good feedback and I got that multiple times that, that, that people will start with, Hey, it's gotta be, you know, this brand. And then I go from there to see what within that brand fits my style of thing. So that was good. I woke up to a message from you this morning. Yeah. Um, and, and, and my replies to you were confused because I had literally just woken up and was taking our dog outside. And I didn't have coffee yet. Um, explain to me how you came across what you sent me this morning, what we're about to talk about.

'''Myke:''' One of the first things I saw this morning was a tweet from friends of the show, Charlie Marie, who said, the pen addict is mentioned on the most recent episode of the office ladies podcast. Now the office ladies podcast is a podcast about the office hosted by two of the stars of the office. So Angela Kinsey plays Angela and Jenna Fisher plays Pam and they're doing a rewatch show and talking about what, you know, the behind the scenes, um, of the show itself. Now on the episode that they published today, episode one 30, the coverup, there is a conversation about a pen that is being clicked. Um, and it's a Parker pen, right?

== Parker Jotter ==

'''Brad:''' I think it's a Parker jotter. It's a Parker jotter.

'''Myke:''' Parker jotter. That was it. I've got pilot in my brain for some reason. And Jenna Fisher who plays Pam says like, starts saying like I did a bit of research about this pen and I came across a podcast called the pen addict hosted by Brad Dowdy and Myke Hurley. And they've done over 500 episodes of this show to Angela surprise. And then goes on to reference that, uh, they found the, an article on our website, which I enjoy as mine and your website. I don't know if you knew that. Um, our website at pen addict.com where they then found a review and you referenced in the review about like how the clicking of this pen would annoy anyone around you. So then was like really happy with the fact that the office chose the right pen. Now I bought a link in the show notes. This happens depending on where you are in the world. Somewhere between the 23 and 25 minute mark is when this begins. I think this is because of a dynamic ad insertion stuff, which can just really ruin these kinds of things for podcasts. But it's around that area. Like when I listened to it, it was like minute 25. Brad couldn't find it because it happened two minutes earlier because we had different length of ads in the show. But it's just an annoyance. But let me just say, the thrill of hearing Pam say Myke Hurley. Pretty great, man. That was, that was a fun way to start my day. Very. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So not only did she like say our names, I was like, ah, that's my name. She read the words that I typed for the Parker Jotter review. It was like two sentences.

'''Brad:''' Life highlight, right? That is like the coolest thing. Yep. And they like got it. They're like, yeah, this is like, this is this annoying pen that we can just like, that totally fit. We made the right choice for the episode. You know, she's talking, referencing Michael Shore, a writer, creator of, of many, many fine shows saying at one point, she was saying how the, the Jotter had come up in different shows. So you'd got some feedback that this particular pen kept showing up in shows. Did, did Michael have, you know, something with, you know, with this pen that he kept choosing it. And he's like, no, I haven't basically, I know I have no idea why that keeps showing up, but it turns out this was the pen that you can click to annoy. Other people in your office. And it was a, it was a fun, fun conversation. You know, this is one of the things you like get to share with other people who don't do, who are not into the pen stuff like we do. Like I had my, I told my wife this morning, it's like, Hey, come and listen to this. Cause like, she knows who the office is and she knows, you know, who the actors are. And she's like, Oh, that's so cool. Like, it was just a really fun thing to share. So that was, that was nice. They also had a, I will, I will tweet at, at them later and share our conversation around pen and pen. The pronunciations of that word, because they were very concerned how Jim said pen. At least Angela was. Angela was very concerned about his pronunciation of pen. Oh, like pen. Uh-huh. Okay. Did you not hear that part? No, it must not.

'''Myke:''' It must have just glossed over me that time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's before the, it's on the lead up into talking about the Parker Jotter is how they got into, um, uh, John's character. Talk is sad. The way he says pen. So it's great. It was, I, it was, I'm still smiling. I will listen to this more throughout the day. I will save this link. uh, whenever I need a smile on my face.

'''Myke:''' To the long list of super cool, famous people who have somehow come across the, fan addicts as part of their podcast.

'''Brad:''' Well, I mean, we're the, like the perfect candidate for internet stupidity, right? Like this, this, when you, as soon as you say this shouldn't exist, you go to the internet and find out that in fact it does exist because someone is weird enough to put this content on the internet.

'''Myke:''' What I want to know is how Jenna Fisher came across all of this information in the way that she did. And then in the order that it was presented.

'''Brad:''' Well, the, the key, I think the initial feedback was some, they got an email. Someone actually called out the pinned type, which was the Parker jotter. So once she had the bird, the name of the pin, she could take that to Michael and quiz him like, Hey, is this on purpose? And then she just got a bug to research this pen. Yeah. But it's like,

'''Myke:''' I don't know. So if you type Parker jotter in to Google, you're going to come up fast, right? Cause the pen addict is always listed very, very high. But then like, how did she find the show? That's what I don't get. And then also the information was presented with like podcast first. And I guess maybe because they're making a podcast. It was just fascinating to me really. And like, and I wonder like, did she do all of this herself? Did they, did they have researchers? Cause I know we've been mentioned, I think it was on, on earwolf podcasts in the past. Cause it's a part of the earwolf network. So maybe they were aware of it as like a starting point, maybe like, Oh, we've heard of this podcast about pen before you should maybe, I don't know. Whatever it is. I, the weirdness of these kinds of things will, will never get old for me. It was awesome.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. The through line, uh, it from discovery to figuring this out is definitely, uh, always fascinating, right? How did this even happen? But, um, I had a huge smile on my face. I, I, uh, good mom. I will, I will send them a tweet. Uh, I will send them a tweet later thanking them and, uh, you know, probably never hear back from them again, but I don't even care. It was just really cool. So yeah, I encourage it. I thought about it. That went to the list. There's no point.

'''Myke:''' Like I just kind of, there's no point. There's no point.

'''Brad:''' I was, I actually thought about it enough to, to think, well, they're probably on the West coast. So I'll wait until like, maybe they're at least awake and I'll just give, I'm going to piggyback on you. Thanks. Big thanks to, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll tag you in the tweet, Myke, as we, as we, as we fan out, uh, on, over this little moment. So, uh, thank y'all for doing that. That was really cool. All right. Um, let's talk about more pens. Um, coming up soon, we have several pen shows hitting the calendar. So we just had Miami pen show two weekends ago. So we're getting into like the end of summer or kind of the summer peak of pen shows, at least based in the U S and with the DC pen show coming up August 5th through 7th. And the San Francisco pen show at the end of the month, August 26th through 28th. I wanted to bring this up one because the DC pen show is always so big and it brings up so much, uh, a large amount of conversation around the show because it can never seem to go off smoothly, which seems to be the case again this year. Like it's going to be fine. You'll go, you'll have a fun time and, um, you'll just, you know, deal with whatever DC throws at you. And I think everyone's just kind of, uh, you know, buckled in for whatever DC throws at them. You'll deal with it. And it ends up being a good time at the DC pen show. But I, I wanted to mention, I will not be at the DC pen show. I do. Uh, I get a lot of messages. Hey, you're going to be there. You're going to be there. I will not be. Um, it's traditionally one of the worst weekends on the calendar for me personally, um, with the stuff I got to do, uh, with the kids going back to school that week always. So it's just hard for me to get away that week, but we'll try, uh, maybe next year, maybe next year, the calendar will work out better for me. Where I will be is at the San Francisco pen show later in the month, August 26th through 28th. Like I said, so that'll be fun. If anyone happens to attend there, please say hi. We'll talk about this more as we get closer, uh, to the trip. And, uh, I'll have a trip recap here on the podcast. And, um, on through the, uh, the pen addict members platform, I'll have a review. We'll have lots of San Francisco pen show content. I'm sure, because this is going to be the first like real travel that I'm going to do. That's not in a car driving to the Atlanta pen show, um, for a couple of nights. So it'll be good. I'll be embedded at the pen show, if you will, Myke. So, uh, and I have no plans. Yeah, I'm going in, going in undercover, uh, no plans, no schedules, no working, no anything, just attending. So, uh, maybe in a couple of weeks time or the, the pre print pen show, I'll, I'll see if I've decided on taking any classes, which is something I've always wanted to do, but never have done. And San Francisco has got a bunch of great classes. So, um, looking into that on top of that, Myke, I've gone ahead and booked my travel for the Orlando pen show, which is a drivable pen show for me. And it's only two weeks from the San Francisco pen show, which means that by the time I get back from San Francisco and have to leave for Orlando, it's less than two weeks. It's like 10 days apart for travel. So this is, I am going all in on the pen show travel. All of a sudden, um, it's been a long time and I, I like covering the shows. I like, you know, uh, writing about them and, and discussing like all the ongoings of, you know, especially big shows like DC and San Francisco, they're held to such a different standard for a lot of shows. Right. So people want to know, Hey, tell me the difference between like a really massive show, like San Francisco and probably a smaller show like Orlando. So like I look forward to, to checking this out. This is the first Orlando pen show and it's, uh, easier in the fact that I can drive to it. It's like five hours, maybe six at the most, uh, for me to get there. So it's a pretty easy travel. And on top of that,

'''Myke:''' it sticks around the Orlando show. Yeah. It seems like a great excuse to go to Disney world.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm not booking that this time, but I will tell you one of the benefits of this show, one of the reasons that made me go to it, which back in the day, I didn't used to think, uh, when I was working shows that a Saturday end show was a good idea, but it turns out I actually prefer shows that end on Saturday and don't have a Sunday. So this is basically a Friday. Yeah. So there's like Thursday set up, right? There's really nothing official except like an evening party, like a kickoff party, like Thursday night, right for vendors and, uh, weekend pass holders, then all day Friday and all day Saturday. And that's it because you've been at the Atlanta pen show where we've worked on Sunday and twiddled our thumbs for, you know, all but maybe an hour or two through, through the day, which is fine. Like, you know, we, it's good to have like a relaxing day, but you know, I, as I discovered at the Dallas pen show, um, their schedule is similar in that it's an all day Friday. And Saturday and then nothing on Sunday. So I actually got home on Sunday and it's like, Oh, turns out that's kind of nice, which, um, and, and I didn't feel after working enough shows, I didn't feel that I was missing out on Sunday. Now, every show is different in this aspect. Sometimes Sunday is like the main sales day. Like, you know, you kind of get in the rhythm and the flow of, of what the shows have to offer and what days work best. Like LA, like the only public day is Sunday, which is a whole different conversation. Um, but I, turns out I like getting home on Sundays instead of Mondays because I always stay over. I'm always exhausted by the end. So like, if I fly to a show, I don't try to rush out Sunday evening and get home. It's just not good. I just take that time to write and refresh and then travel on, on Monday. So yeah, Orlando in the future, um, you can go to Disney world. You can stay an extra day or two. So should be fun. I'm looking forward to that. So I will have some more, uh, coverage of that new show on the calendar, uh, coming up in September. And then after that, we'll see, I don't have anything, uh, booked. We start going into Boston and Dallas. Um, later on there's Columbus. Of course there's Tokyo mixed in the mix in there, uh, which we will not be attending this year. Um, so yeah, we'll see what the show calendar is. looks like for me after this August and September run and how I'm going to get integrated back into pen show travel and pen show coverage for like all the content I like to create. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

== Orlando Show ==

'''Myke:''' I would like to make a personal request to the Orlando pen show to not be in September.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Why? It's a bad month. Oh yeah. Okay. That's, uh, that's, uh, uh, uh, St. Jude relay, uh, St. Jude. Um, it's going to be in September pretty much. There's not a lot of room on the, on, on the U S calendar. There's not a lot of October to be honest.

'''Brad:''' That's true. Uh, there was Denver for a while. Uh, Columbus doesn't happen till November.

'''Brad:''' Toronto was in October. Tokyo is in October. Yeah. I mean, October might could, could work. I mean, or if they did later in September, like if they did Dallas is late September,

'''Myke:''' not Dallas. I want September now. I want Orlando to be late in September. So then I can already be in the U S you know, then I can go to Disney world.

'''Brad:''' Gotcha.

'''Myke:''' Gotcha. Purely for me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. What you need is Dallas to change their schedule.

'''Myke:''' I do keep finding myself in Dallas. So, you know, I might end up, I might end up going to the Dallas pen show cause I can't stop landing in Dallas.

'''Brad:''' That is a popular hub for you, right? You're going to rent. You're going to start renting a corporate apartment in Dallas cause you keep getting stuck there.

'''Myke:''' Oh dear. Talking about pen shows, Brad Dowdy. Yeah. Talking about pen shows. Let's thank our first sponsor of this week's episode. And that is the Canalea Pen Co. Canalea make the most beautiful pens inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and connect us with nature. Today, I have a couple of things that I want to remind you about and a few pieces of information I want to give you on behalf of Canalea. So I want to let you know again to go and check out the Le Valani collection from Canalea. This is a design that represents the sky at night in Kauai with its deep dark blue, vibrant stars, and the visible shimmer of the Milky Way. The Le Valani collection consists of the fountain pen in five styles, a ballpoint, and also the return of the Maile Le band, which is a wonderful option made of Argentium silver, adorning Canalea's classic fountain pen profile. I have the Maile Le on a different pen, but it's still equally beautiful and a real wonderful addition. I think you can make an already special pen that a little bit extra special, I think makes it very wonderful gift. Canalea fountain pens feature Yoha number six nibs. You can buy steel or 18 karat gold nibs from Canalea, and they offer sizes from extra fine to 1.1 millimeter stub. Hugh smooths and tunes every nib before it leaves their shop, so your Canalea pen will write beautifully straight out of the lovely black walnut keepsake box. Recently, we told you about Canalea's Kai Huli collection. Kai Huli means a sea that dashes and recedes. With the movement of the tide, the ocean's waves will roll up onto the sand and pull back again. And when it does this, it leaves new treasures to discover on the beach, on the shore. Kai Huli is an ever-changing collection of fountain pens inspired by this idea, specifically created by Canalea to represent the varied and beautiful colors and textures of the Hawaiian islands. These pens are only available at pen shows, and were a huge hit at the St. Louis Pen Show in June. Every morning of a pen show, attendees will be able to stop by Canalea's tables to see the assortment of Kai Huli pens that the tide brought in overnight. Kai Huli will be back at both the DC Pen Show from August 5th to the 7th, and the San Francisco Pen Show from August 26th to 28th. Don't miss out, as these will be your final chances to see the Kai Huli collection in 2022. And to celebrate Canalea's anniversary month with every pen purchase at both the DC and SF Pen Shows, you will receive Kona coffee from the Green World Farms on Hawaii's Big Island, so you'll get to taste the inspiration behind the Kona Snow and Kona Cherry pens that were out, I think, maybe last year? Were those pens?

'''Brad:''' Two years. I've had my Kona Cherry for probably, it seems like two years, but I could be wrong.

'''Myke:''' So as a note, Canalea's tables at the DC show will be located downstairs this year due to construction at the hotel. DC show promoters will have signs directing attendees to all the vendors in this location. You can find out more about Canalea's whole offering and keep up with all of their latest announcements at canaleapenco.com. Our thanks to the Canalea Pen Co for the support of this show.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so DC Pen Show, again, if you're going, just make sure that you are aware that a lot of vendors may be in some different locations this year and that, you know, there's the main floor of the ballroom and then there's going to be a location with a lot of other great vendors in there as well. So I'll be sure to mention that again the week before the pen show, which I guess is... It's a treasure hunt this time, you know? Yeah, it's a treasure hunt and you're going to find some awesome stuff. So I just hope the signage is good and the awareness is large at the show to make sure that all vendors are, you know, accessible to all of the attendees. So yeah, we definitely want to make that a focus here on the podcast for all of you going to the DC show. Also, the DC show, they want you to buy your tickets online just because the construction is really preventing the queuing that we have been witness to get into the show. I don't think they're going to have room for that. So they're really advising you, if you're attending the show, for, you know, one day or three days to buy your tickets online to help prevent some of the blocking issues that the construction is going to cause this year at the show. So we'll revisit this next week just as a reminder to everyone. So you want to be sure to go see all of our favorite vendors like Canalea Penco, wherever they're at, at the DC show.

'''Brad:''' All right, Myke, we're going to do something today that I'll be quite honest, I don't normally like to do. And that is promote the Pen Addict membership program. Like we talk about it here. We say, hey, you know, Brad has a membership program at penaddict.com. Not to be confused with the Relay FM membership, which we also have, which is also spectacular. But, you know, it's just, you know me well, and I think the listeners know me well. Like I just try to do things and I hope you find them and I hope you think they're cool and I hope you support the things that I make. Well, one of the things I do, probably the most important thing that I do is run a membership program. It's $5 a month at the Pen Addict. And what that gets you is extra Pen Addict content. So I'm always kind of tweaking the things that I do. The newsletter I create every week is really the core of it. That's the reason to subscribe. Yeah, I've been doing that for six and a half years. We've done, what, 333 issues of the newsletter on the weekend. I really enjoy putting that together. I put a lot of time and effort into that and everyone seems to enjoy it. That's kind of the core reason. And aside from supporting me directly to sign up for Pen Addict membership, I added a new bit of content. I'm always playing around with the things that I offer for members, you know, and how, you know, what's, you know, member content, what's like public content. And most of the public content on the Pen Addict blog is reviews. Like it's just straight up review content by myself, Jeff, Sarah, and Kimberly, the staff of writers at the Pen Addict. And then, you know, obviously giveaways and just fun links and things like that. So aside from the newsletter I create for members called Refill, I created a ranking system that I've been thinking about for years in an effort to talk specifically about what I think about pens, right? So it's called the Pen Addict rating. And this was kind of came out of pretty much questions I've gotten for the entirety of the blog. Can you rate a pen? You know, can you put a pen on a, you know, on a, like a grading scale to kind of discuss, you know, your thoughts about that? And we've talked about this on the podcast before that I've always been hesitant to do that in just a traditional review format, right? I've always felt it was very, very difficult to do that when basically I review products on penaddict.com from a, the lens of a recommendation. Who would I recommend this for? How would it work for some certain people? How it doesn't work for certain people. And I never felt comfortable saying, okay, this pen is a four star out of five or this pen is a B grade on an A through F scale. Like that's never made sense to me. I didn't think there was very much context. I didn't feel like those grades could be like transferable between review to review. How does, you know, a B from a gel ink pen relate to a B in a notebook and things like that. So I've never found value in having a rating system for my product reviews or for anyone's product reviews at penaddict.com. But I do have personal ratings and rankings. And that bears out in the way I choose to use a pen on a particular day and why I would choose one pen over another one. And I'm using pens just as the general catch-all. I would, you know, I talk about pencils. I talk about papers. I've given a grade to a fountain pen converter, Myke. So we talk about lots of stationary products.

== Pen Addict Rating ==

'''Brad:''' So when, what the pen addict rating kind of boils down to is if I had two pens sitting side by side, which one would I choose and why? And then basically continuing that ranking on, take that winner of a pen and put another pen next to it. And why would I choose one pen over the other one? And I thought eventually I could have a scale that would answer those questions for myself and then I would share that with other people, right? So these are not product recommendations at all. This is Brad likes this pen more than that pen. And here's why. So I started writing this up. So I created a scale. It's a 20 to 80 scale. This is something I discovered from following baseball. It's a way that scouts would rate minor league players and young players who were before they got to the major leagues and how their skills translated compared to other players. and it was a way to kind of put player A versus player B and think about, okay, who do I think is going to be better and where to put those resources. This system came from, it's a scientific system that it kind of originated from. But it's a way to really kind of have a delineation of the best of the best versus the worst and everything in between.

'''Myke:''' Why not 10 to 60?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I don't know. I don't have an answer for why it starts at 20 and ends at 80. Okay. I've looked that up before and I can't remember exactly what it was. It turns out you probably could do something. But there needed to be a middle grade, right? So we have 20, 30, 40, 50 is right in the middle, 60, 70, and 80. The key with this scale and another reason why I didn't like having a scale of a 1 to 10 or a star scale is because you can have an average grade on this scale and it'd be a good product, right? If I ever said a pen is a 5 out of 10, that's generally a poor rating, wouldn't you say? Just if you say a movie or an album or an article of clothing or an app was a 5 out of 10, you're not going to give it a second look, right? Like I wouldn't, right? But here in this grading system, it allows for the middle, the 50 grade to be excellent, like to be a very good product, right? It is the average. It is the average product and it's a discussion. It's part of the broader discussion of why average is good, right? Like average is a good product. So I was trying to describe things on that scale and that ends up, results in kind of a bell curve grading, right? The bulk of the products are going to be a 50, like right there in the middle and then probably 60, right? Because like we talked about last week and I've written about on, on in refill recently, like there's selection bias going into this to begin with, right? The products I choose are generally going to be good because why would I spend time with a bad product? So they're definitely products that rate, you know, average to better or where the bulk of the products and we'll talk about that later. So yeah, it was a way to kind of classify the, how I think about products where I can take a field notes, pocket notebook and relate that to a pilot vanishing point or an Orochizuku Shinkai ink or a Secura Pigma Micron, not saying that there's a one-to-one comparison, but in the way that I feel about these products and the way I personally think about these products that yeah, this is the 50 grade products or is this group of products and the 60 grade products or is this group of products in the 70s and the 80s and the 20s, you know, there's very few 20s, but like we'll talk about some examples here in a minute. So I write one of these up, one per week and the goal was to eventually get enough of these Panatic ratings to have some kind of context in the system. I thought it was a pretty slow start and I knew it was going to be this way until there were enough grades out there to explain to people how I view my own personal stationary products and we'll have a couple of examples you can download and you can download the PAR introduction. There's really no way for me to share this, but we'll in the show notes, we'll have a couple of PDFs you can download of the content that I just saved off the site. So we'll have the introduction with the scale and then there's a few examples I've put in the show notes of the ratings that I've done. So let's look at those real quick here. Sorry, I'm getting the pages out. So are you, any questions on the rating system itself? Why I do certain things? I know I just rambled through this and a lot of people are just kind of glossed over by now and going, what are you even talking about?

'''Myke:''' No, I mean, my main question is just like, I already asked, I don't understand 20 to 8. I just don't get it. But if it's a system that you latch onto, then go for it. Like at least it's weird and unique in that way. I wanted to ask how you choose the products.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. So I just kind of, when I started, I brainstormed a list of like, what are all my most used or favorite or most talked about products or the products I think about the most. Again, so the main thing to remember is this is a very personal scale, right? I'm writing about how I feel about these products. Where in my reviews on penaddict.com, I talk about that, but I also contextualize it from, like I said, recommendations. Like would I recommend this to someone or what information do people need to make a good buying decision? I don't talk about that in these reviews, in these penaddict ratings. I talk about, hey, this is what I think about this pen and why I use it or don't use it. So-

'''Myke:''' But you know though that- How do I- You can kind of say that stuff as much as you like, but it doesn't mean there's a difference. Like if you have an opinion or something, people will take that opinion as like, this is some fact that I now have.

'''Brad:''' Yes, understood. I do understand that. That's why I try to, that's why I keep saying it over and over again. Because I do understand that. Yeah, you just keep trying, bud. You just keep trying. Because look,

'''Myke:''' I know that some members will do exactly what I do where when I get the email, the first thing I do is scroll down to see the score. A hundred percent. That's why I put it at the bottom.

'''Brad:''' I thought about just putting it at the top because I know that's only people start there, then go back.

'''Myke:''' Because that's where you look for it, right? Like everyone knows. If you want the score of a review, it's always at the bottom, so.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and that's why I don't put it in the title either. Like I could put it in the title. Yeah. I don't do that either. So how do I choose? So at first, I did feel like there needed to be a big batch of standard products that I talk about the most needed to have scores attached to them. So when you can, you can look at, so the, I think this is in order of reviews that I did. So the very first one I did was the Blackwing 602. We'll talk about the grades, the scores here in a minute. Blackwing 602, Pilot Hitec C 0.3 millimeter, Rotring 600, Secura Pigma Micron, Lamy Safari, Field Notes Craft Memo Book, Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai, right? So I tried to take kind of a popular item in a lot of categories, a pencil, a micro tip gel ink pen, a mechanical pencil, a drawing marker, a fountain pen, a notebook, an ink, right? And then these were the products that I talk about the most, say like the Blackwing 602 or the Pilot Hitec C. And then what do I really think about them from a personal perspective? So on the scale, like the Blackwing 602 was a 60, right? So it's an above average, above average product. It's a really good pencil. And then the Pilot Hitec C 0.3 millimeter is a 40, right? Like I talk about that product all the time and how good it is when it's good, but it's really not a product I choose to use that much because it's only good, you know, it's a better option. So let me, let me say the scale real quick and I'll have a link in the show notes. You can look at the scale. When I say these numbers, you'll know what it means. So 20 is the lowest grade and that's avoid. Avoid this product, right? There's just no redeeming values on this product. Avoid it. A 30 is to use sparingly or specifically, right? Like if there's one like good thing about this product that you can find and there's a specific reason for you to use it, that's a 30. Like it's not completely avoid, but there's not a lot of great things about it. 40 is good, but there are better options out there, right? That's the Pilot High Tech C. Like it's a good pen. It's not great. I think it's probably below average. There are better options, but it's okay. Five is very good. A league average product. That's the most important thing to understand is that this scale kind of revolves around how good products that are rated 50 are. Then 60 is an above average product with only like a nitpick or two, something small or minor that, you know, that keeps it from being even better. 70 is exceptional across the board and it's 70 is a hard grade. Things tend to fall into like 60 or they're either like perfect in like 80. So like what keeps a product from being an 80 if it's a 70 or what keeps it from dropping into the 60? So 70 is always a good conversation point for me. And then 80 is the best of the best and elite option. There should be very few 80 grade products. I've done 25 reviews or 25 Panatic ratings. There are 280 products, which we'll talk about here in a minute and 120, right? And then in the middle, there's 550s and 1060s, right? So it's very much a bell curve in how this scale works. So again, and this is personal. These are my personal.

'''Myke:''' You only give 10s, scores in 10s, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any point to break it down any further. I think that's just a little bit overly pedantic to have like 55s and 65s.

'''Myke:''' So again, it could actually be one to six, right?

'''Brad:''' Again, sure, sure.

'''Myke:''' I'm not trying to make fun. It's just like as a, you know.

'''Brad:''' No, it couldn't be one to six. It has to be an odd number. There has to be like a peak middle. I don't think there can be, there has to be a bang average, right? So it could be one to seven, I guess.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, sorry. I got my, I did the math bad on the 20 minus 80. Yeah, I knew what you meant though. It counts 20 as well.

'''Brad:''' Right. I knew what you meant by that though. Yeah, like it could be. There is a reason why it's 20 to 80 and I'll have to find that for you after the show. There is some scientific reason why it's this. It's not just necessarily made up, even though it sounds completely made up. And maybe by the end of the show, we'll have that link in the show notes for you. So I wanted a baseline of popular products to say, oh, this is what Brad thinks about this. So how can then we compare? Okay, so a Blackwing 2 is a 60. The other 60 grades, I won't read all of them, but like the Kaweco Sport.

'''Myke:''' I think I can give you some background here, by the way. I did a very quick Google. So maybe I can give you this background to take a break and then we'll go over some of the examples. Okay. So this is from a website called fangraphs.com. Yeah, baseball. The invention of the scale is credited to Branch Ricky. And whether he intended it or not, it mirrors various scientific scales. 50 is major league average. Then each 10 point increment represents a standard deviation, better or worse than average. In a normal distribution, three standard deviations in either direction should include 99.7% of your sample. So that's why the scale is 20 to 80 rather than 0 to 100. That said, the distribution of tools isn't a normal curve for every tool, but it's somewhere close to that for the most. So really like that's the idea. You start at 50 is the average. Start at 50. And then you go three in each direction. And that helps you. So three increments in each direction.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And that makes sense in the way that I end up come up with these scores, right? That an 80 product, like an 80 grade is so just unassailable to where a 70 is like a full standard deviation below that, right? Like there is something about that product that doesn't make it a 75 and doesn't make it a 79 and it doesn't make it an 80, right? There is a difference. There is a, there is a, I don't want to say a stark difference in each grade, but there kind of is, right? Like the products that land on these scores are very specifically in these categories. And it goes back to something as being as simple as would I choose this pen over that pen? Yeah. And that makes a difference in that score. That's, that's the simple version of how I come up with the scores and the 80 products are the ones that never get beat, right? And the 70 products, they get beat very rarely, but sometimes there's a product that I would choose over that. And then the 60, well, there's a group, that's a really awesome group of products, but yeah, there's a handful of products ahead of that. But then there's a big batch in that 50 to 60 range that's just the really good stuff that you use all the time every day. And, you know, you're enjoying using these products. But, you know, if I'm using, you know, the Uniball Curitoga, if you're telling me the Curitoga's on my desk and the Rotring 600's on my desk, which one's better? It's never going to be the Curitoga, right? For me, right? So that places it into this score that I've given it into this rating and how the Rotring will continue to just matriculate up the charts until nothing else beats it. And that's what makes an 80-grade product. And the only other 80-grade product is, so far, like, and there'll be other ones in the future, but the only other one is the Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai fountain pen ink. There's no other ink that is that highly rated for me, right? If you're just asking me, like, what ink do I just want to put in all my pens? It's that one. Sure. Do I love all my green inks and my orange inks? Yeah, I use them all the time. I use them most of the time. That's what 50s and 60s are. But if you're telling me to pick the one, well, that's the one. And there might be another 80-grade ink. There might not be. Like, I don't think that far ahead, right? I have a lot of things. There's a lot of stationery I can grade out here. But then, you take both of those 80s, you say, oh, the Rotring 600 and Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai. It's like, oh, like, that's the top of the scale of Brad's scale. Like, those are like the elite products. And then you can have other 80s in there, right? And then, you know, the Pilot Custom 823 fountain pen, that's a 70. Like, it's not quite an 80. You know, and I wrote up a whole reasoning why, you know, it's not an 80. Basically, because I want to pull my hair out when I clean it. But luckily, I don't have to clean it that often, right? I don't have an 80-grade fountain pen right now. Like, 80 grades are super, super rare for me. And they should be. Just like 20s are super rare. I have the, I had to actually hunt down a product that I owned that I would grade it a 20. And it's the Statler Wopex pencil. I put that as a sample, Myke, for people to download in the links. You can download the PDF of my article. I also keep these articles short, like, between 300 and 500 words, right? This is just kind of like bite-size ratings that I do for each of these products once a week. Well, mostly once a week. I've done 25 this year so far. So, a little less than one a week. And, you know, I just talk about just, there is, under no circumstances would I ever choose to use this product, right? That's a 20-grade, right? So, it's really hard to have this discussion because it is so context-based around what all the grades are, what I think about all these individual products in, you know, combination with each other. Like, how does this product rate against this product and why? Right? Why is the Statler a 20? Why is the Hitec C.3 a 40? You know, why is the Rhodia Dot Pad a 50? Well, that's one of the most, like, mainstream, popular products out there and it is just exceedingly average and that's good, right? It is an exceedingly average notebook. It is great and it is right there in the middle of the rating. Like, I can't think of a more perfect grade 50 product than the Rhodia Dot Pad. It's just useful and there's a lot of things that are better and there's a lot of things that are worse.

'''Myke:''' So,

'''Brad:''' it's a challenge.

'''Myke:''' I'm charging in to pause you, all right? Because we need to take a break and then we can talk. I want to talk about the bell curve and a little bit about average with you as part of this. Let me tell you where you're going to be able to go and find all of the 80 products, right? You want to get some 80s? I'm going to tell you where to go. Pen Chalet because they have the best products from all the best companies and they do their very best to get these things to you at the best possible prices, the best possible shipping. I love Pen Chalet. They are an 80 all around. They're adding new styles of pens every single month. Every couple of weeks you can find new discounts, new great prices and tons of great products. But it's not just fountain pens and rollerballs and ballpoints and mechanical pencils. They also have accessories like carrying cases, inks, converters, the whole lot. They have all of your favorite brands and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States which is awesome. They also sell internationally too with very reasonable shipping rates. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go right now to penchalet.com that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T dot com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. When you're there you want to enter the password penaddict and you will get your hands on a 10% code to save on anything at Pen Chalet and also a selection of offers for Pen Addict listeners. What have we got Brad?

== Break ==

'''Brad:''' Sorry I was busy scrolling through the offers. I was thinking as I'm looking through this they rarely have inks on our page at Pen Chalet. This week they have Krishna Super Rich inks and they have Colorverse Rising Reflection Glistening Ink in there. So there's a couple ink options for you. There's also a couple of Conklin Wood Barrel pens. They have a fountain pen. I'm actually kind of more compelled by the Rollerball the 898 Rollerball that's listed down further below. It looks like a cool shape and a cool design for me. Then you roll into the big ones like the Visconti Homo Sapiens Demo Stones which is a great deal. They also have the Pelican 205 Petrol which is a highly recommended pen by me. I have not done a rating on the Pelican 205 but I assure you that one will rate out very well. One of my favorite hard to say that's an entry level pen being you know over $100 but it's just a fantastic fountain pen one that I love. So yeah go check out all the deals at penchalet.com.

'''Myke:''' Alright so that's penchalet.com to go and check it out for yourself. Hit the password hit the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password penaddict and you will get your hands on these wonderful offers and the code that you need to save on 10% anything at any time over at Penchalet. Our thanks to Penchalet for the continued support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' Alright so what you're telling me is to stop talking.

'''Myke:''' I did try three times I think. To take a break today.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I just have a real difficult time explaining this in a podcast segment because it is. It is. And it's broad right? Like it's there's a lot of moving parts. It's hard to make something complicated simple Myke.

'''Myke:''' So you mentioned some of the products that you scored so far and the ones that we've got in the notes like the Rotary 600. What did that score? Just as a refresh.

'''Brad:''' 80. So yeah it's an 80. It's one of the two 80 products. The Bit Crystal?

'''Brad:''' 60. That was a big controversy. Controversy Myke. Why was it controversial?

'''Brad:''' Because people thought I was way too high on that although I think there was a lot of support for that grade. It's again it's a contextual grade. I enjoy that pen a lot and it sits here in my pen cup as we were talking about last week. It is every time I pick it up it's always going to work exactly how I expect it to work and you can't say that about every product. It's also beautiful. It's also fun to use. It's also convenient like it's portable right? you can take it places. It's also a good art tool in that you can do different shading and coloring with it. It's a very multi-purpose pen that is extremely inexpensive. I don't like price doesn't you know isn't necessarily a category in these ratings because like it's products I already own. Again I'm not recommend it's not a recommendation with you know a recommendation price very much plays into that but these are almost like discounting price but you can't help but talk about the price in some of these when they're very low or very high and the brick crystal is just very very inexpensive and it just makes me enjoy having it around so I will choose that pen. Should price impact the scores? No I don't think so and for what I am trying to do I don't think so. I can't help but talk about it right when you talk about the pilot 823 right I think it's a good value pen but that doesn't go into the grade of what I feel about the pen and the product as much I'd be lying if I said it didn't impact it some right like that's just how these things work that's how like just built-in biases work right I like I haven't graded out a Nakaya and maybe I won't I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do from one week to the next I just have I keep a running list and pick one that I want to use that week or discuss so I don't think price should be a category for pen addict ratings or a consideration for pen addict ratings but when I do reviews on the blog they are a hundred percent part of the review because again in the recommendation hey is this a good deal is this a good value which you can't define for everyone to begin with but you can just kind of contextualize hey is this ink a ridiculous price per milliliter and makes it not as compelling even if it's good can you buy a similar ink for half the price would you consider that like that's a pen addict review that doesn't that doesn't relate to you know what I think about it and in for the pen addict rating so

'''Myke:''' the last one that we included in the notes was the statler war packs which scored what

'''Brad:''' 20 20 it is I called it like the meme pencil it's not really a joke like it's for real like it's this extruded like trying to be like recyclable eco-friendly but it's just a bad performer right if the core was good and you could sharpen it it might rank like a 40 or something like that but it's just not only a bad a poorly designed product it's a poorly functioning product and that just drags it down the list but that is actually one of the challenges you know when I wrote about it this week for pen addict members in the newsletters like the selection bias that I have towards stationary is why would I ever choose to have these bad products around so it's hard to have a bunch of grades that are low on the scale because I don't use those products anyway so that it's that's been a little bit of a flaw in the system right whereas those products are perfect for pen addict.com reviews right they're great for reviews to tell you hey don't spend your money on this product but then after that like if I do that like I might never see the product again you know I've probably given it away to someone or you know send it to the kids for school or something like that so I don't have a lot of like horrible products laying around so that's there's definitely some selection bias involved in that.

'''Myke:''' So you've got 25 products rated through the power system.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' At the moment 10 of those 25 are 60 above average. 5 are 50 average and then you've got like you know a few more below and above those two scores.

'''Brad:''' Yeah so that's 15 out of 25 kind of in the middle there. Mm-hmm. So we're looking at a bell curve. So definitely and it is that's where the bias comes in and that my choice right I'm choosing a lot of the products that hey I use this product a lot let me write it up for the par and see how it stacks up right let me see how it stacks up against these others and it turns out that a lot of the products I choose to use I think are better than average. Funny how that works right that's like it's completely biased like I'm not trying to be unbiased in these ratings right like I'm not like I'm very clear on that. Um so that tends to be the hardest part is kind of describing the middle ground and what the differences are in these middle ground products which are all great like these are great products that I use it's the most used category of products like by far so it's probably going to continue to have this bell curve distribution on the grades on the par scores that I keep giving um just because that's the products I enjoy using the most right and then it's really hard for a product to separate either above or below that middle ground so maybe in the end you know a year from now is has you know the usefulness of this um you know this scale um become you know not necessary maybe maybe maybe but um you know it's kind of like we'll see how it goes like it needed to get to a certain point to kind of sort out these grades as I thought they would right I don't I don't pregrade these products right I don't think about this ahead of time like oh I'm going to write up the 70 today it's like I generally don't think about it that way I don't the grades just kind of are what the grades are um so yeah they're going to keep piling up there in the middle they they just are and maybe that's a flaw of the system maybe that's a benefit of the system you know I'll let the I'll let the user decide if they they get bored with this oh Brad everything's a 60 that Brad uses I was like yeah well you're right so maybe the usefulness of the system um ends at a certain point but right now I'm kind of enjoying kind of sorting all these

'''Myke:''' products out do you score then write the article or do you write the article then score I write the

'''Brad:''' article and then score and now that I have a bulk of them I can look like I will think about a product so like I just did the vanishing point right and it only scored a 50 and I put in the reasons why it scored a 50 and then I look what I'll do is I'll look at the other 50 rated products and see if it fits in within and then I'll look at the other 60 rated products and go does it fit in with that group like am I choosing the group in the 60 ahead of this 50 product and if the answer is yes repeatedly well then I've scored it then it's a 50 right like I can take what I've already done and take all the 60s and decide is it a 60 is it a 70 or is it a 50 right and it really works for me that way when I put these products as simple as putting them side to side and going hey you know what I which pin am I gonna choose and not choose for today but which pin am I gonna choose like overall like for forever right what I choose you know the big crystal over the vanishing point that's not how it works right so the big crystal is kind of related more to like the different ballpoints in that in that range right but the pilot vanishing point is a 50 and the Lamy Safari is a 60 I'm gonna pick up the Lamy Safari a lot more than the vanishing point these days right just from ease of use just from a fun factor just from the options that I have with inks not that I don't have options with the with the vanishing point but that's just where I'm at right now with like pin like the vanishing point and why I would put the Safari in a category up from the vanishing point so it's it's definitely useful having other scores to play off of when you're writing up a new one so like you know that's that's kind of how I think about it does it fit you know by the time I'm done writing the article what have I decided the grade is going to be and then how does that grade fit in with the other things that have already graded around it either above or below it or the same and is it correct and again that's just where things fall

'''Myke:''' all right I think that wraps it up for this time I'm pleased we've spoken about all right I want to be able to touch on the power ratings in the future like I've been encouraging you to bring this to the podcast yes because look well because I feel like it's just completely confusing no no we can sit and discuss the idea behind it all day and people can either get it or not like what we've done now but at a certain point you understand what a score is so like it just contextualizes

== Conclusion ==

'''Brad:''' itself yeah it relies it relies on volume too like I had to get to a certain point a certain number of scores to kind of relate everything to each other yeah so it's starting to work better now I feel so yeah all good thanks for letting me talk

'''Myke:''' about it oh no I wanted you to I

'''Brad:''' know you made me you mean you know I don't like you you know in the beginning when I when I caveat it the whole thing is like I don't want to talk about the things that are behind the the membership and it's like do it

'''Myke:''' do it yeah but also you've made some of this stuff available so people can go and read it and then if they want to get it yeah yeah more of it they can go to penna.com and they can sign up and become a member and then they'll get these things what do you

'''Brad:''' do one a week one a week yeah as long as you know like you know minus vacations and just random stuff happening so I don't know how what week we're on in the year we're probably on like week what like 28 or so and I've done 25 so you know mostly one a week just like refill take a couple weeks off during the year so yeah it's a weekly weekly publication so I will be writing this week's this afternoon and hopefully publishing it tonight I usually they're not on as tight of a schedule as refill which is a very fixed schedule these usually come out Wednesday night sometimes Thursdays

'''Myke:''' all right if you want to see all the show notes for this episode get some of this stuff for yourself go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 523 or it should be in your podcast app that you use as well but just in case it isn't that's where you find them if you want to find Brad online go to penaddict.com he's penaddict on instagram twitch.tv slash penaddict streams three times a week dowdyism on twitter I'm imike i-m-y-k-e thanks again to canalea penco and pen chalet for the support of this episode and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye Brad

'''Brad:''' goodbye Brad

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 522/transcript

2026-06-11T10:09:03Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 522
| title = Your Pen Type
| date = July 20th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/522 Episode 522]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_522.mp3 Audio Episode 522]
| length = 61
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 522. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad:'''What's up, Myke Hurley? How are you?

'''Myke:''' I'm good. You sound in a very bouncy, good mood.

'''Brad:''' You know, this podcast puts me in that mood. I'd be lying if I'd say I'm this bouncing in good mood all day up until we hit record. You know, I'm not going to pretend like I bounce around the house like this all day. But yeah, it's always nice to be here. And it puts me in a good mood. I've said that a million times before and it continues on for the 522nd time.

== Mood Setting ==

'''Myke:''' I want to see if you can put me in a good mood today. Or if our listeners can put me in a good mood. Because I have a request. Something I need. And I want to see if you can help me with it. Okay. I have on my main working desk, I have like a small collection of like little pen things that I want to put somewhere. So this is a Cortex Mark 1. I have like a letter opener. I have a rotary mechanical pencil and an Apple pencil. And these are like always kind of on my desk doing this little kind of just like resting in this little wooden thing that I don't really like. It's like this little tray. What I want is a pen cup or something to put them in. Okay. Now, this is not like what I put my fountain pens into. Which is like these wooden blocks where everything's kept separate. No, I just want like these pens and these tools can all just bash into each other. Like it's not a concern for me. And I might put some other little bits and bobs in there too. You know, like maybe I'll see if I'll throw the tactile turn GT in there. Just have something like it's just on my desk where these things can go. And just like searching around, I couldn't really find anything that I found interesting or nice. I looked on Amazon and that didn't work. I was thinking of using like Kate's suggesting an old cup, but I don't have any at the studio. So like that could work and I could just bring a cup from home. But I thought maybe there would be something nicer.

'''Brad:''' I will say before we dig into like the stationary related stuff, I am very much pro like pick out your favorite coffee cup that you don't want to drink coffee out of. And, you know, that's fun and is either like cool looking or has a good message or, you know, is a neat material or a neat finish, something like that. Like I am very pro just, hey, let's grab a coffee mug to add to my desk accessory appearance. So I will say that. But I saw your question and I would love the listeners to help me pick out one item. And then I have a list of a bunch of other items that I'm familiar with and I use. But the one item that I would like to try, even for myself, is I would like a nice handmade wooden cup type of situation for my storage. Now there's some, there's, I actually linked to one, which we'll talk about in a second. But like you can find like a lot of stuff on Etsy, right? Like there's just woodworkers, you know, everywhere that you can find like cups and bowls and things, you know, like that. Something that might meet your style and aesthetic, you know. Some are just round and simple. Some are geometric. Some are laser etched. You can find like a million different types of wooden cups. But I would be curious if our listeners have anyone in the stationary community that they use for this type of thing. Like in the past, you know, what you're not looking for right now is like things that we would use Myke Dudek for, right? Dudek Modern Goods. But those are very separate. Like everything, although like the walnut had holes in it, right? So everything was separated. Not necessarily like bulk, just everything, you know, together storage. So I would love to, you know, find something like that for myself. Like I've looked for, have you ever seen those skate deck, you know, like wooden type things where it's all layered of the skate deck boards and it's got a lot of different colors and very cool things. And, you know, I've tried, I actually tried to find something like that from a pen cup perspective this morning and I couldn't. But, you know, I found plenty of wood types of cups and bowls. So if you're just looking for general stuff, you know, hop on Etsy, look in there. But I would like to get some feedback from any listeners if they have any like, you know, any of our stationary friends or, you know, people in the community that we could recommend for that. So separate from that, I have a couple of suggestions for you.

'''Brad:''' E&M makes some really nice desk accessories and I use them. I don't have one on my desk right now, but I use them in my closet when I have, where I have just more storage, like things organized and put away. They make some very simple like pen pots and cup holders. And then separately from that, storage blocks. But if you're just looking for like a basic wooden pen pot that's very accessible to anyone, anyone that carry any stationary retailer that carries E&M products, like I put the link in here to Cult Pens, Myke, because that's regional to you. And these cups are like, you know, just nice wooden cups. They're very inexpensive. They're like 10 US dollars. And they're well made. I've had good experience with E&M. So that's kind of like your basic. Hey, let me just get a round, you know, desk cup for something like that. One thing I have on my desk right now is the Rhodia pencil holder. And this is my kind of mass storage cup. Like if I pick it up right now, let me grab it. I got to reach around the microphone. So in this container, you can hear everything's touching. I have a letter opener. I have one, two, three, four wooden pencils. I have my Kakamori dip nib. I have a folded dip nib. I have a spoke pen with a drill log nib in it. I have the Loner Bic pen. I have the Bic crystal. I have Copic multiliner. So I have like literally kind of everything.

'''Myke:''' Did you say a spoke pen with a drill log?

'''Brad:''' I didn't sneak that. I didn't sneak that by you.

'''Myke:''' You did not sneak that by me.

'''Brad:''' So this cup kind of keeps the ink testing. Like if I want to test a bottle of ink and I need to grab one of the things to test it with, it has my three ink testing items. Kakamori dip nib, folded nib, and then a spoke, a custom insert for a spoke pen that a friend, an unnamed friend of the show made for me to insert into the spoke pen. And it has my drill log, my 0.5 drill log tip in there. You know, then I have a letter opener. Like literally like the type of things that you are talking about. I have a Sharpie marker in here, right? This is the cup that I don't need the things all the time, every day. But when I want the things, I need to know where they're at and you need to go grab it. So when I need a Sharpie, hey, I know it's right here in this cup or I need a ballpoint for a certain thing.

'''Brad:''' You know, I use that. So it's just all right here. So, and that's another little inexpensive item. They're colorful, you know, in rhodia colors. It's, I bought an orange, an orange or an orange one. And the links I saw this morning were basically the black and orange, you know, rhodia stuff. I don't like the rhodia ones. Yeah. Yeah. They've made some colorful ones, some more colorful ones, but I don't see them right now. They were making like purples and blues and things like that, but I didn't find them. You know, maybe if you searched a little bit more, but that's your traditional classic. Like this is what you'd think is like a classic pencil holder, right, for your desk. So those are the things I look at for bulk storage. Um, I do like, uh, our friend, friend of the show, Evan at Penquisition. He makes more block storage, but he does a lot of custom type stuff. It might almost be worth, um, you know, seeing, uh, if we could get something like in these layered blocks, some of them are 3d printed. Some of them are wooden. Um, could we make like a larger rounder type of pen holder situation? That is specifically what you want. Like what would be your ideal, what are you picturing in your head is would be the ideal thing.

'''Brad:''' Material shape size would. Okay.

'''Myke:''' So that's, that's not going to help with the 3d printing, but we're not 3d printed anyway. Um, no offense to 3d printing. No, no, no, no. I think just something circular. I'm looking on Etsy now, Brad. I don't know why I hadn't considered that. Yeah. Um, but obviously there's a million things, but then I come back to the same issue of like why I didn't buy one on Amazon as well, which is like, I don't really know the provenance of these products because my issue with some of summit stuff on Etsy is it's like, we bought this stuff from Alibaba and now we're going to charge you four times the price. Right.

'''Brad:''' That's why I was asking for the listeners to, Hey, give me someone you vouch for.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Cause it can be hard to like work out. Did anybody make this? You know what I mean? Right.

== Listener Recommendations ==

'''Brad:''' Exactly. So that's why, that's why I mentioned that. And then second, like mentioned, Hey, someone recommend us something, you know, uh, related to that. So wood, small round. I mean, the E and M looks right up your alley. Like it actually kind of looks right up my alley too. I was like, huh, I probably need one of those. It's, it's really nice.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I think, I think this, I think I might get one of these cause it's only nine pounds.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And I think if you look on their page, I think they actually do some different sizes, uh, height sizes, uh, not necessarily like diameter sizes. So I think there's like some talls and some shorts if I'm not mistaken, but I don't have that page pulled up. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' I'm going to think I'm going to poke through. They've got like a page on Colt pens.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Um, have you considered Lego?

'''Myke:''' I mean, I, you, I built a Lego pen cup years ago. Do you remember that?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I do. And once I thought of that, I was like, I think Myke's done this before. Um, did you see the one I put in the show notes? Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of amazing.

'''Myke:''' Is it though? I'm not sure if it is. It's maybe amazing for the person that wants it. This is, it couldn't be further from what I'm looking for.

'''Brad:''' So it's from the, the dot series. Is this a cat or a dog going to space? It's, it's, it's definitely a kid's thing. Yeah. It's a cat. It's a dog cat going to space and it's pretty rad and it's going to hold like three pens. Like it's not very functional for what you need.

'''Myke:''' To get to the pens, you have to reach all the way back around the spaceship that you built on the front.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's a reach around situation. So yeah, we're not going to do that. But how cool. It's cool. It's great. Um, I was actually surprised.

'''Myke:''' It is great for the person that wants it. That's not what I'm looking for. It's not for you. It's not for you.

'''Brad:''' I was actually looking for, since they've done more collaborations with like, um, Moleskine and doing some other more like serious stationary type stuff. I was looking to see if they had like a bigger storage situation, but I guess they just figure everyone could just build their own at this point. That would talk about something simple to make would be a Lego block and brick, uh, pen cup. So I think the E and M stuff is the way to go. Like I said, I use their blocks, the, the larger blocks, not the cup styles, but they have some, they have these neat, larger brought blocks with like random, um, sized holes throughout them. So there's like some big wide holes and there's some small narrow holes. It's just kind of this real kind of funky, uh, looking holder and they're good quality. They're well, well made and reasonably priced. So like, I, I think that's where you go unless we get some, Hey, what's the Toyota craft of pin wooden pin cups. Right. I believe me, I went to look at their site to see if I could find anything. Uh, do they make anything cup style that's, you know, for storage and they don't, but, uh, you know, who knows something like that would be like right up the, the alley of what I'm looking for and maybe some listeners out there, uh, know.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I'm going to get this E and M one. And if, but if you listeners have a better option for me, just let me know.

'''Brad:''' It's a good, it's a good start, especially for the price and the quality. Like I can recommend the quality and, uh, the prices.

'''Myke:''' I mean, it's easy, you know, that's why, because it's, it's nine pounds. It's 11 pounds 65, including tax and shipping that like, I would, be able to find a use for this no matter what.

== Lego Pen Cup Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' Right. Right. And, uh, and there's a couple of different colors, right? It's got, you know, some, some different colors depending on, you know, what you're feeling for your desk.

'''Myke:''' Okay. Sent in the discord, a banana Lego pen.

'''Brad:''' I saw that one and I opted for the spaceship when thinking I could tempt you with that. I prefer the banana. The pineapple. Oh, I, so I found the, uh, uh, okay. All right.

'''Myke:''' But still not what I'm looking for. It's pretty great. It seems like a lot of work.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's pretty great. Maybe we build that for me next year.

'''Myke:''' Might not be a bad idea.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. We'll keep that in mind.

'''Myke:''' No, the problem with these is that I don't even know if they have instructions. You went to like customize it. It's this dots range that they have, right? Oof. Where like you, you kind of make your own thing, I think is part of it, which is why there's so many extra pieces. This is this, that they're using this as like a platform for art kind of creation stuff. Gotcha. Gotcha. So like you're supposed to do your own thing, which I've never liked that with Lego. Like I was never one of the kids that like took, you know, you'd see on the Lego box, you would see like, oh, you could also build this with this kit, right? And they would show like another thing that you could do if you were smart enough. I would never attempt to try and do those things. I just want to build the set, the image on the front of the box. I don't want to take this car and try and turn it into a robot instead. I was never interested in that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I'm with you on that. Same thing. I was never a creative Lego builder. I'm with the model instructions.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I mean, like, you know, like old kids, like I would build my own things completely, right? Like my own complete things. But I never wanted to try and build something else from the model. Like if I bought a model kit, I just wanted to build the model kit and that's it.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep.

'''Brad:''' You asked me, do I keep a set of tools always at hand? And that's kind of what I went through in that, that Rodia cup.

'''Brad:''' So I have that also have, you know, pin cubes and storage, right? I use some Dudek modern goods and some Karas customs. Like they did that machine cube. It's just like this huge block of aluminum. I have one of those on my desk and I have a Dudek, you know, where I keep some other pins, just, you know, in individual slots in those holders as opposed to the bulk holder. But there's no real, I don't have any real rules between these accessories on my desk. Sometimes I pull something out of the block and it ends up back in the pen cup.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Like for me, I kind of think of those, like what I'm doing here with this pen cup is like just a bunch of daily use stuff. Like that I kind of imagine is kind of a little bit more ruggedy or whatever, you know? Like it's just like, it just is what it is kind of stuff. Right. But then I use those like blocks with the individual holes for like all my really nice expensive pens.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I did want to point out one desk accessory that I really love. And I don't think we, we may have talked about it on this, on the show before, but I talk about it on stream all the time because you can see it when I, when I stream and I keep it behind me on a shelf. It's the Yoseka Hachi collections, walnut pen tray. I do like trays for a desk situation where a lot of times I'll have, you know, multiple fountain pens inked up. And if they're not in a pen case and I'm on my desk a lot, I like it's as opposed to just like setting them on my desk. I don't rewind a little bit. The pen cups and pen holders, I don't keep any fountain pens in those. Right. So my fountain pens are kept in pen cases or like in this tray. This would be like the inked pens tray. So like I have cleaned pens that aren't inked, you know, that's in the storage in the, in the pen box. And then if pens are inked or maybe I've written them dry and I haven't cleaned it yet, they live on this tray. That way I can just, you know, as opposed to using a pen case at my desk, I can just reach on the tray, grab the pen that I know is inked. So it's kind of like the active pens. Something needs to happen with these pens. Either I write with them or clean them. So that's, that's been, it's a, you know, it's a expensive, essentially just flat wooden block, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I'm, I'm very pleased that I bought this. I didn't think this would be something that I would be interested in, but it's kind of cool and I use it pretty much every day.

'''Myke:''' It honestly looks like something you would have if you had a store.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. They, I wonder if they, I haven't read all the directions, but I wonder if they had a bunch of these built for their store and then, yeah, it looks like that's what they did. So this was part of their displays at the shop, at the Yoseka shop. And then now they're selling them individually as well.

'''Myke:''' That makes sense considering the way that they look.

'''Brad:''' I mean, they're, it's just like a beautiful piece, you know, for, for a desk. And like I said, I just, I keep it like kind of right behind me, but within arm's reach and my inked pens go there. If they're not in a pen case, my fountain pens. Cause like I said, I don't keep any of the fountain pens in the, in the other storage on my desk. They're all generally laying flatter in a pen case.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. With Squarespace, you'll be able to stand out with a beautiful website. You can engage with your audience and sell anything. Your products, services, or even the content you create because Squarespace have got you covered. With Squarespace, you'll be able to start a blog of your own. They have these really fantastic tools. So you'll be able to share your posts, your reviews, maybe if that's what you want to do, photos, videos, updates, and so much more. They even have fantastic tools. So you'll be able to add categories, share, like, so you can like put them into all your stories or different posts into different categories of people are easy to, you know, make it really easy to find related stuff. You can share stuff really easily and even schedule your posts to make your content work for you and to be posted at the exact right time. And how do you find out stuff like what is the right time? What is the right stuff to be writing? Well, they have these really fantastic insights. So if you've ever wondered where your site visitors and sales are coming from, which channels are most effective for you when people are reading your stuff, you can analyze all of that in Squarespace. And then once you have the data, you can improve your website and build a marketing strategy based on your top keywords or your most popular products and content. And about those products, you can sell stuff very easily with Squarespace. They have their own online store functionality for physical or digital goods. They have all of the tools that you need to start selling online. Everything's integrated really well. And it's so easy to keep on top of everything, let alone how easy and simple it is to build a beautiful website with Squarespace. Their templates are fantastic and really customizable. But don't just take my word for it. Go and check it out for yourself today. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. And you can sign up for a free trial. You don't need to give them a credit card or anything. And then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to check out and you'll be able to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you will get 10% of your first purchase to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of the Pen Addict podcast and RelayFM.

== Buying Decisions in Stationery ==

'''Brad:''' I have a big topic I would like to discuss today, Myke. Something I'm trying to figure out for myself. Something that's come up many times over the years, but I've never really spent too, too much time digging into it. I'm wondering, Myke, what's your pen type?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, that's kind of how this idea started in my head with an um, to be honest. I had a friend I was talking to earlier this week who is extremely into fountain pen, like very in-the-know fountain pen user. And just as part of our conversation, they asked me what my favorite pen was. And I just, I froze, right? I like, hmm, like I, I, I can't tell you. Like I don't, there is not an answer to that. And so in the, you know, way of trying to figure out, do I actually have an answer for that? I started thinking about what I like in a pen. Like what are my pen preferences for me specifically? Um, you know, I'm thinking about this in a lot as far as, I think about it in two ways. One, about what I currently own, right? Do I own the right pens? You know, I'm going to be selling some pens, right? So how do I decide what pens to sell? Um, and then buying new pens. Like why would I decide to purchase a new pen? You know, what is the decision-making process that goes into that? So later on, I'm not looking to sell that pen, right? I'm not someone, you know, I'm someone who tries to manage their, their budget as far as buying pens to where I want to spend my money wisely. And I don't, I'm not a catch and release person where, you know, I buy it a try. And if I, knowing that I don't like it, I can sell it immediately. That's not my, really my move, but sometimes we make mistakes too. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, where, where my biases lie in an effort to make the right purchasing decisions, right? And make a decision to sell a product that I already own easier. So I kind of came up with this checklist of what I like, what makes me like a pen, you know, what makes me consider looking into it more or making a purchase or what don't I like that makes me think about selling a pen. So I kind of did these in order of importance. I could argue that maybe there's some, a little bit of flexibility in that, but the first item on the checklist is the size of the pen.

'''Myke:''' Okay.

'''Brad:''' And everyone's going to have their own list, right? This is kind of why I'm doing this. Everyone's going to have their own list. Some people are going to start with different things further down my list, you know, might be the number one important thing, but the size of the pen always grabs me first. And in general, I like smaller pens, right? I do have plenty of large size pens or pens that people will call oversized or bigger pens. And there's reasons why we have that. But in general, I start with a smaller base pen, right? And the size includes a lot of things. It's not just the overall shape. You know, what does it look like on the table or in my hand? It's, you know, it's the length combined with the diameter combined with the weight, right? Like all of those things are the size of the pen to me. So I like something either short to medium length, narrow in diameter, and light to medium weight on the barrel. So not big and not heavy. And I was trying to think, can I pull an example that would kind of check all of these boxes? Kind of like the sweet spot pen. And I had to think about that. Like the first pen that came to mind was honestly the Platinum 3776. But I would say that's lighter than like the kind of the middle range of what I'm looking for. So the Sailor 1911 Large is kind of the sweet spot where it's not too small, not too big. It's kind of the just right spot as far as size, length, shape, weight, diameter, all of those things. I pick it up and it just fits my hand, right? So something like the Platinum 3776 is smaller, but then we can go bigger into like the Pilot Custom 823. Like that's a little bit bigger than the 1911, bigger and heavier. So I'm trying to sort out my tendencies and the way I think about the pens. What are the pens that I pick up the most to use? And that size and shape tends to be kind of like the main, one of the main driving forces behind my decisions. Next up would be the appearance and the materials of the pen, right? Like the aesthetics outside of size, right? Size does matter, right? To the appearance of a pen, right? Well, I did not mean that. This is the traditional talking about pens has a lot of innuendo into it. I think there's probably a lot in this section. So it matters in how the pen looks, right? With you have a bright, crazy acrylic, it's going to look different in a small pen to a big pen or an Arushi finish. It's going to look different in a small pen or a big pen, but it does matter. But it's really like the combination of that first topic, size, and then secondly into appearance and material, right? The combination of those two things is going to make me go, oh, let me look at that more, right? Or if I'm at a pen show, oh, let me pick up that pen and inspect it, right? So materials, though, like specific materials outside of just like appearance of materials, I don't really have a favorite, right? I'm good with plastic pens, right? Lamy Safari, all day long. You know, I don't necessarily care about is it solid color, opaque, translucent? You know, I do have a tendency to choose translucent pens, like, but I'm not like just completely dead set, you know? Oh, I'll never buy like a solid construction pen. I only use translucent pens or vice versa. Yeah. You know, I love custom acrylics. We both love custom acrylics, right? Give me the swirls. Give me the brightness. Give me the rainbows, whatever. Celluloids, ebonite, Arushi finishes, Makie finishes, metal pens, wood pens. I'm not super particular, right? They would have to just check my personal boxes of taste, you know, as far as size and appearance and materials and how all of that works together, right? That's kind of like the personal aspect of this list where it actually, it matters to me, right? Like if you look at the pens that I own, it's not a lot of standard basic things. I like to play around with materials and colors and sizes and shapes and things like that. But they all kind of generally check, you know, a few boxes as opposed to being like super broad in those decisions. So I wonder for myself, and part of this topic is me trying to figure things out for myself. Does how it look come before how does it work?

'''Brad:''' And I giggle because that's how I think I get in trouble, right? I was like, oh, this is beautiful. Look at this material, Myke. And then I've discounted maybe it's overly large for me, right? Maybe it's too big of a pen.

'''Myke:''' But you won't, you have to, I feel like with these kinds of stuff, you need to start with the look because you can't use every pen. Right. Right? Mm-hmm. So like there's no way to know how it feels to use it until you've used it.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so what I'm trying to narrow down with this topic and maybe help other people is maybe I have a baseline of, hey, I think, you know, as we get to the end of this, it turns out I really don't like oversized pens, right? Like, and I've bought large pens by how they look or an external feature of the pen as opposed to, hey, does this work for me when I write with it?

'''Brad:''' And I overlook that second part too much sometimes and maybe don't make the best buying decision. So this is like what I'm thinking about. Like, you know, if this is not a black and white situation, we're not going to get to the end and there's a definitive answer here that Brad only likes this type of pen X. And if it doesn't fit in this category, Brad cannot own the pen. That's not what we're doing. You know, it's, there's, there's gray areas and, you know, exceptions. But in general, what stands the test of time for me? And that's what I'm trying to figure out here. Those two things, size and appearance slash material come before the nib.

'''Brad:''' It was funny. I, I, I'm going to read, I'm going to read this. It says, what am I looking to get out of this pen? A fine line, inky expression, something to modify later. For me, the nib size and the pen size have to complement each other. In general, I don't use an extra fine nib on a wide diameter or a heavy pen. The opposite is true. I also don't use wide nibs on small pens. Those things work against my handwriting. So I wrote this little section when I was talking about nib because it kind of matters and it kind of doesn't, right? So because I always know that I can do something later with the nib or I can swap it out or, you know, I can change the size. Or if I just buy what I'm used to, it's going to be fine. Things like that. But the funny thing was, Myke, it wasn't until I was reading the show notes later that I didn't even mention the nib material.

'''Brad:''' I didn't mention steel or gold. It didn't even register with me when I was writing this. And I think that says a lot about how I think about products. It did not even register. Is this pen, does this pen use a steel nib or a gold nib?

'''Myke:''' Well, that doesn't matter to you really, does it?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and that's kind of my point. It's like, okay, that actually does not matter to me. It never has, right? Like, I like my steel nibs. I like my gold nibs. But is that going to drive a buying decision or a selling decision?

'''Brad:''' When I think about, you know, what's my pen type? The nib almost never comes into play. But a lot of people, it does. I need a gold nib pen. That's where we start. And, like, that's fine too, right? Like, I'm trying to sort this out for myself. But I thought it was funny that I actually had to circle back on these notes when I wrote this little nib section that, huh, I didn't even mention gold or titanium, whatever you want to do for nib. It almost doesn't matter to me, which is funny. The other thing, it's harder to say. It doesn't matter because it does. But price. So that's the next on the list. So we have the size, the appearance of material, the nib, and then price is next.

'''Brad:''' Price is a very, very personal thing, right? Like, some of us have the budget for, you know, that can afford, like, a Nakaya. Some of us have a budget to afford a Platinum Preppy. And, like, it's all good. So, like, none of that matters, right? So I think a lot of people who listen to me or see the things I use know that I love the lower tier pens, like the entry-level pens. I get so much enjoyment. Like, I haven't stopped using Platinum Preppy for about two weeks straight now, right? It's just, like, my thing, right? I really enjoy it. But then I'll sit that down right next to a, you know, I'm trying out, like, a $250 pen sitting right next to this. I'm looking at my desk right now. And on the other side of it is, like, a $400 or $500 limited edition vanishing point. Like, all those things work together. So I'm not going to say price doesn't matter because it does in the budget. But it's going to be more about the fit and feel of the pen before I get to the price. You know, the more expensive it is, the more I have to think about it, right? Like, hey, is this in the budget? I'm going to blow the budget. Is this too expensive? I do feel, and I don't know how you feel about this and other people feel about this. I have a lot of very expensive pens. And I, right now, like, I don't even consider buying another, like, say, like, over $500 pen. They just don't appeal to me more than, say, the over $500 pens that I currently own, right? Like, I feel like I've done a really good job sorting out the higher end of the budget and have spent that money well because that's a much more stricter budget decision. So maybe there's more clarity when I make those purchases. I don't know. That's certainly probably the case. But you can get in just amount as much trouble as buying 10 $50 pens and only using two of them, right? So that's not money well spent either, even if it's a less expensive pen. So you want to spend money on products that you use, whether it's a $5 pen or a $500 pen. So it does matter in the broader scope. Like, I could not put price in here, but it's just so dependent on the product, on the budget, and just so many different things. But I appreciate, you know, every level of pen. You know, like I said, the $5 pen, I can appreciate that as much as a $500 pen, which is a weird thing to say. But if anyone knows me, you know it's the truth. And I'm saying that, you know, like because that's something I believe in. I just get so much joy out of all types of stationery.

'''Brad:''' So when I'm thinking about making a buying decision, kind of in the same category as nib is filling system. We've talked a lot over the years about, you know, what's people's favorite filling system. Should I buy a fountain pen that's not a piston filler? You know, that comes up a lot. You know, what about eyedroppers? Are you okay with only cartridges and converters? And a lot of people, this is one of those, maybe again with nib, would be more towards the top of someone's list, right? Some people will only buy a piston filling fountain pen or maybe a VAC would fall in that category. And like, that's cool. I like that you have rules on how you spend your money, right? This is kind of what I'm thinking about in a broader scope to spend my money well. Filling system doesn't matter to me. Like I'm completely filling system agnostic. It just does not matter. You know, I will use a cartridge pen right next to an eyedropper pen right next to a piston filling pen. It just almost never pushes the needle one way or the other for me in deciding what to buy a pen. This last one might be the most important for me, but it can't go at the top of the list because it's kind of a combination of all the things. And it's probably the hardest to define. And that's why this is a personal list and it's uniqueness. So I have a category called uniqueness here.

'''Brad:''' I don't want too many of the same thing. And I say this from experience. As someone who has bought too many of the same thing, I don't benefit from that, right? Because I don't look at the things I buy as a collection, right? I don't need all the things. In the past, I used to buy all the things. Give me every Lamy special edition color. Give me every TWSBI limited edition color. Give me every Sailor limited edition. Well, the next thing you know, I have 10 Sailor limited editions. And again, I use two of them or three of them. So what have I done besides added to a collection of pens? And that's not something I personally want to do. So I don't mean uniqueness as in, hey, this pen has to be like the most stunning, unique pen on the market for me to consider. It means that I don't already have several of this pen. And now I'm just not going to reap the benefits of money well spent from a usage perspective, right?

'''Brad:''' So, and I will probably buy too many of a certain brand or a certain pen again. You know, it's experimentation. It's learning about what I like. Like, you know, I try to, you know, keep a broad outlook on things and then I'll refine it. And then maybe I'll have to broaden it again. But I'm trying, you're always, I'm always trying to like still continually work towards narrowing it down to making the right decision in the beginning. Right? So I'm kind of loose with the rules in the beginning and then tighten them up as it goes. And then next time they'll be a little bit less loose. Right? So like the Leonardo Memento Zero is like a really good example of this. Like that's one of my favorite pens, period. I don't need another one. Right? And I have like three and I think I've sold two or three of them. Right? I don't need six Leonardo Memento Zeros. Right? That's not how I operate. But some people do. Like some people enjoy having 12 of those. And that's cool. You know, there's a lot of reasons to have that. But this is, again, trying to sort out like what is my pen type and how can I make the best decision possible? So that's something, uniqueness, when I like open up my pen tray and look, you know, do I have some variety in there? And that's important to me, you know, in style, in color, in materials, in brand, in shape, in all those things. I like that. So that's kind of my overall group that I'm thinking about as I have a pen type. Right? The size, the appearance of material, the nib, the price, the filling system, and the uniqueness. So can I take all these categories and kind of refine that into either a purchasing decision or a selling decision? I found the biggest mistake I make repeatedly, and I mentioned it a minute ago, it's pen size. Right? That's my bugaboo. That's kind of the thing I can't get past. Right? If I love everything about a pen, right, the materials, the shape, the nib, the filling system, the uniqueness, like something new, something I haven't seen before. But from a usability perspective, it's outside my normal comfort zone, right? Like the diameter is wider or it's a little bit heavier. I talk myself into saying that I'm going to make myself use this pen, right? Just look at it, Myke. Look how cool this is. I'm totally going to use this. And I don't. Like secret, I don't. Those are the ones I end up buying, and I don't ever regret buying pens, but I do think that that really wasn't my best decision from a usability perspective, and here's why. And it always comes down to size. So I'm trying to learn to manage that on the front end, right, as I get ready to go to the San Francisco pen show in a month. And as I get ready to sell some pens to narrow down how many pens I own, like these are the kind of things I think of. And then you know what? It's going to be a lot of big pens that are going to go this round because I just don't choose them to ink up when I'm looking to experiment with the nib or test out a new ink. When I go look at the pens that I have, which pens am I going to choose to use today? And it's almost never the biggest pens that I own. So I have to try to stick to my rules a little bit better in that aspect. So, yeah, I don't know if this is helpful for anyone. I don't know if I can completely define my pen type, right? Like I wrote down in here, so what's your pen type? Can you define it in one sentence? Can you say, hi, my name is Brad and I like small pens and fun colors with fine nibs? I think that's a pretty good rule set, right? Small pens, fun colors, fine nibs. Like that's my pen type. And like that bias shows in the things that I buy and the things that I choose to review and the things that I love long term, right? Like I'm looking at this from a long term perspective. What are my most favorite pens? Well, they're smaller, they're fun, and they write fine. So it's kind of cool. Like I'm trying to, again, think about this from like a purchasing, it's like a purchasing decision tree, right? I don't have like a chart that I'm going to go down and a checklist. Like when I go to San Francisco Pen Show, I'm not going to bring out the checklist, Myke, and go, okay, what boxes does this check? Because, you know, it's, we're shopping for like creativity, right? A lot of, there's a lot of creative stuff out there. So you don't want to be too rigid in your rules. At least I don't want to be too rigid in my rules. But it's like maybe just like a mental checklist. Like maybe, maybe skip the giant size pen, Brad, because you know long term that's not going to be something that you keep. So why not do a better job in the beginning and maybe figure out which ones to sell. So that's kind of what I was thinking about, thinking about your pen types. Myke, do you have a pen type?

'''Myke:''' I mean, looking at the list that you've got, like, as I think what you're saying about, it isn't really a type so much. It's this checklist of broad buckets, right? I think that we're pretty similar. I would maybe move a couple around. So size of the pen, definitely. Appearance and material, definitely. Uniqueness, I think, could maybe sit higher for me.

'''Myke:''' Then I would go to nib. Because, like, this is kind of what I was alluding to earlier, right? Before I pick up the pen to try and see what it looks like, it's got to grab me. And so then I would see what the nib experience was like. And if that wasn't good, then I wouldn't be interested.

'''Myke:''' After that, I go to price. Because price, I feel like, is then just an equalizer, right? Like, I've tried it out. And so I have in my mind, how much do I want this? And then I can stack it up in, like, a value question when looking at the price.

'''Myke:''' Then I would be filling system last because I kind of don't really care. Like, I can use – I can and have used basically all of the popular ones. Like, I'm set up well enough to do that. Right. So it doesn't bother me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So it's interesting. And, you know, the end result of this little – Little path I went down here. Yeah, exploration is – I don't have an answer. I can't – Like, the question is, can you build the perfect pen? And, like, it's an impossible question to answer, right? So, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the sweet spot for the things that I like? And then what are the branches off of that, like, really kind of perfect situation that I'm willing to, like, you know, play on and decide if those are the things for me? Without getting, like, too far away to where, like, I'm making poor decisions.

'''Brad:''' So, like, I think that – I think it's important to think about that just from, like, a budget and, you know, a money well spent type of thing because we talk about this all the time. This is, you know, a very capitalist hobby that we're in, very consumerist hobby. You know, it's – a lot of people spend money, you know, to buy stationery and you just want to make sure you're spending it well. So, I think it's a fun little exploration. I'd be interested if anyone has, like – if anyone has, like, any, like, real shopping rules that they keep for themselves, right? I know we all have our favorites and our types, but have you ever really defined it in a – I hate to use the word rigid fashion, but just in a more, like, checklist fashion. Like, hey, let me make sure that I'm actually making the best decision I can here when I'm choosing to spend my money. Again, whether it's $5 or $500, am I spending it with good intention and spending it well? So, I think that's something to always think about, always consider.

'''Myke:''' I have one last question for you on this. This list that you've outlined seems to be very much focused on how you choose to buy a pen. But you also mentioned that you wanted to think about this as a way to choose which pens to sell. Yes. Do you start from the top for that or the bottom?

'''Brad:''' Hmm.

'''Myke:''' See what I mean?

'''Brad:''' The top. You still start from the top? Yeah. Because I'll almost – so, let's say I look at a tray of pens, and there's 20 pens, and I look at it, and my first thoughts looking at it is, what pen has been the longest since it's been inked up, and why? So, why haven't I chosen this pen to use recently? So, a lot of times, it's just what I'm comfortable using is a smaller, lighter pen. Again, those things also tend to benefit my writing style, right? So, all of these things work together. Like, again, I just keep pointing it out. This is a very personal thing, right? These things that I like tend to make my writing look the best and are the most comfortable pens to use and enjoy, right? So, that's kind of the end game here is I want to enjoy writing with this pen. Well, what are the things that make me enjoy writing with this pen? A lot of times, it comes down to size, and I will just choose the smaller pen next to the larger pen a lot of times. There's exceptions for sure. But, the general idea is that, yeah, I tend to choose the smaller, finer pens. So, yeah, that's what I'm thinking about as I'm getting ready to, like, sell some pens. I'll be selling some pens. People will be surprised at some of the pens that I'll be selling. But, yeah, it's okay. Like, that's the way it should be, right? I should own the things that I intend to use the most.

'''Myke:''' This episode is brought to you by Uni Pizza Ovens. Uni is the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas. And this lets you make restaurant-quality pizza in your own backyard. Uni Pizza Ovens are incredibly easy to use and really portable as well. They're going to fit into any outside space. Now, when we talk about restaurant quality, to achieve this, what you need is a very high temperature. Uni Pizza Ovens can reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, 500 degrees Celsius, which will let you cook that pizza in an excellent fashion, but also super fast as well, in as little as 60 seconds. Uni have a few models that are really popular. One is the Koda 16. This is a gas-powered oven that can cook up to 16-inch pizzas and has an innovative L-shaped burner at the back to give you even heat distribution. And there's also the multi-fueled Uni Karu. You can choose wood, charcoal, or gas for that one, which is really cool. But they have a whole range, and you're going to find one that's just right for you and your needs. Their ovens start at $299, and they're free shipping to the US, UK, and EU. They also make an awesome app to help you perfect your dough recipe and give you loads of pizza-making tips. Brad, do you need pizza-making tips?

'''Brad:''' I'm sitting here as you're talking. I'm going, man, what if I could build, like you were talking about building a perfect pen. What if you could build your perfect pizza? What's like your perfect toppings on your pizza, Myke? And I'm thinking about using my Uni and how crispy those toppings get. Like, I like a good pepperoni on my pizza, not going to lie. Easy. I mean, that's going to be the number one most popular topping, but the way the Uni cooks the pepperoni, where you get the crispy edges. I stay on the way to go, man. It curls up, too. It makes little cups. Yeah. Little curls up, and then you throw in some onions that get, you know, little brown edges. Throw in some mushrooms, and then you remove it, throw on, like, some fresh basil. Oh, my gosh. Like, this is problematic.

'''Myke:''' Brad, I want to encourage you, all right? Pineapple and pepperoni.

'''Brad:''' I'm not opposed. Like, I'm not going to- I am very much down the middle on that. Try it. Like, I am- So good. I have tried it before. Like, it's perfectly fine.

'''Myke:''' Or pineapple. No, sorry. Pepperoni with some honey that's got some spiciness to it, like some chili oil and some honey.

'''Brad:''' That's interesting. I could see that. I could see that. Okay. Super good. I would be behind that. So, yeah. I am not anti-pineapple pizza. I'm just not going to go bang the drum for it, either.

'''Myke:''' So, listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni pizza oven, which is up to $50 off an Ooni code of 16. Just go to Ooni.com. That's O-O-N-I.com. And use the code ADDICT22 at checkout. When you're there, you'll also find a great range of accessories as well. They have everything you're going to need. Ooni is the perfect tool for making excellent pizza at home. They tend to be in high demand all the time because they're that good. So, go and check it out today. Go to Ooni.com. O-O-N-I.com. And use the code ADDICT22 for 10% off. Ooni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own backyard. Thanks to Ooni pizza ovens for their support of this show and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' Staying on the pizza thing, real quick, before we get into STPA, I did enjoy the pineapple pizza scene in this season of Stranger Things. If anyone has watched that, there's a good pineapple pizza scene in there for all of you pineapple pizza lovers.

'''Myke:''' Never seen Stranger Things. It's good. It's good.

'''Brad:''' It's good.

'''Myke:''' It's got some creepiness to it, right? It's got some scariness to it.

'''Brad:''' This was far and away. I don't do scary. I dislike horror. However, I had a hard time watching this season. The previous seasons, I could get through. This was another. I have lots of comments on this season. Not my favorite season. So we'll leave it at that. But still, that's like my least favorite pizza, right? It's still pizza.

== Hashtag Ask TPA Questions ==

'''Myke:''' All right. Let's finish out today's episode with some hashtag ask TPA questions. First comes from Jamie. It says, I applaud Lamy for their widely available left-handed nibs. But then I look down at my Southpaw writing style and see the upside down logo mocking me as I write. I'm looking at you too, Blackwing. Do you know of any pen company that has gone all in with a true left-handed pen? I love this question.

'''Brad:''' Such a good question. I was sitting here going, yeah, that's a great question.

'''Myke:''' To put a bit of context in this, just because like, you know, me and Jamie write similarly, where we are not on the left-handed, but we are, I think, what is known as like an overhooker. So like we kind of, our nibs are the other way around. Yeah, you bend it around. Right-handed. Right. So when I'm writing, I'm looking at the nib and the Lamy is upside down, right? To my eyes. So like, I think that this is a cool idea. And I don't, honestly, like if you're going to make a left-handed nib anyway, just do that. Why not? It's like upside down land.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, you're already doing the extra work for the nib, right? To put the oblique or whatever. Oh, and also, you know. Whatever grind you're going to put on there.

'''Myke:''' I know this much. We can reference what we were just talking about. It's the upside down, right? Yes, yes.

'''Brad:''' Also the upside down. You did know about that. That's good. That's good.

'''Myke:''' I don't know what that means exactly, but I think it's some kind of alternate reality. It is a stranger thing.

'''Brad:''' It is. It is. It's a good way to put it. Yeah, like no one, no, I don't know anyone that's going all in, but I think the, what you're discussing is exactly right. If you're going to go partway for a single skew in your product line, go all the way and make the aesthetics left-handed friendly as well, right? So we talk about, you know, I've talked in the past when I broke my wrist, I had one pencil that was left-handed, right? Where the stamping on the barrel was correctly oriented for a left-handed writer. And this is out of like a hundred, say a hundred pencils. I found one that was oriented for left-handed usage to look cool, right? To look appropriate. And like, I do think it should be more of a thing, especially like in the stationary world, there's left-handedness is so common because people are actually searching for the good things to work the best with them for their left-handed writing and to not have a company like lean into that a little bit more. Like that would be cool to see.

'''Myke:''' This comes from Franz. One of the grapevine is the pilot's going to release the Hiroshizuku inks in the smaller pilot 30 milliliter bottles. What do you think will happen to the other, to the even smaller 15 milliliter bottles that they sell? I imagine that that price point would be far too close between the two sizes.

'''Brad:''' So I haven't seen this and I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but this is completely a shrinkflation move, right? Right. To charge more for less, you know, relatively, it'll be a lower total price, but you're getting less. So it's actually more per milliliter type of situation. It's interesting for pilot because they are one of the few companies I recall ever lowering a product line price. From when I started buying Hiroshizuku inks to now the 50 milliliter bottles, they lowered the price and it was great. It's one of the best inks and makes it one of the best values. And they haven't raised the price as, you know, all of this has been going on in the world, right? Where everything is increasing a price. The Hiroshizuku inks have stayed the same. So now I'm wondering if this is, you know, kind of their solution to the raising prices issue to change. So my hope is that they're still going to be one of the best value products out there. I really, I don't see how the 15 milliliter glass bottles is a great product line for them. Those have to be, they're already like not priced well. They have to be just really expensive to manufacture and make in the profit margin. They're really small. Not great. Yeah. Like they're comfortable. It's a, it's one of, it's a great concept, right? Like let's make all these inks for you to try. And I love having less ink. Like I love not having to buy, you know, 50 or 60 milliliters sometimes, but I'm not sure that the 15 milliliter bottle needs to continue as I'm literally staring at one of my desk right now because they're so cool. Like I am totally pro these 15 milliliter bottles, but I could see how those are just not cost effective whatsoever. So will they combine everything into a 30 milliliter bottle? Who knows? We haven't seen the cartridges yet. They're apparently delayed release. We were hoping that we're going to get Orochizuku ink cartridges by now. It might be next year at this point. So I imagine it's just a cost type of situation. If they're going to rearrange the Orochizuku ink lineup, we'll see. But I imagine it's going to be just like a shrinkflation move. But I'd be okay if the 15 milliliter bottles went away.

'''Myke:''' And from Willem today who asks, whatever happened to the stark fountain pen stolen from the Montegrappa warehouse in the great Game of Thrones heist of 2017? Please update us and then maybe Netflix can make a documentary like the one about the Isabella Gardiner Museum unsolved robbery.

'''Brad:''' How great was that story? I'd forgotten about that. That's my favorite. It's one of my favorites. It was a great all-time pen story. Again, another show Myke has not watched, which is totally... Look, Myke actually ended up playing the long game in that one and won. Game of Thrones? Yeah. But there were several houses that Montegrappa made pens for. Lannister, Stark. I'm completely blanking now because I haven't watched it in years. But say like five houses for the families in Game of Thrones. And when they went to launch the products, do like the worldwide launch, the pens got shipped to the warehouse to be distributed out around to all the Montegrappa distributors and dealers. And the Stark models, it was probably one of the two best looking pens. The group of Stark pens got essentially hijacked. They got stolen from a truck. And so all the Starks were gone and they only had like four, the four of the five houses. They ended up having to remake them, I believe. But whatever happened to the stolen ones, I don't know. I'll have to follow up on that and see if I can find anything out. But that was a good times in the pen world because we're all just like, what? And it's like, how is someone going to move these pens? Because they're very specific, right? It's not like, you know, you've lifted toilet paper and it's just generic, right? This is a very specific item that was now lifted. Or even like an iPhone. Like, I mean, I know those are tracked like serially and stuff like that, but that's a way more generic market. What is the secondary market for a Stark fountain pen?

'''Brad:''' So it's pretty funny. So I'll have to do some follow up, see if there was any.

'''Myke:''' I would love to know if you could get more to that story.

'''Brad:''' I'm going to write myself a note and I will email when I'm done here.

'''Myke:''' That would be hilarious. If you'd like to send in a question of your own, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord, which is probably the best place to listen to the show live. We broadcast the show live every week at, what is this? We start at 10?

'''Brad:''' 10 US Eastern.

'''Myke:''' It's 10 Eastern we start at. 10 Eastern. We record live every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern. You can go to Relay.fm slash live and you can listen there, but you can also listen in our Discord and we have a live chat in the Discord as well. If you want to hang out with us while we record, you can. If you want to find some more information, some of the links for this week's episode, you can go to Relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 522.

'''Myke:''' You can find Brad online. He's over at PenAddict.com, Spokedesign.com. You can go to Twitter where he's at Dowdyism. He's PenAddict on Instagram.

'''Myke:''' What was the... Wait. Jenny's something. Jenny's.

'''Brad:''' Photo Jenny. Photo Jenny. That's it.

'''Myke:''' Photo Jenny on eBay.

'''Brad:''' Hey, the auction's done. Auction's done. I'll be shipping out thousands of dollars worth of Black Wings today.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, buddy. Cha-ching.

'''Brad:''' That's crazy. That's awesome. That's crazy. So yeah, I'm working on that today. So I don't know if any listeners were involved in that, but yeah, we were shipping Black Wings today. Surely some.

'''Myke:''' I doubt it. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E, and I make some products you can find at CortexMerch.com. A5-ish.

'''Brad:''' A5-ish. It's too late for me to yell at you. Too late in the game for me to yell.

'''Myke:''' A5-ish. A5-ish. You can go and check it out for yourself. Thanks to Squarespace and Uni Pizza Ovens for the support of this episode, and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 521/transcript

2026-06-11T10:06:12Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 521
| title = Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre, BAG
| date = July 13th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/521 Episode 521]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_521.mp3 Audio Episode 521]
| length = 55
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 521. Today's show is brought to you by Trade and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hello Myke Hurley, how are you today?

'''Myke:''' I'm good my friend, how are you?

== Pen Review ==

'''Brad:''' Good, good. I'm excited about this show. A lot of, this is like the, I mean, I guess it's probably like every three weeks it's like this where it's like the OG Pen Addict. It's a cinematic podcast where we talk about the things we've talked about forever, but we have some fun stuff to talk about today. Are you excited? I'm excited.

'''Myke:''' You've got some big questions and lots of capital letters in the show document today, so I'm pretty excited for our first topic because you're unhinged in our document. Can I just, actually, do you know what, can I just read what you've written before we talk about what it is? Yeah, just read the whole thing, I guess. So these are Brad's bullet points. Well, well, well, what do we have here? Apparently this is real, releasing late summer. Name? Wait for it. Glossy red. Pwahaha. Thoughts. That is, that's what I was blessed with today.

'''Brad:''' That's our, that's our podcast in a nutshell. Y'all think we like, there's a lot of like detailed like scripting that goes on here, but really it's all bullet points. And this is just me being like silly. As I, the more I looked at it, the more silly it got. So what this is, is apparently a very interesting Lamy all-star release. This is an all-star. A-L-star? Whatever, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a crazy name.

'''Myke:''' I couldn't tell from the imagery.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's aluminium. Okay. So it's, so we're going to have this link in the show notes. You're going to have to go to the link in the show notes of this image that has been shared on Reddit. It's been shared in the Panatic Slack. And it's an upcoming release, a pen and notebook set with the Lamy all-star and this notebook. And it's a red and yellow pen, which it's very, like, it's very loud. Like, looks aside, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll let that slide for a second. The compelling thing, Myke, do you know what it is? What's the most compelling piece of this puzzle here?

'''Myke:''' I feel like there's a trick. I'm missing a trick. Nope. What is it?

'''Brad:''' It's the yellow translucent. Right, I see.

'''Myke:''' Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, the pen body is like a very glossy red, which honestly surprises me that it's an AL star. Cause the imagery in this kind of marketing image, I guess this is, it looks plastic to me. But yeah, the, the grip section is fluorescent, uh, demonstrator-like. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like chartreuse yellow. Yeah. Like a chartreuse yellow. Like very, very bright. Like, like this is a, this is a low res image and it's just searing, right? It's just completely searing. So this grip normally on this pen is a translucent plastic grayish black. Like it's darker, right? Like it's, it's see-through, but it's like a translucent gray. And that's just been pretty consistent. I think over the all-star lineup. Um, so this leads into with the modifications of the Lamy Vista that we talked about for Goulet pins recently, where they just, you know, it was basically add on parts. Let's be honest. You know, the black clip, black finial, just, you know, they added in some black parts to it. And then this color, non-standard all-star color grip, you know, I, it just, they keep getting my hopes up. Like I'm not allowing myself to get my hopes up that I'm going to get like a Lamy Vista, like all one color translucent, you know, like take this yellow, for example, make a highlighter, highlighter pen. But I really wouldn't want this yellow. I'd want, you know, blue, purple, orange, those, those colors. Um, it's interesting though, at least like they're thinking about it. They obviously have the capabilities to do it. You know, they're making these translucent parts in different colors than their standard gray color or clear color, which they use in the Vista barrel is clear. Um, you know, make, make me a smoke gray Vista. Like, you know, keep, keep going Lamy is all I, is all I'm saying here. It's like, keep going. Um, the name really apparently is glossy red, which like confused me. That's why I put it in there is like, that's what we're going to do. It's not much of a name. This whole, like the imagery of this is electric, right? Like it is bright and bold and brash. And we're just going to go with the glossy red here. At first I was kind of a letdown.

'''Myke:''' Is this something for China? But I was like, no, that doesn't make sense. But that's what I originally thought was like yellow on the notebook. Maybe, but it's, it's too bright. Right. I feel like it's too bright to resonate. Maybe just the red will do the job. But I feel like if it was just, uh, like actual yellow, not this kind of yellowy green, right? That like, um, fluorescent yellow kind of look. Uh, then I would say that this would feel like it was, it was kind of target in China, but I'm not sure. Yeah. What do you reckon the ink is? What do you reckon the ink's going to be if they do one?

'''Brad:''' Black or blue. They're not going to make a special ink for this. You don't think so? They do the inks. This is not the release that gets the matching ink. Oh, okay. That's the release earlier in the year, like in the springtime.

'''Myke:''' Well, I mean, they made a really ugly notebook. It's pretty bad.

== Negative Feedback ==

'''Brad:''' Like, let's, let's get this out of the way. I don't love this at all. Like style wise. No, this is rough. This is, this is again, like. I like the idea of it.

'''Myke:''' Just another, uh, minus for the AL star crowd. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, this is what you get.

'''Brad:''' Like, well, remove the pen from this imagery. Just put the pen on the desk. We're in good shape, right? Like, this is a very, very aggressive marketing. I don't like it, bro.

'''Myke:''' I don't, no, even the pen. I don't like it. It's too chaotic. Like, I don't understand why you've put these two things together. It just makes no sense to me. Why is it glossy red and fluorescent yellow? Like, why are you doing that? I don't get it.

'''Brad:''' I will, I will buy this pen. Like, I don't. You're a maniac. Well, no, I don't buy the all-stars usually. If I do, I buy them to give away. Like, I think I kind of want to try this one. Even though I don't enjoy it as much as the Safari. The Lamy's, you know, along with this release, they're releasing the Smurf Safari, re-releasing the Smurf Safari. It's a bright blue barrel with a red clip. I'm sure you've seen pictures of that in the past. So they're doing a re-release at the same time. I didn't grab the image of that one because I don't think it's as compelling to me. But it's a, I guess it's along the lines of the, what, the terracotta and savannah green reissues that Safari did before they're reissuing the, what I call, and most people call the Smurf one. It's, it's, it's, that's really, really what it looks like. But, um, and apparently these are coming, you know, late summer, early fall type of timeframe. So, moving and shaking Lamy. Like, this is more Lamy news than we normally get, right? Like, outside of Asia.

'''Myke:''' The blue with the red clip. I will buy that. Yeah, I've only had one of those. And every time I used to see it at pen shows, I was always jealous. Like, that is a good looking Lamy Safari.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's a classic. Like, it's one of the, like, the OG classics, like, up there in, like, in the top three, top five of, you know, limited edition runs that they've done. And it's.

'''Myke:''' I found an eBay listing for one for $600. What? Sorry to this person who's not now going to make.

'''Myke:''' I'm going to put it in the show notes just in case people want to see it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a little issue with that. Like, I'm not going to totally, like, bang the drum. It's like, if they're putting the effort to reissue, just make me something new. Like, I'd rather just keep making a bunch of new colors. They have infinite colors. Look at this frigging thing they made. Okay.

'''Myke:''' They've done it, and look at it. You know what I'm saying? Okay.

'''Brad:''' I got one reissue and one, like, acid trip. This is an acid trip. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' They basically split the team in half. One, like, half went and, like, went on a vision quest, and the other just got dealt through the archives.

'''Brad:''' Oh, man. I'm happy. I'm happy this exists. You know? It's right up my alley. Like, it could not be more of a me pen. And believe me, I was getting tagged as soon as, like, these images showed up. It's like, oh, Brad. Oh, Brad. Oh, Brad. I'm like, yeah. Give it to me. Like, this is great. I love this. So, I am actually looking forward to purchasing this pen and getting an idea of what they're up to here.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Trade. When you become a Trade Coffee customer, you can enjoy knowing that you're going to have the freshest, best-tasting coffee you've ever made at home. And it's going to be from some of the U.S.'s best independent craft roasters, which also helps out those small businesses a lot, too. Trade's coffee team actually taste-test thousands of coffees. And they do this so they can make sure that they have 450 different kinds of coffee live and ready to ship every single day. Everybody has that coffee. That one coffee that they're going to just love. And Trade is going to help you find it. You take one of their quizzes. It's so easy to do. You go in. You fill in some simple questions. Not complicated stuff. You don't need to have, like, oh, I want to find some cherry notes. You don't need that. It's like, do you like sweet? Do you like it more fruity? They ask you some basic questions. And they're going to use this to find that exact coffee that's right for you, which is so awesome. And Trade is so confident that they're going to match you right first time that if for any reason you don't like the coffee that you're sent, you just give them your feedback and one of their coffee experts will work with you personally to send out a brand new bag for free so you're going to be looked after. Trade Coffee sends you freshly roasted beans from 60 of the country's best craft roasters, small businesses who pay farmers fair prices to sustainably source the greatest beans from around the world. It takes just answering a couple of questions to get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. I also, I've been through this. I've done the whole thing with Trade and got some great stuff sent to me. I also like that you can just go and buy stuff. So like once you've found some things that you might like, you can also just buy some extra bags. I've got some on the way to me now, which I'm very excited about for stuff that I really liked from Trade. So like it's really easy to also get the subscription and then also buy extras. You can buy them for gifts for people, that kind of stuff is really great. Right now, Trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping when you go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That is more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz today at drinktrade.com slash penaddict and let Trade find you a coffee you're going to love. One last time, that is drinktrade.com slash penaddict and you'll get $30 off. Our thanks to Trade for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I'm half tempted to buy like the five pound bags sometimes. Sorry, I'm continuing the trade ad here. Okay. They do the bulk stuff too. And it's like, yeah, you find a good one. It's like, give me the bulk. Give me the bulk. Give me all of it.

'''Myke:''' I know I'm going to like it. Just give me it.

'''Brad:''' All right. Give me all of it, Myke. Field notes. Field notes time. Great Lakes. Great Lakes edition dropped yesterday. This is a Tuesday release. I appreciate them updating their schedule to get it before the show. It's usually Wednesday or Thursday after the show and then we wait a week. But we got this a little bit prior to the show. So I'm pretty happy about that. So Myke, I'd like to let you go first on these America-centric field notes editions that you love so much. Go. So wait, am I giving you my opinion or am I guessing yours? Oh, yeah. What do you want to do? Yeah. Okay. Well, I just guessed yours. I'm like, yeah, you're like, it's fine. It's, you know, go USA. And, you know, I appreciate that. And like, it looks good. It feels good. I'm sure it's completely fine. I don't, you know, you know, where's, you know, my Loch Ness Monster one.

'''Myke:''' You hit it exactly for me. And I know that you're going to be super into it, you know, USA all day. That's probably Doughty. And you love the blue. You love the blue, right? And that there's five of them. I actually do really like personally that there is a sixth if you're a subscriber. Yes. I think that's a smart way of doing it. Whereas all of them.

== Field Notes Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So yeah, you're pretty much right. Like excluding the Great Lakes piece out of it for a second. I always try to look at like the technical aspects of it, right? Yeah. And the cover and the paper and the add-ons and the extras.

'''Myke:''' With the cover printing. I don't know how they're doing it. And it's incredible. So the cover.

'''Brad:''' It's a huge highlight.

'''Myke:''' Is, what do they call it? It is Cobalt Tech Weave Cover Stock. And it basically, it makes these little triangles on the cover.

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Isometric. And it looks like they have found a way. I mean, I have no idea if this is actually the case and you get it, but it looks like it. That it inspired their design and they have filled in the triangles on the cover. I don't know if it's actually going to be like that when you get one. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It's not like a match. Like it's an overlay and they complement each other. Yeah. I think it's really cool. It's not an exact match.

'''Myke:''' And I bet these will feel great in the hand with the texture on the cover. And I like, they've got like the little pullout map tells you a little bit about each lake. Yeah. But it's just one of those things where it's like, this means nothing to me. Right. At all. Like I get no, like, you know, it's not like national crop, right? I could feel something there. Sure. I can, you know, I like crops as much as the next guy. You know what I mean? But this is like, it's, I don't even, I didn't even know there were five Great Lakes. You know what I'm saying? Right, right, right. It just doesn't, it doesn't mean to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. We have to do the whole thing like in elementary school where we have to like color the Great Lakes and know all the names and all that stuff. So this is an addition that I imagine has been in their pocket for 10 years, right? Like it's, this is literally in their town. They're off of Lake Michigan. And it was obvious, like anytime people would guess, I guess the next edition, Great Lakes, right? It's, it was going to happen. There's more pressure on doing the easy thing sometimes. Yeah. Because you know you can't screw it up. Yeah. And they didn't. Like the color's beautiful. The print is beautiful. I like, like you pointed out, it's a five pack. Yeah. But the subscribers, they always, subscribers in general, it's a two, three pack thing. I don't even know if they've changed the terminology on that because they kind of mix and match. So they have created like a, the six notebook is the subscriber only notebook. Like, I don't know. It's just like an all around like top tier field notes edition. Like again, field notes doing what they do best and doing it really exceptionally well. So it's interesting. Every time I see them, Myke, every time I see like the field notes release, like I'm not using any right now. I always get a bug to like, okay, I should just throw one in my pocket as I'm walking around the house. Right. I work from home. So like, I'm not out and about. I don't need like a pocket notebook to go from the living room to the desk, you know, but I kind of miss like, like thinking about having those notes like available. I know I wouldn't use it. I would use like two pages and I'd be like, yeah, I'm just going to leave this on my desk and go to my desk when I use it. Do you ever have those types of thoughts for like, let me ask you this. Like if you're traveling from home to work, do you ever have the urge to take out a notebook or you're just, you know, maybe typing things on your phone or taking a break, you know, listening to music, podcasts, whatever. It goes on my phone. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Notes, like handwritten notes. They are a stationary on the desk, like not moving on the desk, not stationary, stationary. Right. It's a stationary, stationary activity. Right. Right. Right. That, that, that, cause that's when I'm going to, when I'm going to do that kind of stuff. If I'm out and about like this idea capture in my notes app or my to-do app or whatever, you know?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I think we've talked about this, like for the entire existence of the podcast, like capturing things and like this always, like I always get kind of the, kind of the bug to just, you know, shove one in my pocket and then I'll go the entire day. And I was like, yeah, that was in my pocket the entire day and I didn't use it. So I don't know. I think about it a lot and never action on it. So who knows? I thought about something else recently that I did action on Myke. I went through my personal Black Wings volume subscription, you know, related to the field notes. Like I don't have a field note subscription or a Black Wings subscription, but I've had both of them since the beginning and I had all these Black Wings pencils just sitting there, Myke. So you know what I did? I went through, I, reviewed, you know, mentally reviewed, which sets were my favorite out of all of these Black Wing pencils. And I kept three volumes and you know what? I've decided to sell the rest. So it was a big audit of my pencil collection. And you know what? If I wasn't going to use them, they just need to be sold and go to someone else who might use them. So yeah. So what do you, what do you think about this whole madness that I'm actually using eBay for? Which is, that's a whole another topic we can, we can approach as we go through this.

'''Myke:''' I mean, eBay is fine if you know how to use it. And I think this is good. I've done this a bunch of times with Field Notes. We've put Field Notes notebooks on eBay a bunch of times to clear out some of my collection. I think I might do it again because I've been holding on to some, but I don't need to. Actually, I think, I think the ones I have now, like in my kind of, in the drawer where keep this stuff, they've all been opened. So we probably wouldn't do that because that's just like a whole other kettle of fish. But I think this is a great thing to do. I mean, looking at the page, I am really surprised about some of the prices that, that you've gotten to. Like there's one volume 211. It's up to $157 in bits. That's, that's really expensive. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And it's only, yeah. And it's only eight pencils, right? Like it's not even like the whole dozen. So it's eight pencils. Yeah. That was one of the rare additions. Okay. I mean, there's a bunch like from the beginning. It's just like, you know, in the beginning of Field Notes, there's just less availability of these products, right? Because, you know, people weren't, you know, really ahead of the game necessarily. Not that I was trying to be ahead of the game or at all. Not that I buy these to sell them, which we'll talk about that in a minute. It's just like, yeah, I like Black Wings. I'm going to do the subscription. And it turns out like, okay, well, there's four pencils missing out of here. So I've used something from it, right?

'''Myke:''' I think that's actually really nice that you can, you can do this. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. But it was just, I was, every time I'd go into the closet of Doom, which is what I refer to is like my big stationary stash closet. Like I just see all these boxes sitting here and I was like, you know what? Like they're going to come out with a new one that I enjoy using, or I can pick one of my old favorites that I love. So I kept three volume editions. I kept the two baseball editions, which was 56 and 42. And I kept the exquisite corpse edition, which is 54, the pink one, which I think is good. And they, they just are all really, really cool. So like I have dozens of Black Wings still. So there was, I didn't need to keep all these and I chose to do it on eBay. To be quite honest, I didn't know how to price them. Right. So like, this is just a good place. I just threw them all up there. 99 cent bid go. And whatever they sell for, they sell for, I really don't care. Right. So it was just an interesting thing to get back on eBay. I haven't sold anything on eBay in, I don't know how long. It's been quite a long time. You were making fun of my account name. Yeah. Not just you, but a lot of people.

'''Brad:''' This account is from 1998. It's a very, very old eBay account, older than maybe some of the listeners of this podcast. And I just wasn't compelled to change the name at all. It's an old Bell and Sebastian song. I used to use, this is Listen Up Kids. This is back before streaming services and you had to buy music. So I would buy import music off of eBay was how I would get a lot of my music because I'm a huge, big music fan, as a lot of y'all know. So that's how you could get the cool stuff. We're talking CDs? Yeah. Cassettes. Singles, Myke. Limited ca-singles. Yep. And CDs.

'''Myke:''' Surely you weren't buying cassettes in 2009 or whatever.

'''Brad:''' I would buy, I had a bunch of singles that I did buy, but no, mostly I would buy CD singles as well. But yeah. So yeah, that's the name of the account. And I just really don't use eBay enough to care about changing it. Right. Like it's a 24-year-old account that has 149 like ratings on it. So you can tell like it's, I'm not hanging out on eBay very much. I have bought pins from eBay before. I just can't believe that you've had an eBay account for 24 years.

'''Myke:''' That just doesn't seem, it just doesn't seem possible. Right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. My math's right. Yeah. 98. Yeah. That's right. Right. So my eBay anniversary is coming up next month. It'll be 25 years. No, it'll be 24 years next month. Unbelievable. Crazy. So yeah. Pencils, they're there. If you are like a super Blackwing collector or missed out like a favorite edition, I've got 21 listings. I think there's some duplicates on there. So there's three, six, five, four. So I think 17 unique volumes are listed on here. So yeah. Check it out. It's just a fun thing. It'll close next week before the show, which I didn't even think about that. Didn't plan on that. But we'll audit some of the pricing afterwards. But yeah, there's some over $100 bids on three different ones right now.

'''Myke:''' So you can look forward to next week's episode. We marvel in Brad's riches.

'''Brad:''' Nah. Like I said, I don't even care. Like whatever they go for, they go for it. And just, you know, whatever. And then I'm going to do some more stuff. You know, I've got a bunch of Retro 51 stuff that I'm going to put up there eventually. I'm actually going to do some of that.

'''Myke:''' I might do that. Charity related.

'''Brad:''' Like I get all their Christmas editions. They send me all the Christmas ones. Well, I don't want to sell those.

'''Myke:''' I don't have the tubes though. Do you still have the tubes? Yeah. See, I don't keep that stuff.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So like I'm thinking about doing like charity ones. Like this is before St. Jude's. We're going to do a bunch of stuff for St. Jude's. I got cooking already.

'''Myke:''' You know we're going to go all out again in September.

'''Brad:''' But like, yeah, I'll have some. I have like all the Christmas editions. And it's super nice that they send me that. But like they're just sitting there. So like I don't sell things that I didn't pay for myself. Right. So like I can put them on eBay and donate like 100% of that to charity kind of thing. So we'll do that kind of stuff later.

== eBay Account History ==

'''Myke:''' September's coming so fast, man.

'''Brad:''' I know. Oh, it's here.

'''Myke:''' We're on weekly meetings now.

'''Brad:''' Yep. It is here. It is here. It's coming. Speaking of raffles for great causes. I did want to give a shout out to a Twitch follower. If you don't mind here. Myke goes by the name of Glyph on Twitch. They reached out to me kind of, I don't want to say like a new pen addict user, but kind of new-ish to the community. And they have, you know, someone in their life who's affected by Alzheimer's and they were, you know, have a huge fountain pen collection and they're in a, you know, situation right now where they can't really be using their pens as much. And they have so many pens. Glyph was like reaching out. It's like, what do I do? Like they gave them all to me to do something with. And it's like, I don't know what to do. So Glyph did this great thing where there's a charity raffle up the link. We'll have a link to the Reddit post for this charity raffle. So it's similar if you've participated in like the St. Jude stuff that we've done in the past through the pen addict, you know, you can, can donate to help support Alzheimer's research and send in your receipt and to be entered to win like all kinds of crazy pens, like lots of Mont Blancs, lots of really cool stuff in there. Glyph also sent me five of the pens that I've been slowly giving away this week on stream. So y'all still have a couple of opportunities to catch me on stream, twitch.tv slash pen addict, where I'm giving away these pens and I'm doing them blindly, Myke. So these pens were wrapped like in a bubble wrap and I'm just doing a giveaway, letting the winner pick one of the bubble wraps and then we unwrap it on the stream. So it's been, it's been really, really fun. So I just wanted to give a shout out to this charity raffle and the link is in the show notes and I appreciate Glyph like sharing this with everyone and I hope they raise a bunch of money for Alzheimer's research.

'''Myke:''' That's so good. That's really, really good.

'''Brad:''' I love supporting that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, like that it's, it's in our DNA with relay and it's just us as, as people, you know, like to support these things and share these things. So yeah, and it's something cool that y'all can look into for yourselves.

'''Myke:''' That's so good. That's a, really sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. A really good thing that, that, that people are doing.

'''Brad:''' Yep.

'''Myke:''' Oh, that's rough.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. So Glyph is taking this, he said that, so the, the, the person whose collection is, is, goes by the name of L and, um, Glyph is letting them know like how it's going and they're getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. So should be happy in that aspect. So.

'''Myke:''' Good. Yeah, that's good. Yep. All right. Let's take our second break and thank our friends over at Penn Chalet for their support of this week's episode. Penn Chalet, they sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. And they have all of your favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Cafeco, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many more. And of course they're an authorized dealer of all of them. Penn Chalet have low prices and high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee with very fast and reliable customer service. If you have any issues, they will sort it for you. Penn Chalet are always running great discounts. Every couple of weeks you're going to find new discounts and also new products going on sale over at Penn Chalet. They're always adding new stuff. I can't even keep up. As well as all the other stuff that I mentioned, Penn Chalet sell limited edition pens. They do accessories, you know, maybe looking for some ink, maybe you want a converter, maybe you want a pen holder, they got it all. They sell internationally with great shipping rates and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US. So head to PennChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. When you enter the password Penn Addict, you will get the 10% code, 10% off code that you need. So you can save any, you can save 10% on anything at any time at Penn Chalet with that code that you'll find there. And also access to a set of offers that are just for listeners of the Penn Addict podcast. Like, what have they got, Brad?

'''Brad:''' Like the Lamy All-Star Custom Logo Fountain Pen. It looks like Penn Chalet has some logo cap Lamy All-Star. So if you need to rep the shallot on your writing adventures, they have this cool black All-Star with the Penn Chalet logo on it. I've never seen this before. I don't know if this is something new that they're doing. This is wild. I know. When did this happen? That's what I'm saying. It caught my eye.

'''Myke:''' What is going on?

'''Brad:''' So it must just be something they had done or do themselves. I don't know. This is brand new to me. So I have not asked Ron or anything. But it's on our page now. And it's like an all black All-Star. And honestly, it looks pretty good. So on top of that, they have several of the Estabrook Nook pen cases, not to be confused with Nock pen cases. These are really good cases. I've had them in my hands. I've had them for giveaways. They're like a firm-sided boxy storage. But they're really enjoyable to use, really well made. I'd recommend any of these cases, to be quite honest. They're all very good. And then you go down, you have some Viscontis, Myke, the Demo Stones on sale, one of the larger Homo Sapien sizes, and the Demo Stones that they did last year or so, I think. And then a couple of Pelican M200 series that you definitely want to check out with those prices that Ron gives us from Pinchelet.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, such, such, such good prices. So as Brad mentioned, go to Pinchelet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password, Pan Addict, and you will be able to feast your eyes on these special offers exclusively for listeners of this show. Our thanks to Pinchelet for their continued support with the Pan Addict and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' Did you have any idea, when I put this in the notes, that Spoke design was 10 years old? That doesn't seem... As of yesterday.

'''Myke:''' That doesn't seem possible to me. Okay.

'''Brad:''' So, Brian texts me. So, Brian, my partner in Spoke, Spoke Design. Brian, the founder, the owner, the brains behind Spoke. He is Mr. Spoke. I'm just a hanger-on. He texts me yesterday, or maybe even Monday. He goes, you know, Spoke turns 10 tomorrow. I'm like, what? How is that possible? He says, yeah, the anniversary of the first pencil launch on Kickstarter was 10 years ago. And I was like, how can that even be? Like, I remember this pencil when it came up on Kickstarter at the time. Like, I remember it not being for me, right? I was like, oh, that's cool. Like, I see what they're doing here. And like, cool. And like, I remember passing on it, right? It's funny. I have these stories. Like, the same thing. We're going to talk about show and design next. I did the same thing on that. It's like, I look at it. It's cool. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll wait and see. And then, now, like, I'm part of Spoke, like, years later. I'm trying to think of, like, when me and Brian started. I'll have to go look at the Spoke pen campaign. I guess that's maybe been, like, four years now, if I really think about it. I could be wrong on that. Maybe it's only three. But anyway, it was cool. Brian dug out. He's been in the process of a move. Even had found some of the original Model 1 pencils from the original Kickstarter. And just threw a handful of them up for sale. Obviously, they were snapped up, like, really, really quickly. So, hopefully, maybe y'all got that. But I just wanted to give a shout out to Brian for 10 years of Spoke. Yeah, that's amazing. It's hard to believe. I really can't believe it.

== Spoke Design Anniversary ==

'''Myke:''' Like, I mean, I guess we found out about him multiple revisions into the pencil, right? I guess I remember talking about his products. And it wasn't the first one. I mean, you probably knew. But I think the first time Spoke came up on this show, it was maybe, like, the Model 3 or something like that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the Model 4 was the one that changed things for me. And the way it said, okay, I need to talk to this guy. Because this is speaking my language here. And that's the pencil I talked about last week in the mechanical pencil roundup. Like, the Spoke Model 4 is the one that changed things for me. And I think, honestly, changed things for Brian. I think it's still probably the bestseller. Maybe the most popular pen. So, yeah, it's been a good run. And hopefully we're going to keep doing some more fun stuff there at Spoke Design. So, just keep your eyes peeled. That's really well. Yep. I did a review this week. Another anniversary edition. This is the Machine Pen Version 2 from Shown Design. The anniversary edition roller and fountain pen. So, Shown Design. Again, Myke, 10 years old. 10 year anniversary for Shown Design. I guess this was, was this the Kickstarter heyday? It must have been. It must have been.

'''Myke:''' If everyone's hitting this at the same time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, because Knock came shortly after that, I think. So, gosh, I'll have to go back and look at the dates now. I'm so confused. Bad podcaster. I didn't prepare all this. But if you saw my Lamy All-Star notes about the Glossy Red, you'll know why. But yeah, this is a 10 year anniversary celebration that Ian, he made this pen to be like, for lack of a better term, a triple threat, right? He made a barrel for the anniversary. And it's got these little unique markings on there for the anniversary edition. And then had a fitting for a ballpoint tip, a rollerball tip, and a fountain pen. So, you'd buy one pen barrel and three different tips. So, it was a really neat pen. And since I had reviewed, shown ballpoint pens and shown fountain pens, I wanted to give the rollerball tip a thorough looking at. Which I did on the blog this week. And I came away kind of impressed with what is a Schmidt rollerball part, right? So, this is a part that, so, you all hear us talk about Schmidt a lot. They make a lot of parts for a lot of pens, from refills to pencil mechanisms to knock mechanisms to this tip that a lot of makers will use to build things around. And it's not limited to, say, a smaller maker like Ian, but to, you know, other more, what you'd consider more of company makers. Like, Monteverde makes a pen around this tip, the Montegrappa, excuse me, Monteverde Engage and the OneTouch, like the ruler pen. And to use a fountain pen ink cartridge, an international fountain pen ink cartridge, with this tip. And historically, when I've tried these in the past, and I don't know if they've been Schmidt mechanisms or not. I don't know if the Kaweco one was or the J. Herban was. They probably could have been. And maybe they were an earlier version of this. Because, again, that would be like 10 years ago, 12 years ago when I started reviewing these. I hated them. Like, it was a bad experience, right? The rollerball tip combined with fountain pen ink generally wrote poorly. Like, it was scratchy. It didn't feel good. You know, I think one of the issues is the ink formulation, right? You get a much thinner, watery fountain pen ink as compared to, like, a more lubricated, rich rollerball ink. You know, like a Schmidt P8127 rollerball. It's just rich and smooth and nice. And fountain pen inks aren't designed to have that, like, flow or viscosity. So asking that type of ink to move through a metal ball tip mechanism like in these rollerball tips, like, that's – it's hard, right? Like, it doesn't feel as nice. And I'm not going to say this feels equivalent to, like, a Schmidt P8127. But it's better than the things I have tested. I would use this on purpose, right? That sounds weird to say. But that's a very high praise. Like, I would use this on purpose is, like, one of the nicest things I can say. Because it works. Like, it feels good. It works well. It has an option for me to throw any ink color I want in there, right? I could just buy cartridges and pop them in there. Or I could empty out a cartridge and syringe fill any other fountain pen ink and have a pocketable rollerball pen, not a fountain pen nib. And all the things that, you know, rollerball pens might work better for in certain situations than fountain pens. And I just find it super nice that it works well. Like, I was – I'm talking about this like I'm a little bit surprised because I kind of am. Like, it's not the greatest thing under the sun, right? It's not transformative. And, oh, it's going to write, like, a Pentel Energel or a Retro 51. But it's better than I expected. And I think that's pretty high praise.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I never really know what to think about these pens. I've always avoided them. I'm kind of like – not really so much in performance, but I'm like, why would I – why would I want it? And it's like, you know, I like what you said in the article. It's like, well, it gives you the option to – like, now you can have any color, you know? Like – Right. Because even if you can't get a cartridge in the ink that you want, you could syringe fill cartridge or – would any converters fit in this?

'''Brad:''' I'm sure the Kaweco mini converters that I hate so much would. Which kind of sucks, but, you know, you could at least get it. Like, whatever ink you want, you can put in there, right? Right. Although I expect shimmer inks would destroy this thing. But, you know, I would love to. I would not – I think I made a point in there that I would not use a shimmer ink. But nevertheless, you have all this optionality, right?

'''Myke:''' But then – Right. For me, it's like, yeah, but I don't – Still why? I don't want to use a rollerball. Yeah. Like, with this in mind, you know? Like, if I want to use a rollerball, for me, I'll just use a rollerball. Like, it doesn't need to be J-O-Bomb, whatever, whatever, in the mix, right? Like, I'm not using it for that. Like, because I'm never going to get what I want, I feel like, in, like, performance and the amount of ink laid down to really appreciate it from a rollerball than I would from one of my fountain pens. Yeah. So, I'm always just a bit, like, I don't know where this would fit in my life to have a rollerball that I can put an ink cartridge in.

'''Brad:''' Right. Like, you're already covered, right? Yeah. Like, you have a bunch of your fountain pens inked up. They have all of your favorite inks in them.

'''Myke:''' It's also just, like, you know, I would just get some rollerballs in different colors. Like, just get some Jetstreams or high-tech Cs or whatever. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like, if I really wanted that, I'd just get that thing. I don't know.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. It's kind of nice to think about, hey, I could put Pilot Orochizuku Shinkai in this little brass pocket pen and not have to worry about the nib. Or I could just put it in, you know, a Kaweco Sport and then, you know, fill up an ink cartridge that way and put it in a fountain pen nib. I don't know. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Or, like, for me, like, I would just, if I really wanted it, I would just get the fountain pen version of the Shown Design Anniversary.

'''Brad:''' Right. Right.

'''Myke:''' Use that.

'''Brad:''' This will, I would wager that Ian would agree with this statement. It is the least used of the tips, right, between fountain, ballpoint, and this. I would say that's probably fair. And the lowest seller, you can also buy just, like, an individual. You don't have to buy, like, the whole setup, you know, with all the three different tips. You can just buy a rollerball or a ballpoint or a fountain pen. And this is clearly the third seller in my book. And, honestly, I don't see a lot of people using them. No. But I do see makers offering a double section option now to where they buy, if someone buys a fountain pen barrel, they can also buy a fitting for this rollerball tip. So, it's a very low percentage sale.

'''Myke:''' Like, if you don't have to change your product and you can offer this as an option and it's, you know, pretty easy for you to swap that out, then do it. Like, because if you end up getting 10 more customers for it, well, there's 10 more customers for you, right? But I think you mentioned in the article, like, you're not going to see this become the thing like the Schmidt PA-126-127 has become.

'''Brad:''' Right. I don't need more than one of these. Like, I'm good. Yeah. Like, I'm covered. I can play – this is my little playground area where I can have this tip that works well and I can do some – have some fun inks in a non-fountain pen. I don't need five of them, you know. I enjoy five different fountain pens for five different reasons, you know, the different style of the barrel, the different grind on the nib. You know, this rollerball tip, like, it's like I'm good with one and I'm just glad that it actually works. And now I can actually recommend, say, people can ask me, hey – because I get this question pretty frequently and I can actually recommend if it's using this Schmidt mechanism, like, you should probably be happy with it. Even though I haven't tested out, like, a huge range of inks, but I think my experience would translate to a lot of inks outside of, like, your aggressive inks, like Big Shimmer, Big Sheen, that kind of stuff, your standard inks.

'''Myke:''' It's funny, like, Big Shimmer. It makes it sound like, you know, like you're in the pocket of big whatever.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, the big corporation.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, you're in the pocket of Big Shimmer.

'''Myke:''' You know us.

'''Brad:''' You know us. We're in the pockets.

'''Myke:''' All right, should we do a couple of RSTPA before we finish out today? Let's do it. All right, this came in from Neil. Neil says, I feel like I've been in the fountain pen world for a while, but this is my one desire that continues to remain unfulfilled. I'm a teacher and I use a bullet journal technique for my yearly planner. I've been using Rodia Dot Grid A5 notebooks for years and enjoy making my own layout for my needs through the year, but the paper is ivory, not white. What notebook would match my needs and be accessible for purchase by me living in Seattle, not looking to spend $30 on shipping from Japan? I need similar page count to Rodia A5 size Dot Grid or blank paper, but white fountain pen friendly paper.

'''Brad:''' I have a question that I should have posed to other people before thinking of me and as you're reading this. Why is cream and ivory paper so predominant? I don't know, man. Versus just like a base white. I don't know. There's plenty of white paper out there, but when you get into these notebooks, so what we want here is essentially a bound hardcover notebook, you know, your standard 200 page notebook. And it's kind of hard to get just that stark white page. So, like, I posted this question in Twitch one day so we could kind of talk about it and figure out what the options are because nothing really comes easy, right? Like, it doesn't come easy to answer this question. So, we came up with the stology. Hey, I think it's pretty easy. Yeah, why do you think that, Myke? Because I made this frigging product. Except for one important factor.

'''Myke:''' What's the important factor?

'''Brad:''' It's not A5.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it's basically A5. Get out of town.

'''Brad:''' You're one of those people. A5-ish.

== Paper Size Standards ==

'''Myke:''' It's A5-ish. Look, it doesn't appear that Neil, like, requires it for specific sizing. It's just like, it's roughly an A5 thing. The central notebook is a dot grid notebook with page numbers and white paper.

'''Myke:''' You can go buy that. It's smart-sized. It's smart-sized. I improved upon A5. I improved upon it.

'''Brad:''' I made a better size, I think. So, there you go. What have you become?

'''Myke:''' I've become a paper magnate. Well, you know. You just wait. If there's anyone here. See what I'm working on right now.

'''Brad:''' I've got something. That's different. Like, I can't say what it is. That's different. That is not this. This is different. This is, you're trying to ride on the coattails of international paper sizing that are these standards that are built in. You think you're better than them. I've gone ahead and created my own size now.

'''Myke:''' I've gone. Seriously, we're working on something. It doesn't conform to sizes. I've made my own size. It's Myke 1, I'm going to call it.

'''Brad:''' So, everyone knows my stance on this. So, Myke is just getting me agitated on purpose. I'm a big fan of the standards.

'''Myke:''' Who needs standards? Standards? Shmandards. You know what I'm saying?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, okay.

'''Myke:''' Standards? Shmandards.

'''Brad:''' So, there you go, Neil. Myke is selling you his own non-A5 notebook. It's A5. To fit your needs. Come on. Not even hardcover.

'''Myke:''' Did Neil request hardcover?

'''Brad:''' No, that's just what the roadie is. Yeah. The Stalogy is not either. Then you have the Nebula by Colorverse. The Nebula is another option, which I forget about. That's a really good notebook. It gets great reviews, great paper. The Endless Recorder is an option if you like Tomoe River. Same with the Galen Leather Tomoe River cover. So, you have a few options. And then, Myke, the last but not least, we might have mentioned this once on the podcast before, but we should mention it more often. The greatest named product that we'll speak of today. The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' What?

'''Brad:''' The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' This seems like news to me. I don't know what this is.

'''Brad:''' Maybe we've just talked about it on stream because I have no idea why it's named this. Is it actually called Age Bag?

'''Myke:''' Click on.

'''Brad:''' It's on. No, no, no, no.

'''Myke:''' I can. I read it, right? Like, I can see it. But like, is this something said with an accent? Is like one half of these words not actually English?

'''Brad:''' Is it like French or something? I mean, it's a French company, but it's not. It's not Age Bag. What if it's Age Bag? Age Bag. Yeah, it's Age Bag. It is in the Age Bag collection. And like, maybe I'm Americanizing the words. Like, I don't know how else you pronounce Age Bag. A-G-E space B-A-G. What does it mean? There's no accents. There's no anything. But it, hey, it meets the requirements of Neil. This was a recommendation from Twitch viewers. And you know what? They were right. And it's called the Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' I can't figure that out. Like, I'm looking.

'''Myke:''' Now, what's worse, right? A5-ish or calling your product Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I'm going to let you win this one.

'''Myke:''' I'm not going to. See, look, I can make it A5, but then I've got to call it Age Bag. So, like, you know what I'm saying? It's one or the other.

'''Brad:''' Maybe that's French for A5.

'''Brad:''' That's not correct at all.

'''Brad:''' You've just said. Un, deux, trois, cinq. Sank.

'''Myke:''' Un, deux, trois, cat bag.

'''Brad:''' I had to figure it out.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag? Like, can somebody write in and let us know? Like, I'm Googling furiously. And there's no, like, I can't find, like, a page, like, on Claire Fontaine's website that, like, talks about the theory of Age Bag. So, like, if anyone knows why it's called Age Bag, I desperately would like to know the answer to this question.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. All of the aforementioned products that I mentioned are all traditional international standard A5 sizes.

'''Myke:''' Except that one that I mentioned, which is superior size.

'''Brad:''' You mentioned that one. I did not mention that one. Created by a genius. Smart size. You should just call them Cortex size or something. I think I might go, like, CB, right? Because I call it a brand. So, we'll go, like, CB1 or something? Yeah. CB5. You got to at least troll us standards.

'''Myke:''' No, but you see, that's where I'm going to make it worse. Right? Where, like, I'm going to name them, but not in size order.

'''Brad:''' There you go.

'''Myke:''' So, CB1 is the first size, and then CB2 is going to be a completely different size.

'''Brad:''' There needs to be a decimal, too. Not logical. Do a 1.e and just make it random. All right.

'''Myke:''' I can do that.

'''Brad:''' You asked for it. Oh, man. I did not ask for this whatsoever.

'''Myke:''' I'm just, I'm completely shook by age bag. Honestly. I can tell. I can't think about anything else right now. I don't understand.

'''Brad:''' Well, think about this next Ask TPA. Let's do one more. All right.

'''Myke:''' It comes from John. I recently got into needlepoint on microtip pens inspired by the list on your website, Brad. I started with Japanese.

'''Brad:''' That needs to be greatly updated. Sorry. Wow.

'''Myke:''' I started with Japanese gel pens. Scene. Like the high-tech C. Recently, I purchased a Nagahara needlepoint from Franklin Kristoff. At first, I thought that microtip gel pens seemed like the easier, less fussy solution to wanting to write really small. But as a dyed-in-the-wool fountain pen obsessor, I couldn't resist the siren call of a needlepoint nib. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint nib? What makes you choose between the two? Which tiny writer better provides the better tiny writing experience?

'''Brad:''' This is such a good question. Talk about right up my alley.

'''Myke:''' Hold me closer, tiny writer.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is right up my alley. So let's take this first question. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint? Paper dependent. So the fountain pen, I do consider the paper more than when I'm using a microtip gel pen. The microtip gel pen will work on more papers than the fountain pen. So the fountain pen, I'm generally more specific on the paper choices. You know, Timoe River, Rodia, Clairefontaine, Morimon, Life. Like, I mean, literally, like, all the papers I use are great, are purposely designed to work well with fountain pens, including needlepoints. If I'm using, like, more standard notebook papers, field notes, things like that, I will never use a needle tip fountain pen because they tend to grab the fibers, right? They're just not made with that type of nib in mind. So that's the win.

'''Brad:''' Which tiny writer provides the better tiny writing experience? This is a much harder question for me, Myke.

'''Brad:''' I think it's the microtip gel pen is the better experience because of consistency, right? It is pure in size, in general, like, in general senses, right? You do get slight variations in needlepoints in fountain pens, whether they're steel or gold, whether, you know, the paper you're using is rough or smooth. So if you want deadly consistent lines, the microtip gel pens are going to provide that.

'''Brad:''' The needlepoints, I just tend to, I don't know, I just enjoy using them and don't worry necessarily like if, you know, like one downstroke is a little bit different from another downstroke. It's just kind of the nature of the beast, right? Like I'm prone, I will accept the variance in a fountain pen needle tip knowing that, hey, I'm using a fountain pen needle tip. I'm getting generally what I want. But it's not going to give you the precision control of a microtip gel ink pen because there's no flexibility in a gel ink pen tip, right? It just is. So the only thing that's going to mess up a gel tip pen is if the, you know, the paper, like if it gets a little bit messed up, you know, like the paper fibers get in the tip and that's going to be, make it inconsistent. But then that's the same problem that you have with a fountain pen. I just think the, depending on what you're looking for, like if the consistency is the key, the gel pen is going to be better. But I just think for overall enjoyment, I use more fountain pen needle tips than, I won't say, maybe almost anything. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I do like my fine cursive italic nibs. That's probably like my, one and one A is needle point and fine cursive, Japanese cursive italics, which is, you know, pretty, a pretty narrow line. So yeah, that's an awesome question. I really, really like this question because I too have a Nagahara needle point that is so fine. It's really, really good. But it's, you know, it's particular, right? These, these are the very particular things that we obsess over kind of like international paper sizes. So yeah, there you go.

'''Myke:''' If you would like to send in a question of your own to be answered on a future episode of the pen addict, just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA, or you can use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. You can go and find show notes for this week's episode at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 521. If you want to keep up with Brad, you can go to pen addict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. You can go to twitch.tv slash pen addict where you can find Brad. Brad is Jenny's photo on photo Jenny, I should say. On eBay. If you just want another one to like just toss in there.

'''Brad:''' Don't follow me there. You're not going to see much there ever.

'''Myke:''' Go to spoke design.com pen addict.com. If you want to find me online, I'm at I Myke I M Y K E and you can find wonderful products in perfect sizing over at cortex, much.com. We'll be back next time. Thank you to trade and pen chalet for the support of this week's episode. And of course, most importantly, thank you for listening until then say goodbye, Brad. Bye Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 515/transcript

2026-06-11T10:04:33Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 515
| title = Peter Piper Picked A Pen of Pepper
| date = May 25th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/515 Episode 515]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_515.mp3 Audio Episode 515]
| length = 60
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 515. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Trade. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hello Myke Hurley, how are you?

'''Myke:''' I'm good my friend, how are you?

'''Brad:''' I'm good, I am hanging in there. I am looking at pens, talking with pens, writing with pens, and enjoying my pens and I would like to talk to you about all of them. In one show, we're going to talk about literally every pen I own.

'''Myke:''' Alright, how are we going to do that?

'''Brad:''' It's like, I don't think I'm ready for this, nor is it accurate based on what's in this show document.

'''Myke:''' I know what's going on here.

== Box Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so I got my big boy pen box, Myke. I got my Toyocacraft pen box 100, and by 100 they mean it holds 100 pens.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I've been seeing this in Refill, your wonderful newsletter, and of course on Instagram. How did you find this?

'''Brad:''' People have been sharing them with me for a while. So, this brand, in the last couple years, I think they came to San Francisco Pen Show last year maybe. And the people who had purchased them or ordered from them or worked with them all sung their praises. You know, of craftsmanship, you know, it's a Japanese company where they hand make all these pen boxes. And, you know, they do a lot of different work, but not just pen boxes. But obviously, that's, you know, one of their focuses is the pen box. It's not like a one-off thing, like it's a big part of their company. And so, it had always been on my mind, you know, to, hey, I'll eventually get something like this. But, you know, deciding what, how big, you know, what type of style, how I'm going to use it. You know, those things take a while, right? Like I talk about when I make like the big decisions, I tend to go pretty slow. And then it just kind of works itself out into, hey, this is the one we're going to do. So, I went with the pen box 100 because I am going to, as asinine as this sounds, I am going to limit my personal pen collection to 100 pens. Which, we're not going to get in that today because that could be the entire show.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I want to, because obviously, I want to dig into this. Like genuinely, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this. I would like to do a series of episodes where we detail the entire 100.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I think we can do that. We will get there. But like, it's going to be a process. Just like buying the box was, you know, a process. And now how I'm going to use it is going to be a process. How I'm going to manage my personal library of pens is going to be a process. So, yeah, you will be hearing about this a lot.

'''Myke:''' And this is just like, this is 100 fountain pens, right?

'''Brad:''' Yes. Yeah. You know, there's going to be, there's rules.

'''Myke:''' We're not talking about Sakura Pigma Microns or whatever. No, no.

'''Brad:''' This is 100. At first, I said any pen with a nib, you know, like a fountain pen nib. But it's actually going to, there is going to be some like price limitations, you know, like over $50 or something like that, right? Because there's just an absolute pile of, you know, Twisbees and Safaris and Kaweco Sports and things like that, that I got to figure out what I'm going to do with. But the overarching theme is if I'm going to keep an expensive pen, I have to be willing to use it. So I need to, I need to sell the ones that I don't. And I've been doing that for years now.

'''Myke:''' I love this. This is one in, one out, man. Like this is an excellent system. You are inspiring me here. I have followed this account because from a craftspersonship perspective, this just looks like an absolutely stunning thing to own.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. If you don't want to spend money, don't go to Toyoka Crafts Instagram or website because you just look at that and just kind of drool. Like it's really, really nice. We'll have links in the show notes. You know, I have a link to me starting to fill up my box. What's funny is I think my boxes on their Instagram prior to shipping, there's a link in the show notes we'll have. Yeah, you can see it. It's the color, right? Mine's the one on the left of this image we'll have in the show notes. There's two identical exterior boxes, but there are the color trays, the cloth trays you can get. You can pick which colors you want, including picking a different color for each tray. And mine is the exact colors of the one on the left in the exact order that they're placed into the box. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that that is my box on their Instagram page there.

'''Myke:''' Baby. I just saw how much that thing cost.

'''Brad:''' They are very expensive. The shipping must be obscene. The shipping alone was about $140.

'''Myke:''' Okay. So you're looking at somewhere kind of all in about $600, $700.

'''Brad:''' It was, yeah, north of $700.

'''Myke:''' Now, what I will say, value-wise, right? You think about stuff, a lot of money. There are a lot of pens, individual pens going into this that cost $1 in $700, right? Sure, sure. And this is like really as incredible cross-personship as these pens are, right? Yeah. In some cases, more than, you know?

== Heirloom Pens ==

'''Brad:''' The one thing I have never done in all my years of discussing pens is say that I own like an heirloom pen, right? I just don't believe in that thought process for my pens. I believe they're tools and they're enjoyable and I love them. But this is like an heirloom piece of furniture.

'''Myke:''' I think for something to be an heirloom, it has to be pretty substantial. In my mind, I don't really think a pen would be that. But yeah, so I'm going to buy, oh my God, this website. Oh my God.

'''Brad:''' I told you not to do it. Oh, it's too late. It's too late for me now. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you should come to the San Francisco pen show and then buy one to fly back with.

'''Myke:''' That would probably be cheaper. It's just like, oh, you could tell me I can bring an extra piece of carry-on luggage. Right, right, right. Here it is. I should put some snacks in there.

'''Brad:''' So I did an unboxing. We'll link that in there. It was literally a box and a box and a box to ship this from Japan to me. So the whole process of ordering was great. It was easy. It was simple. We'll talk about it more as we talk more about this box. But yeah, it's going to be an interesting project. The first thing I need to do is figure out which pens I need to sell to pay for this box. So that is first on the agenda.

'''Myke:''' I mean, the thing for me that would be a shame, and they do actually have some products that alleviate this, is you can't see what's in there. But if it's 100 pens, I mean, what else are you going to do, right?

'''Brad:''' Right. Yeah, there's plenty of boxes with windows. And those, to me, are singular. In the way I would like to use things, I would get a singular box with a window if that's what I wanted, right? There's no need for me to have a window on top of the 100-pen box or to buy a 60-pen box with three trays and a glass top. I like that one.

'''Myke:''' There's a 40 and a 60. So for me, it's your favorite 10 or whatever goes on top, and then the rest can go storage underneath. I like that. Or that you could rotate them around, stuff like that would be kind of fun.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. No. So this is going to be fun. So I started filling it up, and I'm just scratching the surface on this. We will be talking about this a lot over probably the next year, at least. At least throughout this year, maybe on into next year. It's just going to be a frequent recurring theme of how to reign in my library of pens while still admitting to myself that I own an absolutely absurd amount of pens, right? So it's a balance. It's a balance. One of the ways I'm going to help pay for this, Myke, is I launched a pen, and I'm just going to go ahead and need to get this out of the way about the order of the naming of the Pen Addict collaboration with Opus 88. So did I do it right or wrong? I don't know.

'''Myke:''' This is a very good-looking pen. This is a very, very good-looking pen. Yeah, you did it right here. I'll tell you that. Okay. The clear part, that's what sells it for me. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' That's what everyone's talking about, the clear part. So Opus 88 is a brand that has kind of been on the rise in our community. They make a very affordable, it's not quite the term, but even we're talking like a $100 pen, right? It's very, very expensive, but reasonably priced compared to a lot of other things. And it adds value by having this built-in eyedropper safety system that most pens, you know, don't have, at least in this price range, or do they at least attempt to do. So...

'''Myke:''' Oh, man, the finial's sick. I hadn't seen a picture of the finial yet.

'''Brad:''' It's super subtle, right? Yeah. And it's kind of got some depth to it. Like, you don't... Like, this is a... It's not a loud pen because it's like bright translucent orange, like, which, of course, that's what it is. But, like, the additions I could have made to it, like, are very subtle, right? Like, I opted not to put, like, any Pen Addict stuff on the barrel, like, where the Opus branding is on the cap. They're like, do you want the Pen Addict to go there? I was like, no, let's just leave it with the finial on the top. And, like, I... This turned out so good. I'm very happy with it. You know, I was concerned about writing the Pen Addict X Opus 88 Halo. That's what I was worried about in the beginning. Like, if I... If that was going to set you down a path. But that's how the box packaging says it that way. So, I wrote it the same as what's on the packaging. But, yeah, I'm really, really happy with this pen. I had 200 of them in this batch. It's not necessarily limited. It doesn't mean I... I'm not guaranteeing I'm going to make more of these sell out. I probably won't.

'''Brad:''' And, you know, it's been off to the races since I launched them on Saturday to Pen Addict members. And I just wanted to point this out if anyone's interested. And it's a really, really cool pen. And you should become a Pen Addict member to get a super, super fat discount on this pen. On this already well-priced pen, you can really get it into a nice price range, if you will, Myke.

'''Myke:''' I don't think I've seen the discount. I haven't got my inboxes horrific, so I haven't gotten it wrong. Oh, man, that's a good discount.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, like, it's what we do for, you know, the Pen Addict members and their support to, you know, give back, you know, do something fun. And, you know, it's, you know, make a little bit money on it. But, you know, it's mostly, like, a fun project to get cool things into people's hands that want cool things. So, yeah. I had fun doing this, and Opus was just a joy to work with. One of the most efficient processes that I've ever worked on in regards of, like, you know, collaborating on a product. Like, this was just smooth, smooth from beginning to end. It was great. So, yeah. There you go.

'''Myke:''' Brad.

== Brad’s Toyoka Crafts Box ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Brad. Brad. This is your baby right now. Brad. You sent this to me, so you have to talk about it.

'''Myke:''' What is Sailor doing, man? You told me. So, this thing just popped up a couple of days ago. Out of the ether. The Sailor Pro Gear or Sailor Professional Gear Knight to E4 Fountain Pen. The first in the Checkmate series by Sailor. So, I love this. It's like, here's two things that apparently exist in the world that I didn't know anything about. I didn't know this pen was coming. I didn't know it was a Checkmate series. This is a chess-themed pen. I don't care about that, right? Like, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care about it being chess-themed. The design of this pen is one of the best-looking Sailor pens I've ever seen.

'''Brad:''' This is what I've been looking for, like, from Sailor North America. This is where it's coming from. This is a North American exclusive. I've banged the drum for metal sections for a long time.

'''Brad:''' And hopefully, you like to see them kind of get mixed into any, like, the limited release. And then, you know, not everything has to be metal section. Not everything has to be standard. But, like, getting them mixed in. Because I like the metal section Sailor pens the best. They just, they're a good feel. You know, a good balance in the hand when you're writing with them. It's some of my most enjoyable Sailor pens have the metal section. So, I was glad to see that this was finding its way into the more limited edition series that they release pretty frequently. So, yeah. I guess there will be more in this series. Again, like, I'm not a chess person. You know, the pen design doesn't do it for me personally. But, like, I get, like, why people are agog over this pen. I think it's really good execution of an idea. And I love the colors. And I love the gray. And I love the gold. Like, everything about this pen works really, really well together.

'''Myke:''' This is an absolute knockout. This is a knockout. Yeah. Because it's not black, right? It's, like, brown. They call it charcoal. But the addition of the gold shimmer adds a kind of brownish hue to it. But then going all in on the gold is what I like.

'''Brad:''' I do, too. I love the gold section, right? Yes. Any of my gold sections, I have, like, the either rhodium plated or ionized sections. I don't know which is called which. I guess they've done gold sections before. I'm not sure. Like, I don't even have seen them. But this one looks amazing, right? Like, I'm totally into what they built here and what they designed. And I think they kind of knocked it out of the park. So, yeah, it's really great.

'''Myke:''' Because, like, we said it before. Like, the weighted section, like, the weighted grip section on a Pro Gear really elevates that pen. Makes it very special. And they've not done gold before, to my knowledge. Yeah. They've done different colors of silver, darker colors, that kind of stuff. I've not seen a gold before. Yeah. I love this pen. I love it. I'm not going to be adding it to my collection. Right. Yeah. But I, maybe at a different time, I would have. Right. You know what I mean? Like, if I was in peak, like, sailor frenzy, like I was a number of years ago, this would have been an instant purchase for me. Because I love it. Right. But I do have enough pens that give me what I want out of it right now. But, yeah, I think this is, there's 500 of them. I mean, really, honestly, the biggest thing, the biggest reason for me is it's $575. Sure. Sure. Knowing sailor now, I understand, right? Like, I know why it's that price. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But that's not an amount that I want to pay for it right now.

'''Brad:''' Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We're on the same page. Yeah. And we talk about this a lot. It's like, I love it. It's awesome. They did a great job. I'm not going to buy it. Like, we just can't buy all the things. And this is one you just, like, maybe you, in your case, you know, you wait and see, you know, does something crop up down the line that maybe allows you to buy this? Or it fits a need that you have or a desire or a want that you have, you know, later down the line. Yeah. There's going to be more in the series, too. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued to see what happens.

'''Myke:''' It's very strange to me a thing to be like, we're making a series of pens themed around chess. Yeah. I mean, you know, whatever. Like, you can make a theme of anything, but it just comes out of left field a little bit for me. But maybe I'm missing something.

'''Brad:''' No. I mean, Sailor North America tends to roll with the popular tides, if you will. Like, when The Matrix came out, they did a Matrix theme. Like, they did, like, an all-black pen. And they just try to kind of, like, follow the popular trends as far as what I've seen from their releases. So, yeah. Like, it's just, like, you know, part of the bigger overall uptick in the chess world.

'''Myke:''' I mean, they made a pen themed around chili peppers. I mean, I have one. You know what I mean? No, but they, you know, so it's like, it's just whatever they think they can make a fun thing out of, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's cool. And I have no criticism of that. It's just, like, a funny thing.

'''Brad:''' No, not at all. Like, I bought one of the pepper pens, right? Like, I mean, I bought it because it's orange, not because it was a pepper pen. It didn't have to be a pepper pen. Is that it? That's a TV show, isn't it? Pepper pen?

'''Myke:''' Peter Piper picked a pen of peppered something.

'''Brad:''' All right, let's talk about another pen, Myke. A pen that neither of us will ever own, nor should we, because it was a custom-made Jonathan Brooks Carolina Pen Company made, Myke, for fountain pen user extraordinaire Neil Gaiman. Man. Did you see this on the Instagrams?

'''Myke:''' I saw it this morning. I loved it. I loved this. I mean, we don't know the story. Like, I don't know if anyone will find out the full story of why this occurred.

'''Brad:''' Maybe I've talked to Jonathan in the background for the last month or so about this. He knows. But, you know, it's not my information to share. It's not my information to share.

'''Myke:''' But Jonathan was nevertheless commissioned to produce one of his masterpieces for Neil Gaiman and posted on his Instagram about his experience of being able to deliver this pen. And honestly, the absolute joy on Neil Gaiman's face is so good because he made a special pen for him, too, right? So, like, he was commissioned to make, you know, like a Jonathan Brooks special, right? And there's images of that on his Instagram, you know, like those beautiful acrylics. But then he also bought a Pilot 823, which is Neil Gaiman's favorite pen and did some custom Arushi work to that, too. Which is that's the thing that seems to have elicited the larger response from him. But, like, understandably, right? Because that's like knowing him and stuff like that. But then also giving him a special gift of something that he already adores. Like, oh, man, it's so good. So good. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And just the pure joy that whoever took these photos captured from Neil's face. It just how can you just not smile from ear to ear when you see this? You can tell he's going like, whoa, wow. It's like, this is unbelievable. And it's like, yeah, it's really, really crazy. I'm glad Jonathan got to do this and be part of this. And it worked out like he was down at Drumgools and went to Neil's show that he, you know, an evening with, you know, where he does like a speaking thing. And then got to go hand deliver the pens after the show or maybe before the show. But how cool is this that we've known, like, Fig Boot, we should probably put in the chat, like, Fig Boot has done some big interviews, like, with some of the big popular fountain pen people in the broader world, like Neil deGrasse Tyson. So it's fun to see, like, someone like Neil Gaiman, you know, as part of this world as well. So it's cool when you have, like, these big crossovers of people with, like, big profiles in the real world, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, or in this case, Neil Gaiman, and have this little crossover in our world. It's really fun to see their passion about the things that we're passionate about as well. It's just, it's really fun. So congratulations, Jonathan. This is just such a treat. And thank you for sharing it with us. It's really, really cool.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. This makes me feel really good. Like, this just makes me feel really good. I know, right? It's like, I imagine that makes him feel like. This is great.

'''Brad:''' Yep, it's great.

== Trade Coffee Break ==

'''Myke:''' All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends over at Trade. When you become a Trade coffee customer, you can enjoy knowing that you've got the freshest and best tasting beans that you've ever made at home. And the coffee you'll be drinking will be from the country's best independent craft roasters, which also helps out those small businesses a lot, too. That is the perfect mix for me. I love coffee, and I love fun small businesses, right? And this is one of the things that I really love about Trade is it finds a great way to bring these two things together. They do a great job with their quiz. It's so incredibly easy to fill out this quiz that they have that asks you a bunch of simple questions about your taste profiles. Even if you think you might not know, like you like a good cup of coffee, but you don't know how to describe it, their quiz will help tease out those answers for you, and then they compare you with a great coffee. Trade's coffee team actually taste tests thousands of coffees to keep 450 different kinds live and ready to ship every day. Everybody has that one coffee that they love. Trade's going to help you find it. And Trade is so incredibly confident that they're going to match you right the first time that if they don't, for any reason, just give them your feedback, and one of their Trade coffee experts will work with you to send a brand new bag for free. So you know you're going to be looked after. You are going to get something you'll like. They will make sure of it. It just takes answering a couple of questions to get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like. It's really great, depending on how much you drink. And they've delivered over 5 million bags of fresh coffee with more than 750,000 positive reviews. Right now, Trade is offering new subscribers a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping when you go to drinktrade.com slash penaddict. That is more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz at drinktrade.com slash penaddict and let Trade find you a coffee you'll love. One last time, that's drinktrade.com slash penaddict for $30 off. And don't forget about Father's Day coming up. A Trade subscription could be the perfect gift for the coffee lover in your life. Our thanks to Trade for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I don't know how I'll ever get a bag I want to return from Trade. Here's my recent one, Myke. It's from Panther Coffee, Myke, out of Miami.

'''Brad:''' 60% of the time, it works every time, Myke. But here's the flavor notes.

'''Brad:''' Montgomery cherry, citrus, milk chocolate, bright, sweet, and silky. I mean, that's me. That's my coffee description. And this is what shows up based on the quiz that I took. And it's just glorious. So yeah, really, really good stuff. Mayor is this one. So Panther Coffee, Mayor out of Columbia. The beans out of Columbia. The coffee roaster out of Miami. One thing on the final thing on the Brooks Neil Gaiman pin. There is a podcast, which Myke was not familiar with, called As the Pin Turns, with several pin makers, including Mythic Pins, Brad at Mythic Pins. And, oh boy, I'm blanking on everyone who's on here. But anyway, Jonathan has joined them. Oh, sorry, Jason. Jason Neil Penworks started this podcast with Brad from Mythic Pen.

'''Myke:''' Also, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, also Brad.

'''Myke:''' Brad, the owner and maker at the Mythic Pen Company.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, Brad. Who lives like 40 minutes away from me. I'm just saying, like, you forget the name Brad. No, I was forgetting Jason's name. Sorry, Jason. But Jonathan has officially joined their ranks as of, like, five, six, seven episodes ago. So he's going to be talking about this whole process. So y'all should go subscribe to As the Pin Turns if you don't already. If you want to hear about more of the maker side of the fountain pen business, they have some really, really great conversations in the down and dirty of actually making pens. Because they're all pen makers. So Brooks will be in an upcoming episode talking about the Neil Gaiman pens that he worked on.

'''Brad:''' All right. Big topic today, Myke. Uh-huh. All right. And this is via Jamie, who emailed me out of the blue to ask me a question. Says, I've been listening to the Pen Attic Back Catalog, and I really enjoyed the personal top five fountain pen segments that you and Myke did in June 2012. Wow. And then five years later in June 2017. I'm not sure you've done another personal top five segment since then, at least basing on searching on the show notes. And next month, June 2022, will be five years since June 2017. I'd love to hear a segment about your and Myke's top five fountain pens as they stand now. So we're going to do that today, even though it's not June. This is the perfect timing for us to talk about or have to think about, be forced to narrow down, Myke, our five favorite personal fountain pens, which is not an easy task, as we will see. I have not listened to those previous episodes. I might be tempted. Maybe not the first one in 2012, but the one from 2017, I'd be interested. It's episode 260. I might have to go check that out after this and see what's up with that. But I thought it was time. I think Jamie was right. I think it's time to do this. So what do you think?

'''Myke:''' I love it. Let's do it.

'''Brad:''' All right. So I took this question very literal, right? These are my five favorite pens. Like, it's not the five pens that I would recommend the most. It's not the five pens that I would use the most. It's just my five most favorite pens out of the pens I own. And it was good timing for me as I just started putting everything into the 100 count box. I got my hands on all the favorite things and looked at them and had a memory refresh of like literally everything I own. So I picked five and these are in no particular order of this five. I don't know that I could rank these top five in a one through five sense. I think there's a clear number six, but I think these five, any of these five could be number one. First one is the Namiki Milky Way. So we'll have a link in the show notes to pictures of these.

'''Brad:''' If you're not familiar with the pens that we're talking about, I think some of these you're going to be very familiar with. But I don't have too many pictures of the Namiki Milky Way yet. I haven't done a proper review of it. I may never do a proper review of it, although I think I kind of one of these days I will. But it is my most expensive pen by double of what I've paid for other pens. That doesn't necessarily in and of itself make it a favorite or special that it costs a lot. But what it is and the style of pen it is and the artistry of the pen, which you're going to see a recurring theme here in my list. It really speaks to me personally. And it has a glorious fine nib. I only ever ink it with Pilot Orochizuku Tsukiyo, which is a great match for it. Another recurring theme you'll see here is I have a lot of favorite pens that really only get one ink put in them. It's just how it works. So, yeah, that is easily in my top five. Right along with my first Nakaya, the Nakaya Portable Ayo Tamanuri. If you're a longtime listener, you've heard me talk about this pen a million times. It's probably one of my two favorite writing pens. And my two favorite writers, the second one you'll see in a minute, both have a similar nib configuration in that they're a Japanese fine nib with a cursive italic grind. So it's just a wonderful, perfect writer for me. The way it fits my hand, the way the nib feels on the page, the way the output is. And it's definitely like my favorite Nakaya. And I have, I don't know, maybe five Nakayas. And this is easily number one.

'''Myke:''' Was this your first one?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So this is, so when did I buy this? I put the link in here. When was this review?

'''Myke:''' This review was all the way back in February of 2015.

'''Brad:''' 2015. Seven years. Mm-hmm. I went through there, that review, and it took me like a couple years to actually buy this pen, you know, at the time. You know, trying to commit to spending this money to a pen that I would use, right? The whole idea of that blog post was I was not going to buy a Nakaya unless I was committed to using it anywhere, anytime, putting it in my pocket. Not babying the pen, right? And I, until I got to like the mental place to where, yeah, I can set this pen on my desk and not worry about it, I wasn't going to buy it. And I finally got there. And it's been one of the best purchases I've ever made. So, third on the list, Pilot Custom 912 with the PO nib. This one has additional artwork, Makie artwork added to the barrel, which just adds to the specialness of this pen for me. It is really unique, not just in the way that the PO, the posting nib, fits for my handwriting style, but in the additional specialness that I added aftermarket to this pen, right? So, not all, most of these pens are, quote, stock pens, if you will. Like the Milky Way is like not something you commission. You point at it and say, I'll have this one. The 912, I got some work done aftermarket. Like now, a lot of people will, you know, get rotten, added by a book of Mundo, you know, things like that to take a favorite pen and then turn it up to 11. And that's what I did with the posting 912. That's why it is one of my favorites.

'''Brad:''' Next up, my, the Pilot Custom 823. Me and Neil Gaiman are like this, you know, I'm crossing my fingers. We're like, buddy, buddy. The 823 is, the 823 is just an awesome pen. It's the other fine cursive italic nib. They, again, the 823 and the Nakaya Portable with the fine cursive italic nibs are my two favorite writing pens just for how they fit, feel, function, all of those things. Like, it's really just, you pick it up, you start writing with it, and then you have to stop and, and, and just smile. Right. And you're like, yeah, like this is, this is it. And that's, you know, a lot of the, the nib work that's gone into it. You know, sometimes it's the ink choice. Like, I've got this great purple ink, Pilot Orochizuku Ito Murasaki, which is the Japan-only purple ink that fits really, really well in my clear 823. It's kind of the, that's the ink that's going to live in there now. And I'm using the, this is probably, right now, out of these five that I'm listing, this is the only pen that I have inked up. And it's one of the ones I use the most. So, um, it's just really, really good. It's easily a top five pen. Uh, last one, Myke, um, Pilot Murex. I got, I got these, the first four pretty quickly. Like, I was like, yeah, this one, yeah, that one, yeah, this one. And then I was like, the Murex is just one of the greatest pens ever. I, I have long stated that I would be sad if something ever happened to this pen, which means it was a good candidate to fit onto this list. So, um, I, I love the aesthetic. I've, I've often called it, if Apple, Apple made a fountain pen, this is what it would look like. Like, then this design is from 1971, right? It's just an older classic design. It's the simplest design out of these pens that I have. Um, but it's really fits my style and aesthetic and, and again, functionality. A lot of these, the, the recurring theme between all these is I enjoy writing with all of these pens, um, primarily. And then the looks are additive to the writing experience, right? So, um, that's my five. And I'm assuming you caught this or listeners caught this. Um, it took me a minute to catch this. After I pulled them out, four out of the top five were pilot pens.

'''Myke:''' That is interesting.

'''Brad:''' And I thought about this a little bit. Like, going in before I picked these, like, I thought, you know, maybe I'll have two pilots on there. Maybe, you know, my posting nib or, you know, oh, then the Namiki, the, the Milky Way. I'm, I'm counting that as a pilot, even though it's Namiki. It's the premium pilot brand. Um, the, oh, then, what about the 823? Oh, what about the Murex? And I shouldn't be surprised at this. And then I got to thinking about pilot overall and how I talk about pilot on the show and how I want them to do more stuff. Right. And how I'm kind of tough on them, you know, more so than other pen companies about giving me more choices of things. And then I realized maybe, is there a reason that there's no, no sailors on this list? Because I can get anything I want from sailor at any time. Any style, any nib, any look, any feel. I can just, again, like I mentioned before, I can just point at sailor and say, I will have this one. I can't do that with pilot. Right. They're, your choice is much more limited. And I don't know, I, I'm thinking more of where I want pilot to do more things and sell me more pens, but maybe it's a good thing that they do what they do really well. And I should back off a little bit. Am I making any sense in this? Like, sure. I did, I didn't consider any sailor pen except the sailor, uh, king of pen pro gear sky, which is my favorite king of pen. That would probably be like number six on the list. Um, I wasn't interested necessarily. It doesn't mean I don't like my sailors. I love my sailors. I own more sailors than pilots, I think, or I don't know. I haven't really counted, but I own a lot of sailors, but are the pilots more special because I'm actually limited in choice? And with sailor, I have freedom of choice. So it's not as special. I don't know if that makes sense at all. So I don't know. It's a, it was an interesting kind of thought I had when I was sharing all these pilot pens. But anyway, that was, that was just me thinking about something to think about, you know, what's better.

'''Myke:''' Like the, let's say the nine 12 and the eight 23 to really be that different to each other. Yeah.

== Myke's Favorite Pens ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm giggling because like almost opposites in feel style statement. Like I'm, I'm staring at them.

'''Myke:''' But like if, let's imagine you had PO nib on the eight 23, would it be that different to the nine 12?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I wouldn't like it as much. I wouldn't like that. I wouldn't like the eight 23 with a PO nib. I would like the nine 12 with a different nib than PO, but the eight 23, I, the, a PO nib is not like an all day writing nib. No, And the eight 20, the eight 23, I believe needs that. So no, I wouldn't enjoy a PO nib in the eight 23 as much as I enjoy it in, in the nine 12. So, so yeah, I mean, these are very weird pilot pens. I will admit that like my eight 23 is the clear version again. That's not an easy one to get. And I love how it looks with the purple ink in it. You know, the milky, the milky way, you know, is, you know, uh, a rushy and rotten and fancy and all of that stuff. And the nine 12 has custom additions to it. And the murex is, you know, 50 years old, you know, these aren't like your standard stock off the shelf pilot, but they're pretty close. They're pretty close. Like anyone can get any of these pens that I have minus the artwork I have on the nine 12. Right. It's not like I bought, you know, a limited edition of 50 sailor pen that I hold special because it's limited. And like, I, apparently that doesn't really check my box as much as I, I like to think it might check my boxes. So I thought, I thought it was just an interesting look after I pulled these five pens going, huh, that's a thought. So I don't know. It's just, it's just something I think about. So, um, just for the, the sake of extending this topic and you haven't even let you talk about yours yet. I did pull some non fountain pen favorites of just products that I love that I use practically daily or want them around. And that's one of them is the Ajoto pen, you know, in the non fountain pen category, I use the Ajoto pen as much as anything. Uh, the spoke pencil model four is like my most used pencil by a good long shot. The Musubi indigo denim notebook, which I'm going to finish here pretty soon. I guess I'm avoiding finishing it because I don't have another one, but maybe I'll buy one in San Francisco to be my next notebook. I love the bank paper and the feel of that notebook. And I actually put in washi tape in this list because I find myself literally using washi tape almost every day. So like if you give me all these fountain pens and then you give me this rollerball pen and this mechanical pencil and this notebook and this washi tape, I'm going to be a pretty happy little pen addict here. So pretty happy camper with, with what I've got going on here. So interesting stuff.

'''Myke:''' All right, let's take a break and we can get into a maybe more predictable, less exciting. I don't know. But nevertheless, it's my list and I love my list and everyone else can just back off. You should, I hope you love your list. I think I have a great list, but I don't, I don't know how, I don't know if there's going to be surprises in that list, but. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the only one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything. Your products, services, even the content you create. Squarespace has got you covered. There's so many things there, right? So that's what you can do with Squarespace. Look, if you want to build a blog, you can do that. If you want to make a store, you can do that. If you want to build like an introduction page to your company or brand and start an email newsletter to go alongside it, Squarespace has the tools. They really have everything. Even down to the little things like SEO. So you can use their suite of integrated features with useful guides to help maximize prominence among search results. This is important stuff if you want to be noticed online. And then you can also use insights to grow your business with Squarespace as well. Like if you've ever wondered, like where are my site visitors coming from? Where are my sales coming from? Which channels are most effective? Squarespace has to analyze all of that. Once you've got the data, you can improve your website, build a marketing strategy based on your top keywords or your most popular products and content. It's what I love about Squarespace. It scales with you no matter what it is that you want to do. You might start off with one thing and decide, hey, I want to sell some stuff on the side. You can enable the store functions, you know, and it's like, oh, now I've done that. I actually would love to have an email list. You can do that. They really have everything that you need to get started online. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. You can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. And then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. So thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' All right, let's hear it, Myke. Let's see. Let me preface this by saying I might have, like, just thinking about your pens, I think I might only pick one of these, maybe two. Even though when you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. So what you got?

'''Myke:''' This wasn't difficult for me to do because I looked at what was in my Sinclair.

'''Myke:''' And they're all my favorite pens.

'''Brad:''' And that's what goes back and forth with you regularly. It's with me every day in my bag. Very portable.

'''Myke:''' Even though at this point, pretty much all of my pens are at the studio.

'''Myke:''' Now I need to bring inks here, actually, I think. I think I'm slowly moving to, like, okay, this is where my pens live. Like, they live here, not at home. Right, right. Because I was just realizing the stuff was at home, which is never getting used. So I've been rotating them out and actually just bringing more here. And I'm just trying to work out what the best long-term strategy for that is. But I have a Sinclair that goes in my backpack every day along with my theme system journal. And it has the pens in it. There is one pen on my list that isn't in the Sinclair. And I'll get to that in a minute. So the first one for me that I picked, I think, is I'm pretty confident. This is not ranked, but I'm pretty confident that this is my number one pen. It is the Platinum 3776 Galaxy Starlight, which I have a stacked nib on, as we spoke about on the show in the past. I adore this pen. I love this pen. I love everything about it. I love the journey that I've been on with this pen. I love the way it looks. You know, I love the feel of the Arushi. I love the way the Raden is, like, encased in it. I actually kind of love that it's had this weird life where the first pen, the first nib broke and it had to go to Japan. They sent another one. Now I've replaced the nib, but now I've cracked a piece off of the cap. Like, just a little piece of the, you know, like, where at the very end of the cap. I don't know how, but one day I just noticed that a little piece had come off. And it's kind of like, this is my pen.

'''Brad:''' Right? I think that's cool. Like, I mean, of course you'd prefer to not have that, but the fact that you're okay with it. Like, I was talking about, like, I'm not going to own a Nakaya unless I'm okay with getting a scratch in my Nakaya. Right? And it's like this comfort zone that you hit going, yeah, this is my pen. And you know why it's this way? Because I use this pen and I love it.

'''Myke:''' And I use it all the time. One thing that's very interesting to me, like, I was looking around at, like, listings for this pen because it is available. I think it's, like, doubled in price.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. You'll see that with different types of pens and based on when you bought them. I think you got yours right before Platinum went through, like, a pretty big price increase. You know, like, all the pen companies have gone through, like, decent size price increases. Platinum and Sailor stood out, you know, to have, like, a higher percentage increase. And, yeah, I think it's just a combination of factors with that particular one, too. Because it's harder to produce.

'''Myke:''' Because it's $2,200 right now on the Nibsmith. Oh. And I think I paid, like, most half of that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I was thinking it was even less than $1,000.

'''Myke:''' Actually, I'm looking at the wrong one, so that's why. I'm looking at the Izumo Rodden Galaxy fan.

'''Brad:''' Okay, that's a bigger pen.

'''Myke:''' That's a wider pen. Now I understand what's happened here. My Google searching did not produce me the right pen. And I was very confused. Because I started looking at the images. And I was like, that doesn't look right. It's a completely different pen. So, yeah. But I love this pen. I love this pen so much. It brings me joy to use. And it's, I mean, it's fantastic to use in general. Let alone, like, what I have then done with it since, you know. Yep. And I've been able to, like, to customize it more to my tastes. And I picked between five nibs and then found the right one for this pen. And I love it. I absolutely love this pen. It's like, it's just a joy. It's like a genuine just joy for me to use. I love it. Next one I feel like is pretty obvious. I think it's a pen that at different times I have said is either my favorite pen or the best pen that I own, which is the Pilot M90. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I love the fact that we are both ardent supporters of two very similar yet opposite pens, right? Yeah. These are the M90 and the Murex. Or I should say the Mu in relation to the M90 is the modern version of the Mu that came out for an anniversary edition at the 90th Pilot's 90th anniversary. But the Murex and the Mu are often talked about together, but they offer two different perspectives of design and writing. And we both respect the heck out of the other one. And I own a M90, and I love it. I will never choose the M90 over the Murex, and you're the exact opposite. This is the only one I want. I think that's pretty cool.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. This is the only one for me. Like, I love it. And it's just, you know, it's a pen that I feel like should not be as good as it is.

'''Brad:''' Yep. That's fair. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' It just, you just would feel like, you know, we put so much, like, stock and feeling into the nibs and how perfect the nib needs to be. And the idea that this is a nib made out of the body of a pen, like, it shouldn't be this good. You know, like, you look at other nibs, and they're like these little intricate things made out of gold or whatever, right? And then this thing comes along. And I guess it's a steel nib, right? Like, ultimately. Yeah. And it holds a candle to literally every other pen that I own.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it shouldn't work, right?

'''Myke:''' It shouldn't work. Like, and something for me, which I find funny, like, again, we talk about, like, pen reliability and how quickly will it start to write. And then all these other companies have these slipkits. Nothing starts up faster than my M90. 100% of the time, it will beat anything else. Doesn't matter. I could have not used that pen for the three months. I pick it up, do one scribble, and it's good to go. I don't know why. I have no idea why. But it's like these little things just make this so special. I have a medium nib. It was funny because, like, I looked at it and I was like, did I even do nib sizes? And it's got medium on it. Like, it says it. It's in a different place. But I looked at it and I was like, I wouldn't be surprised if they only offered in one size, right? Because, again, massively complicated. And, like, I mean, I don't know how many more times I needed to say this, but Pilot, bring it back. I know. You are sitting on a literal gold mine with this pen. Everyone's going to want one if you do it. Just do it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. It's a... What do you... For a long time, you were using the Purple Pilot ink cartridges with it. What do you use?

'''Myke:''' I've got Red now. Yeah. As a Red Pilot. That's cool. I'm waiting for those, the Orochizuku cartridges. Yep. Yep. To pop up because I would like to mix it up with some Orochizuku.

'''Brad:''' Same thing. Like, for my literal most expensive pen I own, when I get my hands on the Orochizuku Tsukiyo cartridges, that's what's going in my Milky Way. It just is. It just is. It just is.

'''Myke:''' It's so good. And the idea of the convenience there with the cartridge is like, yeah, I'm so into it. This is, for some reason, you know, just because this pen is so small, I don't want to put a converter in it because it's never going to take that much ink because I could get from one of their regular cartridges. The M90 is very clearly made for cartridges. It's a pocket pen. Yes. I agree with that. It is the only pen that I own where I post 100% of the time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. You pretty much have to. I mean, technically you don't.

'''Myke:''' I can get by. But just because of the way this pen is built, the cap becomes the entire body. That's rare. Even in other pocket pens, it feels like the cap doesn't take up as much of the body of the pen, but it basically just leaves you with a grip section. That's all that's left. What a design. Oh, it's just a masterpiece. It's a masterpiece of pen design.

'''Brad:''' It's a better design than the Murex. I will grant that.

'''Myke:''' This is like, to go back onto what you were saying earlier, like this is the pen Johnny I would make. Right. Because it is like the pure essence of the pen. This is just like as simple as a pen design could be, also as complicated as a pen design could be, which is a funny mixture. Right. Like it is definitely both of those things, but it is just like it gets no better. It just doesn't get better than this. It just doesn't. Oh man. I love it so much. What a special piece. And I'm so thankful that I own two of these.

'''Brad:''' That was literally my next question. I think you have like, this is one you have a backup for.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I'm still on my original and I have a backup M90 in a drawer that may never ever get used. I feel like if I did something to this pen, if I lost this M90, I probably wouldn't replace it. Yeah. Unless I had a real reason to, you know what I mean?

'''Brad:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Until pilot, get off your butts and make one of these. All right. So I wanted to put a canalea on the list. Mm-hmm. I had to really think about this. Just like visual wise, nothing beats canalea pens for me. Mm-hmm. They're very special. I had to think about it. Like, I really like my Hanukkah Lani. It's the one I have with the Milo Lay Band. Mm-hmm. But my favorite at the moment is the Haleakala Silhouette. Yeah. For a number of reasons. One, this was a special pen for me. I bought it at the DC Pen Show and accidentally ended up choosing the one that was on the cover of Pen World Magazine.

'''Brad:''' We love that story.

'''Myke:''' I love that story. I just love that that was the thing that I could have done. But Haleakala has a lot of significance to me because it's on Maui where I've spent some wonderful times with me and Adina. It's where we went on honeymoon. You can see Haleakala from where we were staying.

'''Myke:''' I love the yellow.

'''Brad:''' It is the least likely to think it would work as a pen design, but it is executed wonderfully. Right? Yeah.

'''Myke:''' If I told you that the colors are yellow, rose gold, gray, and black, it's like there's no way. But it works. Funnily enough, this is one that they do not have available right now. Okay. I don't know if it's sold out. I don't know if maybe it's gone from their lineup. I don't know. But I have to put some Instagram images in the show notes.

'''Brad:''' Oh, no. Do you need a backup of this one too?

'''Myke:''' I hadn't thought of that. Don't talk about it.

'''Brad:''' Just for the record, I don't think I have any backup pens. I don't think.

'''Myke:''' No. I have another stacked nib in this pen. This fascinates me. This is the Zoom one. This is the Zoom nib one, which is absurd. Yep. In the greatest possible way. But again, it's like they match so perfectly. I have one of the Sailor inks in this. One of the numbered ones, the Ink Studio inks. I can find out which one it is, but I can never remember the numbers. But it's a really great yellow. And it matches so perfectly with this pen. Especially where like, you know, yellow ink can be hard to see at times. But this one is vibrant enough. But then also with it being the really, really thick stacked nib, it lays down so much ink. It's always visible. But what I also like about this, even though it is almost like a marker pen, it's still really usable, really writeable. I'm using 770 in this. Okay. Ink Studio 770. Which is, yeah, I really, really love this pen.

'''Brad:''' I get it, man. It's a stunner. Okay.

'''Myke:''' Next is, okay. The next one is like, in my Sinclair, I have the King of Pen that we bought and we each sent to Jonathan. And he did something special with it. So I have Arushi on it, right?

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' And I know I wanted to pick a King of Pen. But I actually didn't go with this one. Because I feel like I wanted to pick my first King of Pen. Gotcha. And one that I think more exemplifies my general taste of pens, which is the 1911 Royal Tangerine King of Pen. That makes sense.

'''Brad:''' I get, yeah, I get what you're saying there. Yep.

== King of Pen Orange ==

'''Myke:''' This pen is amazing. And it is the color that I love.

'''Brad:''' It's orange. It is exceedingly orange. Yeah. In the best way possible.

'''Myke:''' You know, in that moment, I realized that the word orange has been warped for me by you. Mm-hmm. I say orange now. Mm-hmm. And that's you. Mm-hmm. So just wanted to point that out just for the record books. I just realized that I just on my own said orange. Mm-hmm. That's a Brad Dowdy right there.

'''Brad:''' Orange.

'''Myke:''' Orange. Orange.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I love this pen. I love the color. It's like the Royal Tangerine, I own it in two sizes, right? Same as you. Do you own two sizes?

'''Brad:''' We own, I own two sizes, but our smaller pen is the different one. No, you have the L. I have the- You have the small. I have the small, yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' And do you have the king of pen or the large?

'''Brad:''' I have the large. I have the king of pen, not the middle. Right.

'''Myke:''' So, okay. So we both have the king of pen, which is, I'm holding it now, it's almost like a weapon,

'''Brad:''' the 1911. The 1911 with the rounded ends, right? Yeah. Not the flat ends like the pro gears. It takes on a different meaning of king of pen. Yeah. That shape is-

'''Myke:''' And that's why I like the 1911 king of pen shape more, even though, like, you know, I have one of each. And I like the 1911 one more because it is the biggest, most absurd, right? What I love about Sailor's king of pen is the absurdity of that pen. And nothing shows it more than the nib. The fact that it is- And even the name. Yeah, I mean, yeah, for sure. But like, just the fact that they took the nib and just made the nib bigger, like, it's just something that's so funny to me about that. Like, you could give one of each of these pens to someone and it would look like, you know, once someone had a tiny hand and someone had a big hand, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is just like, this kind of really does a better job, I think, of summing up exactly what I love. So that's why I picked that. Then my last one is, again, like, it is a sentimental thing, but also, like, it's sentimental for two reasons. Because it kind of reminds me where I come from when it comes to fountain pens, but also is special. And it's the Jonathan Brooks Arushi covered Lamy Safari that he made for us a couple of years ago. This is just a joy pen. It really is. I don't use mine enough. And I have the left-handed Lamy nibbiness.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, that's cool. And do you like that? Yeah. Like, do you, like, it fits your writing style?

'''Myke:''' Perfectly. So much so that I forget that there's something different about it. The only thing about this pen, of every pen that I own, it dries up the fastest.

'''Brad:''' So we have probably lost some seal in the cap with the thickness of the Arushi. That will probably be why, then. It doesn't just straight up snap into there. No. And there's probably some air gaps, which that's one of the things you just deal with. Yeah, I mean, I deal with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, the Lamy Safari, the way the, and not even counting the feeds as well, right? The feeds are the most simplistic, finless, you know, non-saturated feeds. So, like, it's just a combination of a few different things from design to added thickness and things like that.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I wondered if it was something to do with the nib, but that makes a lot of sense what you're saying. Because it doesn't really snap shut in the same way. Right. Right. Right.

'''Brad:''' And then, I think it's just a, yeah, and I think it's just, the Safari is just designed that way to not be the most inky, saturated feeds as well. So that probably doesn't help. So, there you go.

'''Myke:''' It is just, what Jonathan did to this pen, for this pen. It's nuts. It's breathtaking. It's nuts. You know? Like, and there is nothing better than on the narrow part of the grip section where he laid in the four dots, you know? Yep. Yep. Man is a genius. And he did beautiful work with those pens. And it is a treasure of mine to own. That's my top five right now. There's some weird stuff on there.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I like that in your notes after you did kind of like I did, it's like, I kind of need to put the Mark I in here. Like, I kind of needed to put the Ajoado in here. Because it is such a frequently used pen, like, to have that type of rollerball, be it the Mark I or the Ajoado, both of which we love, both of those brands. Like, it's the same thing, right? It's the same. I have all these fountain pens. And, like, the list was designed to be fountain pens. But we have these other pens that we use very frequently. And we feel a certain way about these just basic black rollerball writing vessels that just really kind of check our boxes as well. So, like, I would want to have those. If I was limited to these five fountain pens, okay, sure, I'd be happy. But I'd like to have, like, a rollerball and, like, a couple other things with that as well, or a gel pen or a pencil, that kind of thing. So, I like that you put the Mark I in here. It's just, like, I really want to add this. And I was like, yeah, like, I do too. So, like, we're on the same page there.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it's like, I love the Mark I, right? I own, like, five of them. I just, like, as a platform to be a pen, it's, like, as good to me as anything. But it just, and I wanted to give it, like, really my only special mention. But it just didn't, I couldn't knock any of those fountain pens off the list. Because ultimately, given the choice, I am always going to pick one of those five before anything, literally anything else. Yes. Right. But if I was to have a sixth, it would be that. Or if you were to say to me, you know, what about non-fountain pens? It's Mark I all day. Yeah. All day.

'''Brad:''' Like, I just talk about it so much. Like, I think probably one of the reasons why I do this is because I will pick up a pen and sometimes the pen I have to stop and it makes me smile, which I already mentioned in the show once. Like, these are the type of pens that do that for me. And I'm glad that they do. And it's just these realizations about how they make you feel, about how they make your writing look, about the people that made them, about the stories they tell. It's like, sometimes I just look at these pens and smile. And I am glad we got to put together this list.

'''Myke:''' All right. That's it for this week's episode of The Pen Addict. We'd love to know your top five pens lists. Yeah. When you send them in to us, you can send them on Twitter. Brad is at Dowdyism. I'm at imike. I-M-Y-K-E. And you can also follow us in other places. Brad is penaddict on Instagram. I'm also at imike on Instagram. Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm looking forward to a stream that I'm doing this Friday, which is on the 27th. It's going to be at, what is it? It's 11 a.m. Eastern time. I'm going to be building a prototype of a keyboard that I'm very excited about. It's called The Mode Sonnet. And they have sent me a pre-production unit that I'm going to be putting together. Nice, nice. I'm really excited about. So if you have any desire for that, you should come and check it out. They make my favorite keyboards mode. So I think you'll dig it. So come and check it out on Friday at mike.live. Don't forget to also check out spokedesign.com, cortexmerch.com. And thanks to Trade and Squarespace for the support of this episode. Until next time, I'm Myke Hurley and he's Brad Dowdy. Say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Goodbye, Brad. We'll be right back.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 514/transcript

2026-06-11T10:03:25Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 514
| title = Through the Moon
| date = May 18th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/514 Episode 514]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_514.mp3 Audio Episode 514]
| length = 59
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 514. Today's show is brought to you by the Kanilea Pen Company and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by the first and last word in Lego bricks, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad:''' Maybe the last word.

'''Myke:''' Last word ever in Lego bricks.

'''Brad:''' We had an eventful build this year, Myke.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it was terrible.

'''Brad:''' And we did everything possible to preserve our sanity going into this and we failed miserably. How did we fail so bad?

'''Myke:''' We underestimated the complexity of the Lego set that we were building.

'''Brad:''' That's what happened. Small does not equal easy in Lego.

== Lego Build Challenges ==

'''Myke:''' So we built the architecture sets for years, right? I've been thinking about this, Brad, like why was this so hard? The architecture sets, there aren't complicated pieces. You're mostly just building like squares in different ways. You know what I mean?

'''Brad:''' Like our historical toughest piece was the washing machine and how it orients.

'''Myke:''' But it was more like the way the pieces went together. So like in this build, so we, for RelayFM members, you can sign up at relay.fm slash membership. You get tons of fantastic benefits, access to the Discord, tons of bonus content going back multiple years now. I think five years of bonus content you get, as well as like monthly stuff that we do bonus for our members. We have like back, it's called Backstage is one of our shows where we kind of talk about what's going on at RelayFM. You can hear me and Steven talk about what it's like to run this company. We have Fusion, where there's a crossover show between multiple hosts of different shows. Steven hosts every month as well. Tons of great stuff, including the annual special episodes. Ours, again, this year, we built a Lego set together and we chose a model of a Formula One car. Now, here's what I was thinking about, Brad. The form and shape of the build, I think, was the problem. Because there were things that we were building that were just like visually complex and fiddly. And that was the issue. Basically, the main problem, it was complicated the whole way through. The main problem is a piece got added somewhere where it shouldn't have. It is unclear, as we stand at this time, whose fault that was. Whether Brad gave me a poor direction or whether I just picked it up and just randomly put it down. I would say at this point, 50-50 on that. Yeah. Could have been either of us. No one could tell. Definitely. Someone could tell, but nobody has told so far. We have at least one build completed. You know, actually, points to the person who can work out the answer to this for us. Yeah. There will be points awarded to you.

'''Brad:''' Because we've already had one completion of the set through the podcast. And they sent us a picture of the piece that we lost during our build or misplaced as a, here you go. But they didn't have any statement on how this came to be. Like, well, Brad missed this piece. He put it in the wrong place. Or it just might magically attach it to something else that it shouldn't have attached to. We don't know. Because we are definitely not going back to listen to this. Because we almost killed each other on this episode.

'''Myke:''' As you can tell, the fact that we are here making this show, mine and Brad's relationship is as good as it has ever been. Yeah. This was the biggest test of our friendship. There was a little bit of name calling on both sides. We were both agitated.

'''Brad:''' And we are two people that don't get agitated very easily. And we were agitated at each other.

'''Myke:''' And I was on the clock. I thought this would be easy. And I booked in a dinner. Which I didn't know. Because I didn't think we were going to take three hours to do this. Right? So I didn't even feel like it was necessary.

'''Brad:''' So Myke sent me a picture afterwards. Like, here's my dinner. And it's like, thanks, jerk. That you made me late for, Brad. No, you didn't make me late.

'''Myke:''' I was just late. We made me late. At the moment, it's 50-50. Because we lost about 20 minutes trying to find this piece. Easily. And so I would have made it just one time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I was wondering just how much you edited out of that part. Because it was bad. It was bad.

'''Brad:''' There were regrets, Myke. Oh, gosh. So, yeah. This is us talking about the tensions of this. And we had fun. We made up and made it through. And got it taken care of. But, yeah. Gosh. We failed in our own task of trying to make it easy on ourselves. So who knows what this will hold next year.

'''Myke:''' But I don't know if we're going to do another Lego. As I sit here right now, I'm not sure if we can do it. We might do something new. It might be time for something new anyway.

'''Brad:''' Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. It's just that we thought we were setting ourselves up for something that just is not possible anymore. It's a complicated thing. And it's fun. And it might be time to move on. So we're taking applications for future Penn Addict membership topics. So. All right, Myke. Let's. That was fun. We're going to talk about a lot of fun things the rest of this episode. But I want to talk about one. After this next thing. After this. I want to talk about one non-fun thing that you would be just as happy if we didn't have to discuss. I feel that I don't want to discuss it, but I feel we need to discuss it a little bit. And that is, of course, the new.

'''Myke:''' Let me just say, because I know what you're saying, but I don't want to get my. I get confusion. Just to my. I wish that we didn't have to talk about these things. Yes. Because they were things that didn't happen. Not that, like, I wish that we just wouldn't talk about this thing that has happened. Does that make sense? These are.

'''Brad:''' These are important things to discuss.

'''Myke:''' Absolutely ridiculous things that still seem to occur. But yet we find ourselves back in these situations again while we're talking about them.

== Anti-Semitic Label Controversy ==

'''Brad:''' Yep. Agree. Thank you for that clarification. That is accurate. So, as you can tell, number one, this is going to be about the Noodlers issues from last week. And number two, as you can tell, I wrote down zero notes because I just want to talk about this and see what happens. So, Noodlers did a thing again last week. Really right when we were starting to record last week's episode, podcast episode, all this Noodlers stuff came out. And I think the best way to start this conversation off is to tell you how I found out about it. But before the podcast, I got an Instagram message said, hey, did you see this thing from Noodlers? And, you know, there's kind of a hubbub about it. And I went and looked, like, real quick, as you do in Instagram messages. And I said, yeah, we talked about this a few months ago. Nothing new. And we recorded our show. And then I looked at it afterwards. And I was like, oh, this is actually not the thing that I talked about. Like, I think I talked about it on stream when it happened earlier this year. A certain product label that the Noodlers, Noodly Man, decided to make, you know, caused a bit of a stir. And I thought this was that issue from a few months ago. Turns out, Noodly Man did it again. Noodly Man's a bigot. I'm just going to call it as it is. And he thinks he's some kind of edgelord putting these, what he deems as funny ha-ha labels out there that are actually grotesque, harmful, and bigoted.

'''Myke:''' It was an anti-Semitic image. Yes. That was as part of like a collage, one of the collage kind of labels that. Yeah. What's the guy's name?

'''Brad:''' Noodly guy? Yeah. Nathan Tardif.

'''Myke:''' That's it. That's like, that's the guy, Nathan, who runs Noodlers Inc. Yeah. Seems to, you know, it's like this culture now, like you see it, like it comes from Elon Musk, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. It's like this, this like, oh, I'm just saying funny things. Right. And here's the thing, like, you know, free speech, right? You can do that if you want to. Yeah. Absolutely. You can't then expect everybody's going to go along with you. Right. And that seems to ultimately have been what happened here.

'''Brad:''' Right. So this was a new label on a new product he released.

'''Brad:''' Extremely, clearly anti-Semitic tropes. And the biggest thing that I will repeat several times during this conversation, it is not new.

'''Myke:''' This is not a new experience. That we were talking about. So I'll say, I honestly do not remember this the first time. I don't know if we ever spoke about this on the show, Brad, because I have zero memory of it. We didn't.

'''Brad:''' I thought about it. I talked about it on stream.

'''Myke:''' Okay. And so like, apparently there'd been something in the past where an image, there was like connotations of anti-Semitism in the image that he used. And he claimed to be unaware of this. And I, as a person who makes things online, I find myself in these situations where I say something that I don't know the connotations of that thing. Right. But then when people tell you, you apologize, you learn, and you don't do it again. Right. Right. Like that's, and like, it's not that you never make mistakes again. Right. Right. Because I make mistakes all the time. Correct. I like to feel like I don't make the same mistake multiple times. And if you seem to have, like, by your omission, stumbled upon an anti-Semitic image and chose to use that on your product label, you should be more smart about the images that you don't know the connotations to later on.

'''Brad:''' Right? Right. Right. And Noodle Guy is not that smart. He is, he knows exactly what he's doing. He is choosing these images purposefully. And he is showing his, his just completely wild mindset that is fueled by hate and fueled by disrespect. And I, I guarantee knowing these types of people, like he thinks this is fun and funny, but guess what, Myke, this time it really hurt his business. So, we get the business PR apology, which I don't believe a word of. This has been the most impactful pushback on Noodlers in like probably the past decade. He's been doing this type of stuff for this long. Right. This is not new. But the challenge that we have as a community is there's always new people coming into the fountain pen community. Right. Like Noodlers is, has been on my no shop list for, I can't tell you how long, five, six, seven, eight, ten years maybe. Because I just don't like the guy. He, he's just not a good person. He's not someone I want to associate myself with. He's not someone whose products I want to support because his belief system is so flawed and just shows a complete lack of empathy and awareness to humanity. Like he is just one of those types of people. So, I don't support him. And that's been going on for years. But there's new people that are just, that have kind of, Noodlers has always been kind of like this gateway product, especially with inks. They have a big, a big footprint in our industry, if you will, on the ink side of things. And a lot of people are familiar with the brand and they find something they like and they want people, as a habit, continue to want to buy the things that they like. This time it, it impacted the bottom line in a big way. Pretty clearly there were, you know, apologies, air quote. Like we're not going to link to any of this stuff. Y'all can go find it on Instagram. I implored no one to read the comments, never read the comments. But it's just, it's just a mess. So, given all that and given, you know, my opinion of the Noodle Guy, I think the conversation needs to be focused now on how do us as consumers continue to, you know, shop, support businesses that carry products that we disagree with. And things of that nature. And from my perspective, what I want personally doesn't really match up with the reality of the situation. What I want after Wednesday is for Noodlers to, no one to, like every vendor and retailer to stop carrying the brand, right?

'''Myke:''' By or large, they have, right?

== Retailer Dilemmas ==

'''Brad:''' It depends. So, we're going to, there's some nuance there. So, like what I want is honestly, like I understand that that's also not realistic. Like I'm not going to completely bag on any retailer for continuing to carry Noodlers for the time being. Because there's a lot more that goes into that, right? Into that decision then, hey, my customer, you know, may no longer support this brand, may no longer buy this brand. But like these retailers have inventory. Most of these retailers are smaller businesses. These smaller businesses have payrolls to meet and they can't just, you know, throw the ink in the trash. Like my two bottles of Noodlers doesn't impact me. It impacts real businesses with real bottom lines and real responsibilities to themselves and to their employees. So, I'm not going to really like get into each individual retailer's decision. But the way I see it as a business person myself, I also have a moral code, right? And it's easier for me because I'm a single employee to apply my morals to a very clean black and white decision, right? Like I don't like Noodle Guy. He is a bigot. Therefore, I will not support him. A retailer that's carried this brand for a decade has a different set of questions that they are having to ask themselves. How do I continue? Do I continue to support this person? Do I continue to allow these products to be sold? How does my choice to carry this brand affect my relationship with the upline distributor, right? And this could go for any brand, right? I'm not singling out like Noodlers or any particular retailer or any particular distributor, right? It's not a singular decision like me, Brad, can make that vendor X has to make against the choice of either stopping and carrying the products, continuing to carry the products until they sell them through, making any kind of statements on the products, things like that. My only question for retailers is, is it worth it in the end to continue to carry the brand? And the first one is, well, the first reply to that is, well, they must make them a lot of money if they continue to carry the brand. Aside the fact that I wouldn't be making decisions based on money, I'd prefer decisions to be made around morals. How much money can they really be making? If Noodlers is the number one ink seller for the biggest retailer in the world, what is that percentage of sales? Do you think?

'''Myke:''' I mean, how many inks do they carry, would you say? Right. How many brands?

'''Brad:''' If they're the biggest pen retailer in the world, they carry a lot of brands. And if Noodlers is the number one ink brand of all the brands that they carry, to the bottom line, how much is Noodlers? My argument, and I mentioned this to you, my argument that it is not more than 1%, right? It just defies logic that it's more than 1%, 2%.

'''Myke:''' Because I would assume from all the things that could contribute towards a large part of a brand's bottom line in the pen world, ink isn't it, right? Right. Because ink is much cheaper than other products, especially for higher-end distributors. Right. So, will I compromise? Well, I mean, but this is the thing. But what if it isn't, though? Right? Like, I know what you're saying here, but, like, I don't know what the wholesale price is like on ink. For all I know, it's the largest profit margin that a retailer has.

'''Brad:''' Even if it's a huge profit margin, just, you mentioned just a second ago, the scale of a low dollar amount, even if you're making 100% on a bottle, like, say you buy it for $8 and you sell it for $16 and you're making 100%. That 100% still, I would argue, accounts for a very fractional percentage of any business's total bottom line. Yeah. So, where does the moral decision come in?

'''Myke:''' If I could add some context to this, a little bit from my perspective. Mm-hmm. This is kind of the price of doing business today. Yes. Like, you know, we have had sponsors that have done things that aren't great, but we stand by them for whatever reason because we think it's, like, okay or whatever. Or we accept their explanation for it or whatever, as long as we feel like, you know, there's, this is all taken care of. Right. We've worked with companies that some of our listeners don't like their product, but some do, right? So, you get, you know, like, oh, I don't like this kind of thing. Why do you do that? Like, for example, one of the ones that, like, we work with Capital One on some of our shows, and it's about their kind of technology, kind of like a recruitment-y kind of message. But some people just don't like that credit cards exist in the world, right? Sure. Like, for that, for me, it's like that doesn't pass my test. But then we have companies that they do something bad or, like, they go in a direction which is really uncertain. And we've had to cancel big deals, right? Mm-hmm. Sure. Or turn down, like, large renewals. Like, because if we were to continue, it would sour the taste of listeners to us. Yeah. This is the cost of doing business in today's world, where, like, consumers have choice, but consumers are also very vocal. Mm-hmm. And you have to understand that. Like, people, like, principle is now, like, people's principles is now, like, a much stronger thing than ever before in the things that they choose to support. Mm-hmm. And so, you kind of have to understand that if you're in a business where you are selling anything to anyone. Right. You are beholden to your customer more now, I think, than you have been before. Right. So, if your customer says, like, I don't want you to stock this. You should not do that. You have to consider it. Like, you have to consider it. And, yeah, you might have a loss. Right. But that's just what it's like now. Like, and I don't... You know, it's complicated. When things are being thrown at me, I can, like, get upset and be like, oh, why are people going to be this way? But also, I understand, like, I understand why people are like that. It's good that people talk about the things that they don't want. Mm-hmm. Because then you know as well, right? Like, if people didn't tell us, they would just stop listening and I wouldn't know why. But this is a complicated thing to handle. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' As simple as I want the retail decision to be or the distributor's decision to be to say, hey, get rid of this fool. It's not that simple. And I do understand that. And that's where some of the angst for me personally comes in to where I can make a very clean black and white decision.

'''Myke:''' It's easy for you to sit there and say it, right? Because you've got nothing on the line.

'''Brad:''' Right. So, I just want people to understand that these retailers and distributors have bigger stakes that they think about than just, you know, let's just fire this brand off into the sun.

'''Myke:''' And it is more complicated than what I'm talking about too. Right. Because, you know, we can sell our sponsors if we work hard at it. But the stock issue is the problem. Right. Yeah. That, you know, you've paid for this stock maybe depending on what your deal is. Right. If you're just sitting on that, I don't know what you do with it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. So, you know, sometimes like I'm wondering like is it just a write-off? Like how much are we talking about? Like it's in some cases it's a lot. So, it's a bigger decision than my individual decisions. Like my individual decision, you know, a long time ago was, you know, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you. Noodler's into like fool me a couple dozen times. And there is no redeeming value of this brand in my eyes. But that's a personal statement, a personal perspective that I have from seeing this for a long time. Seeing the people that Noodler guy actively hurts. Actively hurts my friends. And I will not stand for that. But my individual consumer decisions are a much different calculus than retail and distributor decisions. So, you know, I do preach patience with that a little bit. It's not an easy situation for a lot of these companies to be put in. But it's, you know, again, you know, it's a moral stance from me personally. This is my morals align a certain way. And that means like this company is pretty much does not exist to me. So, I hate seeing it continue to creep up and continue to affect other people. And the hate from Noodler guy affecting my friends negatively. It really impacts me on a personal level. So, yeah, that's kind of my thoughts on this. You know, we could spend an hour like breaking down like all the business decisions and all of this. But that's my personal stance. If you have thoughts on that, feel free to email me. Hello at penannic.com. But, yeah, I hate seeing a brand like this detract from what is generally one of the most amazing communities on the Internet. And they are not one of us, in my opinion. They are an outlier and a hate monger. And I'm just not going to stand for anything that Noodlers does. And that's it. All right, you got a segue for this?

'''Myke:''' No, let's just talk about the next thing.

'''Brad:''' Let's put on our shades, Myke. I just threw some shades. Let's put on our shades. How about some Kaweco sunglasses, Myke? I know when I saw this, I looked at my calendar and said, Hey, Brad, is it April 1st? Is it April 1st?

'''Myke:''' Who is Michael?

'''Brad:''' Michael Guprele. Oh, my God. The man who torches your fire blue fountain pens, Myke. Why is he not melting these things? You know what I'm saying?

'''Brad:''' Clearly, you have not gotten the images that I have of, oh, there it is, last image in the thing. That's Michael Guprele. No, I see it, but it's like, why just Michael?

'''Myke:''' It's not like Prince.

'''Brad:''' You know? What is he going to do? Michael G?

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Kenny G.

'''Myke:''' Sure.

'''Brad:''' Oh, my gosh. So, Kaweco is selling sunglasses, 149 euro, made or in collaboration with Kaweco collector and CEO, Michael Guprele. See the world from Michael's point of view. With the limited sunglasses designed by the passionate Kaweco collector and CEO, Michael Guprele, you become part of the Kaweco family. The stylish and timeless design of the hour model ideally takes you through sunny days. I need some sunny days in my life after that previous segment. So, I'm just going to abstain from putting on some glasses so I can continue to bathe in the glorious sunlight that I need. And if I did need sunglasses, Myke, they're not going to be Kaweco branded on both sides of my head. I don't need Penn Company branded eyewear, especially premium eyewear. Swag eyewear, you're going to throw me in a bag that, you know, we can post on Instagram and joke about. Knock yourself out. 149 euro fancy eyewear with Kaweco on it. Hard pass. These are soon, these are getting ready to be your five-year anniversary gift at Kaweco for working because I don't know. I don't know what's happening here. They're about to be gift with purchase. This is, this is a lot of self-importance happening. I get it. It's supposed to be fun. Do your thing, you know what I mean? Like, if that's what you want to do, do your thing.

'''Myke:''' But it's all just very funny to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so I got that in my, in my inbox yesterday, I think. And I was like, what did I really, I was like, April 1st? It's not April 1st. And this is a real product by Kaweco. We're going to talk about someone in a minute after our sponsor who does do some really special creative things that we're going to have some thoughts on. Multiple products. But first, I want to talk about a product that you and I have, a product that I love specifically. And that's the Le Volani from our good friends at Canalea Pen Co.

'''Myke:''' Canalea Pen Co. Makes stunningly beautiful pens that are inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, wonderful people, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and help us connect with nature. And they actually bring that spirit, that visual, to a beautiful product that you can hold in your hands. The execution is really what sets Canalea pens apart from what you might find elsewhere. Every single Canalea pen is handmade. In a process that means no two pens will ever look alike. And when you buy them, you know, they come to you perfectly tuned. Hugh smooths and tunes every single nib himself before it leaves Canalea's shop so that it's going to write beautifully straight out of their lovely black walnut keepsake box. Canalea fountain pens feature Yoha No. 6 nibs. You can buy steel or 18 karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They offer sizes from extra fine to 1.1mm stub. Today I want to remind you about the, as Brad mentioned, the new Le Volani collection from Canalea. This design represents the sky at night in Kauai with its deep, beautiful dark blue with vibrant stars and a visible shimmer of the Milky Way. That's not just the image that they use. That's what the pen looks like. It really is incredible. The Le Volani collection consists of the fountain pen offered in five styles. They have a ballpoint and also the return of the Mailele band, which is a wonderful option made of Argentium silver, adorning Canalea's classic fountain pen profile. Canalea also now offer medallions and clips made from Argentium silver too, so you can add that little bit extra to this beautiful new pen. We got tons of great reports from Hugh and Carol about the energy of the Chicago pen show. They were just at last week or a couple weeks ago, and they were showing off the Le Volani to people that were there. They actually told us that many pen addict listeners were there checking out the new collection because they'd heard about it on the show. Nice. I also want to just thank pen addict listeners who let Hugh and Carol know that they heard about it from us. I think that's really great. Talking about pen shows, the next show that Canalea will attend is the St. Louis Pen Show from June 24th to 26th. This is the first time they are attending this show, and to celebrate, they have an awesome surprise for those that will be attending. We'll be telling you more about this episode on June 15th, so stay tuned. But this is one of these things that Canalea very rarely tell us things in advance. They have told us what this is, and I am so excited for the people that are going to be at that show and incredibly jealous for them. So you'll hear more about this in a few weeks' time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, both of us. We get individual content packages from Canalea, and this was something I was like, did you get the thing that I got? And he's like, yeah, I got the thing that you got.

'''Myke:''' I'm really excited for what this will mean for their pen show there at St. Louis. As a reminder, every purchase from the new Le Volani collection, Canalea is also giving back to conservation funds and community programs in Kauai and the North Shore community. So go and see these wonderful products for yourself, including the new Le Volani collection at CanaleaPenco.com. That's K-A-N-I-L-E-A-P-E-N-C-O.com. Just find the link in the show notes. That's CanaleaPenco.com to choose your aloha today. Our thanks to the Canalea Penco for the support of this show.

'''Brad:''' Myke, I am so excited to talk about these next few topics. Okay. I want you to lead the first one.

== Montegrappa F1 Speed Limited Edition ==

'''Myke:''' I feel like I've seen this before. Have you? The Montegrappa F1 Speed Limited Edition. I've seen the red one before.

'''Brad:''' That's what threw me off. So when I saw this pop up in my feed, I didn't see the red one. Right. Because I thought we'd seen this before. They had the black one, and I think the black one's new.

'''Myke:''' The black one is new. Yeah, it's the 2022 one.

'''Brad:''' So it's the follow-up. I wonder, do they do one every six years when the regulations change? Is the racing red model different in style from the podium?

'''Myke:''' I can give you all the answers. I have all the answers for you. Thank you. Thank you. The F1 collaborated with Montegrappa in 2020 as part of the F1 70. So in the 2020 season, I don't know how aware you are of this. It was the 70th anniversary of Formula One. So they partnered with Montegrappa, and they made a Formula One-themed pen. Carbon fiber, red and black, and all that kind of stuff. Now, this year, they have made a new one, which is they're called Podium Black, a high-gloss black lacquer finish. One of the things that I really like about this pen is that they have an exhaust on the end of it, which is heat-treated.

'''Brad:''' I wonder if they hired Michael Gubrele for that. They could have. They contracted him for that. He's a very professional torchbearer. But I have faith in Montegrappa that they could pull off their own torching because they make some of the wildest, most unique pens ever. And this is just a classic. I think the wheel is my favorite. The actual in the finial wheel of this. It's just really kind of neat. And, you know, on one hand, I hate everything about this pen. I hate the way this pen looks with a fiery passion. It's so ugly. On the other hand, it's like, okay, I see you, Montegrappa. This is what Montegrappa does the best, right? Yeah. They take the premium thing and take it over the top, right? It is over the top. And I just wanted to be sure to share this latest edition. So this is the newest edition. Even though the pen is the same silhouette, there are different features in the podium black model from the racing red model. So it's quite the looker. And you can take that every which way you want.

'''Myke:''' I want someone to get a Formula One license and make a pen for every team. But they look good.

'''Brad:''' That seems like an ST DuPont thing that they could pull it off. They've done not really like team branded stuff. But they are another one like Montegrappa that they will have the high end licenses. You know, like they'll pay for like a Star Wars license and do a really special high end thing.

'''Myke:''' Because obviously like that is what I've asked for is unrealistic because nobody has the ability to give you the license to every team. Like Formula One doesn't have that. Like Montegrappa has got Formula One. They haven't got McLaren and Mercedes and Ferrari. You know, like blah, blah, blah, blah, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like just the Ferrari license would be outrageous, right? Like and then you have to get all 10. It would be extreme. But you're also, you know, marketing these pens to a customer that could probably afford it if you look at the Miami race and the prices of things there. This is the marketing. So I appreciate this pen while simultaneously disliking literally everything about it. Totally fine. But yeah, that's what Montegrappa does best. So they do some wild stuff. This one, Myke, I'm going to tackle because I'm not sure even you really care to appreciate what's going on here. And this is the Cinderella slipper glass pen from Bungu Box that I got in my email.

'''Myke:''' So you hit the wooden. You put these links in the show notes and I looked at them.

'''Myke:''' The words that you have put in the show notes do not match my feeling for what this is. So I want to hear what you have to say.

'''Brad:''' I want to be very clear. I have no desire to own a product like this. This is a high-end, ultra-premium glass-dip nib pen. And the reason why I'm putting this in because, you know, listening to Jacob and CY on Tokyo Inklings podcast, they've talked for, I don't know, over the past year or two that one of the hottest items in Japan were not simply glass-dip nib pens, but very specifically made, expensive, custom, unique glass nib pens. And this is, you know, a $200-plus glass-dip nib pen. And it's stunning. Like, this looks like a $200 glass-dip nib pen, right? It looks, you know, almost handmade from start to finish. It's got some really unique features. It has a lot of craftsmanship that went into it. You know, this is not a product I ever have any desire to own by any stretch of the imagination.

'''Myke:''' I don't understand why this is Cinderella. Cinderella.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I guess it's just unique kind of. Yeah, so it says, I don't know, it's glittery and blue and, you know, it's a magic story. You know, it says, there was once a girl covered in soot, and as soon as a magical spell was cast on her, she was transformed into the most beautiful green-blue glass slipper. So we have captured this magical story in a glass pen. So, you know, it's, you know, theoretical.

'''Myke:''' Sure, it's like, you know, the story you tell is whatever it is, right?

'''Brad:''' It is, it is. But in collaboration, Myke, which really seals the story, and this is the product I'm the most excited about.

'''Myke:''' This makes sense to me, what they're trying to do here. There is. It's the Cinderella-ness of this next part.

'''Brad:''' Yep. There is a Cinderella slipper silver ink bottle cap ornament that fits these specific bottles that Bungo Box makes for their sailor inks.

'''Myke:''' I love that it's not actually, you don't actually get the bottle. It's just the add-on. It's just a little metal part, a little crown that goes on top, basically.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's, this is the storytelling tying everything together, right? So we have the pen, and it's individual, and the pen is telling a story. But you need the ink to, to match with that. And there's, you know, we've had, you know, different, different ink bottles, and Bungo Box always kind of collaborating, you know, a product with, you know, a pen and an ink kind of together. This one takes it even further, and it is an accessory for your ink bottle. And I think it's beautiful. Like, I would never use this. I would never want this. Like, it wouldn't be, for me, it wouldn't be money well spent, right? Because I wouldn't, like, get the joy of seeing that sitting on my desk using my Cinderella glass pen in the same ink bottle with the glass zipper ornament. But I like this. Like, unlike the Montegrappa before, it's like, I like this a lot. And I think, like, in the market that Jacob and CY were talking about, and the prevalence of this type of product with the glass-tip nib pen, I mean, who better than to be on the cusp of that than Bungo Box? And I appreciate, like, literally all of this from the pen all the way down to the bottle cap.

'''Myke:''' And I just think it's fantastic. For me, so the little cap is like a little crown thing, kind of looks like a building. It's kind of cute. And it's got a slipper on top, but the slipper's not glass.

'''Brad:''' True, true. I didn't think about that, but, you know. Yeah, makes sense. I see what you're getting at there. I see what you're getting at there. I feel you. Yeah. So, anyway, it is definitely more of a monopoly piece.

'''Myke:''' This is for a specific type of person that's not me. And I'm fine with that. And I don't think everything needs to be for me. Exactly.

'''Brad:''' Exactly. I was just completely taken aback by this whole thing in a respect kind of way. Oh, yeah. Big, big respect for you, Bungo Box, for making this. It's stunning. For this customer, they will be, you know, just like we would fawn over certain pens. Like, this is a thing that people will jump through hoops to acquire and to cap it off with a literal bottle cap. I think it's just so smart in the silliest kind of way. Yep. Appreciate the commitment. Related to all things Japanese, Jacob, who I just mentioned with Tokyo Inklings, he followed up on kind of a topic that we've mentioned that he mentioned before. So, this is just a big, big circle of friends here. About the different colors of the Pilot Custom 912, which is the drum that I've banged for years. Like, hey, Pilot, give me more 912 options. I think this is your platform pen, and I think it should be available in more than just black and rhodium trim. So, they came out, or we got the news, I don't know, really not that long ago, earlier this year, that there was, you know, some different barrel colors. Some translucent blue, green, and red barrel colors for the Pilot 912. And the interesting thing about those is they only came with basic nib options. And one of the reasons I want the 912 to continue to grow and expand and gain in popularity is because they actually have quite a few of, you know, really interesting nib options, you know, outside of just like a fine, a medium, you know, or a broad, you know. The 912 fits Pilot's Falcon nib, and it fits the stub nib, which is not a normal thing that they sell. And it fits all of these different kinds of nibs. And it looks like for this model, the Pilot Neo Classic 912 in blue, you can get, how many nibs is this? 15. One, 15, thank you. 15 different nib choices for this pen. And I'm like, yes. Like, is this really happening, right? Again, like, this is not the pen for me, but it gives me hope that one day I'm going to see an expansion of the 912 lineup to retailers, not specialty shops or, you know, one-off limited editions. That Pilot will expand the 912 lineup universally, not only with interesting barrel colors, but the availability of 15 different nib choices in a single pen platform and still be at an awesome price point, like under $300. Like, the Pilot 912 is just a classic great value pen. Like, it's by no means inexpensive, but for what it is and what you get, like, I think it's fairly priced and a good deal. And I just feel that this is the model that I want to see Pilot lean into the most. And they've done it here. And this link we'll share in the show notes that Jacob and CY shared on Tokyo Inklings is to a company, Pinto Note, that will ship to the U.S. So if this is something that you're interested in, like, I'm willing to hold off for a while and see what continues to happen here as Pilot expands, hopefully expands this. Like, I'm going to bet on them doing more. So I'm going to wait on this. But I absolutely, I'm through the moon with this decision by Pilot to do this for this model of the 912.

'''Myke:''' Through the moon.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That was a couple of mixed metaphors there, right? You're over the moon and through the roof. Through the roof. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's how excited I am, Myke. Over the roof and through the moon. I cannot even metaphor correctly. That's how excited I am. So, and I'm assuming you just share my excitement.

== Scribe Inks and Esterbrook Cosmic Wine SD ==

'''Myke:''' I wish I understood what all of these meant. Yeah. Right. That's my issue. There's a chart. There's a, yes, but the chart is an image. So I can't try and translate the chart. I can translate all of the text. Like, so I can get, like, rough translations of the names of the nibs. Right. Right. I don't actually know what it means. so like I can get a translation that tells me that the MS nib is music or the C is special bold or what about WA which is translated as Waverly right like I don't know what that means

'''Brad:''' so yeah it's like yeah you'd have to go you know I'd have to go do some additional work you know like Waverly is a little bit of a turned up nib SU is stub

'''Myke:''' I just don't like the 912 I want to see this on a different pen yep I'm with you

'''Brad:''' but I'm ecstatic and I just hope this is again something that is the beginning of a bigger longer term trend with the 912 because I have been beating that drum forever alright next up the Parker Penman Sapphire Myke is one of the most famous inks in fountain pen lore it was a ink made by Parker I want to say early 2000s late 90s early 2000s that was a color that quickly became everyone's favorite right up until it destroyed their pens so there is always been it's always been held up as one of the greatest inks ever made except for that part the destruction part right everyone liked the color and like the depth of the ink the shading of the ink everything about that ink was kind of everyone's favorite blue and ever since that ink went away two things happened one people hoarded that ink and started charging ultra premium prices for it you know because it was rare and sought after now and two companies have tried to replicate that what if I told you the person who made the original Parker Penman Sapphire is now making their own copycat inks that look similar behave similar similar but won't destroy your pens and that is what the guest post I had on the pen addict on Monday by our friend Michael Harris Michael if you didn't put two and two together Michael is one of the two people behind the pen addict annual survey along with Catherine Palmisano this is the the other half of that glorious pairing to get us our survey data so Michael wrote this guest post because he has interviewed the chemist behind this and gone through all of the Parker original Parker Penman inks and the new scribe or new-ish scribe inks that were designed to match and this I know this isn't necessarily up your alley nor is it up mine to be perfectly honest but I think the idea behind this that we have someone involved with one of the most famous fountain pen inks ever trying to duplicate that in a more healthy fashion and doing it on their own I think is pretty neat and I wanted to make sure that people share people saw this article and shared it because I think it's just kind of the cool stuff that we can get in this community to where we have this creativity and this desire to make something that everyone loved but is no longer available and I thought Michael did a really great job so I wanted to give him a special shout out for this and this is something that I think a lot of people have enjoyed and I wanted you and everyone else listening to enjoy it as well

'''Myke:''' it's good to know it's out yeah

'''Brad:''' so I knew of this I knew of these scribe inks I didn't know that they had made tried to make a match for all of the penman series that happened so it's Parker Penman Sapphire is kind of like this one standalone standout ink but there was actually a lineup of I think eight inks but this is it's one of those things where 90% of the volume was probably the blue and then 10% comprised like the seven other colors right it was the Parker Penman Sapphire was the entirety of this ink lineup but there is a whole range of inks they look very very similar to the originals as you would hope they would with the original chemists being involved in trying to work on making a more sustainable less damaging ink that is still just as beautiful as the original so I thought that was a great a great post and I wanted to make sure to share it and give Michael a shout out and thanks for doing that because I learned a lot just from reading and reading and posting that

'''Myke:''' this episode is brought to you by pen chalet they sell the products you're looking for from the brands you love whether you're looking for an amazing rollerball a perfect new fountain pen maybe you want a mechanical pencil maybe you want a carrying case or a pen holder maybe you want some refills some fountain pen converters all the accessories that you're looking for are over at pen chalet they're always adding new styles of pens and new products every single month you'll find new things being added so you get to keep your eye on it because also they're running special discounts every couple of weeks you're going to find closed out specials and new deals over at pen chalet but you get even more special better ones for being a pen addict listener but before I tell you about those let me tell you about their wonderful pricing and guarantees pen chalet has low prices on high quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee for their products they want you to be happy they sell internationally with great shipping rates but if you're in the US they do free shipping on orders of over $50 which surely is easy to hit go to penchalet.com that's p-e-n-c-h-a-l-e-t !com click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password pen addict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything anytime over at penchalet now Brad Ron told me he was putting some special stuff up this time

'''Brad:''' yeah can I can I before we get to that can I tell you about the esterbrook cosmic wine SD that I just happened to see yes I just

'''Myke:''' saw it too I'm like hang on a minute

'''Brad:''' what are you yeah that caught my eye too Myke you could say I'm through the moon on that one too

'''Myke:''' I mean all I'll say genuinely reminds me of my the galaxy 3776 that I have

'''Brad:''' yep yep exactly it's a really it's a really great

'''Myke:''' stunning pen for a fantastic price

'''Brad:''' yeah I hadn't seen that I hadn't seen that before so what Ron snuck in here which I think I see what he did here he's got some sneaky pelican stuff in here that you shouldn't be able to to this is not your normal pelican sale right so this is your pelican special edition golden barrel this is your pelican suveron black with red stripes this is like your elite tier one pelican stuff that you want to check out you want to get in here browse around this page and you know aside from you know the great fountain pens like these pelicans the always popular for me Karen Dash 849 claim your style ball points in there Myke you know there's just some really really cool stuff as you scroll down there's a retro 51 in there which you rarely see happening there's even a set of pelican rollerballs which I have not noticed before so this is a great great lineup featuring several really really interesting and neat pelican pens so thank you Ron for hooking us up supporting this podcast and taking care of our listeners I appreciate it

'''Myke:''' so that's penshalet.com click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict our thanks to Penn Chalet for the continued support of this show and Relay FM

'''Brad:''' are we actually going to answer some Ask TPA

'''Myke:''' we're going to do a couple yeah and this was mainly because I kind of lost track of the show should have done another ad about 15 minutes ago but here we are so we're going to finish out with some Ask TPA today

'''Brad:''' all right let's do

== Capsule Technologies in Fountain Pens ==

'''Myke:''' it Fibber asks aside from Platinum's capsule tech are there other capsule technologies for fountain pens I noticed that the Bic grip had an inner cap to seal the rollerball vents for the outer cap

'''Brad:''' I don't know of anything offhand outside of anyone trying to mimic Platinum's technology right other companies have put these little kind of cup and seal mechanisms in there I can't think of another one off the top of my head but I've definitely used pens to where they will do it not as nice as Platinum has done it and try to have this insert when you put the pin into the cap tightens against the seal of the cap to the barrel to help seal off the nib from airflow I don't know that any of them are special enough or interesting enough that beat what Platinum's done I'd be interested to know what other people think at one point probably two years ago Myke I don't know if you recall this there was a Kickstarter where you could have liquid humidity in the cap created do you remember this conversation there was a cap with actual liquid in there which like I understand the idea but I don't understand the desire for people to want it I don't understand the marketability for that product right is like I get what you're saying that this might technically work I also do not want this anywhere near my fountain pen nip right I just do not want this so that was interesting I don't think it was necessarily useful or compelling decision making so outside of that just from like a cap seal technology Platinum obviously clearly does it very very well they stand they put that at the forefront of a lot of their marketing for good reason and I can't think of anyone else who hasn't who has done anything interesting and if they have they've done it kind of as an afterthought like yeah this might work like if you jam this cap thing in there and you seal it off and like that's gonna be good but they're not gonna they're not gonna lead their marketing with this kind of like afterthought Platinum Copycat deal that is probably the only thing I've seen before

'''Myke:''' and I guess you can't go too heavy on it because then you're clearly copying Platinums which I'm sure are patented technology

'''Brad:''' yeah so the the key that what Platinum has solved that the other implementations of this that I've seen haven't is the small size of it it does not get in the way at all it's barely noticeable and the other ones have that I've seen are very kind of clunky type of type of mechanisms in the cap that look like outliers where Platinum Platinum is completely built in almost seamlessly

'''Myke:''' yeah it's got the little spring in it I can see on my 3776 it's not I mean

'''Brad:''' people will argue that that's like visually poor right with the translucent pin in the spring in the top and like fair fair enough but no one else is doing that as well as they're doing

'''Myke:''' perspective the Platinum really do make a difference like they're good to go way more than my other pens are so it's a good technology and Chris asks have you ever figured out how to wipe a nib without smearing ink between the tines I love this question from Chris I think it's impossible you can't

'''Brad:''' do it yeah

'''Myke:''' just by the nature of how the technology works right like

'''Brad:''' yeah nor should you attempt to do it and I'm gonna tell Chris something that I think for most things is bad advice but for this one I think it's good advice and it's just to get over it you have to worry

'''Myke:''' about there being ink on the nib like if something's happened and it's like burped maybe you've got like a drop get that off there but you're just gonna smear the ink on the nib like there's no way around it like this is just how it lives

'''Brad:''' you know I think for life advice telling someone to get over anything is terrible advice I had to learn to get over having ink on my tines and just living with it and not and stop making it worse by using a paper towel or using a microfiber cloth or trying to wash it because it's even if you do the most amazing job give it five minutes of usage or cap the pen again it's coming back

'''Myke:''' you use a paper towel and then you get some fibers in the nib and then you're dealing with a whole lover it's not worth it aggravation it's just

'''Brad:''' not worth it yep so that's one of the things I learned a few things back when I was a new fountain pen user I had to get over that was number one is why is there ink here you know whether it was on the tines or with a translucent barrel pen and you put an ink cartridge in and you see it kind of go through the feed system is like why is all this ink inside my pen well it's supposed to be there and then also getting ink on my fingers like all of those things I had to get over and realize that that is part of the experience and there is no way to fix like getting the ink off off the nib or between the tines without just making it worse or just you know pushing pushing the rock up the hill right it's it's it's coming back down like eventually so you just have to learn to love it and enjoy the beautiful color ink on the outside of your nib because sometimes it's going to be

'''Myke:''' there if you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future show just send out a tweet with the hashtag rstpa use question mark rstpa in the relay fm members discord or you can send them via email to hello at pen addict dot com in two weeks time we're going to have an episode where we're going to aim to just do rstpa but because of some scheduling stuff we are recording that one next week we're recording two episodes so what i'm saying is if you have a question send it in before next week's episode so it could be included in the one in two weeks time

'''Brad:''' yeah we have five pages of stpa that i'm still looking at right now no i'm saying for me we're long overdue getting this done and we can do more if we're doing a dedicated

'''Myke:''' show the problem is and the reason a lot of these haven't been answered is a lot of the questions we have are really long really long so they kind of need a dedicated time but similarly though i would like some shorter questions to also go into the episode two so it's not just like me talking constantly for 20 minutes and then you giving a one minute answer and then 20 minutes and be talking again you know

'''Brad:''' what i mean yep so if you have questions for us you want to get them in before next

'''Myke:''' wednesday which i mean of course time is relative we are talking about the 25th of may in the year 2022 you can always send them in though we're always answer them but just absolutely you know just a relative thing because there will be people listening to this in i bet 2032 and they're gonna be like oh

'''Brad:''' no by next week or or hey it's been 10 years they just got to my question that's that's

'''Myke:''' more likely that is more likely if you want to find brad online in the meantime go to at dowdy is on twitter at pen addict on instagram you can find brad streaming live on twitch over at twitch.tv slash pen addict three times a week you can find brad at pen addict dot com and spoke design dot com i'm at imike i-m-y-k-e and you can find what stuff that i'm working on over at cortexbrand.com and you can also find this show as part of relay fm where we have a ton of wonderful shows for you to check out shows about creativity and technology and we say creativity technology obsessiveness is that a thing the three words technology no it's creativity curiosity and obsessiveness i think that's it so like you know on our challenge coin we have like three things and that it's not technology it's creativity curiosity obsessive if

'''Brad:''' you keep this up you're gonna be through the moon so my challenge coin

'''Myke:''' kate's on the other desk that's the problem so my challenge coins over there uh i'm trying to find relay fm is an independent podcast network for people who are creative curious and maybe even a little obsessive just like its hosts that's it creativity curiosity obsessive that's that's the three anyway uh thanks so much to canalea pen co and penchillay for the support of this episode thank you for listening go check out our members episode relay dot fm membership as a piece of follow-up uh lisa suggested that you were right and i was wrong until next time say goodbye brad goodbye brad you

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 501/transcript

2026-06-11T06:28:29Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 501
| title = The AL-Star Sucks
| date = February 16th, 2022
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/501 Episode 501]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_501.mp3 Audio Episode 501]
| length = 51
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 501. I was going to say one, as if it started again, but like it was an intention, it wasn't like a mistake, like episode one. This is episode one of The Second 500. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey Myke, how's it going?

'''Myke:''' You know what, this could have been the time where we could have done something different, like you could have introduced, you know? Like we do the switch over.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. We're not that smart.

== Levi's Episode ==

'''Myke:''' No. I think of this as the Levi's episode today. 501. I don't know what that means. That's my...

'''Brad:''' Oh, the jeans, yeah. Do you have the 501 blues, Myke?

'''Myke:''' Don't like 501s. I'm a big fan of Levi's chinos. This is a new thing that they do and I wear them every day and I really like them. Okay. I could be down with that. You know, I've got that going on.

'''Brad:''' So yeah, this is now a fashion podcast. Yep. Pivot. We're not the people you want to take fashion advice from.

'''Myke:''' We're now the pin addict, right? Because it's like pins in fashion, so you know.

'''Brad:''' Alright. Thank goodness we have episode 500 to fall back on because it was really good, unlike this episode.

'''Myke:''' I was emotionally drained last week. I was just drained, drained. And I was like, we have to stop the show now because I just can't continue.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, you had a bigger burden to carry post-show than I did, right? So we did three hours. For those of y'all who happened to catch 501 before listening to 500, 500 was three hours. And then Myke had an extended connected to do. Connected always runs, you know, hour and a half or so. It's like two and a bit hours or so. Yeah, so this one was longer.

'''Brad:''' That's honestly...

'''Myke:''' That was before I even started the edit.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like, that's no fun. That's like really, that's a really long, stressful day, even though you're sitting behind a mic and then talking about fun things that you love. Like, it takes a lot out of you just over time and doing that, yeah, I felt for you. But people like the 500, Myke. I think we did a pretty good job last week. I think we had fun.

'''Myke:''' I think so. I wondered if it was going to be the case, but it wasn't. This was still not the longest episode of a Real AFM show. I wondered if that was going to be the case. Yeah. But there is a Reconcilable Differences episode. I think it's episode 24, which is 162 minutes. Wow. What did they talk about? Well, that's got to be shorter. Star Wars. Yeah, maybe. Oh, no, it's not that one, Sarah. It's episode 25. Episode 25 is 201 minutes. There you go. And it's more about Star Wars and drugs. Okay. I can see that. I put that one in the show notes.

'''Brad:''' So we did like 180 minutes. Yeah. So, yeah, not bad, not bad. I think it's the longest. Yeah, I don't count the Lego ones, though. That's not the public feed. That's not the public feed, yeah.

'''Myke:''' I don't count the Lego because we're not really talking for most of it. Right, right, right, right. I think it is the longest of anything I have published. Gotcha. Gotcha.

'''Brad:''' That makes sense. Publicly. Yeah, then me too, for sure. Mm-hmm. But, um...

'''Myke:''' Oh, no, I think some of our Lego ones have gone longer, though, like, just as a thing, but... Yeah, but those are more, like you say... Publish feeds.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and those are more of an observational podcast, right? Those are podcasts that are, like, witnessing a thing. This is more like the normal podcast. So it was awesome. I appreciate everyone who downloaded, listened, participated, sent feedback, Myke. We got a lot of feedback. Um, people, people, um, either loved or hated the Rule Breakers. Uh, some that were on the Rule Breaker list were very proud of the fact that they broke the rules.

== Rule Breaker List ==

'''Myke:''' As they should be, I think. I think it's like a badge, you know, you can, you should be able to wear it, but you've just got to be able to accept what you did, you know?

'''Brad:''' Some people were regretting that they actually didn't make the Rule Breaker list. They're like, well, darn, I should have put my ink in there, and, uh, that way I could have been on the list. And some people were like, well, hey, I didn't mean to be on the Rule Breaker list. And, like, that was okay, too.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, all of these things are fair, right? Or it's like, sure, some of you, you want to be, like, you want to be in the bad crew, right? Like, you feel like, oh, you want to be in the cool bad club, but you didn't do it. And then there's some of you, you think it's unfair. Well, you know, just follow the rules next time. It's perfectly fair. You know, you were asked a simple question. You couldn't give a simple answer. I can't be held responsible for that.

'''Brad:''' Nice, nice. So, um, we had a great sponsor last week, our good friends at Pinch LA. They, they, uh, did a giveaway for the episode. The giveaway is closed. And they've picked the winners. So, uh, without me reading last names, hopefully Jonathan, Lisa, Devin, Natalie, and Colton all receive emails from Pinch LA.

'''Myke:''' Because that's, they're not regular names. I'm going to give the first letter of the surname. All right. Jonathan, Y, Lisa, S, Devin, G, Natalie, D, Colton, B. They are the winners. Obviously, you will be contacted by Pinch LA. But I just don't want everyone with the name Jonathan, which I expect is quite a few listeners, to think, did I win? You know?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I know. I know. That's, that's the hang up without, uh, giving up the opsec, right? Yeah, exactly. So hopefully they have had some, uh, contact made, I'm sure. Uh, if not, um, don't email me. We'll email you because you may not be the, the Jonathan Y that actually won. So.

'''Myke:''' What I think is kind of fun is I do not recognize any of these names immediately. I do.

'''Brad:''' I do. Uh, you do.

'''Myke:''' You know everyone. You're a man of the people. I'm a man of the ivory tower.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Speaking of man of the people, one of, uh, my longtime Twitch followers, Bork Ben Bork, uh, AKA Jacob, um, did a really epic breakdown of episode 500. Okay. Um, and basically did an accounting of the brands and the products of the episode. There is a full spreadsheet of this, Myke. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the spreadsheet. Um, you don't really need to look at the spreadsheet other than to see the times that, uh, people made the list from the multiple things that they mentioned, or, uh, there were a few category categories on the list and we, uh, I have cleared it with Jacob. We were allowed to share the list, but let me give you the breakdown of some of the data that Jacob found in this list. All right. You're ready. So he says, while listening to episode 500, I did some compiling and have a tally of the favorite stationary items submitted, not the cleanest, but the survey sent out a few weeks ago, meaning the, the, uh, Slack survey, the Pinax Slack survey inspired me to take a data analyst projects. I find interesting into my own hands. So here's a brand count from the brands that were mentioned. So the top 10 brands, Myke, um, pilot 37 mentioned 37 times. So these are the mentions sailor, a distant second at 14. So pilot pilot 37 at the top. The next one, sailor and Lamy both had 14 Parker, which we'll have a comment on that in a minute. 13, TWSB 12, Hobonichi eight, Montblanc seven, Pelican six, Visconti and Schaefer, both with five, um, big, I, when we did the recap of the Slack survey, the pilot thing started to make a lot of sense to me. Right. And we discussed that and it bears out in this, um, kind of, kind of data point as well. You know, this is, you know, just more of a random sampling, but the data bore out. Do you have any, any thoughts on the continuation of seeing that? Uh, with pilot.

'''Myke:''' Well, not anymore.

== Bork Ben Bork Tribute ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Cause I kind of, kind of bore out before. It's like we had lots of, the funny thing is, and the reason why this is not a surprise anymore is because we get a lot of pilot metropolitan love. And then at the same time we get pilot Namiki Milky way galaxy love, you know, a lot of zeros were added onto the pilot metropolitan. Yeah. And this whole range that pilot has captured this, this brand loyalty because they are, they have this uncanny ability.

'''Myke:''' What I will say though, is in doing the episode, I did not recognize that pilot was being mentioned to a level of two to one over the next most popular brand. Basically agree.

'''Brad:''' Agree. Like I recall Lamy, Twisby and Hobonichi were my big takeaways from doing it live. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And, uh, not, I definitely caught the pilots. You know what? There was a lot of, and we'll go through this in a minute is, um, the, the decimos and vanishing points. So that in retrospect, there were a lot of mentions of that. So Jacob continues one notable difference from the favorite fountain pen brands slides from the Slack surveys, the brand Parker. Parker is not on that list and is neck to neck with sailor Lamy and Twisby in this list. Right. And he does mention it's difficult to compare since the surveys were so different, but this is people theoretically mentioning one product and Parker came up a lot. And I was kind of replaying this back in my head. What Parker got mentioned a lot besides, I think the jotter was a couple of times and maybe like a random dual fold or random vector. Was it mostly the jotter? I would even have to go back. I can look on the spreadsheet that Jacob sent, but I'm a little bit flummoxed. I guess maybe the Parker 51 mentioned Parker back. I guess there was a lot of nostalgia Parker mentions, which is good.

'''Myke:''' In the vintage stuff, I feel like we got the most.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And that's where the data from this list would separate from the previous list. Yeah. Right. We had, we have more of a, a memorable type of question, right? Like what is important or, you know, meaningful to you in the product. And Parker landed in that category a lot, which I think is pretty cool. 96 total brands were mentioned. Myke. Eight Lamy Safaris. Six TWSBI Ecos. Eight Pilot Vanishing Porn or Decimos. So those were like the individual specific pen, like the Lamy Safari 8, you know, TWSBI Ecos six, you know, as opposed to like a lot of TWSBI's and a lot of Lamy's were mentioned, but those were the individual pens that were mentioned the most. The top five categories as Jacob designated them. Fountain pens were mentioned 150 times. Paper 41 times. Ink 13 times. Mechanical pencil 10 times. Rollerball 10 times. The paper number shocks me. I guess that was probably a lot of cheaters too.

'''Myke:''' They are most definitely the people on the bad list. Ink and paper. I think the only time we ever got like paper is my favorite thing is when we had a couple of people who were like making the general statement about paper in general.

'''Brad:''' Well, and the Hobonichis, like the Hobonichis. I guess, yes. Direct paper.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. For some reason I didn't register as paper in my brain. I was thinking of that as journal, but obviously that's paper. Yes. But I would say a vast majority of paper and ink was tied with a pen or of some kind. Yes. The people on the bad list, as you very rightly pointed out. Not that I would say that.

'''Brad:''' The Rule Breakers. The Rule Breakers. Yeah. That's a better name. Mm-hmm. But yeah. Interesting. I think the fountain pen, I think even... I see why the fountain pen is a big category here, but to have the separation from say like rollerball, like gel pen didn't even make the list or ballpoint. Mechanical pencil 10, rollerball 10, fountain pen 150.

'''Brad:''' Pretty interesting to me. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that and if there's anything to say about that. I guess a lot of times the price point investment has a different level of meaningfulness sometimes, even though you don't really draw... In our day-to-day life, we don't really necessarily draw those conclusions. We talk about you can get just as much joy from a $3 pen as a $300 pen, but if you're saying, hey, what's my most meaningful memorable pen? Well, I think the fountain pen ends up being an outlier to that specific answer to that question.

'''Brad:''' So, I don't know. I think it's interesting. But yeah, this is cool. This is great stuff from Jacob. We'll have this spreadsheet shared in here if anyone wants to poke around it. It lists all these specifics. You open it up and in the first one, it's got the J. Herban ink and the specific products are all listed in this list.

'''Myke:''' This is an incredible amount of work. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. I'll ask him how long it took him next time I see him on stream because there had to be a lot of pausing unless you're really fast at comprehending and typing. Yeah. So, yeah. It would be interesting. Yeah. The chat wants to know, is there an ink winner? I don't know. There was only like 13 individual inks in a category.

'''Myke:''' I'd be surprised if there was more than one mentioned.

'''Brad:''' I think it was just a few random things. There were several Orochizukus mentioned. So, I think out of the 13 inks, I bet half of that's Orochizuku of some color. Yep.

'''Myke:''' Which does not surprise me at all. Mm-mm. Yeah, for my recollection. Actually, maybe my surprise would be that Robert Oster wouldn't be in that contention. Yeah. Because it's similar to the way I think about Orochizuku is performs well and is a color for everyone. Right, right, right. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I appreciate the work that Ben Bork did for that. It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It was really, really good. So, we're not done with episode 500 stuff yet, Myke. We have promised. We have promised to answer the question ourselves. But not before we hear from our good friends at Squarespace.

== Listener Question Segment ==

'''Myke:''' Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show. They are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Everything from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace has you covered by combining cutting-edge design and world-class engineering to make it so incredibly easy to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. You start with one of their professionally designed templates. You very easily use drag-and-drop tools. You can, just with a few clicks, customize the look and feel. Really make that website your own. You can adjust the products that you have on sale if you want to set up a site incredibly easily too. Squarespace really has everything that you're going to want and need to create a beautiful, modern website. Like the fact that all of their sites are optimized for mobile so they look great on every screen size automatically. You don't need to do anything. They take care of it for you. And there's so much of it that's like that. Like your hosting is unlimited. Top-of-the-line security, all that kind of stuff. They do it so you don't have to. There's nothing to patch or upgrade. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support. You can use SEO tools, email marketing tools, and even grab a domain name of your own to turn your idea, that thing that you've got going on in your brain, into a Squarespace website. So awesome. So easy to do. Whether you want to publish your blog posts, sell off your digital physical goods really easily. Whether you want to showcase your work. Whether you want to promote your business. It doesn't matter what you want to do. Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to make it a reality and to make it awesome. World class. So go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. And you can sign up today for a free trial with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code PENADDICT and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code PENADDICT when you decide to sign up. And you will get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of the Pen Addict and Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' All right, Myke. So the question we asked our listeners was, tell us about your favorite stationary item and what makes it so special. So that was the question posed. And we were asked, hey, what about you and Myke? Do you have an answer to that question? And it's funny. I didn't even consider doing that for the last episode. That's just how I think sometimes. You know, it's like, oh, wait, I should answer this too? Yeah, I guess that would be pretty smart if I did. So before you and I answer this question, Myke, did you have any difficulty when you thought about this? I mean, I know if people listened last week, I cut you off when you were about to say it. You thought of it immediately. Did you have any, since you had time to think of it, did you have any difficulties sticking with your answer? No. Yeah, I kind of feel that too. So when I thought about the question, I didn't instantly as get it as Myke did, but it was pretty quick. Like it was once I, you know, like considered it for about 30 seconds and landed on the product that I'm going to discuss. I was like, yeah, like that's it. And for me, the answer is the Pilot Murex.

'''Brad:''' It's hard to explain why, but there's a pin that gets me so well. And that's the Pilot Murex. It's the way it's designed. It's, you know, a 50 year old pin that looks like it could be designed today. And I don't know why. Again, we fight that fight all the time with pilots. Please bring back the Murex. It kind of represents like growing up, you know, like in the 70s and 80s and kind of falling in love with stationery at the time. You know, I would never see a product like this, but I was around at that time, you know, buying like engineering pencils and like really unique stationery. And this was kind of the one pin that brought me back to those early stationery memories while also being an extremely modern pin that offered the aesthetic and writing style and performance that, you know, matches how I like to write and what I want represented in a product. And, you know, it's kind of encompasses everything that I love about the products that I love today as well as being kind of a throwback, even though, you know, I'm new to the Murex, you know, 10 years or so. It's it feels like that pin that I would have bought growing up. And it just kind of got this special connotations to me. It doesn't help. It doesn't hurt that it was introduced to me by our friend Thomas Hall, who sent this to me. He's like, hey, I think you're going to really like this. And turns out, yeah, he was he was right. He seems to be right about a lot of things.

'''Myke:''' The Murex is the full sized one, isn't it? It's the full sized one.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I'm not an M like the the Mew or the M90, which is the one that you have. Like, I like it. It doesn't hold a candle to the Murex for me. Like they're not in the same category of love for the pin as the Murex. I don't I wish I could explain more why the Murex just it. It's kind of that perfect pin for me. But I would put that down as my favorite stationary item. And it's just a super special pin.

'''Brad:''' And you can't bait me into telling you what ink I would use because then I'd make your list. I feel like there's some entrapment coming on.

'''Myke:''' I would never. I would never.

'''Brad:''' Entrapment.

'''Myke:''' The Murex is a really good one. I mean, I love the M90. Right. And I said many times, like, I think the M90 might be the best pen that I own. Mm hmm. And I expect it's for a lot of the same reasons. Really, it's like how it looks and how it feels to write. And I expect the Murex and the M90 are pretty similar in that regard. It's just one is full size and one is.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, they're they're usually spoken of in the same sentence. Right.

'''Myke:''' And where I am not actually a pocket pen person, the M90 is just at the right size that I can use it uncapped. And it posted it actually feels pretty good. But the thing for me that tips the M90 over the Murex is I think the M90 is more visually appealing. Mm hmm. I don't disagree. Because the Murex has that step down and the grip part, which I wished it didn't have that. Because my favorite thing about the M90 is it's just like one piece, like one. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' See, I love the grip.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I'm sure to use. But I get that. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. Mine was super easy.

'''Myke:''' Super, super easy. It's the Arushi, custom Arushi Lamy Safari that Jonathan Brooks made. That's a good choice. For us. So this was something that we did ages ago. Both me, you and Anna gave him a Lamy Safari and was like, just see what you can do with this. And then, I don't know, maybe like a year later. I think it was close to two.

'''Brad:''' It was like a year and a half at least.

'''Myke:''' Jonathan just showed up with these with the extra one, which we did as the raffle prize, I think. For St. Jude. In 2021. So there's a few things to this. Like, one, it's just an absolute joy to use anyway. I love Lamy Safaris. I love Lamy nibs. I love the design of the Lamy Safari. I love everything about them. The Arushi work is incredible. And it's all exactly as I would want color-wise. And it's also special to me. Like, I don't think I have another pen that hits all three of these marks so well. Like, close for me was my 3776 Galaxy Starlight. Because also it has an interesting story. Did I tell you I've chipped the cap on that? No. Oh, man. I'm so upset.

'''Brad:''' Hold that thought. We're going to bring up a platinum later. We'll talk about it. I want to hear that story.

'''Myke:''' There isn't a story. I just took it out of my case one day and realized that the cap had a chip in it. So, whatever. It's jinxed. At this point, I'm just like, whatever. I don't really. It was like, oh, man. But now I'm like, fine. You know? Like, whatever. Like, this pen's been through so much at this point. But, yeah. The Arushi Lamy Safari, like, for me, it's an absolute pleasure. I put a link in the show notes to a great photo that you took. And I absolutely love this pen. And I've got the left-handed nib in it, too, which I like a lot. It's just perfect.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. The other thing, like, not to answer your question for you, but about making it special is because it shouldn't exist, right? This is not something that should happen. No. It's stupid. It's so, like, extra. It's dumb. Yeah. It's, like, one of the dumbest ideas we've ever had. Yeah. And it worked. But also great. But also amazing, right? That's what we're good at. That's what we're known for. So, yeah. I like that choice a lot. And I love mine as well. It's just cool. You know? I love the Safari. Which we're going to talk about. How about now? You have anything else to say about our favorites? I think we did good. I like our choices.

'''Myke:''' No, I really like the two that we picked between the two of us. Because also there's a big overlap where, like, we both have love for these pens. You know? Yeah. So that's really good.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. We both get what each other's saying about these other pens. Yeah. Totally. Totally. All right, Myke. A couple of weeks ago, the new Lamy Safari All-Star was launched. It's called All-Star. All-Star. White Silver. And we... It came out, like, the morning of, like, episode 499. And I didn't get it in the show notes to talk about. Which I'm glad because since then, the new Safaris, the 2020 Safari release limited editions to go along. They usually launch them around the same time as the All-Star, which was the White Silver. It's Lamy Safari, strawberries, and cream. So how should we take this? Let's go... I guess we'll go in launch order. Yep. So the All-Star White Silver came out, and it was a big... Snooze fest. It was a big... Womp womp. Right?

'''Myke:''' Because that's how it always is with the All-Star, because the All-Star sucks. Because it exists. The All-Star sucks. The All-Star sucks. I always get in trouble. Either. And the Safari is the best. You know? I mean...

'''Brad:''' So I was excited when White Silver came out because it was so lame.

'''Brad:''' I was like... The White Silver came out, and I did, like, a fist bump. Like, yes! We're gonna, like, just totally destroy Team All-Star this year. And then the Strawberries and Cream came out, Myke. And I'm not gonna lie. I am unimpressed. So what is your take? Yeah, I mean, that's not great either, to be honest.

'''Myke:''' Better, I think, than the Silver. I like the Red one. The Cream one, don't get it. Mate, you know what I feel like with the Cream one? I bet, in person, I could imagine liking it. Yeah. Like a nice, like, off-white. But it's not incredibly inspired. What I would have wanted is what they've actually called it, which is Strawberries and Cream. I wanted one pen, Strawberries and Cream. Not two pens, one's Strawberries, one's Cream. Thank you, Myke.

'''Brad:''' That's exactly right. You know, all I do is stare. You launch Strawberries and Cream. I see this vibrant red pen, right? It's not, like, Fire Engine red. It's not Ferrari red, right? It's a really strong strawberry red. Like, it's very, very bright and very, you know, strawberry. The Cream portion of this launch should be in the clip, on the finial, at the section band. Anything to make this a singular, universal Strawberries and Cream pen, instead of two very average, individual safaris.

'''Myke:''' I think Lamy are playing 4D chess with us here. Why? I think they know a bunch of people are going to buy both of them and make their own Frankenstein pen.

'''Brad:''' I agree. I agree. I mean, then I'm just going to yell at them.

== Lamy All-Star Discussion ==

'''Myke:''' No, they're playing 4D chess, man. Now I'm going to spend $60 for a $30 pen.

'''Brad:''' Oh, I know. Oh, I'll get both of them. I mean, not for me, like, but I'll get both of them to, like, do giveaways and stuff like that and maybe mix and match their parts.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, you Frankenstein it, you know? You take the part. You, like, go with, like, red body, maybe. Maybe red body with red grip section. Cream little, I don't know, belly band or whatever they call it in the middle. And then a cream cap. And if you can get the, if you can very carefully, it is possible, extract the clip or swap the clip over.

'''Brad:''' Oh, yeah. I mean, this is what they did with the candy ones from a few years ago where they had, like, the teal, the purple, and the yellow. Right? Like, all you could do, people can mix and match those fast enough. It's like, I get it. I get it.

'''Myke:''' But they should have just made one pen that has exactly what I've just described or what some version of that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like, Safari, like, I get the all-star. Like, I understand why they do what they do and why they did this pen. But, I mean, this is a standard library pen. Like, this is not really a special edition. You know, all-star in my book. So, they could have done better. But the Safari is supposed to be the fun pen. And to not, I mean, what if the strawberry one had a green clip, Myke? Like, what if we could just do that, you know, and make it, like, a real strawberry colorway? You know, I just, it frustrates me a little bit. I'm not sure I know what white silver is.

'''Brad:''' It looks just silver to me. I don't understand. Well, because they're, yeah. Because they've done silver in the past, right? They've had a silver all-star.

'''Myke:''' I think it was silver two.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That would have been a better name. Silver two. The old silver all-star had a black clip was the only difference. So, this one has the raw clip. I don't know. I just felt like, I mean, they don't hit on these every year, right? Like, last year was, like, such a win for the Safari. And they've had some really stellar releases in the past. And then some of them just fall flat. It can't be, like, knocked out of the park every year. I get that. But I just can't help but feel, like, there's not much differentiation between Team All-Star and Team Safari this year. Even though I'm voting Team Safari just because, you know, because of the strawberries and cream. I do prefer those over the white silver. I keep wanting to call it the silver fish, which is not good. But that's the name that sticks my head. I don't like that at all. Yeah. So, yeah. Like, I don't know. Not a huge, huge W this year. Also, do we have inks to match any of this? Are we getting a strawberry ink? I haven't seen that. I doubt we're getting white silver or cream inks. I don't think that's going to work. Or do we get a, you know, a bright green ink for the strawberry pen? I don't know. Just one more little thing. I would have been much happier. Just, like, something tiny. I don't even care what it is. You know, a different color clip on the Safaris or an alternate color ink to tie in the two pens, right? So, I don't know. I don't know. So, it's, they were interesting. We'll say that. Next up, Myke, is a pen I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. So, the Platinum Limited Edition 3776 Shape of a Heart fountain pen came out, Myke. And from just an image, right? If you see the image before you read any of the details, you go, oh, this is like a black with a rose gold trim. Black pen, rose gold trim, 3776. And it has what Mont Blanc is popular, known for the Starwalker cap, where it's a clear top finial with something in it, right? We've spoken about this pen before.

'''Myke:''' I feel very confident about the fact that we have spoken about this pen before.

'''Brad:''' The Starwalker or the shape of a heart? The shape of a heart. Oh, no, definitely not, because it's brand new. Because, Myke, what they've done here is actually kind of cool.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, because I remember this. I remember us talking about this exact, I don't know.

'''Brad:''' With the punch out? Yes.

'''Myke:''' With the punch, the nib punch out? Really? I'm convinced that we've spoken about this.

'''Brad:''' Okay, then maybe we did. Maybe we did. I don't recall this, because I was looking closer at the cap and the punch outs. Uh-huh. So, for people that don't know what I'm talking about, Platinum has their nib hole breather. Um, is a heart shape.

'''Myke:''' There's a lot of stuff I don't like today, Brad. I'm not going to lie.

'''Brad:''' Breather hole. Oh, jeez.

'''Myke:''' Will you stop it, please? That's terrible.

'''Brad:''' Platinum has always had a heart-shaped breather hole in their nibs. Oh, Jesus. That's the literal, that's the literal marketing, okay? Uh-huh. That's what it's called. I called it a hole breather. That's a Stranger Things thing. Um, but the breather hole is heart-shaped. Well, they punched them, and they put two of them in the cap around these, um, kind of glittery diamond-looking things. Uh-huh. Yep. Uh, I think chat's with you that we maybe mentioned this, like, it was leaked, like, a month ago. I don't, I don't, for some reason, it's, it's not sticking with me. Maybe because it kind of fell flat for me. Maybe just the, the colorway of it, and the, the price point. So, this is a $390, 2,000 unit limited edition. Like, it's cool. Like, it's good. I love it. I like, I like the idea of it. I love it. Right. Yeah. I really do. Yeah, this looks, this seems like, this is definitely more of a U-pen than me. And, like, I, I totally get it. I love the, the, the heart-shaped punch-outs from, from the metal. And there were some images, I, I don't have it in this link, but there were some images of, like, the flat pen, the flat nibs, you know, before the nibs are, are finally shaped. They're, you know, a piece of flat metal, and when they get stamped out, and all the little hearts collected, it's, it's a really neat idea. I like it. So, I think this will do, this will do pretty well, especially for platinum fans. So, yeah. How did you break your cap again? Just, I don't know.

'''Myke:''' I just, I took it out of my Sinclair, so I'm going to blame you. Uh-oh. No, I just, I don't know how I did it. I mean, who knows, right? I bumped it.

'''Brad:''' So, is it chipped or cracked?

'''Myke:''' Chipped. There's like a little, there's actually a piece missing from the, from the bottom of the cap.

'''Brad:''' The very edge, like the very edge of the cap. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' It is what it is, you know? It's what it is. I kind of feel like these, my feeling. I think about, yeah, I use it. Yeah. I mean, it's with me every day. It's coming backwards and forwards in my backpack all the time. Like, for me, with this kind of stuff, I try not, I try not to be too precious. You know, like, I note these things, and it's like, that's a shame. But I'm not going to be like, oh, well, now I have to completely rethink the way, like, it's just like, it just doesn't. Right. You know, I don't, I don't like to, to be so precious. So.

'''Brad:''' I agree completely. Like, the nib thing is different, right? That was like a flaw. This is, hey, I use this product a lot, and, you know, this, sometimes these things happen because we should be using our products. Yeah. Speaking of using our products, we're both big fans of the Sailor King of Pen, and our good friend CY from the Tokyo Inklings podcast sent us an image via Twitter, which we'll include in the show notes to CY's tweet, and you should go follow Tokyo Station Pens on Twitter. The new Sailor logo. So, we talked about the new Sailor logo and the word mark last year, right? They were modernizing the anchor, and they were modernizing the Sailor word mark, and that has made, the anchor has made it onto the nib of new King of Pens, and what is your opinion of this?

'''Myke:''' I like it. I mean, I said at the time, I believe this is how I feel, and that's my opinion changed. I like the new Sailor logo. I think it has more personality to it. I think it's really interesting, and I think that this is a very, I think it looks great. The nib itself, I think, looks fantastic. It's in the image. I mean, I'm looking at my King of Pen now, and it's like, it's really busy, you know?

'''Brad:''' So, the traditional ones are very scroll-heavy, script-heavy, letter-heavy, you know, markings. And this one, the new one, is kind of a mix of old and new, which I think is probably the hang-up for a lot of people, right? So, the anchor is the new, very modern, you know, pointed anchor right in the middle of the nib. But the scroll work on the nib, you know, that runs, you know, around the nib is kind of the traditional scroll work. So, it's a, I could see why it would be a little bit off-putting, and even see why did it run a poll on his Instagram story. So, it was 56% for dislike and 44% for like. So, you know, pretty, you know, even results. But I would say that's a pretty negative result for something that should be like, Sailor would hope would be 80% positive.

'''Myke:''' People are always resistant to change.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, but like, I'm, I like it. So, I just, to go on record, I like it. I would totally get a Sailor King a pen. Play cleaner. I kind of can't stop staring at it either, because I'm looking at these two kind of different design stories in a singular nib, right? I would almost rather the scroll work be replaced by a line or something else, even more simpler nib, right? But you're paying buku bucks for this nib to begin with, right? It's probably a $300, $400 nib. You just don't want like a single line stamping and an anchor stamp. You know, the scroll work is kind of required, but I almost would have liked to see some more, a more modern tie-in with the scroll work. I don't know, I like it, but I will admit I'm not having a like 100% satisfaction with it, despite liking it. I do think I would maybe like it in a single color, either, so this is a two-tone nib, when y'all see it in the, when you see it in the link. I do think it might look better with a solid nib to where the scroll work is more in line with the anchor, either solid gold or solid, you know, rhodium plated or whatever. I think that aesthetic I might like a little bit better. I don't know. I'm a little bit thrown while also glad that they did it.

== Kaweco Iridescent Pearl ==

'''Myke:''' Right. That's fair.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So it's good. I will be anxious to see if these make the limited edition ones. This looks like the standard. So Sailor does a stock King of Pen, if you can call it that, you know, just your black and gold King of Pens that they do, you know, keep as the regular model of the King of Pen. And that's what it looks like. This is just a section shot, but it does look like the regular black and gold barrel. So it's very cool. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Myke, I got the email from Kaweco for their new springtime launch. They have two really, really, really interesting pens here. The first up, I think is going to be the most popular one. And it's the Kaweco Collection, which is your sport model, your standard plastic model.

'''Brad:''' Iridescent Pearl in the Kaweco Sport. What they call their naming convention. They really mucked this up. I'm sorry. So you have to understand that Kaweco Collection is the annual limited release of the Kaweco Sport. But it's not called Sport. It's just called Kaweco Collection. They kind of went off board here, right? Yeah, they've messed up the brand name.

'''Myke:''' They've nailed the colors.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Well, it's just hard to talk about the pen. I have to say Kaweco Collection, but this is the AL Sport pen, right? I mean, excuse me. This is L, man? The Kaweco Sport. No, no, no. I misspoke. See, it's causing me a problem.

'''Myke:''' How the hell did they do that?

'''Brad:''' It's called the Collection, but this is the Sport pen or the Classic pen, whichever one you want to choose. They're both the same name. So this is the Plastic Barrel Pocket pen. And that's a really wild, iridescent material. And that's what they should do, right? Yeah. This is what the Special Edition should be, right? Kaweco has always done solid color Special Editions. They're known for solid color Special Editions, unless you get into the art sport where they use different materials. And, you know, they're close to $200 pens. These are your basic Plastic Barrel Sport model pens, and it's in a fun, wild color. It's not going to be for everyone. I think it's killer. I will want this pen. And this is the experimentation I like to see. Now, could I translate this into Lamy? Could you see Lamy doing this, Myke? Like, this is my overarching question after we just had the Safari conversation. I'll answer for you. No way in hell.

'''Myke:''' Oh, no, no, no, no.

'''Brad:''' Absolutely not.

'''Myke:''' I don't know.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. No way. No way would Lamy do this, but I'm asking them to do a little bit more. Kaweco. Kaweco. I'm glad they're doing this. This is a little bit of an outlier for them, but they've kind of been leaning. I don't know. They kind of go on this path with, like, the torch stuff.

'''Myke:''' If you've shown me this material a week ago and said, could you imagine Kaweco doing this? I think I'd say no.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. But it's awesome. I'm glad to see it.

'''Myke:''' Just because they have been missing constantly for the last year, right? They have been. What is a baseball term for this, surely? They've been striking out.

'''Brad:''' Swinging a miss. Striking out. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Over and over and over again.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I wouldn't go that far. I would. Over and over.

'''Myke:''' Constantly.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. For about two years, probably. They've been questionable for about two years. I will give you that. And having to, you know, it's always, I always go back to the storytelling and they muck that up like pretty hardcore. And they're trying to correct that. I'm not sure if they are or aren't. But regardless, this Kaweco collection release, I mean, this is a sellout. Like, no doubt in my mind. I mean, it's not limited or anything like this. And you'll be able to buy it if you want it. But it's great. Like, and this is a crossover pen too, right? This is now someone's first Kaweco sport model pen. I see what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Right? This is now they have a new customer base and they've also thrilled their existing customers. Right? Well, what has Lamy done with strawberries and cream? They don't stand out from the rest of the wall in the Lamy store. They fit in. And if you hadn't drawn in the customer already from the vibrant store wall, right? They look great. It's the same pen. This one is a little bit more, hey, look at me. And I think Kaweco has earned that right to kind of do this and see what happens. And I think it'll go well for them.

'''Brad:''' I may like the Lilyput even better. It's been a while since they've kind of done a new Lilyput. They do about one a year. They don't do as many as some of the other pens. And honestly, I know why. Like, it's not as good of a pen as the AL and the Classics and the Collections and the bigger sports series. But this one's called Kaweco Collection Fountain Pen Lilyput Green. And it's this very bright anodized aluminum green, kind of a yellowish green. And it's spectacular, right? But the Lilyput is such a difficult sell. It is a really, really small pen. And I happen to like it. You have to use it posted. But I think this color, like the last one they did, I think, was purple. And it did really well. They have a blue one that they've done. They did a, it might have been a Cult Pens exclusive blue one that I bought. But this pen just doesn't get as much use from me because of the size. Like, I'm using a Steel Sport today, which is, you know, the classic faceted barrel, fuller sized pen. The Lilyput's a little bit of a tougher sell. But I think this color is spot on. What do you think about it?

'''Myke:''' It's a beautiful green, man. I really like it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And I would never recommend this pen to you in a million years. It's a small for me. I know that. It is so small.

'''Myke:''' The material finish released from these images is really, really nice.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So this, I, this is one I like, I might break down and just buy one. I haven't bought a Lilyput in years, probably. Um, just because they just haven't been that compelling and they don't do that many of them because it's not a bestseller. Like some of these, some of their other models in this, in this price range. Um, it's just, it's a really tough sell for most people to use this pen and, and for understandable reasons, like I totally get it. But I think this color is great and it's, it's going to pop and it's going to draw people's eyes to it and things like that. So I included, um, Kaveko's, uh, mailer for this. Those were the two most interesting items. They are, they are doing the calligraphy set that they're pretty popular for, uh, known for where they have different nibs that you use and they added in the mint barrel for the Kaveko sports, which they've always done just kind of traditional colors, black and white, things like that for their barrels. They have a mint, uh, barrel set and things like that in there. So y'all can, y'all can pop in and, and see any of the new products that they have, uh, linked in this newsletter. But I thought the, the iridescent pearl Kaveko collection and then the green lily put were just, uh, just great. I think, um, I think I kind of would have gone with a different name than green though. Is it just called green? It's just called green. Lily put green.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. We just iridescent. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Cause this color is, this color is five. It's got some vibrancy to it. Yeah. And some, I don't know. It's got some pop and it's just called green. So I don't know. It's, it's great looking though. I love it. So big fan, big fan of what Kaveko is doing despite the naming conventions and confusion going on. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' All right, Myke, you want to hit a couple of ass TPA and we'll wrap it up. We'll keep it shorter this week, even though it's pretty much our regular time, but compared to last week, man, this will be a short episode. Have we even started the show yet?

'''Myke:''' I don't think so. All right, let's do some ass TPA. Ezcom comes in from Fibber who wants to know, uh, any thoughts on the Muji branded platinum preppy?

'''Brad:''' Yes.

'''Myke:''' So this is a preppy with all the branding removed in true Muji style.

'''Brad:''' True Muji style. Uh, I don't know why my link's not coming up, but I looked at it before. It is like the perpanep, um, platinum preppy with the all white barrel, except you just remove all of the perpanepness of it. I think the clip is different though. So they've changed the clip style, but I mean, even the nib has the P on it for platinum, which you usually don't see in a Muji product. And it's like, well, yeah, okay. Let's see what you do there. But the...

'''Myke:''' I mean, that could have just been a thing of like, we can't, and we're not like, we'll do everything you want. We're not going to make a new nib for you.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So it, this, I'm glad Muji did this because they get such love for their aluminum barrel knurled grip fountain pen that I actually don't think is very good. And they get a lot of love for that pen. And I think it's about, that one's about $15. How much is this one? I don't even know. I'd have to do the conversion, but it's not very expensive. Relatively. And this is such a better pen than the metal barrel one, even though the metal barrels sell, right? Like aesthetically, they're aesthetically pleasing. This is such a high quality pen. And this was a great decision for Muji to white label this pen. I am, I do think the clip is kind of funny though. It's like literally the entirety of the Preppy barrel. The barrel shape's the same. The grip section's the same. The nib's the same. The cap shape is the same, except for the top of the cap, which has on the Preppy, it has like this overlapping kind of clip that flows into the top of the barrel. And this is almost just like your standard basic clip. And it definitely, I mean, it, it stands on its own. It's just not as cool looking as the Preppy, but for Muji, man, this is pretty great. I love it.

'''Myke:''' And then also Don asks, do you know why Pilot doesn't sell the Orochizuku inks and cartridges?

'''Brad:''' I don't. Other than I think probably everyone would assume the same thing. Is that it's expensive, right? Like it, it's an expensive ask. And like Sailor had made their own machines, I think, because they're also a robotics company. And I, and they made their cartridges with all of their like Sailor gentle inks and Sailor ink studios. And they made a bunch of ink cartridges. I still haven't seen those like readily available. I still don't own any. I haven't chased them down. Um, so it's just a more expensive proposition for both sides of the coin for manufacturing and for consumers. And maybe they don't feel the markets there, but everything that we see in all of our surveys says Pilot is the most popular fountain pen company. They do some, you can find some basic non-black blue and blue black ink colors, but they're still not their Orochizuku inks, right? You can get purple. I know Myke uses purple. I've used orange and turquoise, but man, if I could get a Shinkai or Kanpeki or Yamabudo and cartridges, I would love it. I would pay the premium for it, but I, maybe they just, maybe they'll, they'll watch what Sailor does and, and follow along. But, um, it definitely won't be cost effective for anybody, but I would pay the premium. Like I, I talk about that with ink these days, right? Buying a 20 milliliter bottle at a more premium per milliliter price still keeps it like at 18 or $20 and theoretically I'll waste less, you know, if by not using it, right. Or, you know, having a 50 milliliter bottle that I pay $25 for, but don't use the whole thing. Like where's the real inefficiency? So, um, I would love to see this Don. I'm not going to hold my breath, but I didn't think Sailor would ever do it either. And they did. I don't know if they're going to continue to do it. Um, and I don't know how accessible they are to everybody, but I shoot like pilot just came out with some new ink colors for Uro Shizuku. Um, I would love to see them do some cartridges and just kind of lean into that or, you know, other pens, people that are buying a metropolitan. Can also buy a pack of Uro Shizuku cartridges to go along with it, make their, their first fountain pen a little bit more special. I would love to see it. I just not going to hold my breath, but, uh, one can, one can hope.

'''Myke:''' If you'd like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA. You can use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord, or you can email longer questions to hello at penaddict.com. When you go to penaddict.com, you can see the work of Brad and the other penaddicts there writing wonderful articles about new exciting products. You can also go to spoke design.com to buy some wonderful tools that Brad makes himself. Go to, uh, twitch.tv slash penaddict where Brad streams three times a week. So you can hang out with him there, watch him on box stuff, hang out, all that fun stuff. Go to penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. I am imike. I am Y-K-E. And I urge you to go to cortexmerch.com and buy yourself a theme system journal and check out the stuff that we've got going on over there. Uh, thank you so much to Squarespace for the support of this episode and thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 478/transcript

2026-06-11T06:26:42Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 478
| title = 27% More Color Density
| date = September 8th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/478 Episode 478]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_478.mp3 Audio Episode 478]
| length = 73
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 478. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Harry's, and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hi, Myke. How are you?

'''Myke:''' I'm busy, man. I'm busy. Very busy. I'm not going to be on the show next week. So we're going to talk about the podcast-a-thon in a little bit. So we're doing podcast-a-thon next week and Brad was like, hey, if you need to take time off for doing that, you can. And I was like, no, no, I'll be fine. And then Apple announced an event for Tuesday. So the combination of those two things, unfortunately, has pushed me over the edge. So Brad is going to be picking up the reins of a wonderful guest for next week's episode.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Top secret, waiting on final confirmation, but I think everyone will enjoy the conversation greatly.

== Childhood Cancer Awareness Month ==

'''Myke:''' So speaking of St. Jude, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month for the third consecutive year. We are supporting the life-saving mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is finding cures and saving children. Because cancer kills more children under the age of 14 than any other disease. And doctors from all 50 states in the U.S. and around the world refer their patients to St. Jude because they have the world's best survival rates for some of the most aggressive childhood cancers. St. Jude also provides thousands of free consultations for doctors treating children worldwide, including kids in your community. This September, you have already helped RelayFM surpass over $1 million raised for the kids at St. Jude during our third annual RelayFM for St. Jude fundraising campaign. We'll go back to that in a second. You can help us continue to move forward through to our goals by donating right now at stjude.org. If you donate a single gift of $100 or more, you'll receive an exclusive sticker pack at the end of the campaign. And if your company does corporate matching for donations, just send us an email at steven at relay.fm because you can double your donation that way. The RelayFM podcast-a-thon for St. Jude will be happening on September 17th from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern time, Eastern U.S. time at twitch.tv slash relay.fm. Tune in to help us support St. Jude and donate today at stjude.org slash relay. Let's cure childhood cancer together.

'''Brad:''' Awesome. When you think about raising $1 million total, where does your mind go to? Because it's amazing. It really is. I'm so proud of y'all in this community.

'''Myke:''' Well, we're all a part of it, right? We're all doing our part for this. So, yeah, this is our third year. We crossed $200,000 raised yesterday evening, which was what we needed to go over a million over the three years. You know, we'd raised $800,000 in the last two years. And we got to a million now in three years, which is just, I mean, it's astounding. It was an incredibly emotional evening last night. Me and Stephen streamed live on Twitch to talk about it and celebrate it a little bit. I'll put a link in the show notes to the video. We also set off some confetti cannons in our respective studios, which caused much distress. So, if you want to see what that looks like, it will be a Twitch replay for the next couple of weeks. But I'll put a link in the show notes. Cool. So, people can go there. And plus, that's where you want to go to follow the channel. So, you'll be able to watch the podcast as well.

'''Brad:''' Yes. So, Penn Addicts are doing our part. And with the help of a bunch of great friends in the community, we're doing a raffle to raise money for St. Jude. We'll have a link in the show notes to the original post. Myke, I'm going to have a second post, an update post out today with even more wonderful prize donations from our good friends. So, we already have my field notes collection, which I'm going to say this quietly and secretly. We're efforting the full run, like the 36 through 51. I think we're going to get the whole thing done by the time we're done. But I'm not going to lock in yet. But I think we can do it. So, I'm working on that.

'''Myke:''' Oh, my God. Really?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, we're going to have a full run from the beginning to the current edition of field notes.

'''Myke:''' That's going to be big moves if we get that sorted out. I hope that's happening how I think it might be happening.

'''Brad:''' It is not. But it is happening with wonderful friends of the show. Wow. That's even better. It's a lot easier when I have all the hard stuff taken care of. We can all chip in and make the current stuff happen. Right. So, we're going to get that done. We have the Carolina pin, spoke pin, eyedropper insert. We have the Canalea pin, Kona Cherry. We have the Kassama Tala Ultum from Mark Backus, the nib grinder. We have the Shown Design Ultum from Shown Design. The new editions. We have a Good Made Better Pinwell, the Craftsman, Myke. The big, nice one with the brass bass in deluxe galaxy black from our friends at Good Made Better. We have four, Myke, four Opus fountain pens from an avid Opus fountain pen collector in the community who wishes to remain anonymous. Thank you. And then we have, I have at least three more things I'm trying to finalize by the day is over. And I get this new post up. And that's not all. That's just the stuff I'm going to get finalized.

'''Myke:''' By the time we finish this, everyone's going to win something.

'''Brad:''' With some of these offers I've had, we could. But I don't want to ship that many prizes. That's incredible. But no, we have a bunch of stuff coming in, a bunch more prizes. If you want to participate, you donate through, what's the link everyone should go to, Myke? Stjude.org slash Relay. Go there and make your donation. Every $10 you donate, you get one raffle ticket. And the way I'm keeping up with this is you forward your receipt from your donation or a screenshot or something of that nature to Stjude at penaddict.com. And then I'm collecting all of those receipts for every $10 you enter. You get one raffle ticket entered into a spreadsheet. I have 93 emails currently I need to sort through.

'''Myke:''' That's incredible, though. That's 93 donations so far. That is, I mean, I will say, like, you know, we're always astounded every year. This year, like, we genuinely cannot believe how much we've raised to this point. Like, it really, like, last year's goal was a quarter of a million.

'''Myke:''' If things continue, we might get there before the podcast-a-thon even begins. That's true. We're at $212,000 right now. It's truly astounding. Like, you know, I'm not going to start crying again. I did enough of that last night. We'll save that for me later. Yeah, it's just, it's unbelievable. Like, it means so much to us that everybody gets on board with this.

== Community Support and Donations ==

'''Brad:''' And I just want to give a special shout-out to everyone donating prizes. And I'll make sure the blog post is updated and everyone gets to see the new stuff today. And there will be more. Like, this is not stopping anytime soon. You have about two weeks to get in. It wraps up on September 21st to get your donation receipts in to stjudeatpanatic.com and be entered in the raffle for what's turned out to be dozens of awesome prizes. So, there you go.

'''Myke:''' You'd be wild not to do it. Like, you know, it's an incredible cause. And you can get an entry for just $10 with all these prizes. I mean, come on. What are you waiting for? Yep. All right. You ready to do a show? I sure am. Thank you, everyone, for putting up with all of this, too. Like, it means a lot to us that you listen to it.

'''Brad:''' It really does. Like, no joke. Like, this is, yeah. I could just go on forever about this community and how awesome y'all are. And we appreciate that y'all allow us to do this and are actively participating in this. So, it's great. All right. I want to give a Yovo nib update, Myke. Sort of. Like, everything I feel like when I talk about Yovo, hey, what's going on with Yovo? Everything's like in air quotes, right? Like, I feel, yeah, kind of. Yes, sort of. Well, we at least have a large needle-moving update from sort of Yovo themselves and mostly MeisterNibs, the U.S. distributor. They obviously have, MeisterNibs, that is, has a big need to push this with Yovo, right? Because they're the ones in our community that are getting hammered because, you know, Yovo is essentially out of communications reach, right? So, everyone's going. And they're the distributor, right? MeisterNibs. They're the distributor in the U.S. So, there's a post from Brian and Meister. We'll link it in the show notes.

'''Brad:''' Basically, Yovo is committed to replacing every housing that Brian owns currently. My word. Yeah. Including replacing all of the replacement that he has already taken upon himself, which I can't imagine the extra work going into doing this, which is where I'm super grateful for him and his staff. You know, replacing all the broken ones out in the field, right, from people having broken nibs, which is, I mean, excuse me, broken housings. So, in the hundreds and hundreds.

'''Brad:''' And then Yovo coming around saying they theoretically have it fixed, so we're going to send you, you know, stacks and stacks and probably thousands of these housings to replace.

'''Myke:''' Have, like, solved their issue, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to give, like, a capital Y yes, but, you know, based on their latest Instagram post. Their second Instagram post. Their second Instagram post.

'''Myke:''' Which I love. I love that this account only exists. Yeah. They're just going to keep posting the same image every time. And it's just their logo. And then it's like, hey, we're here to talk about the next issue.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's like a visual performance art account, right? It's just going to be the same picture.

'''Myke:''' It's like, you know, you see those, you get, like, the AI-generated things. It's just, like, AI-generated apologies.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, I'm going to read the main piece, and it's not the whole thing. It says, we found that in a small percentage of housings, the plastic tended to break. As a result, the injection molding process was changed by the manufacturer so that this defect will no longer occur. The primary cause of the issue was the operating temperature of the injection molder and a few production runs. Okay. All right. So, supposedly fixed. And then, Yovo, the way I read the Meister Nibs post, is just going scorched earth with the old product and flat out replacing it with new good housings. That's the idea. So, shout out to Brian and Meister Nibs for stepping up, taking on a massive amount of work. I cannot tell you how intensive it is to change that many housings because you have to pull the nib in the feed and then swap the housing. That sounds easy.

'''Myke:''' I mean, it's not easy to do it just at one of them. Like, it doesn't work that easily. Absolutely.

'''Brad:''' And doing that a hundred times. Like, I can't, I still have trouble with my wrist removing those. Like, I can't do them in bulk. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. So, I know that it's just a complete pain and just time consuming. So, thanks to Brian. Hopefully, this gets us over the hump and on to good products and consistent quality products from Yovo again. And that's why we loved them in the first place. And this was a failing on their part. I think they're doing the right thing, though, here, Brad. Yeah, yeah. The only issue is it took them too long. And this is the small maker versus the faceless company, right? You just can't get the communication that we, being you and I in this community, have face-to-face with problems with the people that we support when we're dealing with, you know, a company, with a board, you know, on a stock exchange. You know, that type of communication relationship. It always takes longer than we want it to take. I mean, you know, there's like... We got there.

'''Myke:''' Maybe I'm... I don't know why, but I'm giving them maybe a little bit more benefit than that, which is just like, maybe they just didn't know what the problem was. And it's taken them this long to try and work it out. And what are you going to say? Sorry, we have no idea why this is happening, you know? I don't disagree with that. Yes, that is a route you can choose to take, but you don't... Yeah. I don't think that there's one way to deal with these things, you know? And this might have just been the best way they could deal with it, you know?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It just never ends well, even if it does end well, when it gets to the point where it looks like the yelling made the difference in the result.

'''Myke:''' That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so there is definitely a way to do some kind of intermediary communication, but I don't know what... It's hard to know what the right thing to do is. And ultimately, like, there could be an argument to be made that it was always going to end up at this point anyway. So, like, you know, like, you know, as you're saying about the yelling making the difference. Like, if they would have said, like, we don't know what the issue is, people were still going to be yelling at them. So, like... I agree. Yeah. Like, ultimately, was there any outcome other than this one? I don't know. I don't know.

== Pen Design Critique ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything you're saying. Yeah. It's... I'm glad there's some movement in the positive direction, which I feel that's where we're at now. We'll see. What is the phrase?

'''Myke:''' Like, damned if you do, damned if you don't? Right. Like, I feel like sometimes you're in that. That's kind of just where they are. I mean... Mm-hmm. But for me, always, always, the ultimate is how it's resolved. Like, that's the important part. Like, it's how it's resolved. Mm-hmm. I mean, and it feels like they're going above and beyond to resolve this. Yeah. Like, that's quite an aggressive way of resolving it. Like... Yep.

'''Myke:''' Proactively shipping them to fix. You know, because they could just say, hey, if you have an issue, you contact us, and then we'll send you one. We'll send you one, right? Yeah.

'''Brad:''' This is essentially... They're going to zero out the old inventory and put in the new, and hopefully we're all golden from that point forward.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, especially if you believe them that it's a percentage. Mm-hmm. Well, like, if it was just a percentage, and I'm sure it is just a percentage, because I have... You know, because I think that's been the case, right? It's not been every...

'''Brad:''' Yeah, but I mean, percentage of them, for them is tens of thousands of units, I'm sure.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, yeah, but what I mean is, like, they're not, like... If it is just a percentage, then you could just say, like, okay, if you come across any broken ones, we'll fix them. Right. But going this route of, like, we're just going to replace the whole thing, that's a huge cost. Yeah, that's good. So... But this is, I believe, is the right way to do it. I think they're doing it the right way for their customers. Yes. But, you know, I think it's worth just noting that, like, that's quite an investment they're making.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. So hopefully we're all good from this point forward.

'''Myke:''' All right. Let's take our first break and thank our friends over at Squarespace for their support of this week's episode. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to help you build your online presence and run your business. They have everything that you're going to need, from website building tools to online store functionality, marketing tools, analytics, domain name registration, SEO and email marketing tools. They have got it all. There's nothing to patch, install or upgrade. With Squarespace, when you build your website there, you'll get unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security and dependable resources to help you succeed. They combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. Whether you want to showcase your work of a portfolio, publish your next blog post, really get the word out about your new business. Maybe you want to announce an upcoming event. It doesn't matter what type of website you want to make. Squarespace has everything that you're going to need to make it beautiful, to make it modern, to make it awesome. You start with a professionally designed template, use drag-and-drop tools to make it your own, customize the look, the feel, the settings, the products, everything with just a few clicks. And all of their websites are optimized for all kinds of devices, so it's going to look great no matter where your customers are coming from. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support, so if you need any help, they're going to be there for you. I really love Squarespace. I've used them for as long as I can remember now. They are my first stop when it comes to putting something online. I know Brad's the same. I know Brad has a bunch of websites over on Squarespace, and it's purely because they're just the best place for us to put our stuff. It's fantastic. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict. Then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I think we need a new name for this segment that's about to happen, Myke. Okay. The one segment that seems to be more frequently occurring is the segment where Brad gets angry about things that don't matter. You – Oh.

'''Myke:''' So I saw this – So we're going to talk about a post that Brad put on Instagram, and I read the text yesterday, and I was surprised at your anger. So this is in relation to some new Pokemon-branded Energel pens. Yeah. I'm going to read. I'm going to do a dramatic reading from atpenaddict on Instagram. When you grip the pen normally with the clip facing outwards, all you'll see is the most massive, ugliest barcode logo and details I have seen on a pen like this. It's egregious, disrespectful, and the designers should be embarrassed.

'''Brad:''' Did you like that? That was good. That was good. That was you. So this came out of a Twitch stream yesterday. I was doing an unboxing, and I pulled the pen out, and I'm like, oh, sweet. Look at this Pikachu pen.

'''Myke:''' The artwork is stunning on these. I love it.

'''Brad:''' The color choices.

'''Myke:''' Just the way they draw the Pikachu. It's like unfinished. It's like sketched. It looks really good. Yes.

'''Brad:''' It looks great. And then I turned it over to start to write with it. I clicked the knock, and I was like, wait a minute. All I see is this terrible logo, barcode, and descriptions on the pen. I was like, is that an accident? Can I twist any of this around? Can I move it? Can I peel it off? And I was like, no. That's what you see when you write. That's what's visibly apparent. And I lost my mind because it caught me off guard. I was like, really, the first I grabbed the pen, and I go, oh, man, cool, Pikachu. This pen looks fantastic. I love the colors, like the one I'm using. The first one I grab is like brown and yellow and off-white, and it's just really extremely well done, like you said. And then I went to use it. I was like, this is abhorrent. I don't know any other way to say it. It's like if someone took the back cover of a book and used it for the front cover, right? It feels completely backwards. There's no redeeming value to this pen visually when you use it as pens are intended to be set up, right? I find it very upsetting.

'''Myke:''' The thing that upsets me the most is just that you print the barcode. Just stick the barcode on. Everything else would have been fine. The text and stuff, it's got its own flair to it, you know? It's part English, part Japanese.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, but it needs to roll around to the backside.

'''Myke:''' I mean, I agree with you.

'''Brad:''' I mean, Pikachu can't be under the clip, but it has to be rotated.

'''Myke:''' There has something. There should be something going on. But the thing that annoys me the most is the barcode being printed on the pen. Because that's not something you always see. I feel a lot of the time it is a sticker, and I don't know why they felt like they needed to do that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and I thought it might be a mistake, right? And I grabbed the second one out, second one that I ordered, which has, it's like three different Pikachus. He's doing a, have a swell time. Pikachu is what it says on here. And it's laid out the exact same way. So my gut tells me that this is what the future will look like once our robot overlords take over, Myke. I don't think a human being had any idea that this happened. Interesting. Because there's no way that anyone in their right mind would have sent this out into the market. Because it's essentially backwards, right? This is like, it's a pen wrap, right? So the design gets designed in a wrap, and the wrap rolls around the barrel. Well, in this case, it's a very specific notch cutout for the clip. And I just can't imagine the artist or the designer or Pentel or anyone approved this to leave. And I guess they just assume that like, Pokemon anything is going to sell. So we just Pokemon all the things, and we stick them in the robot, and we shoot them out. And now we have Pokemon Energels, and they're on the counter, and everyone picks it up and goes, Oh, Pokemon, this looks fantastic. Which it does. That's why I ordered it. And then you get it home and use it, and it's like, oh. Well. It looks like a bunch of crap.

'''Myke:''' I might really like, what I see is like, it was approved as an image. Right. But then when you use it, you see that maybe it's not ideal. But like, the image in the packaging looks great.

'''Brad:''' Doesn't it? Right. It's one of the better looking designs. If you like using the clip jammed into your hand while you're writing with a pen, this is the pen for you. This is the pen for you. So anyway. All right. That's my segment on where I get mad about things that don't matter. Cool. I will not get mad about the Pilot Vanishing Point Black Ice 2021 Limited Edition. Although I'm not doing like handstands and cartwheels for it. What do you... Do you remember the Pilot Vanishing Point, Myke? That's what I feel about this release. What are your initial thoughts when you see this?

'''Myke:''' I mean, I'm over this. I was over this pen a long time ago.

'''Brad:''' I think that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So what are they going to do to make us not over this anymore? It looks great. Like, bar none, it looks fantastic. There are also five editions into this gradient type of color or so. So what we learned a couple of years ago is every year there is a North American and European Pilot Vanishing Point Limited Edition. You know, we've seen these in the past. Um, 10 years? I don't know how long. And every other year, the design rotates between a choice of Pilot North America gets to choose the design for the year. Or Pilot France gets to choose the design for the year. That both regions get. So all of these gradient color ones come out of Pilot North America. And then all of, like, the black, like, the guillochet ones and, like, the black stripe ones, you know, with the designs. Those all come from France. So you can tell the alternate years who made what. And this is a little bit resting on your laurels type of thing. This is what has worked for the past decade. Or in the case of the gradients, maybe the past six or eight years. And it's going to work this time. Um, the price keeps creeping up there. We're up to $257 on this model. Which is fine. Like, it's not great. Like, the regular vanishing points are, like, $160, $170. Those have even gone up. But it's just, like, marketing is funny. And design is funny these days.

'''Brad:''' Because we are just hammered all the time with new stuff. And then Pilot keeps releasing the same old stuff. And I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Like, it's, like I said, it's what's worked in the past. But I want them, let's, can we do something different, you know, in 2023? Like, let's, you know, I have faith in you, Pilot. You know, believe in your North American market and your European market to kind of try something different. Right? I just want them to try something different. Like, I get it. Instead of, like, next year giving me, you know, the orange and white creamsicle vanishing point. I would probably love it. But I would never buy it. I want to buy another vanishing point. And this ain't it.

'''Myke:''' I'll tell you what I would need. Well, not need, but, you know, they need to redesign this pen. It's old now. It just looks old now.

'''Myke:''' To me. Like, I've seen this design for so long.

'''Brad:''' How about update instead of redesign? You're losing me on redesign, but how about update?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, that's kind of what I mean.

'''Brad:''' I know what you mean.

'''Myke:''' The profile of this pen needs to change, I believe. Okay.

'''Brad:''' I won't argue that the Decimo is not a better pen. It's a little bit narrower.

'''Brad:''' You're not going to get any argument from me if you say the Decimo is the superior version.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I don't know what you do. You know what I want to see? If we're going to do this, if we're going to keep this size, give me a raw metal one. Like, just lean into some crazy metal design, right? Because it's a brass underlying pen. Give me something. And I'm talking to you, France. You have done the more subtle black ones and black and white stripe ones and the classic ones. I want you all to strip it down to the bare metal and etch it or do something.

'''Myke:''' The saying in the Discord about going back to the faceted design, that I would be more interested in.

'''Brad:''' I would. And I would like to see them do it metal on a metal barrel because the old faceted designs were plastic barrels, right? And that the old faceted designs were more of the Decimo size, a little bit thinner. And I still think that's the best design.

'''Brad:''' And they use the same internals, too. So, I don't know why there's, you know, that focus on the two different models. I wouldn't mind going back to the faceted but do it in the metal body. If you gave me, if you strip this down to the metal and faceted it, oof, man. I don't even know how many of those you'd sell. So, like, this is just another vanishing point. It's great. I think this one looks awesome. Yeah. Just, like, it's fine. Like, but I'm ready. Like, I'm ready. Like you're saying, give me something new. Redesign. Update. Make me want the vanishing point again because I still think it's one of the great pens. And I have, like, the two or three that I like. And I just don't have any intention of, you know, getting another gradient.

== Planner Recommendations ==

'''Myke:''' And what you're saying is they need to strip it for parts. Strip it for parts. So, it's good for now. Strip it for parts. You know, like, I think, for me, I think the thing, I feel like you could have shown me this pen and been like, hey, do you remember this one from last year? And I would probably say yes.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I think that kind of puts a point on it. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' You could very easily trick me that this was last year's special edition. Mm-hmm. So, I think that's the issue that they have now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. It's just. And like Rich Dix is saying in the chat, if it was cheaper, we would love them more. Yeah. I mean, we used to get these for, like, $140, $150.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I mean, I remember when it was around that. Because I remember $150 or one, you know, like, something less than $200. I remember it being, like, a big deal for me because it's the most I'd ever spent on a pen, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But now the price keeps going up. And I don't really know if it warrants that anymore.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, like I said, it's good. They will sell out completely. I don't think it's that outrageously priced. I think that's just the way the market is these days. I'm not going to. I will get into Sailor more about their pricing than I will about Pilot on this LE. But, I mean, it's getting up there. That's for sure. So, anyway, I think it's just time. I think we're both in agreement. It needs to be freshened up if you're going to continue moving forward with the Vanishing Point as an anchor product in your product line.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' Speaking of anchors, like the Zebra Sarasa R might be a boat anchor. I don't say that happily. I reviewed them recently on the blog. And they're fine. And what the Sarasa R is one of the new, again, marketing-focused pens like the Uni Ball 1, where both Uni and Zebra have decided that we, as consumers and stationary fans, need a gel pen that's jellier. It needs to be, have more jelly brightness in its colors. And they're saying, Uni Ball saying the pigmentation is richer. And Zebra saying we have 27% more color density. And I'm just going, gel pens and colors are cool. They all look kind of good. These don't seem special. So, I just wanted to point that out. If you like the Zebra Sarasas and gel ink pens, the Zebra Sarasa R is a good one. You're going to be fine with the Zebra Sarasa clip. If you like the Uni Ball pens, the one's a good pen. I love the design of the one. I love the design of the Sarasa R. The Uni Ball RT1 or the Signo DX. They're just, they're going to be as good, if not better. And this is pretty much marketing.

'''Myke:''' I prefer the design of the Uni Ball one. I think that that's a very slick looking pen.

'''Brad:''' It's awesome. I like, out of these two pens, with these two high color pigmentation ink formulations, which is what they're selling, the Zebra Sarasa R is a better writer than the Uni Ball one. I love that Uni Ball one barrel, though. So, anyway, I just wanted to bring this up. I, this is like a, I appreciate like the marketing and the R&D that goes into like trying new things. Like, I always want companies to try new things. But this is, I don't think these high pigmented color versions of existing pens are going to like really move the needle forward. Like, I don't think they're going to like really stick the landing. Like, they'll exist for a little bit. And then they'll just kind of fade away when the next whatever marketing thing they want to do that R&D comes up with. So, they're not enough to move the needle past what's already really good pens, right? Each of them are fighting against themselves in what are really, really good gelling pens. They're having to beat themselves. And it turns out, to me, they're just cannibalizing themselves. Like, well, it's not that much better. So, we'll see. I just wanted to point that out. So, that review is up. People have been asking me about it. Asking me about the 1 and the R. Like, do they make a difference?

'''Brad:''' Maybe. But the trade-off is worst performance. And that's these two pens in a nutshell.

'''Myke:''' Worst performance how?

'''Brad:''' The ink goes on the page wider. And it's a little spreadier. And it oftentimes bleeds. And it just doesn't feel great when you write with it. That's more for the 1 in the feel. The Zebra Sarasa R actually feels normal. The Uniball 1 feels almost glossy when you're writing with it. It's weird. It's hard to explain. It doesn't feel like a traditional pen. Where the Zebra Sarasa R feels exactly like the Zebra Sarasa clip to me just from a writing perspective. But the ink performance is worse than their standard gels, if you can believe that, on both of these pens. Hmm.

'''Myke:''' And you reckon it's something to do with the formulation? Like, why do you think that's... It's got to be. Okay. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It's got to be the manipulation of the formulation, which I can't really speak on. They're both saying... One's saying saturated. And one's saying denser. So, same idea, right? Right. And whatever that change is, is making the ink not as universally good as their standard gel ink pens. Okay. That's it in a nutshell.

'''Myke:''' This review was particularly full of puns.

'''Brad:''' I didn't notice that. I mean, the one I noticed. The second one, I did not notice. I guess that's just how ingrained... Pens are punny to begin with. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, you just can't help it. And sometimes, like, it's obvious and I notice it. Sometimes it just happens because I've done it so long. And it's just like, oh, well, I guess that was a thing I didn't even notice I said.

'''Myke:''' You said on paper, figuratively, not literally. We'll get to that in a moment. Yep. Okay. And does the 27% more color density make a big difference on the page? Not in my book.

'''Brad:''' That was a great one. That I had no idea. That's good, right? That was, like, legitimately good. I had... Until you put that in there, that did not register with me when I wrote it.

'''Myke:''' It's a great quote that you had literally zero to do with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. But it's good writing. You should embrace that. It's good.

'''Brad:''' I'll work on that. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' All right, Myke. Let's try to spend some of my money. I'm going. I'm going right now. What do you got for me?

'''Myke:''' I'm going to talk about our friends over at Pen Chalet. They have everything you're looking for, from the very best rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, to mechanical pencils, to pen holders, refills, converters, carrying cases, inks, and so, so much more. Pen Chalet are constantly adding new products to their site. Come on over! What's happening over there?

'''Brad:''' I opened up the link. All right, keep going.

'''Myke:''' My word, you scared me, Brad. There must be a good deal over there at Pen Chalet today. They have a very fast and reliable customer service. Oh, I'm freaked out now. You know you do that thing when your adrenaline goes? That's where I am at right now. Sorry, sorry, mate. Maybe it's just because I'm so excited about Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet. They're always adding limited edition pens, accessories, everything that you're going to want, they've got over there, over at Pen Chalet. They sell internationally with great shipping rates, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to penchalet.com, that's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website. You want to enter the password penaddict? This will get you a code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet, as well as these apparently incredible special offers.

'''Brad:''' I haven't gotten past the first one, because the Scribo Puma fountain pen is something that has been on my radar for, I don't know, I would say a long time, but they haven't been around that long since they launched. Wow, that is a good price. So the issue with this pen is, number one, myself, and I'm including myself in this commentary, not a lot of people know about Scribo, right? They're a relatively new company, and they start on the high end of the writing spectrum, right? They're not ramping you up like a lot of companies will start you at the lower ends, then say, hey, here's our medium range, and hey, here's our high-end pens. They start straight at, hey, everything we do is a high-end pen, right? So the Scribo Feel was a model that came out at least a year ago and was well-received, well-loved, a lot of Omos design ideas here. And then they came out with a second model, which I saw on the list today. It's called the Scribo Puma. And what this pen is, is their simple, basic pen. Smaller, straightforward shapes, you know, standard cigar shape, standard clip, really nice acrylics. And guess what, Myke? Very expensive, right? So I'm a fan of the Edison Perlette. But it's a smaller acrylic barrel pen. And it costs about a third or a half of what the Scribo Puma costs. With a steel nib. Now, these Pumas have 14-karat gold nibs. Flex nibs, even, I think. And I love the design. This is like my design. You want to know why I like Nakaya? Nakaya, well, you look at one of these Scribo pens and say, boy, that's a great design, but it's too expensive. And, like, that's a lot of the Nakaya thing, too. So, like, this pen really speaks to me. But I've never even considered ordering one, because I thought they were just too much money, too expensive. And, yeah. Thanks, Ron. Ron went and he did a thing. There's some colors. He did a thing.

'''Myke:''' Like, what's the name? I need to find the name of this color. It's like a really pale blue. Mm-hmm. Do you know the name of that color?

'''Brad:''' Yes. I just had the whole page up, and I accidentally closed it. Hang on. I will get it for you. There we go. But, yeah, there's, like, two solid colors and two, like, acrylic kind of marbly colors. So, the solid color is what? Altrove? No, that's burgundy. Ratio.

'''Myke:''' Mm.

'''Brad:''' The solid color one or the acrylic one? Oof. So, Altrove.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's hard to get the name. Is it Utopia? Which one? The blue one? Yeah. The blue one is...

'''Brad:''' Ooh, I think it's Liev. Liev. Liev. Okay. Gray blue? I don't know.

'''Myke:''' Yes, that one. Liev. Liev. Liev. I wouldn't call that gray blue. I don't know why it's called gray blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a good-looking color. So, it's nice pens. I can see why you freaked out, considering that price is really good.

'''Brad:''' You know what, Myke? They have some other good stuff on this list, like the Pilot Knight rollerballs, which I need to try. This is, like...

'''Myke:''' Our friend Danetto's back again?

'''Brad:''' Our friend Danetto, yeah. But the Pilot Knight ballpoint is, like, this vanishing point, if we turned it... Not the... The vanishing point does have rollerballs and ballpoints, but the Pilot Knight is, like, the low-end pretend vanishing point, and it's, like, 15 bucks. It's, like, crazy. Like, if people want, like, a good writing pen, you know, just... That's not a fountain pen, something they can just throw around and mess around with, that's the ticket. Then they also have some of the Platinum Presidents down there, which I know some people like that shape and feel of the Platinum President over the 3776, which you don't often see those on. Not my President. So, yeah. All right. So, I got some looking to do after this show, and we'll see. We'll see what's up.

'''Myke:''' Penchalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast. Link at the top of the website. Use the password, PenAddict. Our thanks to Penchalet for the support of this show. Relay FM.

'''Brad:''' All right. I want to do a little quick 101 planner talk, because it's that time of the year, Myke, where all the 2022 planners starting to come out. Don't I know it. Don't you know it. And I'm going to talk to you about planners, too. Yeah. But I really... Now, I'm starting to get questions, right, about planners. What should I buy? What should I do? Things like that. And it's impossible to cover everything going on in the world of planners. They're very particular. And it's really close to, like, what's going on in the world of pens. There's so many planners. There's so many pens. There's so many different options that fit your needs. Mm-hmm. So I want to kind of lay out some basics here that if you're considering buying a planner for the first time or considering changing what you already use, here's a couple things to consider. Right? So I want to start with you, Myke. And because you're not a traditional planner user, you have digital planning, which we're going to talk about some in here. And then you have daily writing in the theme system, which would not fall under the planner category in my mind. Is that fair?

'''Myke:''' Sure. I'm a digital planner and a paper journaler.

'''Brad:''' Yes. So that's exactly how I would put it to. So what I want to talk about is the people who want to take that digital planning style and move it onto paper or have it complimentary like I do.

'''Myke:''' Right.

'''Brad:''' So that's the first question you have to ask yourself is, do I actually need a planner? Am I buying this stationery as a lot of us do just because it looks cool and I've heard nice things about it and, you know, I just want to try it out? Well, planners are kind of hard to do that with because they're a commitment. Like if you buy a pen and you don't use it 24 seven, well, it can sit there and you can pick it up again when you need it. Planners don't work that way. Planners you have to use at least on the daily, maybe on the week, depending on how you set things up. So they're more of a commitment. Do you need that commitment? Are you happy with your digital setup? Are you happy with your blank notebook or your note card, whatever you use on your desk to keep track of what you do? Who knows? So ask yourself that question first. Then if you need a planner, if you think, hey, maybe this paper planner would work. That's when like the real questions start to happen. How simple do you need it or how complex do you need it? Because let me tell you, you can get every single bit of every single thing that you want with that. So, you know, do you need just a starter type of planner? An open layout planner, right? Just some general days and dates like Steyology or Hobonichi. They're essentially, you know, kind of one blank page per day and you can do whatever you want with it. You can integrate a bullet journal style, you know, to help you lay out your days. You can just have it more as a task list to do list. You can have it as part tasks, part journaling. You can have it all journaling. You know, that's the simple layouts. Then you can go all the way on the other end to something like a Jibun Techo where you have a two page spread of a seven day week where each day is vertical and each column is separated into 30 minute sections for a 24 hour day, right? Can you imagine filling that out? And I've seen some of those filled out and they're amazing looking, but wow, that's an intense commitment to your scheduling. And like that's only part of what the Jibun Techo does and part of why it's popular. So think about doing some research and how I would do it and how I did do it when I was looking to change is I sketched out my own layout. I just took a blank notebook and said, what would my perfect layout look like? Okay. So I get out this page and I'd lay it out how I wanted to. For me, it was like an hour column down the left hand side broken up into 30 minutes, but not for a 24 hour block from like a 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. type of thing. Um, and then on the same page on the, that would be on the left half of the page. Then on the right half of the page would just be essentially an open column for notes. And I would sketch that out for a couple of days, try it, modify it, change the layout and say, okay, this is my idea of what would work for me. Does this layout exist? And in my case, it did. I mean, I knew that ahead of time, but I wanted to write my own or sketch my own just to see if there was something I was missing or to see if something I wanted different. And it turns out that like the layout I like, I wouldn't say it's super common, but you can find it like it's reasonably common. So do that, you know, do you need an hour, you know, hour by hour column on your page or not? Do you need check boxes on your page or not? You know, what is your single page layout? Do you need your whole week over a two page spread? That's how I used to do it, right? I would have smaller blocks for individual days down the left side. Left side would be seven days horizontally, not vertically, like in the Jibun Techo. And then the right page would be for notes for the entire week. And then I can, I move that into a page, one page per day with time slots and notes. So you got to play around with this stuff. So that's what I suggest. Figure out what features you have to have. Figure out what's unnecessarily unnecessary and figure out like what's extra. Like some notebooks have, you know, big swaths of open note space, right? You can go, like I've said, the Jibun Techo to me is like one of the most high maintenance type of planners where they're very detail oriented. And then you can go all the way to the other side of the ledger and stay in the planner, planner realm with the Hobonichi Techo Day Free is what they call it. It's essentially has your monthly calendars in the front for the year, like the two space, two page spread calendar page, and then like 150 notebook pages, you know, journaling pages. I don't know the exact page count. So like you can get all of these things. That's like just a big open layout type of thing. So I got an email that kind of prompted this. And this is what you want to think about when you're looking at planners and how myself and other people in the community can help you kind of narrow down your ideas because it's always, layouts are always changing. What you might have used from Leuchtturm for five years might not be available anymore, right? They might have changed the layout some and now you're looking for something else. So I got, someone's looking to switch planners and they gave me the very basics of what they need. And I like this. So this is from Marty. It says, I want A5, which is the size of the notebook. That's one thing I didn't talk about. These come in all different sizes.

'''Myke:''' Mostly A5 though, right? I feel like it seems to be a pretty standardized.

'''Brad:''' Yep. A5 and then B6 is pretty common, which is slightly smaller. And square, maybe not square. That's probably the wrong term, but a little bit smaller than A5. And then a lot of the Japanese brands will do like the A5 slim where it's a little tall and narrow. So, but like Marty says.

'''Myke:''' We love non-standard size in our own.

'''Brad:''' I like, they pretty much made, they all ganged up to decide that A5 slim is a thing. So Marty says, I want A5. I want one page per day. That means like when you open your notebook, you have two pages facing you. But on one page, say on the left page is today. And then the right page is tomorrow. And then you turn the page and it's the day after that. It's on and on. So that's what one page per day with our stickers along the left side. So like, you know, just our timestamps printed on there. Kind of like, kind of like mine is honestly what he's saying. And then to-dos along the right side of the page. So maybe a more lined approach on the right side of the page for a to-do list type of writing as opposed to me having an open page where I can do whatever I want. I can create my own to-do list.

== Ink Bottle Designs ==

'''Brad:''' And then he also says, I want fountain pen friendly paper. That's another question you have to ask yourself. And then I want to spend between $30 and $35. Like that's kind of everything you need to say, does this product exist? And I think for Marty, like something I don't know off the top of my head, but it wouldn't take me long to kind of poke around. And I think we can get pretty close to the check marks that Marty has asked us to tick off here. And like that's the kind of things you need to be thinking about if you're thinking about a planner.

'''Brad:''' You know, just kind of lay it out yourself. Just do some chicken scratch on some blank pages and say, hey, does this work? If it does work, does it exist into a product I can purchase? And am I willing to commit to that for a year? I've found it to be helpful for me, the way I schedule things, to have a paper planner, which shouldn't come as a shock to anybody. But yeah, it's complex and difficult to go planner shopping. So if I can help in any way, let me know. I'm glad to. And then I'm going to end this off with a question for you, Myke. And a question for chat, which they can hit me on Twitter or email. And I'm curious. And I posed this to Twitch chat and I assumed what the answer would be and I assumed correctly, but I was a little bit surprised. For someone who has used a lot of planners, for someone who has used a lot of pens, if you're searching for a new planner, is the first thing you look for your first requirement, the planner layout or the planner paper to use with your pens that you love? And I think the obvious answer and the answer that most people answered was the layout, right? Because what good is a planner if the layout doesn't work for you? But I think the opposite could be said, well, what good is the layout if the paper sucks and you're just frustrated using it the whole time? Would you switch pens to use a better planner layout?

'''Myke:''' It depends how better we're talking. Right? It's not that easy of a question. Right? I mean, the way you're describing it, I mean, you seem pretty positive, but I feel like Marty wants something super specific. And if you can find that thing which is so specific, but it's like the thing you've been looking for, maybe it's worth making some trade-offs for the perfect thing.

'''Brad:''' Right.

'''Myke:''' Like, for example, so I make the Theme System Journal, right? And it's kind of funny, like you were talking about like, oh, you went out and made your own layout. I mean, you ended up working with like getting it sorted with William Hanna. But for me, again, this is journaling, not planning. But I wrote out my own journal layout in a Hobonichi, right? Yes. I do it my own way and realized that I actually think this could be a little bit better for me. And so I ended up designing and producing a product around that. And then building it out to be like, it's the system first. And then there is the product, right? That you can buy and put the system into effect if you think it will work for you. Yep. Yep.

'''Myke:''' But I know that the paper that I use is not as good for my fountain pens as Tamari River paper. Mm-hmm. Because that's not the product I'm making. But I'm happy to be like, well, I'm going to use paper that is by and large better for most people rather than focusing on just like fountain pen performance. Because that's not the product that I'm selling. Like the product that we make is meant for everyone. And Hobonichi Techo is not for everyone. Right. Right. It's like you got to kind of know our audience a little bit. Right. But that's kind of what I'm saying is like for me to get the perfect layout, I was willing to accept not as nice an experience as a full-on fountain pen paper would get me. Where I use a more generic paper, which I think performs great with fountain pens. But it's not perfect, you know?

'''Brad:''' Right. So this puts a bow on my final point. But you're almost never going to find the perfect planner. Right. You're going to have to make some, you know, exceptions to the firm, fast rules that you have to get into a planner that works the best for you. Could be one layout item on the page doesn't suit you, but, you know, 85% of it does suit your needs. It could be that you're a hardcore fountain pen user and the paper is only average for fountain pens. So you might have to switch it up a little bit. That's the biggest thing you want to think about with planners. Like you and I can find the perfect notebook that works for everything exactly how you want. When you start adding planner details into a notebook, that changes. Right. It's hard to absolutely nail a planner 100% perfect.

'''Myke:''' Because now we're talking preprint. Right. Like that's the thing. You can find the perfect notebook. But I mean, and then I guess you could just draw it out yourself like we've both done.

'''Brad:''' Well, that's why bullet journal is so popular because you take your own and then you dial it into yourself. So, yeah. Planners are complicated and complex. And that's why we always talk about them so much. Because I find them interesting. Just the design decisions, design choices. And that's how they actually help me do my day-to-day work. Where years ago, I didn't have like a planner. And now I'm into it. But I'm not like, I'm more on the basic side of the ledger than the G-Boom Tetris side of the ledger. But I do find them useful. So, I wanted to put that out there now that it's, this month is when you're going to see most of the next year's planners launch. And so, we're going to have a lot of questions on that. So, I just wanted to kind of put a little, few little nuggets out there for you to think about if you're shopping for planners.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Hobonichi's up already.

'''Brad:''' Yes. Hobonichi's out. The G-Boom Techos are next week. I don't have the dates in front of me. But you're going to see pretty much everyone in like the next four to six weeks have their 2022 stuff out.

'''Myke:''' Man, I hope one day I can do this kind of thing. It's like a goal for me. Like, you know how they have these big things. And it's like, here's the next year. And these are all the accessories. And now we've got the different colors. Like, oh, man. That's a dream for me, Brad. I'm not going to lie. Yeah. That'd be cool. You know? Because we could do. It's like, oh, it's theme system season. Like, we started. I mean, yeah. Like, you know, like we are, if people do it, they buy them all year. And we do sell them all year. But we're expecting the biggest time of year for us is always going to be the holidays. We're going to find out. This is like, you know, we get there. Like, we have no idea what it's going to be like if people are going to jump on board again, hopefully. Yep. Please. Yep. Call us to be much.com. And it would be amazing, like, one day to be at that point where we're like, oh, and this year you can get in this color and this color and this color. And, you know, man, it'd be awesome. Maybe one day. Maybe one day.

'''Brad:''' I'd love to see it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I mean, I would too. All right. Let's take our final break. And then we'll answer some USTPA to finish out today's episode. This episode is brought to you by Harry's. Hey, if you're heading back into the office now, maybe you're getting out into the world a little bit more again. It might be time to start thinking about getting that fresh, clean, all business look. And Harry's can help you. If you don't know Harry's, it's time you do. They were created to be different from other shaving companies. And they craft high-quality, long-lasting blades with durable weighted handles that make a close, comfortable shave quick and enjoyable. And because Harry's insists that you shouldn't have to choose between a great shave and a fair price, they give you both. With refill blades starting as low as $2, it's an easy decision. And new Harry's customers get their starter set, which includes a five-blade razor, weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and a travel cover. It's a $13 value for just $3. Plus, Harry's offers a whole range of amazing face and body care products, all delivered right to your door that I know Brad Dowdy is a big fan of.

'''Brad:''' I mean, just look. Look at me, Myke. So beautiful. I mean, come on. Seriously. Harry's made that. Yeah, Harry's.

'''Brad:''' Body by Harry's. Yeah, I am a huge Harry's product lover. I think I am getting deeper and deeper into the Harry's ecosystem as the years go by because I love the blades, right? I love the handles. The shave is the best I've had in my life without a doubt. And then, you know, I've mixed in a few of the other things that I've checked out, including my favorite hair paste ever, Myke. I mean, come on now. Come on now. That's important stuff.

'''Myke:''' That is good stuff.

'''Brad:''' Beautiful head of hair over there. Thank you.

'''Myke:''' There's never been a better time to try Harry's. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to get this starter set for just $3. It's 100% satisfaction guaranteed, so you've got nothing to lose. That's harrys.com slash penaddict right now to get this special offer. Go there. Check it out. That is harrys.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and Relay FM. All right. We're going to finish out today with some hashtag Ask TPA. Okay, questions. The first comes from Lachi. I'm going to say. LACCI. I keep forgetting to ask about the Morning Glory muck 3 being discontinued. How's the Morning Glory pro muck? Is it a good replacement? Are there any other fine tip rollerball gems hiding out there?

'''Brad:''' I get a crazy amount of questions on the Morning Glory pens.

'''Myke:''' I don't know anything about this pen.

'''Brad:''' And I'll tell you why I get the questions and why you don't know anything about this pen. It's because it has a combination that you rarely see, which is a 0.38 millimeter tip with a rollerball ink. Right? So it is a liquid ink, not a gel ink, not a ballpoint, and it's a needle tip.

'''Myke:''' Okay.

'''Brad:''' So the famous pen in this category is the Pilot Precise, either the V5 or the V7. Those are world-renowned, famous pens. But no one's really done something comparable in a 0.38 tip size. Well, Morning Glory did, I don't know, many years ago. Gosh, I don't even know how long ago. Probably the last six, seven, eight years. And they were great. Like, it was like, oh my gosh, this is actually comparable to the Pilot Precise. It is that good. On top of that, they mixed in, you know, different colors. Like, I had a bunch of blue-black ones, still do. You know, and they do pink and oranges and purples and things like that. And they worked. Like, that's one of the highest compliments that I can say about a pen like this, is that it really, really worked when you wouldn't think it did. So people fell in love with them. And then I can't answer why they went away or why they're not available anymore. Maybe, you know, they're just not getting imported into the U.S. anymore. Maybe they don't exist anymore in their home market. I don't know. And I haven't tried the ProMock Rollerball. I would wager it's just as good. But you can tell by, number one, the design of this pen, and number two, the offerings, that they have kind of reined it in a little bit. Like, this is back to the basics. Office-style pen, three colors, blue-black-red. Still .38. I would imagine the tip and ink technology is still good, so they should be good. But it's unfortunate we don't have access right now to more what the original one used to be, the Mach 3. Which was, like, it was just like this beloved pen, almost like a cult classic type of pen. And that once people discovered it, they didn't, you know, they wanted to know where this pen had been all their lives. So it's a really great pen. And, you know, I assume you're going to do okay with the new model. But it's just a little sad knowing what we used to have with that pen and how great it was. And hopefully it's not gone-gone. Hopefully it's just maybe an access thing. I haven't looked at the sourcing to see if it still exists out there.

'''Myke:''' I actually have one more question. Do you have any recommendations on grips to add to pens and pencils to people with arthritis or repetitive stress injuries? I have several friends and family members who have asked me, and I don't know where to point them.

'''Brad:''' This is a tough question because there's no real pen addict-y answer to this, if that makes sense, right? The stuff that we're into, I can't say. Well, if you're into, like, all of the things that we're into, these are the type of grips you want to buy that are add-ons and accessories. To your existing pens, right? And that's what we're looking for here is the add-on, not the pen itself, which they're mentioning, you know, they can recommend, you know, the wider diameter pens, the softer grips. Like, I always recommend the Uni Alpha Gel. But wider grips help with that. But as far as the accessory itself, to go on top of an existing grip, it's just not out there in our world, if you will. Like, you can find the basics at any store, and I'm sure that's what Lachi has done, is just taken what's available. And what's available is not that great, what they're finding. But there's not actually an upgraded version of that in our world that I'm aware of. So if anyone has used anything, I know a lot of people will reply with, like, their custom and, like, at-home made stuff, which I've gotten a lot of feedback over the years on, hey, I made this for my pen. But as far as a more widely accessible thing, I really can't name one, unfortunately.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it feels like almost like some kind of gel or, like, putty that you could put on the pen would probably be better, right? Because it could go on any pen and be shaped the exact way you need.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, there's definitely some stuff you could mold around. Yeah, mold.

'''Myke:''' That's the word I was looking for, like something that you could mold around the pen.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I just don't know, like, what the one is, you know, from my perspective.

'''Myke:''' So we would love to know if anybody has a suggestion because it's a really good tip. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' And we definitely have listeners who would know this or into this thing and trying to solve these problems. So reach out hello at penact.com and I'll pass this along.

'''Myke:''' This comes from Debra. I use it to be eco and love it. Of course, why wouldn't you? My favorite ink is Vert Prix by J.E. Bon. Do you buy a generic ink bottle that is a shape that makes filling easier? If so, which one? The J.E. Bon bottle is large on the bottom, which makes it impossible to fill from once it's two thirds full. So, Brad, do you know of or do you ever buy, I guess, another bottle to decant the ink into so you can actually fill it more easily?

'''Brad:''' I love this question so much. This is a very pen addict-y podcast question. Mm-hmm. Because this makes every bit of sense for someone to do who has a commitment to a singular ink that they love the most and use the most. Right? So, in my situation, my decanting is grabbing one of the 200 bottles I have sitting on the shelf and just inking from there because I'm not that monogamous in my ink relationship. Right? If I were, I would definitely get or find a bottle that was perfect for me and replace the ink that I loved in their not-so-great bottle and put it into the more accessible bottle. And what you get, what a lot of people will do is if, say, you know, they love Orochizuku ink. Well, that's, okay. If they love Sailor ink in the ink pots, right? And those are traditionally poor, poor bottles to fill from after, you know, the first few fills. They're just short and flat and you can't really get the nib all the way in there sometimes. Would you get an Akramon bottle and after you've used that up, pour your Sailor ink into that? I was like, I would 100% do that, like, if that was an option. You know, I don't know. I think that's what a lot of people will do is they'll empty out the one ink bottle they love the most and then put their most favorite ink into that bottle. And that saves them from having to dry to buy a new bottle. But, I mean, you can just buy empty bottles.

'''Myke:''' Maybe this makes me particular, but, like, I couldn't put the ink from another brand into another brand's bottle, if it were. I would want to get some kind of plain bottle instead.

'''Brad:''' As weird as I am about things, that wouldn't bother me.

'''Myke:''' Interesting.

'''Brad:''' But I don't know. Like, you can find the generic ink bottles and ink wells, which you would look for. Like, if you were searching for it online, you'd look for an ink well, not necessarily an ink bottle. And you would get returns of, like, bottle-shaped designs for you to fill your ink from. A lot of them were designed for dip nibs, so they still may have some of the depth problems in the bottles that you're running in. And two with a Jair Balm. But you could start your search that way. I just don't know.

'''Myke:''' It never ceases to amaze me how many ink bottles are not good for filling pens from.

'''Brad:''' It's crazy, right?

'''Myke:''' And I kind of can't understand that. Like, why? Yeah. If you're going to make a big bottle, which I don't necessarily think is a great thing anyway, because the bigger the bottle is, the harder it is. You need to come up with some kind of system, like the Akamon system. Yeah. Where it's the little chamber in the top that you actually do the filling from. Right. If you have a huge bottle of ink, like, the Hiroshi Zuko big bottles are like this. Like, you get to a certain point, and it's like you're doing some kind of gymnastics to try and fill the thing.

'''Brad:''' I get so much joy from bad ink bottle designs. It's just almost a given, right? Especially when someone's trying to be unique with their ink bottles and not just doing something standard and going, this actually takes three hands to fill.

'''Myke:''' It's like, it makes you wonder, like, have you actually used it? Are people using this product? And I know that sounds so redundant.

'''Myke:''' Redundant isn't the word, but you kind of know what I'm getting at. But, like, it just sounds reductive. It sounds so reductive as a thing to say. But sometimes it's like, well, I can't understand otherwise why it is this way. Like, if you've ever used a product like this, you would understand how at a certain point, people are just going to get frustrated with your design. And if people are frustrated with your design, they're probably not going to buy it again.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I think we need to get the Pokemon Energel designers to make an ink bottle for us all.

'''Myke:''' They'll just put barcodes all over it.

'''Brad:''' It would be upside down.

'''Myke:''' I was going to say, the good design's on the bottom.

'''Myke:''' So you never actually see it.

'''Myke:''' I have one last question for you today, Brad, before we wrap up. This one comes from Matt. Matt wants to know, how long can you store ink before it will spoil or degrade in quality?

'''Brad:''' As all great answers go, it depends. Right? So, in general, with nothing going on, there's no reason your ink shouldn't last you like a decade. Or, you know, five to ten years. Whatever. Just random, perfect situation. It should last you a long time. Like, you shouldn't hesitate to use it after years and years and years and years. The problem is, we have ink stored in different manners, in different lights, in different temperatures. And manufacturers that use different properties and chemicals to keep their ink happy and healthy.

'''Brad:''' That we don't know, you know, we may not have extended test runs on. So, without getting into, like, all the chemistry stuff that I don't know, you should assume that if you're buying a bottle of ink and you're storing it properly and the temperature's, you know, managed and it's not in the sunlight for 12 hours a day, that it's going to last you as long as you're using the pen or paper that you're going to use. I wouldn't put it under, like, a good ten years or so. Like, it's just not going to go bad in a reasonable use time frame. Cool dry place. Cool dry place. All my ink is stored in a dark closet. You know, go in, turn on the light, grab my ink, and leave. You know, just don't leave it out. Don't leave it in somewhere where the temperature's going to change a lot. And don't leave it exposed to sunlight a lot. And it's going to last just an infinite amount of time. I would not worry about it unless you're in an extreme situation, an extreme environment, or have an extreme ink. So, yeah. I don't know how to answer it better than that.

'''Myke:''' So, it's fine for me. If you'd like to send in a question for a future episode of the show, it's very easy to do so. You can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. Or you can email that question to hello at penaddict.com. Thank you so much for checking out this week's episode. If you want to find show notes, you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 478. Thank you so much to Squarespace, Penchelet, and Harry's for their support of this show. I recommend that you all go to stjude.org slash relay. Make a donation to help support the mission of St. Jude. And when you do, send your email receipt to stjude at penaddict.com. And you'll be entered in to our raffle for St. Jude, which is going to be super great. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to spokedesign.com, penaddict.com. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. Brad on micro.blog. And Brad streams three times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Do not forget to check out the St. Jude, RelayFM for St. Jude podcast-a-thon. On September 17th, starting at 12 p.m. Eastern Time on twitch.tv slash RelayFM. We'll see you there. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. We'll be back next week. Well, Brad will. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. next week. Well, Brad will. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 477/transcript

2026-06-11T06:25:11Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 477
| title = This Notebook Has Rules
| date = September 1st, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/477 Episode 477]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_477.mp3 Audio Episode 477]
| length = 68
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 477. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey Myke, how's it going?

'''Myke:''' Very good, my friend. How are you?

'''Brad:''' I'm very good as well. Like, I'm down with signing off for very good.

'''Myke:''' That's excellent. It's September now. We're into September. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. So here at RelayFM, we are turning our attention to raise money for the wonderful people over at St. Jude's. The third consecutive year in which we are supporting the life-saving mission of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. That mission is very simple, one I think we can all sign on for. Finding Cures, Saving Children. Because cancer kills more children under the age of 14 than any other disease. Doctors from all 50 states of the US and around the world refer their patients to St. Jude because they have the world's best survival rates for some of the most aggressive childhood cancers. St. Jude also provides thousands of free consultations for doctors treating children worldwide, including kids in your community. So this September, you can join RelayFM's efforts to raise the funds and awareness needed to treat and defeat childhood cancer. You can donate today at stjude.org slash Relay. Let's cure childhood cancer together. Now, Brad, as well as this incredible thing, right, we are obviously going ahead again and you are putting together something truly amazing for pen addict listeners who donate to St. Jude. So starting from now, September 1st until September 21st, we are doing a pen addict St. Jude raffle. So when you make a donation, you will be able to be entered by emailing your donation receipt to stjude at penaddict.com. It's an email address, stjude at penaddict.com. Every $10 donated gets you one raffle ticket. You can get unlimited tickets, unlimited entries. You can pledge as much money as you want and every $10 will be converted to one ticket. So if you put in $100, that's 10 tickets. $1,000, that's 100 tickets. And obviously, the more tickets you have, the more likely you are to win some of the absolutely incredible prizes. Just FYI, I might not be using the correct legal language here, but we're all friends. You know what I'm talking about. All right.

'''Brad:''' I worry about that. I don't have any like legalities on this. So we're all buds here. Let's be nice. And we're raising money for childhood cancer.

'''Myke:''' So like just, you know, get off our backs.

'''Brad:''' I worry about that too. But I'm like, come on, it's for the kids. And like, I'm just going to have to do whatever we have to do.

'''Myke:''' The great people over at St. Jude haven't told us to stop doing it yet.

'''Brad:''' So don't stop making me give away cool stuff. So you want to know what we have so far for the kids, Myke?

== Prizes for St. Jude Fundraising ==

'''Myke:''' Yeah. So last year, we kind of did one prize, right? Yeah. It was the custom Lamy Safari from the wonderful Jonathan Brooks. This year, our incredible community of makers and friends. Yeah. We're having to beat them off of a stick. Yes. Wanted to give us stuff.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So I've had this field notes collection that I've wanted to use for something good for quite a while. We've talked about it for years. So now's the time for me to donate my field notes collection. And this is the grand prize. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Releases one through 42 from Butcher Orange to Butcher Blue to Grass Stain all the way up to issue 42. Like you could, they're up to 51 now. You can pick up any, if you want to like really flesh out your collection, you can get all that stuff like for cover price. But this is the old rare stuff, giving them, you know, as a prize to raise money for the kids. Like that's what I wanted to use this for. And I've been holding off on doing it until it was the right time. Now it's the right time.

'''Myke:''' And I'm going to reiterate all of this for you to really land, I think, the magnitude of this prize. Because one person will win the first 42 editions of Field Notes. A sealed three pack of every single one of the first 42. Some of these are just not available. You may be, as the winner of this, the only person with a few of these editions in a sealed three pack, for all I know. Because some of them are that difficult to find. They do not exist anywhere else.

'''Brad:''' I'm sure I'm not the only person with this collection, but this is one of the few collections. This is certainly the only one that you can acquire and without having to pay like through the next.

'''Myke:''' This would be an incredible amount of money to buy. Obviously, we recommend that whoever wins this doesn't try to flip them, you know. But like you do you. It's your gift. It's your prize, I should say.

'''Brad:''' I want money for the kids. You do whatever you want. Fair enough. So, once I mentioned that we were doing this, of course, our wonderful friends in the community started reaching out to donate more prizes for this raffle. Including Jonathan Brooks, once again, is donating. I almost don't know how to explain this, but we're going to call it a Carolina Pen Co. Plus Spoke Pen Pen Pen. So, what this is, is the Spoke Pen Icon, which is the fountain pen. And Jonathan engineered and built an acrylic eyedropper insert for the icon.

'''Myke:''' I want this one.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, I'll have pictures of this. So, it's basically a sleeve designed to fit into the Spoke Pen Icon that you can eyedropper. So, that's going to be a giveaway item. So, Jonathan made that special just for this giveaway. I have also a Canalea Pen Co. Kona Cherry, the Myke 2021 Pen of the Year, voted by Pen World readers, I believe that is correct. The Kona Cherry, also one of my personal favorites, courtesy of our friends at Canalea Pen Co. I also have a Kasama Tala in Ultum, which is another personal favorite pen of mine from the wonderful Mark Bacchus, a.k.a. the Nib Griner. And he is kindly donating not just that, but any nib grind you want. A nib grind of choice on that nib that's in the Kasama Tala. Again, I'll have links and pictures when I post this. More details on that in a minute. And, speaking of Ultum, I have a Shone Design Ultum via our good buddy Ian Shone. I think that has a fine steel nib in it. So, this is a really awesome pen that Ian has kindly provided for a giveaway here.

'''Myke:''' It's worth noting, these are all individual prizes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, each one of those pens will be awarded to separate individuals. It's not like one big grand prize.

'''Brad:''' Correct, correct. So, we're going to have a bunch of winners. And we might have more. I'm not telling anyone they can't donate a prize to this between now and September 21st. If someone comes up with September 20th, hey, let's include this. It's going on the page. So, the page will be live on the Pen Addict blog on Thursday. It was when I'm going to actually officially, you know, have everything written up. Have all the pictures. Have all the details and specs of all the products we have so far. Have all the details in case, you know, you didn't quite follow us today. But you're welcome to go ahead, starting today, donate to St. Jude. So, you know, email your receipt to stjudetpenannic.com. And for every $10 you donate, you get one raffle ticket. And we'll be raffling off all of these prizes to individual winners after the closing of this raffle, which is September 21st. So, you know, that's what we have right now. I'm expecting we'll have more. I have irons in the fire trying to get some more items. And I'm sure once this goes live to where I have someone to link it, someone can link to it, we'll hopefully start getting a few more things in. So, I appreciate everyone's support. And I am excited to see what we can do this year, Myke. Me too. So, I checked last year. The Pen Addict was responsible for a little over $11,000. And it was just awesome. So, I have to beat that this year.

'''Myke:''' When we were preparing for our campaign this year with Allsac, which is the fundraising arm of St. Jude, that's the name of it. It's like two separate companies in one, which I'm sure there's a million legal reasons why that has to be the case. But Allsac's entire purpose is to raise money for St. Jude. They specifically mentioned this as one of the important parts of the campaign. The Pen Addict part. The Pen Addict part. Because it raised a lot of money. And so, we would like, you know, this is a podcast focused solely around commercialism.

'''Myke:''' Right? Like, that's what we talk about. Buying things. So, please give a little bit of money, whatever you can, to St. Jude. So, I'll talk you through one last time the way that you go about this. Go to stjude.org slash relay. You make a donation. You'll get sent an email receipt. Forward that email receipt to stjude at penaddict.com. And that will enter you in. Every $10 that you pledge to St. Jude will be one raffle ticket.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. So, last year, I took all the entries. For every $10, you got a line on a spreadsheet. And then, we went over to random.org and picked random numbers. Told it to pick a number between this range. And that's how we did it. So, we'll do it the same way this time.

'''Myke:''' Maybe, Brad, if you were up for it, me and you could get on stream together and do a big grand prize drawing.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I think we can figure that out. I think we can make that happen. That'd be fun. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

== Montblanc Ink Controversy ==

'''Brad:''' Let's talk about something fun, Myke. Is this fun? I think you're dreading this topic. I am ready to have fun with it.

'''Myke:''' I've read it. I've looked through the stuff. And I'm not convinced of how this is going to be a fun conversation. So, maybe you can call me around.

'''Brad:''' Hashtag Montblancgate, Myke. Hashtag Montblancgate. That's not my name. This is from the Fountain Pen Memes Instagram page, which is actually how I first found out about the fact. And I say that fact that Montblanc is duplicating, exactly duplicating, limited edition inks from years prior to years current. Facts. Because Montblanc is apparently not smart enough to remove stickers from old inks. Okay, that's great. To new inks. They're literally morons.

'''Brad:''' That is so good.

'''Myke:''' That's my favorite part of this.

'''Brad:''' How can that not be fun, Myke? So, what's happening here? So, this is not new in our world. But I want to talk about it because Montblanc is a huge company. And let's just... I'm going to cut to the chase. This shocks me 0%. We're going to talk about that more as we get to the end of this. But other companies in our space, Lamy, Deatramentus, Sailor, have all made a limited edition ink or made an ink, took it away, and at some point years down the line brought it back as something different. And called it something different. Well, Montblanc... I don't want to say they're different. But they're different in the fact that they really lean on these limited edition releases. Like, that's one of their big marketing pushes. Like, every month or every two months is, hey, we made this ink with, like, this particular one, James Dean. You know, they have all these, you know, historical characters that they're pushing these inks on. And then they'll have just separate limited edition colors, say, Petrol Blue, just pop up multiple times during the year. And now, once they just... Once, you know, someone discovered this, and like I said, I found it on Fountain Pen memes, and they're doing a good job of tracking it all. People went back and started looking at bottles and are finding stickers on other bottles. Like, the Around the World in 80 Days Blue is the same ink as the Petrol Blue.

'''Myke:''' So, like, basically, the sticker on the bottom just says Petrol Blue or whatever, right?

'''Brad:''' Yes. It's amazing. I love this so much. Look, it's dirty, right? Like, Montblanc is doing us dirty. And that, I mean that from a hobbyist perspective. I mean you and me and the people listening to this show. This is not cool for us. Like, we spend our time and our money and want to enjoy these experiences. And some people really like their limited edition inks, and they're getting screwed on this deal, right? They're getting jobbed. Let me also say this. Montblanc could not care less.

'''Myke:''' Why would they?

'''Brad:''' They could not care less what you and I think about them duplicating these inks because they're shipping these inks off to their boutiques and selling James Dean's face on the cover of the box. And it's a red that they used three years ago.

'''Myke:''' Are they pairing these inks with pens or is it just inks?

'''Brad:''' I mean they do inks with pens. Like when they did the Beatles, right? That had a purple Beatles ink. And they've done some like Miles Davis inks and pens. And they do some combos. But I don't know. Like the full list of duplicated inks. Right. So a lot of their inks are just like one-offs. Which, you know, by one-off I mean like every month or every other month they're doing, you know, some special ink and putting some special logo and things on it. Like this is on purpose, right? Like this is just Montblanc. This is how they are doing business. From our perspective, it's wrong. And I hate everything about it. But from Montblanc's perspective, they just do not care. I promise you they do not care. Even fountain pen memes, like they have a thing from Montblanc PR, like ask them, hey, are these inks duplicated? And they're like, yeah, these inks are totally duplicated. Like they do not care. Let me see if I can find it real quick.

'''Brad:''' Hi, this is the reply from Montblanc PR. Hi, as a matter of fact, you were absolutely correct in your assumption.

'''Brad:''' Like this isn't an issue for them.

'''Myke:''' Why would they? But like, why would they?

'''Brad:''' So here's my point. And this goes back to a long ago conversation about Sailor Apricot, where I fell in love with the Sailor Apricot ink. And it went away. So I tried to find a couple of extra bottles, right?

'''Brad:''' And, you know, I found my bottles. And then a few years later, they come back with either Sailor Ken Makuse, and then later Sailor Apricot. These companies are always recycling this stuff. What's limited at one time and goes away doesn't mean it's not going to be reintroduced at a later date. So don't get caught up in limited edition ink hype. Don't get caught up in a lot of limited edition hype, period, because these companies are not inventive enough to continually come out with new products. In Montblanc's case, they just don't care. In Sailor's case, I don't know, you know, if they just thought, well, maybe that was so popular, maybe we made a mistake and shouldn't have discontinued it. Let's put it back, like, with Grenade and, you know, and all these other inks that they, this is not the only ink that they've done it with. So, and, like, Diatramenis just flat out makes a standard color. Let's call it dark blue. And then makes a line up of famous people inks and literally uses all the stock inks and just puts a different label on it. Like, it's just what, it's annoying. It's frustrating from a hobby perspective.

'''Brad:''' Don't get caught up in it from a consumer perspective because this is bound to happen again and again and again. You know, Lamy Turquoise and Lamy whatever they decided to call the remake of it Pacific Blue. I can't even remember what they did. And it's the exact same color. It's going to happen over and over again. So, just be careful with limited edition inks. Like, there's no reason for them to just not get out the formula, run it through again, and call it something else and slap a different label on it. So, I find it especially funny that it's Mont Blanc, but I'm 0% surprised and they will 100% do it again.

'''Myke:''' I mean, this is one of those things where we're trying to, also maybe some people are, I mean, I don't know if anyone's really mad about this, but prescribing the small maker ideals onto a massive multinational corporation.

'''Brad:''' Right. Like, I mean, the people that are mad who are recently, if they recently paid a premium for an out-of-production ink and turn over the ink bottle on a new ink and find it to have the same label and it's at the regular price. Yeah. Our friends over at the Tentarius podcast, I don't know if I said that right. I'm sorry, Jeffrey and Eric. They have, the title of their podcast this week is Escandalo de Rojo. Oh, I love it. So, definitely go check that out. And I think it's great. So, they covered that over on the podcast this week. I wanted to go give them a special shout out.

'''Brad:''' The awesome Spanish language speaking stationary podcast, which is, it makes me smile from ear to ear every time I say that and think about their show. Love them so much. So, yeah, it's a, it's a, I'm glad this is on the fountain pen memes Instagram because I, I do find the humor in this, even though if I was someone that was in the rare limited edition Montblanc ink business, I wouldn't be so happy.

'''Myke:''' Tony has put this perfectly in the members discord. I'm so mad about this. I'm never going to buy a Montblanc pen again. Right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, exactly. So, it's just Montblanc doing Montblanc things and they are not alone in this and just be careful. Like, there's no need to chase, like, there's certain limited edition things that are like, hey, cool, like, I'm good, like, I feel real happy about this. But if you're ever doing it from, like, a collectability and, like, a profit type of status, like, this is bound to happen.

'''Myke:''' And as Kate says, it's a nice, it's nice to know that if you really love a limited edition ink, it will probably be back at some point.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's facts.

'''Myke:''' That's what I said. My favorite lucky orange, which I think they might have done.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Once I realized that, once I realized I can always find something exactly the same, if not exactly the same, really darn close, I stopped chasing limited edition inks, like, right then. Like, I was like, oh, this is how it, this is how this industry works. Okay, I'm good with waiting.

'''Brad:''' So, there you go.

== Squarespace Promotion ==

'''Myke:''' All right, this week's episode is brought to you by friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. They've got everything from websites and online stores, marketing tools, analytics. Squarespace has got you covered in one, just all in one place. With Squarespace, they combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering, so it's more easy than ever for you to establish your home online and make your own ideas a reality. Whether you want to create a website because you've got that new big idea you want to share with the world, or maybe you have some art that you want to showcase, a portfolio design. Maybe you have some ideas that you want to get out, or a blog post. You have a business that you want to promote and give people contact information, stuff like that. Maybe you have an event coming up, a virtual event. Maybe you've got a small, like, in-person event, whatever it is. You can announce that and have all of the information that you need on Squarespace. And all of this stuff is so easy to do with their wonderful templates. They have templates that are created, professional, beautiful templates. They're really customizable with drag-and-drop tools. But a lot of them are purpose-made for you to get, like, an idea of how to actually create a business website. And it has all of the pages and stuff, and you just go in and edit with putting all of your own information. It's just really easy to help you. Like, when we were planning our wedding, we made a Squarespace website and used one of their wedding templates. And it helped us make sure that we had all of the information that people would expect. Like, because it had, like, a page structure and stuff. We could just go in and edit it. This is so easy, so helpful for us. You can customize the look and feel, the products you have on sale if you want to store, the settings and everything with just a few clicks. Everything's optimized for mobile as well, so it's going to look great everywhere. You also get free unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, and dependable resources to help you succeed. There's nothing to patch, nothing to upgrade. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support. You can grab a domain name, take advantage of SEO and email marketing tools. It's so awesome. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict for a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And then when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' Real quick on Squarespace. They're making a change that impacts me. Not so much you, but it's a good change. It's an improvement by taking things away. They're removing their commerce app and rolling it up into the Squarespace platform app.

'''Myke:''' The Squarespace app, like the standalone Squarespace app is so good now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like I use both of those all the time, and I'm happy now that I'm going to be able to use them in one place. So I understand why they did that way in the beginning, but it's the right move to consolidate those. And I use the commerce app a lot just to move, because both Noc and Penaddict have Squarespace shops. So I'm in there pretty frequently. So yeah, that makes me happy. All right, Myke. Big topic today. I want to talk about Plotter. You may have seen this on Instagram. I don't even know if we've talked about it much behind the scenes. This is a product out of Japan. You can go to the existing website, plotter-japan.com. We'll have these links in the show notes. But I have had one for the past month plus from Plotter USA. So what's going on here is this is a product that's existed in Japan. I want to say over the last five years. Don't quote me on that, but it's just that ballpark. It's not like a 30-year-old product. It's not like a brand-new product. It's been around for several years in Japan. And they're bringing it to the USA. So what is Plotter? It's a notebook system is kind of the best way I can describe it. It's made to be a little bit modular, a little bit build-your-own, a little bit custom.

'''Myke:''' It's a bit William Hanna-y.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. We're going to talk about that a lot. I'm getting asked a lot for that comparison. Hey, what's the comparison between the Plotter and the William Hanna that you love so much? So this is like a planner slash organizer. It kind of leans towards the creative side, I guess. You know, that's what I get from their marketing, their website designs. The ideas that they are putting out for it and building this notebook for you. So I've been under an embargo. Let's get the disclaimer out from the beginning. I've been part of a pilot program in the US for Plotter USA. They provided me with a plotter, a bunch of inserts and accessories, all for free in return for my feedback. And this, I've never been in such an extensive pilot program before that was run so well. Like, they did just an exquisite job. They've done things that I've never had any stationary company do. Like, I've had these quizzes, like, not quizzes, but basically these forms to fill out. Like, I've had check-in points at certain dates. Okay. You know, after one week, what do you think about this, this, and that? Okay. Now, after three weeks, what do you think about this, this, and that? How do you see, you know, tell me your thoughts. Tell me how you feel about it. I've had one phone interview. I'm going to have a second phone interview after this. Like, they've done... And I appreciate every single part of that. Like, they've done a good job. So, that's the disclaimer. I also know one of the people on the Plotter team, personally.

'''Brad:''' And so, like, yeah, I want you to have these disclaimers that I got this product for free. I also know someone on the team. And I have the product in my hand. I've been using it for the last month. So, now that I'm able to talk about it, they launched at the San Francisco Pen Show this past weekend. So, it's free for me to talk about it now. So, that was the cutoff date for the embargo. So, people want to know my thoughts on the notebook, on the system, on everything about it. So, we're going to go through that today. You think we have time to cover this, Myke?

'''Myke:''' I don't know because I haven't used this stuff.

'''Brad:''' So, right? So, I spent my morning before the show. So, I put in the show notes, Plotter, and just, like, the general things we're going to talk about. Then I went to my Plotter and I wrote over two A5 pages worth of notes to discuss. But, basically, I'm going to break it down. Plotter has not asked me to do this, by the way. I'm doing this on my own. I don't have to do this. I can choose to do whatever I want with this product. So, I don't have to talk about it today. But I'm choosing to because I think it's cool. So, the base of the Plotter, Myke, is the exterior cover, right? So, that's what they're leaning on this. They're basically calling it the leather binder. It's the exterior leather that has a six-ring internal system. So, it's like the little clasps, you know, that you just pop open and close shut. And they're backed on this brass bar that's the exterior of the Plotter. Like, that's the signature visual for the Plotter, right? Like, a lot of these brands have the signature external visual that you know the product on site. Like, a lot of people know what a traveler's notebook looks like on site.

'''Brad:''' That's this binder system. So, the internals, you know, there's a bunch of leather types you can get for the exterior. We're going to talk about – I'm going to elaborate on all this stuff later. The biggest size right now, Myke, is A5. That's what I have. And then there's several smaller sizes on with different leather materials as well. There's like five different leather types and five different sizes, but not everything. Every size is available in every leather cover yet. The inserts is the meat and potatoes of the system. There's a ton of different ones. They all come pre-punched. There's the memo pad, which is just your blank pages, your grid pages, or your lined pages. You know, you just – you basically buy a pack of leather – a pack of leather inserts. A pack of paper inserts. That would be – that's a different podcast, Myke. Oh, bro. A pack of paper inserts, and you can insert them into the system as you wish. There's also a to-do list. There's like a heavy-duty drawing paper. There are dot grid pages that are A4 sized that fold into the correct, say, A5 size in my notebook.

'''Myke:''' Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. You stop there for a second. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I want to make sure I get that. It's like a – It's like a fold-out page? Yeah, like say like an accordion page, but just like three folds, right, to get it into the right size. Wow. Okay. And you can get that in dot or isometric.

'''Myke:''' How many of those do you get, though?

'''Brad:''' So they vary. So the standard memo pads, so like your basic page, 80 pages in the pack. The drawing paper, since it's a thicker paper, it's 30 sheets in the pack. And the pull-out A4 pages, the folded pages, I think are 40 in a pack.

'''Myke:''' I don't think I see those on the Japanese website.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so there is a – it took me a while, Myke, to find the shop link to this. So I will put that in the show notes. Actually, I'm going to go ahead and tell it to you so I don't have to put it in there. If you go to plotter-japan.net, that is the shop. That's actually the best link to kind of look at all this stuff. Yeah. It took me a while. It's not even linked on the .com site.

'''Myke:''' I don't know, man.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. I'll explain. I won't totally explain why, but there is some commentary I have about provenance as we go. So then they also have diary refills, right? They have calendar refills, week-per-page planner refills. You know the planner style, the planner format that I used to use where you would have the seven days on a single page, right? And just a horizontal block. So that's all the inserts that they have for paper. Then you have your accessories.

'''Myke:''' This is wild, the way they deal with this – the way the A4 folds. Yes. So now you can see it on that page. What is the thinking of this, though? I would not like it.

== Plotter Binder System Introduction ==

'''Brad:''' I would not like it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, like I can't – it's interesting, but I can't work out –

'''Brad:''' Okay. I'm going to help you out here. All right. The overarching – this is my marketing of the plotter. This is not their marketing or PR on the page or anything. The overarching idea you should think about when you're looking at this product is this is for creative professionals.

'''Myke:''' I mean, I'm a creative professional. This doesn't help me.

'''Brad:''' It doesn't, but there's other types. You know, maybe, you know, you need these bigger pages to express the needs that you have to the other people in your office.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, but then I just would wonder – I'm getting in the weeds, but of course we are. Why would you then just have an A4 pad instead?

'''Brad:''' I wonder if they eventually will because this setup could handle an A4, although they would have to add more. They would have to – it would have to be bigger than a six-ring binder, obviously. But, yeah, I'm actually surprised one of the leather sizes didn't have an A4 insert, and I wouldn't be surprised.

'''Myke:''' It's just because, like, I like this idea, but especially with having the way they do in these, like, two folds, so, like, it doesn't fold in half. You fold, like, in – let's just say thirds. It's not thirds, but that's the easiest way to think of it. Yes. You end up folding the thing in half, which will damage the paper. That seems strange to me.

'''Brad:''' You also don't have to buy this, right? No, I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm with you. I don't disagree with anything you said. I would not like that insert in my notebook because I would not use it. Like, that is a 1% or 2% usage situation where the standard memo pages are a 90% usage situation.

'''Myke:''' There are people who see this and they're like, well, that's exactly what I want. Like, that is for me, right? Like, I get that, right? Like, this stuff is very personal in use. But, yeah, this part, that part, like, it doesn't make sense to me completely.

'''Brad:''' It's kind of, I will agree, if it didn't exist, we're not going to miss it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's fine. But we're getting in the weeds now because it's not important.

'''Brad:''' Well, I mean, it's going to continue in the weeds. I know, I know, I know. But, like, we're focusing too much on this one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Now we talk about accessories. So I have mine set up. I have two sets of memo pages. I have the two millimeter grid. And then I have the blank. And then I have the to-do list in the back.

'''Myke:''' And those are... Two millimeter grid?

'''Brad:''' It's so faint. It's great. It's great.

'''Myke:''' But that's so small.

'''Brad:''' What are you putting on a two millimeter grid? Nothing. I'm writing, like, every... I'm writing, like, it's a four millimeter grid.

'''Myke:''' Okay.

'''Brad:''' Which is still small. But that's how I write. So, like, I'm looking at the lines on my page. I write, like, in four millimeter blocks.

'''Myke:''' You see, all the Cortex products are in five millimeter dot grid, right? That's... I would consider that to be standard. It is pretty standard. And sometimes... That's why I did it. Because, like, I measured a bunch of stuff. And I want... Sometimes I think, is this five millimeter? It's too small. And they're all rocking two millimeter over there.

'''Brad:''' Two millimeter for some... Is a traditional Japanese format. It goes back to... Like, the old Kukuyo, the green cover sketch. Remember those that I sold with the Panatic stamping on them? Those are, like, the traditional engineering books. Like, the pocket... The original Field Notes pocket notebook hardcover two millimeter grid. Because it was basically... It was a literal field engineering notebook. Okay. So, it's just stuck in Japanese culture. The two millimeter grid's popular. So... All right. I have those divided by some of the many accessories that you can also get with your plotter. Myke. They have project manager... Management folders. Which is a really interesting design that they did here. I think it's not quite fully functional for what they're trying to do. I think that's, like, one of the things that I put on my notes that I would like to see changed. Is how they designed it. Like, the concept of adding a folder into a notebook like this is really good. I just don't think it's exactly how I would have done it.

'''Myke:''' Are they these little paper things? Yeah. I see them. Project manager. Okay.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, what it does... So, the reason why it's cool is because you can take out of your binding a grouping of papers and put them in these folders. Except you have to put the papers back through the binding in the envelope. I would want loose sheets in the envelopes.

'''Myke:''' So, they're dividers, but you have to... Yeah. I see what you're saying.

'''Brad:''' You have to reinsert them into the punch.

'''Myke:''' You have to, like, take the paper, put it inside the divider, and then reattach it. I get you. Yes. It's, like, weird that you have to, like, enclose the paper inside of the divider. Yes. Rather than just putting the divider in where you want it to be. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So... But I understand why they've done this, too, though. Yes. Because if you then wanted to take all of the things related to that project and put them in another folder, it's really easy to grab them all.

'''Brad:''' Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So, yes. That's, like, a little pro and con thing. They have a lot of, like, functional inserts. Like, one of the... They have a ruler insert, you know, where you just take it out and you can do different measurements. Again, think of this as a creative platform. Their main dividers are called lifters, I guess because you're lifting the pages, you know, between them. I have a lifter in between one section that has a pin loop on it, right? So I can slide a bit in a pin there and it's large enough to hold, like, a decent-sized pin. I have another lifter or divider that has a notebook loop that goes... It's, like, the band around the outside of the notebook. Like, both of those are very functional and very useful. They also have things like whiteboard pads where you could use it in a meeting and have whiteboard markers. Oh, my God. This is incredible.

'''Myke:''' It's incredible. I don't necessarily mean this in a good way. I do think this is really cool, but it's a lot. Like, I'm on their web. I found refill storage, clipboards. Like, they sell everything.

'''Brad:''' Oh, we're getting there, Myke. One of the weirdest things that I got that is actually, I'll be dang, this works, which I did not think this was going to work, Myke. I thought this was not ridiculous or dumb, but it's just confusing. They have a product called Leather Ring Supporter, Myke. And do you know what this is? I don't know if you'd be able to find it on the page quick enough. It goes on the front and back of... God, how do I describe this? It basically goes over the rings to protect the cover from the rings marking up the cover in the front and back of the notebook. And it actually works flawlessly. I can't believe it works. It does. I was like, I would never have bought that on my own. They sent it to me. I was like, what is this? This is dumb. I don't need this.

'''Myke:''' It's to stop the indentations that the ring binding would leave on the inside of the exposed leather.

'''Brad:''' It's genius. It's a little genius piece of leather. So, yeah. Then they have all the external. So, those are all like internal products. And they have all the external stuff, which you found. Storage boxes, sleeve cases. They have desk, random desk accessories. They have a lanyard ID case. They also have a pen and pencil, neither of which I have, which I'm okay with. They're these fully knurled barrels, like from tip to tail knurling. That's unnecessary. We don't need that. I don't think that's awesome. I think it's not bad. I'm sure it's perfectly fine. But, you know, it's just a standard tubular with a clip, pen barrels and pencil barrels. So, they look fine. I'm sure they're fine. All right. So, like that's kind of all the stuff that can go in it. So, I made a list of pros and cons because that's what really people want to know.

'''Myke:''' Let's take a break before you tell us. Okay.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like I don't know if we've done a good job. That was one page of notes. We definitely have not done a good job.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I think this is definitely one of those ones where you might also want to, like, look at the links in the show notes and go through some of the products yourself because this does seem quite involved. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Well, this next section, this will dial it in a little bit.

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'''Brad:''' Yeah, I love products that make me smile, and I don't mean that in a singular use case. I mean, like, literally every time I use it, you think, like, this shouldn't work. Oh, my gosh, this is amazing, and how fun is this? And that's what the Ooni gives to us. It's just, it's an event as far as it's always a fun thing to do with the family to make pizzas. Everyone gets to make their own. And then the speed and quality that it cooks with is just, you can't help but just be completely impressed and have fun with the Ooni Pizza Oven. It's a fantastic product.

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'''Brad:''' All right, so back to the plotter, Myke. I want to give you my pros and cons, and hopefully this will maybe help you kind of put it all together a little bit. So on the pros list, I think the idea of what they're trying to accomplish is really good, right? The way it's designed, the amount of customization options, right? You can kind of build it for how you want it to be to best fit your needs personally. The paper is going to be a thing. Myke, this is an S-tier paper. If you're not familiar with like a Japanese ranking system, there's not a lot of things that get to the S-tier. That's what this paper is. It's going to be a problem in that it's so good, people are going to want this paper in everything.

'''Myke:''' Uh-oh.

'''Brad:''' So let me tell you a little bit about the paper or plotter in general. Plotter is not a standalone company. Their parent company is a company called Design Phil out of Japan. Design Phil is the parent company of Midori. It is the parent company of Traveler's Company. It is the parent company to several other brands. Plotter is part of this family. So this paper, they know if they're making Midori and they're making Traveler's, and those are already like well-loved and appreciated papers, like they have a good chance at making something pretty great for the plotter. I am told that this paper was made specifically for plotter, right? This isn't a reuse of a Midori paper or a reuse of a Traveler's paper. I would liken this paper to like a combination, like if the Midori MD paper and like the 68 GSM Tomoe River paper were combined, like it's that good of a quality paper, especially for fountain pens. It's very thin, right? Like a Tomoe River paper. It's a little bit off-white. It handles ink amazingly well. I put a link to, I did some ink testing yesterday on stream, and the plotter handled it amazing. All my previous ink tests have been amazing. I want to use this paper all the time. Like this could be like the one paper, right? I could just use this paper all the time. It's that good.

'''Brad:''' Another pro is just the construction quality, right? This is a premium product. We'll talk about the pricing later. And it's built that way, right? It does. There's no shortcuts. There's nothing like I question about the quality. It's just really, really well done. I think the lifter system is good because dividers are often an afterthought in products, and these are built to be part of the system, right? Like I have the pin loops. I have the loops built in them. They also have, I mean, the dividers, what I won't use them for, like they have printing on them, like alphabets and font sizes. But they have like line point measurements, Myke. Again, like goes back to the creativity. You bring out this lifter card, and you can see, oh, what is the point height of this line type of stuff. So, yeah, that's the pros. Like it's just built well. The idea is great. The paper is exceptional, like almost in a tier of its own, and just all around good. So now the cons. As great as the construction and quality is, I think the structure overall is a little bit, they're kind of caught in the middle here, right? So I have an A size, A5 size planter. This is the largest one they sell. They sell some smaller ones. It's, the leather cover is thin. Then the binding, like the rings are 11 millimeters, so they're less than a half inch tall, so it's thin. So it's a thin notebook, and it's kind of without structure, right? It's a little bit flimsy. Like if you were holding a magazine, like a thick magazine, not like a real thin magazine, but like I say like a thick magazine, you know, with like a square bound magazine. It still kind of flips over, you know, kind of, it's kind of floppy, you know, and that's fine, except you pretty much have to use it on a desk, right? You need to have it on a flat, firm surface. So they've obviously purposefully designed it this way because this is the biggest size ring you could put in there. So with this ring size, 11 millimeters, I can only put so much paper in here, in which I can only give the notebook so much structure. I would like it to feel sturdier or thicker or bigger, maybe not too much bigger, but I would like it to be almost a little more heavy duty. But they've obviously decided that this is why, that they've built this for a reason. I don't know what the reason is other than it's a very workplace-centric, like you have to have a place to use this notebook, right? If you're a fan of your hardcover, 200-page notebooks, like a Lloyd's term, and you can use that in your lap, you're not going to really be able to use this in your lap very well, right? You're not going to be able to use it moving around that well because it kind of flops around. You definitely need a desktop or a table or a hard structure to use it. So no matter what I do, I can only put so much paper in it to give it so much structure because of the ring size and the binding size, right? It can only be so big and so strong. And it's definitely a decision, right? Like they've done this purposefully. I just don't know what that purpose is. I don't know what they're trying to tell me with that. So that's my main con. I have a couple other little nitpicks. Is it real, Lava? Yes. So let's get to that right now. I have a section called neutral here because people are waiting for me to drop the hammer on the price. It's very expensive and I don't feel that it goes in the con section. I also don't feel like it goes in the pro section. I think the price is what it is and the price feels correct. That said, it is very expensive to get into if you're not committing to the system as a whole. So all the covers right now are leather. There's four or five different types of leather. The least expensive runs about $130 US. This is just the exterior. And the most expensive is around $200. These are just depending on the types of leather, the leather finishes. So I have one of the least expensive ones, but it's really nice. It's kind of like this pebbled leather. It's orange, of course. I'm a big fan of the plotter. Plotter's orange is their theme color. So you know I'm down with that. But yeah, I'm not going to say the price is a con because for what this is, that feels like the price it should be. But it's also going to cost you a lot to get into this system if you're not familiar with it or if you don't know how you're going to use it. So are you just going to use it as a refillable notebook? Well, the least you can spend is like $130 on the cover and then another like $10 on the paper inserts. Everything else is very like inexpensively priced. Like if you want to just test out the paper, you can buy a pad of paper. Like it's pre-hole, six-hole punched. But you can try the paper for like $10 or something like that. I don't even have it pulled up in front of me. It's inexpensive for like 80 sheets of paper. So yes, it's expensive. And the issue I think they're going to have is telling the story of why people should try it. So if I'm in a hardcover notebook, say Leuchtturm, that's just kind of the easiest example for me. Your standard A5 hardcover. Say I'm bullet journaling. I'm using it for, you know, my work notes. I'm using it for journaling. What is my reasoning for buying the plotter? You know, if I'm in the Hobonichi system and I have this planner layout that I like, well, what is my reasoning for going to the plotter? Right? And I don't know that they can completely answer those questions. It's very much a standalone product, which makes it a little bit higher barrier of entry. Even though you can customize it a lot, you're not going to beat, say, Hobonichi for planner layouts, right? You have your one planner layout option. Maybe they'll have more options down the line. I mean, Midori and Travelers, the company that makes them, has a billion different ones.

'''Myke:''' So maybe they make some different ones. Considering everything that they have on offer just to have like one planner layout is weird.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. And then if you're in the Hobonichi and you've already invested in those covers, you can get some expensive stuff in there. Well, why would you switch over to this? And if you're in the hardcover notebooks, does it provide what you need as far as a form and function? I don't know. So there are actually a lot of questions about how an individual would use it. Like, it's technically great. And I think it's fun and functional. So the last question I have, Myke, is or that I'm trying to answer for myself is, well, how will I use it or how have I been using it? And what do I want to see from them? What would I do differently? And I've been using it as a regular notebook, right? It has not usurped my William Hanna planner because of the planner layout, right? I have to have my planner layout that is not compatible with what Plotter is offering so far. So I'm not going to change that.

'''Myke:''' Here's my next question for you. Mm-hmm. Do Plotter offer a hole puncher?

'''Brad:''' They don't, but this is a standard six-ring measurement hole puncher to where you can get hole punchers for this.

'''Myke:''' So if you liked something else and you got the A5 one, but you like the whole accessory-based system and other stuff that the Plotter does, you could very easily add your own planner paper from somewhere else in.

'''Brad:''' I could, and here's why I won't. It's not big enough because I need one page per day.

'''Myke:''' Oh, it doesn't hold enough paper. Yep. That's what you mean by big enough. Okay.

'''Brad:''' Yep. I will get, so Plotter says it will hold about 80 sheets of their paper. Their paper is very thin and very, like, again, very nice. 80. Right. It's not a lot. It's not a lot. So, like, if I put in, like, 30 sheets of a different planner, like, that's almost going to be, like, the same capacity as what I have now. I just don't feel it's big enough for how I need to use it on the daily. Right? Mm-hmm. This is what I'm looking at. If I'm spending this much money on this product, it has to be a daily use product. Is this a daily use product for how I go about my day? It's not because of the planner. So, to me, and what I've explained to Plotter when I've done my interviews, is this is a secondary notebook for me. And that's okay. Like, it can be that. So, I've used it for podcast notes. I've used it for writing. What I haven't used it for is any type of journaling. That's a different notebook. That's a standard, hardbound, traditional, 192-page journal. Like, I'm not going to use a removable ring, just like I'm not going to use the disc-bound William Hanna for any type of journaling. I want those in fixed books. Uh-huh. So, to me, it has fit a secondary need, not a primary need.

'''Myke:''' And that's not what you want if you're Plotter, because you're buying, this is a lifestyle. Yes. You're buying into the Plotter lifestyle. Correct. You know, that's why they offer literally every accessory, including a bunch of accessories you never would have even considered before.

'''Brad:''' Right. You're getting in at a very high price point because you are buying the entirety of the system. You have to buy into the entirety of what the Plotter is. And I think what it is, I think, like, someone in an office, someone in a creative space, someone, you know, design, someone, you know, engineering, someone who's moving in and out of meetings, someone who's doing, like, physical work, you know, in office spaces needs to do that. But individuals, like, that need to have, say, like, a more detailed planner, a bullet journal type system, I think they're going to be looking for a different type of product. Like, this scratches a certain creative itch. I don't know that it scratches, like, a day-to-day planning itch. It's more of a creative itch that goes in here. So, that's what I've been using it for. Like, I tried to use the to-do list section. Like, there's no point in me using that because that's all in my planner. Like, I'm set. Like, and even if it could build the same system in this, I'm not sure it would actually fit in this notebook for what I need. Right. So, I think, overall, it's going to do well. It's a very niche product. It's a very high-end product. But the company behind it obviously knows what they're doing. But I don't know how many questions this is going to answer for someone. You know, when they're coming to me looking for, hey, I have this problem. What products solve it? I'm trying to figure out what this solves. And I don't know.

'''Myke:''' You're buying the beauty of this. It's really nice. But that's part of what you're paying for. You're paying for the design. You're paying for the modularity. Like, oh, man. What was the name of that product that everyone was Instagramming?

'''Brad:''' Tig.

'''Myke:''' Tig Mod. Tig Mod. Yes. This is that. Not in a bad way. But, like, this is... That was way worse. If you set this thing up just right, like, it's going to look real nice. Yes. And, like, if you want to put that on your Instagram or whatever, like, it's going to look great for you. And it's also going to be, you know, honestly, I'm very intrigued because of how highly you're praising the paper of this too, right? Like, that is very intriguing to me. But it does seem like this is, like, a very aesthetically pleasing in a, like, I'm fascinated by Japanese stationery kind of way.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we talk about how I buy things. And if I didn't know of the plotter and I walked into the San Francisco pen show and I saw this set up there and I saw the accessories and I saw the covers and I knew it was $200 for me to get into it, you know, to get set up. I'm 100% buying it.

'''Myke:''' Right. Because it's just speaking to you, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. But if you ask me if I'm sitting here at my desk talking to you and working all day, it's not the first product I pick up.

'''Brad:''' Those two things can coexist in my world. They can't coexist in everyone else's world. Right? $200 is a commitment to someone to say, hey, I'm going to use this product full time.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. And I stand by my thinking of, like, that's not what they want from you either. Like, they really want you to be all in, Flynn. Like, do you just, that this is where your world lives inside of the plotter? Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So, this, in the hierarchy of design fills brands, this is the ultra premium traveler's notebook.

'''Brad:''' Because it's, the traveler's notebook is, again, just a leather exterior cover. You can actually make those, you know, customize those to the nth degree. And they just don't have the binding types, right? That's just the band, the bands you just insert, have the other inserts. That's why you can, you can build the traveler's notebook into more of a brick, like, feeling notebook, which I like. Right? Like, I want some structure, and I want some feel, and I want to feel, you know, like I'm a, like a, you know, like a sturdy platform that I'm writing on. And you can't do that with this setup. Purposefully.

'''Myke:''' How well do you think this is going to work in the international market? Is it just U.S.?

'''Brad:''' No, obviously not. Like, it's, you can get them from Japan now. Are they going to go outside of Japan and the U.S.? I don't know. It's a niche product because of the price point and because of the structure of the questions it asks for you to start with the system. Right? Right? It's never going to be like the Midori MD notebook, which is just a standard notebook, a high quality standard notebook that is, has freedom. Right? This notebook has rules.

'''Brad:''' Right? So, you're always going to be, not have, as, the more rules you have, the less widespread the product is going to be. But that's not what, that's also not what they're selling here. They're selling a premium good.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Let's make no bones about it. This is a premium stationary product. And I see no reason for it. I think it's good that it exists. Like, it's in a good space, I think. Right? I think it's in a good space for price point and quality. It feels great. I would like to see, if I'm building this aside from the structure, I want to see some non-leather covers. I don't know that they're going to do that. What do you want?

'''Myke:''' Do you want other soft or do you want hard cover?

'''Brad:''' I want people who don't use leather to have an option, is what I want, before anything else. Because I think it's a cool system. And, you know, but that's how a lot of these are built. William Hanna doesn't have non-leather covers. You know, I don't expect them to do it because Travelers doesn't have non-leather covers. They own another company called Knox, which is actually a leather goods company. Like, they seem to be all in on the leather as premium product type of build.

'''Myke:''' But even then, for people that do, leather with structure is also another thing. And it seems like these are just like, it's just a piece of leather. Like, it's protecting the paper from the elements as such. It's not actually providing you have any kind of surface.

'''Brad:''' Right, right. Where something like the William Hanna is like a stitched, lined leather, like a double layer. You know, there's some sturdiness to it. You know, Rotor Faden has leather exteriors. And they also have like the bulky felt type interiors. Like the cloth and the fabrics that have some structure into them, too.

'''Myke:''' I think Rotor Faden, I don't know if they also do, but I know mine was, it wasn't real leather. Gotcha.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so they have Rotor Faden eyes options. So, I don't expect Plotter to do that based on the other companies that they already own and what they make for. Like, if you look at the design fill catalog, there is no non-leather options. I would just like to see that. But then maybe that takes away from the presentation of the Instagrammable nature of what they're trying to sell here. So, yeah, it's a complex product, Myke.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Lots of pros, lots of pros, lots of cons.

'''Myke:''' I mean, I want to see it, too. I mean, like I would like to see it in action.

'''Brad:''' You would enjoy it. I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it.

== Plotter Website Launch ==

'''Myke:''' I look forward to the American website launching so I can actually properly go through it all.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so it looks like October is when that's going to be wide open. They do have a newsletter list you can sign up, plotterusa.com, for their full launch. But, yeah, I think they were looking at October.

'''Myke:''' But you can talk about it from now.

'''Brad:''' As of August 27th, when they went public at San Francisco, I was free to talk about it. So, you'll see me Instagramming it and doing some other things. But just trying to do it from a perspective of, hey, let me explain this product as opposed to, hey, let me set up a photography set.

'''Myke:''' Yes. Okay.

'''Brad:''' Which is how I roll anyway.

'''Myke:''' Do you want to touch on anything else today?

'''Brad:''' Let me hit this. Let me hit one more link and then we'll wrap it up. We'll hold these Ask TPAs until next week. I did an interesting post on Monday that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't know if anyone else enjoyed it. But I got a book that I've talked about on Twitter and in other spaces before called Full Spectrum. It's from a guy named Adam Rogers who's worked at Wired, the magazine you're familiar with, Wired. Myke, I'm sure.

'''Myke:''' Of course.

== Wired.com Article Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' Wired.com. Yeah, they've been around for, God, 30 years now. Adam's been there for probably 20 years. I first met Adam when I was working for JetPens because we were working on some pen articles together. Wired would always have some gear articles at the time. Back when I was a subscriber, they probably still do. And so, like, I've gotten to know Adam a little bit just online over the past decade. Like, I've known him for like 10 years online. He's like, hey, I wrote this book. I think you'll like it. Can I send you a copy? And I'm like, hell yeah. And it turns out this book is Full Spectrum, How the Science of Color Made Us Modern. You know my thoughts on just the idea of color. Like, we've covered some of the topics that Adam discusses, like Vantablack on here and that whole situation. And Adam was kind enough to, one, send me the book, and two, answer some questions I had after I finished the book, which I devoured in about a week. It was so well written and so just, like, Adam keeps it very, even though he's like trying to teach you stuff, and it's a very, like, a historical context of some of this stuff. It's very conversational and very modern way of writing, like, really kept me engaged in it, and I just tore through it. And, of course, I love the topic. So I did a little Q&A with Adam that I posted on Monday, which I really enjoyed, that he enjoyed the questions I had about the book, and I thought it was interesting. And if you know me at all and have been following me for years, you know that this book was right up my alley. So I just wanted to give a shout out to him and say thanks for doing this.

'''Myke:''' I was interested to learn that beetles make some aperitifs the color that they are, so that was good for me to know.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and the funny thing about that beetle, which we didn't go to in the Q&A, even though, I mean, he did, but the color of that beetle is clear.

'''Brad:''' It's not red, which is the interesting part about it.

'''Myke:''' Wait.

'''Brad:''' I'll have to send you the story. Yeah, okay. So the actual pigment that comes from the beetle, that's a red tinted pigment, the beetle itself has a clear carapace. That's wild. Yep. So that's one of the stories in the book. How do people work these things out?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I don't know.

'''Brad:''' So it's good stuff. I'm super interested. And if you're not interested at all, there's at least one topic you probably are familiar with, which is called the dress, if you were on the internet. Yep. In the past little bit, everyone knows about the dress. That's covered in this book.

'''Myke:''' Green, gold. Is it green? No, gray. Gold and white, black and blue. Yep.

'''Brad:''' So Adam was one of the first people on the dress when it – Yeah, on the beat. Like, oh, man, he talks about that. Like how – he talks about that from a journalistic perspective as, number one, someone who's knowledgeable about this stuff before this happened. And then, number two, being a journalist at one of the larger publications in the world, that this was like an emergency pager going off at 4 a.m. in the night when this landed on the internet for him. Like he talks about how important that was for him to like get that story out like kind of first and then follow it through into the science behind why this caused such an uproar on the internet. So it was cool to talk about.

'''Myke:''' That was like in the same 24 hours, it was like a bunch of llamas escaped, right? And then – I think so. I think so. And then the dress happened. Yeah. That was weird.

'''Brad:''' That was prime internet time. Back in the day, Myke, that was only like –

'''Myke:''' Simple time.

'''Brad:''' That was only like what? Like 2015? It wasn't that long ago. But, man, that was – different things were important on the internet at the time. Luckily for us, pens and paper are still important. Very important. And we talk about them on the internet.

'''Myke:''' Where else can they find us on the internet, Myke? If you do want to read people writing about pens on the internet, you can go to penaddict.com. That's where you'll find Brad's work along with many other fine, talented folk. You can find Brad many times a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict where he streams about the same topics. You can find Brad's products at spokedesign.com and knock.co. And he is at dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram, brad on micro.blog. I'm imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You can find my products at cortexmerch.com. You can get journals, notebooks, all that kind of fine stuff. Please donate to stjude.org slash relay. And when you do, send your receipt of your donation to stjude at penaddict.com and you can be entered into that raffle. And keep your eye on penaddict.com as well for the details about that so you can see all the products in their glory. Thank you so much to Squarespace and Uni for the support of the show. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Bye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 476/transcript

2026-06-11T06:22:38Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 476
| title = Particular Thoughts about Particular Products
| date = August 25th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/476 Episode 476]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_476.mp3 Audio Episode 476]
| length = 71
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 476, and today's show is brought to you by the Canalea Penco, ExpressVPN, and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey, Myke Hurley, how are you?

'''Myke:''' I'm good. Happy birthday, Brad. Oh, it is Relay's seventh birthday. RelayFM. Happy birthday. Forget that one. Forget seventh birthday from Relay. Happy birthday, RelayFM. Seventh birthday. Somebody had a very special one, didn't they?

'''Brad:''' Relay, yes.

== Birthday Celebrations ==

'''Myke:''' Unbelievably, Brad Dowdy, Bradley Dowdy as we know him, turned 50 last week. Jeez. 50. How'd you do that? How do you do it? I don't understand. I feel like you're younger at 50 than I am at 33.

'''Brad:''' I discovered the fountain of youth, Myke. Do you want me to tell you the secret? I would love to know, please. All right. It's Noodler's Bay State Blue. I drink it. No! I drink Noodler's Bay State Blue. That's the fountain of youth.

'''Myke:''' A good cup of Bay State every morning. Yeah. Every morning. Keeps the Grim Reaper away. I'll tell you right now, if you drank that thing every day, the Reaper would be coming of you fast, baby. Man.

'''Brad:''' That stuff would rot your insides. Yeah. I don't want to see the things that would turn blue if I drank that on the regular. That would be bad.

'''Myke:''' That is, by the way, in case you don't know, Noodler's Bay State Blue is an infamous ink that ruins pens.

'''Myke:''' Happy birthday, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Thanks, buddy. It was a nice, chill, relaxed birthday because we still can't do anything. I'm not comfortable going anywhere, doing anything. I literally spent the day by myself for the most part. And I was cool with that. I read, I listened to music, played some video games, literally did nothing. And if I ever want to have a nice 50th birthday celebration, I'm fine having it when I'm 52 or whatever, when I feel safe going somewhere again.

'''Myke:''' Well, you know, you can still enjoy yourself at home, right? Yeah. With your loved ones.

'''Brad:''' Like, I am super easy, Myke. You know, I don't need a lot, despite, I mean, I need a lot of pens and paper and stuff. I don't need too much more, you know, just family hanging around, reading a book, listening to tunes, drinking some beer. Like, I am super content. Like, I don't feel like I've missed out on anything. So, yeah, I'm good.

'''Myke:''' Well, happy birthday.

'''Brad:''' Thank you. Thank you. And happy birthday to you. Like, seriously, happy birthday. Relay turned seven.

'''Myke:''' Seven.

== Relay FM Anniversary ==

'''Brad:''' It's like, Relay's birthday is the August 18th, I think. Correct. And then my birthday is the 21st, so we're always sharing them around the same time. And while I had big news for the big number that I was turning, you had some pretty big news, too.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's St. Jude time. So, we've done this every year for the last, this is our third year. So, from now all the way through to the end of September, Relay FM is joining together with our wonderful community and some, you know, publications and other shows around in our little industry here. to celebrate and raise money for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And so, for our third consecutive year, we're going to be supporting the life-saving mission of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Their mission is finding cures, saving children. I don't know how you couldn't support that. Honestly, it's a simple one. And it's why it's so easy for us. Look, it is estimated that more than 400,000 children worldwide develop cancer every year. And nearly half of them are never diagnosed. In the United States, more than four out of five children survive cancer. But in many countries, that statistic is reversed. Most of the few of them are not diagnosed with cancer. And so, that is pretty harsh. Today, the most significant predictor of whether a child will survive cancer is where that child lives. Which is why, in March of 2018, St. Jude became the first and only World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Childhood Cancer. That's a big acronym. That's like, who? It's like a lot of Cs. World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Childhood Cancer. So, the goal of the WHO, Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, is to raise the survival rate of six common childhood cancers to 60% by 2030. Wow. And this is something that St. Jude knows all about. Like, when St. Jude started, I think it was like 20% survival rate and now it's 80, I think is the figure there. Like, I want to double check that, but that's the kind of thing that they've been able to handle in the time that they've been around. Which, you know, it's what makes them such an incredible place.

'''Myke:''' And it's why, you know, like, obviously here at Real AFM, we have a link to them. You know, like, we have a very personal link through my co-founder, Stephen Hackett, with his son. And yeah, I just checked it. It was treatments at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer rate, survival rate from 20% to 80% since opening. But again, obviously, this is not a worldwide thing. And that's one of the great things about St. Jude is that they share what they learn worldwide freely for other institutions to learn from. So, this September, you can join Real AFM's efforts to raise the funds and awareness needed to treat and defeat childhood cancer. Donate at stjude.org slash Relay today. This year, any donor making a single gift of $100 or more will be able to claim an exclusive Real AFM sticker of thanks pack at the end of the campaign. So, this is a sticker of my face, a sticker of Stephen's face. These are stickers, by the way, that if you follow us on Twitter and Instagram, you'll see that we are covering our desks. Or, like, I'm covering my desk, Stephen's covering this, like, bookcase that sits behind him with each other's faces. Every $500 raised this year, there's another sticker that goes on to make our lives a little bit more tricky. But you can get those. Plus, there's a Relay FM, like, gold-branded, because we change all our branding to gold, because that's the color for childhood cancer awareness. So, there's a gold-branded Relay FM, and we also have some St. Jude stickers as well in there. So, that's for everybody donating $100 or more. We'll be able to get one of those. And also, the Relay FM podcast-a-thon for St. Jude will be happening on September 17th. We're going longer this year, from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time. That's U.S. Eastern Time at twitch.tv slash Relay FM. So, you can tune in. You can help us hit all our fundraising goals. We've got a ton of wild stuff going on this year. One of the biggest goals we have this year is when we meet $176,000 raised, that will be $1 million over the three years that we've been running this campaign. So, let's cure childhood cancer together. Thank you so much if you do donate stjude.org slash Relay. Now, obviously, I'm telling you about it now. We want you to donate. Like, maybe you can donate today. But you might want to save your donation for next week. Or, you know, split your donation up, whatever you want to do. Because Brad's working on something. Brad, do you want to tell the Pan Addict listeners what you're cooking up?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, last year, I mean, let me just say this. I feel like St. Jude is part of our family at Relay FM. And that Relay FM is part of the St. Jude family. It's really, really important to us.

'''Myke:''' I know you're going to hear a lot about this. You'll hear a lot about it today. And you're going to hear a lot about it all the way until the end of September. But it's because it's important. Like, we keep talking about this because it's an incredibly important thing just in general. But also for all of us. Because we have seen the work that they do and how important that is.

'''Brad:''' Totally. Totally. So, last year, I wanted to figure out how to do something different to help promote the fundraising that we were doing. And with the lovely support of Mr. Jonathan Brooks, we were able to raffle off an Arushi Lamy Safari last year. So, you were able to donate. And that your donation, you know, allowed you like an equivalent amount in tickets to be entered into this raffle to win this pin. So, Jonathan Brooks has donated something this year. And I am going to level that up even more by having several products, including what Brooks sent. We'll have more information next week on that. But what I want to do for this year for the main raffle prize that we're going to do is to give away or raffle off, I should say, my Field Notes collection edition one through wherever I kind of stop my subscription. Somewhere around 40. So, really, what you want is like probably issues like one through 25.

'''Myke:''' One through 15.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the grand prize this year is going to be my personal Field Notes collection.

'''Myke:''' The whole thing, by the way. With everything. So, one person is going to get all of them. Now, we are talking here sealed three packs.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? One sealed three pack of all, like one issue one through. The reason why we're not going to officially announce it is because I need to put the details in and see. Exactly where it ends. Like what the ending point is. Because if you wanted to pick it up, like everything else would be just something you could easily purchase if you wanted to continue the set. And also, I need the time to like really like get people involved to drive the information that we're going to have on this. So, I'll have more information on the blog by next week. We'll talk about it next week on the podcast once I have everything set up. If you participated last year, it's going to be similar. Basically, you would donate through the proper link. And this year, it's stjew.org slash relay. And then you would forward your receipt to a special email that I will have set up just for this. And then, you know, whatever the raffle ticket price is, you know, if you donate $100 and raffle tickets are $10, you would have 10 entries into the drawing. Yeah, and it's just worth mentioning.

'''Myke:''' So, you can donate whenever you want and that's great. But if you do want to go with this, we will announce it's start date. So, when Brad posts about it, that will be the start date. So, if you donate today, thank you. But you can't use that entry for this raffle. Right.

'''Brad:''' It's just something we have to do just for management. Like, I would love it if you'd go and donate today and donate next week. But if you're just going to donate once and you want to be involved in this raffle and being that you listen to the Panatic podcast, you might, you know, want a chance at something extra cool for something you're already doing. That's extra cool by donating to St. Jude's. Maybe wait till next week when we have the details out.

'''Myke:''' But totally up to you. It's like a raffle in the way of, like, the more you donate, the more entries that you receive, that kind of thing.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. Exactly. So, we will have that. So, that'll be, this year we're going to have multiple prizes that I'm working on. So, again, the Field Notes collection. Grand prize. Grand prize. I have a very cool pen from Jonathan Brooks that he sent me that is going to be in there. And I have some ideas for some other things that I just need to finalize before we get to next week. And I should have everything detailed out and ready to rock next week. So, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Brad. Yeah. I've been waiting for this, right? We've talked about this for years. It's like, I got to, like, there's no need for me to keep this, right? It just sits there and looks pretty. Like, it's cool. And it's a way for me to help shine a light on something that I really believe in and do good with that type of thing. And I could not be more happy to do it.

'''Myke:''' So, go to stjude.org slash relay and you can find out more and you can donate. And we'll have more to talk about next week on this. Yep. I saw something on Instagram. Mm-hmm. Spoke Design Model 6. Mm-hmm. It's like you've got a soft launch going on right now, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I told the story about Brian and his, how Spoke got started. My partner, Brian Conte, when he started Spoke Design, he was making mechanical pencils. Basically making barrels for mechanical pencils. And he eventually made the Spoke Model 4, which is how I found him because I was like, I got to have this. And then we ended up talking more and we ended up going into a partnership together with Spoke Design. And Brian keeps just pumping out the designs. I think that, I feel like the mechanical pencils are his baby and then everything else I make him do with the pens. But the mechanical pencils are his baby. So, he's always fiddling, trying to make new additions of fountain pens. And because, honestly, because people love him. People love the ideas that he comes up with. So, this time, we have built around a Spoke Model 4 idea combined with a Spoke Pen idea to still have this large aluminum barrel with, essentially, the spokes cut out of them, for lack of a better term. And we've added a knurled grip on the barrel. And the reason why it's a soft launch is because, as you could imagine, Myke, seeing all of our products and all of our pens and all of our accessories and everything that goes with them. We like to do a lot of different colors. And this pencil is going to allow us the platform to mix and match the exterior barrel with the interior barrel sleeve and do some unique colors. Oh. Oh. To where, before, your pencil purchase was essentially fixed. You bought this color and that's what you got. This, I mean, you're still not, I don't know, you know, how much you're going to be able to pick and choose. But let's just say, there's going to be some more assembly involved with these pens because you're going to get to have the exterior barrel. Exterior barrel and interior barrel color be different. You know, in the beginning, we're just going to, you know, make a bunch of different colors and you can pick and choose what you like. And this is kind of how it's going to start. So, this is our first knurled grip pencil. We've also increased the diameter of the large size grip. So, we always have done two grip sizes. With the knurling, we'll actually have a, be able to have a larger 10 millimeter grip. Because it's a little bit, it's a little bit wider pencil. It's like an aesthetically and functionally better. Like, it's really, really good. So, yeah, this is just the start of what's going to be a new pen, pencil product line for the Model 6. And we're going to be able to play around with it a little bit more, like how we play around with the pens and the roadies and the icons.

== Spoke Pen System ==

'''Myke:''' I really love that you're building this interchangeable system. That's really sweet. I like that a lot. Because, I mean, we were talking about this before, right? Like, if we're thinking about this, like it's a business, et cetera, et cetera, this is part of, like, people can buy the products, but then buy accessories from you effectively. Right. And there's something really intriguing about that idea as a business owner because, all right, maybe people don't want to spend $200 or whatever on a pen every time. But maybe you bring out a new colorway and it's like 30 bucks. Right. I'm just saying these numbers, by the way. I haven't got the right ones in my head.

'''Brad:''' Well, just wait a couple of weeks, a few weeks, hopefully, certainly in September, when we add new colors to the Icon lineup plus new Icon accessories, which we've talked about before, new barrel sleeves and grip colors and styles and materials. This is where you'll be able to buy individual parts for products you already have. Right. And be able to swap and have that modularity.

'''Myke:''' But I just think this is super good because then people can get a new color pen without needing to buy a new pen. Yep. And then it becomes even more awesome when you can then use those parts to do ones that you've now taken off your pen to jazz up your pencil. Like it's, you know, I think that's really smart.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I don't know that it's going to be that integrated. Like slow down there. But like I see you working. Slow your roll, boy. But now I'm going to have to tell Brian. It's like, you know, these parts, you know, they're not going to be that interchangeable. But you get the idea.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm. That there will be some mixy-matchy that you can do. I think that's great. Nice work.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm excited about it. This is just, like I said, this is the soft launch of the Model 6. This is the first color you can expect a lot more in the near term.

'''Myke:''' Speaking about color. Mm. This episode of the Pen Addict Podcast is brought to you by Canalea Penco. Canalea makes stunning pens. Beautiful pens. Some of my absolute favorites that are inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, Hugh and Carol, believe that the locations that they represent in their products can help recharge our spirit, connect us with nature. And they really do produce just stunning products that you're not going to find anywhere else. The execution is what really sets them apart. Every single Canalea pen is handmade in a process that means that no two pens will ever look alike. So you're going to get a one-of-a-kind just for you. And every single nib is tuned before it ships to a customer. Hugh does it himself. He smooths and tunes every single nib before it leaves the shop. So your Canalea pen is going to write fantastically straight out of their lovely black walnut keepsake box. They also make the best boxes. They make boxes that are, like, truly good to keep. But they don't just take up space so you can use them. They're, like, really nice little boxes that you can just use for other stuff, which is a thing that I think should be done more. I feel like most pen boxes are just boxes for your pen. What I like about Canalea's boxes is you can actually just use them as little wooden keepsake boxes. I like that. This is one of the many things that I like. I want to remind you about the Honakalani collection. This is a really beautiful pen available in three design profiles and a ballpoint. It's a blue, white, and black swirl pen that evokes a stunning beach scene of a crystal blue ocean. And you can also take it a step further with the Honakalani Mailele, which features the Mailele 5th Anniversary Band, which celebrates Canalea's recent milestone. I have this model, and I truly love the band addition to it. Canalea's pens feature Yo-Oh No. 6 nibs, and you can buy steel or 18-karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They offer sizes from extra fine to 1.1-millimeter stub. Not meter. 1.1-meter stub? Can you imagine that?

'''Brad:''' I could imagine that, Myke. I could imagine that.

'''Myke:''' Someone would be into it. Now, I do have some unfortunate news that I wanted to share from our friends at Canalea. They have come to the very hard decision of deciding that they will not be able to attend either the San Francisco or Chicago pen shows this year. But they are hoping that they will be able to see everybody soon, sometime in the future. This is one of those abundance of caution type things. However, they are going to keep that pen show feeling alive by offering a special promotion during these weekends on the Canalea website. So, from August 27th to 29th, which is the SF Pen Show, and October 1st to 3rd, all U.S. customers will receive free UPS ground shipping with the purchase of a fountain pen. And if you're outside the U.S., you have a code that you can use, it's Aloha 25 off, and you will get $25 off your UPS shipping with the purchase of your own Canalea pen. So, you know, I think what I really like about this is one of the things that you don't have to do when you go to a pen show is pay for the shipping of the pen because you can pick it up and take it yourself. So, Canalea are doing what they can to remove or significantly reduce the cost of your shipping if you buy one of their fountain pens. So, go and check them out for yourself. Go to canaleapenko.com. That is canaleapenko.com to choose your Aloha today. Our thanks to the Canalea Pen Co. for their support of this show.

'''Brad:''' I might have to break down and get the recent one, the blue and black sand. What was the name of it again? The Hanukalani. Hanukalani. Yeah, the one that I had, and now it's kind of calling my name. It's like one of those things. Beautiful, man. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Speaking of back and forth, Myke, we're going to segue into one of Brad's favorite topics, which is the topic where Brad gets to pretend that he knows things about stationery and questions the existence of other products.

'''Myke:''' I'm pretty sure you do know a thing or two.

'''Brad:''' But what right do I have, Myke, to question the existence of the Uni Alpha Gel Kurutogo?

'''Myke:''' This is a pen that surprised me twice. It's a pencil. That's what I meant to say. But this is my issue. This is the first surprise. Yes. It's called Alpha Gel. Yes. Which makes it sound like it's a gel pen. Correct. But it is not. It is not. It is a mechanical pencil with a gel-like grip.

'''Brad:''' Right. No gel. So Uni has an Alpha Gel series of pens, pencils, and ballpoints. And the Alpha Gel is the grip. It's the nicest grip. It's what the pilot Dr. Grip wishes it was. It's the best larger diameter soft squishy grip in pens or pencils. Dr. Grip. Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' So good as a name.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' So stupid and so fantastic.

'''Brad:''' Right? It's a great name. I just don't think it's a great product.

'''Myke:''' Dr. Grip?

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' They do some good work over there. So it's more straightforward than Alpha Gel. I will give you that. So yes, Alpha Gel is... I'm sure many people have bought the pens thinking it's a gel pen, but the Alpha Gels are generally ballpoints. So anyway, that's an entirely different story. What we have here today, Myke, is a pencil that I reviewed on Monday. A pencil I was dying to buy. We're going to talk about that in a minute. And a pencil that once I got it into use, I questioned why it exists. And this is the thing I'm best at is just having like really particular thoughts about particular products that, let's be honest, really don't mean anything. But I'm a little bit confused by this product. So let me lay it out there for those who are not familiar with the Kuru Toga, which is the key to this whole setup here. The Kuru Toga, if you're a long-term listener, you know, you can mute me for like 30 seconds. Panadic Classic. Yeah, it's Panadic Classic because it is a mechanical pencil technology that works. It is designed when you press the tip down on the page and write and lift up the pencil tip from the page. There's a slight rotation, really not visible to the naked eye. Like if you looked hard enough, you could see it rotate. And this allows for a consistent point as you're writing with the mechanical pencil. So there's an internal mechanism and it rotates. Okay. And it's a wonderful, wonderful mechanical pencil. One of our favorites here at the Panadic, one of my all-time favorites because it legitimately works and it pushed forward mechanical pencil technology. Which you wouldn't think that's a thing. So what Uni did is they have a huge lineup of Kuru Togas, right? Kuru Togas in all shape, sizes, and flavors. They have a huge lineup of Uni Alpha Gels in all shape, sizes, and flavors. So they combined the... Two Great Tastes. Two Great Tastes into one pen. The funny part, Myke, is they already have an Alpha Gel Kuru Toga. Okay? They just don't have the Alpha Gel Kuru Toga switch, which is what we have today. So you can get a Kuru Toga with an Alpha Gel grip. But what you can't get unless you buy this pen is a... Excuse me, a pencil. I did it too. Aha! It's a pencil with a switch to stop it from being a Kuru Toga.

'''Brad:''' This is wild. And I can't figure out why. Yeah. And I'm wrecking my brain trying to come up with a situation where you need both a fixed position graphite and a Kuru Toga rotating graphite in a single pencil. And like the best I can come up with is like your student artist, right? Anyone who's using a pencil for art, sketching, generally needs an edge on their pencil tips, right? You need it to be either very, very sharp or very, very dull for sharp lines or shading and not a lot of in between. The Kuru Toga, the rule of the Kuru Toga is that it does not do either of those things, which is fine as well. So the Kuru Toga, strictly for writing or a consistent line.

'''Brad:''' So why do you need both? And I literally don't know. That's what I can't come up with. It's like the end. It's like the end of my conversation is this. I don't know. But I'll tell you this, Myke. If I'm in the uni labs, right, and I get to design products, I'm 100% doing this and taking it to like the managers go, look at this thing that I made. Like we have the Kuru Toga and we can turn it off and we can turn it on. And I'd be like, yeah, look at that. That's cool. And it's like, I don't know why marketing didn't go like, yeah, that's cool. Like technically, but why is someone going to buy this? Because we have a Kuru Toga that's $4 cheaper. And then we have mechanical pencils that are cheaper. And it's like, you're telling me we have two conflicting things in a pen. They're not, they don't work together. Like a multi pen could have three different colors, blue, red, and black. And you use those three colors for different things. Or you can get like Jeff reviewed an Acroball pen, multi pen with a highlighter on the back of it. It is the stupidest looking pen I've ever seen, but there is understandable functionality there. I have a pen. Sometimes I need to highlight. So I turn it over and I highlight. Those things work together. However, the Kuru Toga switch, the two options work against each other.

'''Brad:''' And I am dumbfounded by this product. This is what I love about stationary. And I would buy this product. I think I even said this in my review. I would buy this product 10 out of 10 times if I saw it. But then I'd get it in hand and I would only use it as a Kuru Toga. Right? Because I don't need the other part.

'''Myke:''' This is one of those things where like it seems like, yeah, okay, it seems like a good idea. You know, like when you read it, you're like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. Why not?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And then it's like you never use part two of what it was built for. So that's all. I think it's a fun product. It's really built well. But if you want a uni alpha gel Kuru Toga, just buy the Kuru Toga. And if you need a pencil that gives you more line variation, buy like literally any non-Kuru Toga pencil. I just don't see the case for buying them two in one. So there you go.

== TWSBI Swipe Review ==

'''Myke:''' That was fun. I want to talk about the TWSBI swipe. I think this will be a recurring theme. Customers may remember the TWSBI swipe as the new TWSBI pen, which has a spring in the back of it, even though it maybe seems like at least Brad believed didn't need it, didn't understand why the spring would need to be there like it is on a TWSBI go. So you have Kimberly at the Pen Addict wrote a great review about the pen and had some questions, some pros and cons of it. I believe you have one as well.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So mine just came in yesterday, just unboxed it yesterday, and I just inked it up this morning. So I definitely have some questions. And so far, my thinking is right along the lines with Kimberly in that this is a good pen. Like there's no two ways about it. Like it's a good TWSBI low cost pen. The questions that have arisen so far from my unboxing and then circling back to Kimberly's review and finding the same thing is that I'm questioning which came first, the cartridge converter design or the need for the spring. And I'm saying this because I'm trying to say this nicely. The engineering around the connection between cartridge and converter and the connection to the feed and the nib is looser than I'm used to. So there is not a lot of friction there. Okay. Like it's see, I feel like it seals. Okay. Like I feel like, okay, it grabs enough. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like, what do you, am I explaining this?

'''Myke:''' Do you wear the, like the little prongs, I guess, which stick into the converter or the cartridge?

'''Brad:''' Yes. So like it goes on, but then I can pull it off without much effort. You know how normally you have to lean into it a little bit to kind of pop it off? You've got to pull it.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. You've got to give it some oomph.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I can just slide this on and off. So two things are appearing right now in this. And this could be like a one-off type of thing. But now I'm seeing it, Kimberly's seeing it, and other people are seeing it. What's happening is that connection, I think, is not getting sealed enough because people who are using the spring converter, it's like a little mini piston, right? Like you push the spring down. You have the converter on. You push the spring down while the nib's in the ink bottle to fill it. And then the converter, then you let go. The spring expands and pulls in the ink. And people are only getting half fills. Why are they getting half fills? Maybe because it's not sealed perfectly. I don't know. Like this is like I'm not an engineer and I'm not telling, I'm not saying this is a problem. But I am noticing it and other people are noticing it, that this is loose. Like it's a little bit, the spring is necessary. So it's like a chicken or egg thing. It's now that I have this, I went ahead and inked mine with a cartridge because I wanted to test out the cartridges because they're big and bulky. The cartridges actually snap in there pretty strongly. But I'm just wondering if the design is such to where you almost have to have the spring to keep the cartridge if you're dropping things. I don't know. I'm rambling a little bit now because I'm thinking about it out loud. And yeah.

'''Myke:''' So you're wondering if they have the cartridge.

'''Myke:''' So they have the spring because the cartridge doesn't fit properly.

'''Brad:''' I mean, it's dumb to say that out loud. When you say that out loud, you sound dumb. I'm not saying that I'm saying me. Yeah, I don't think that that makes sense. That's not on purpose. I don't think that's the case. But I will say that's the experience that people are having now and they're questioning like, well, I see why I need this spring now because it's kind of loose. But I don't think that was the intent going into it. And so I think we're just going to have to wait and see. I think in general, it's a good pen. I really don't like the clip, like just aesthetically. I'm not a fan of the clip. I do like the feel of the pen. I got an extra fine.

'''Brad:''' It's a little wider than like the TWSBI 580 extra fine. So I'll have to see if it's more like the eco extra fines that I have, which is the nib that's on here. It's like the eco nib, same size, same shape.

'''Brad:''' I think the pen is going to do fine. I think the cartridge option.

'''Brad:''' I don't know. Like I'm trying to come at this pen from a beginner's perspective and it's a little hard to separate myself from that. Like if I'm a beginner and I buy this pen and I buy a pack of cartridges and I'm going to be pretty happy with this pen. If you buy their cartridges. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the other thing is people are finding like a standard international cartridge doesn't really does not fit well. It fits. Even though it theoretically should.

'''Myke:''' It's not secure. And I think this is the thing we were talking about this pen before where it was like they're saying this is the international standard, but it doesn't look like it. The attachment part is international standard, but the sizing is super different physically, which helps it stay in place, I guess. Right. I don't think you would want to put a regular cartridge with the spring inside of this thing. I think it's going to fall out.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, you know, I don't want to say this is like completely wait and see. Like I think it's good. Like I just want to be clear on that. I think it's good. I'm going to keep using it and I'm going to keep using with the cartridge and I'm going to keep using with the spring loaded in the back of the barrel.

'''Myke:''' It's pretty fairly priced too, right?

'''Brad:''' It's fairly priced. It feels good. The writing experience is excellent. One annoyance I have is that I can't. So the barrel has the TWSBI stamping on it, you know, just like the word TWSBI. And I can't get that to align with the front side of my nib. It's on the 180. You know what I mean? And I've tried like 10 times before the podcast today to get it aligned, right?

'''Myke:''' I'm looking at their images and they managed to do it.

'''Brad:''' So I'm going to have to keep working on that. I've tried every connection possible.

'''Myke:''' That's like me and Lamy Safaris though, man. I just sit there and like click. Oh, it didn't work. Click it over one more time. Do it again.

'''Myke:''' So, yeah.

'''Brad:''' So, I don't know what to say. It's like a 7 or 8 out of 10 pen. Like it's really hecking good. But like I definitely have questions about let's see some long-term usage and how that connection holds up. So, that's all. I think it's good. Like I wouldn't tell anyone not to buy it if you're interested in it. And I think it is going to be a good beginner pen if you're sticking with TWSBI cartridges. I think for like the super... Or the converter, really. Or the converter.

'''Myke:''' Because again, like I think we're getting lost again. But I think the real benefit I think here is that this is a TWSBI converter pen, which is new for them.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Like which I'm down with. Yeah. I'm all for it. I just think people... Some more experienced people are going to enjoy this less. And that's fine. That's not why this pen is being made. Right?

'''Myke:''' I don't think it's for them though, right? Yep.

'''Brad:''' It's a $27 entry pen. Right. So that's what I'm trying to wrap my head around when I talk about this. I don't want to talk down on this pen because it's a good pen. But I do have some like coming from a very experienced place, I have some questions.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. My thinking on it still, having not used it, my thinking on it still though is I would still recommend you get the TWSBI Go. Mm-hmm. But hey-ho. Because I think the best way to use the TWSBI swipe is still with the converter.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' So I figure if you're going to do that, you may as well go with the TWSBI Go. Although I'm sure that it looks very much so that the swipe would have a vastly improved ink capacity.

'''Brad:''' I don't know about that. You don't think so? The swipe have more ink capacity than the Go? I'm not sure. I would have to look. I don't like to know. I can't speak on that. I'm sure chat will tell us before we're done if the measurements are public on TWSBI's site. I don't know that they are. But regardless, I'm still going for the eco is number one. Like, again, this is coming from a different place than a beginner place. If I'm buying TWSBI's, I'll take one go and one swipe and 10 ecos.

'''Brad:''' That's how I feel about that range of product.

'''Myke:''' I didn't understand what that meant.

'''Brad:''' As far as what I think is the best product. Right. Like, I need one go, I'm fine. One swipe pin, I'm fine. Eco, I'm good having five or 10 of those because they're just cool colors. The piston filling mechanism is great. Like, there are shockingly less questions about the eco than both the go and the swipe.

'''Myke:''' Makes sense. I love the color, though. I do, too.

'''Brad:''' Like, they're all good. That's what I'm saying. I just don't want to. I know I've talked myself in circles around this one. They're all good pens. I really like all of them. I like that TWSBI's trying things and, like, is messing around doing some weird stuff. And I'm down with that. So, I just want to make sure that, yeah, I think they're good. And I do have some questions, though. We'll see.

'''Myke:''' Do you want to know a great place that you can go to if you want to pick up some of these TWSBI pens, Brad? Man, where is that, Myke?

'''Brad:''' You're such a professional.

'''Myke:''' Pen Chalet. What? They sell the very best products from all of your favorite brands. They have roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. Like pen holders, refills, converters, ink, accessories, notebooks, everything the true pen addict wants in their life. And they're always doing great deals. They run discounts twice a month and close out specials as well. And they're always adding new styles of pens. So, there's always something new to go and check out over at Pen Chalet. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the U.S. And they sell internationally as well with great shipping rates. Pen Chalet wants their customers to be happy with their great products. So, they have not only low prices, but on their high quality pens. Also, a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They really have everything that you're looking for with fast and reliable customer service to boot. So, go to penchalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict. This is where you will get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time. And also, the list of this week's special offers. What have we got, Brad?

'''Brad:''' We have a crazy deep list of products. So, sometimes, Ron sets us up sometimes. Sometimes, we'll put the hot thing at the top. Sometimes, you got to dig for it in the middle or at the end. Or sometimes, it's just literally all over the place. And that's what we have today. No hunting this week. No hunting this week. He's dropped the Visconti Homo Sapiens Demo Stones. So, that was Visconti's new release. Did it come out this year? We're in August. I think it came out earlier this year. It is the translucent Homo Sapiens in green, red, or blue. They're really, really pretty with a really, really good price. They were... And a free ink. Yeah. And a free ink. And they were more expensive than the Homo Sapiens that I bought recently. And now, they're at a good sale. And Myke, if you scroll down and scroll... And I don't want to discount anything that's on here, including our friend, the Stipula Neto. That's what I was going to say. Wait.

'''Myke:''' I can't remember now.

'''Brad:''' How did this come up the first time? I found it here.

'''Myke:''' Okay. Like, two weeks ago. Like, wait. Because I'd never seen it. Is Ron Punk in us right now? No, no, no, no.

'''Brad:''' I'd never seen it before it came up on this list. And I was like, what is this? And we had to stop the read.

== Penn Chalet Promotion ==

'''Myke:''' I was wondering, what is this wild pen bottle that Bradley might keep talking about? You can get one at Penn Shelley.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. So, I keep going down. I was like, oh, cool. The Conklin Word Gauge fountain pen is always a popular one. And this is a nice blue and black ebonite. And then they have the Private Reserve Fast Dry Ink, which we're going to talk about Private Reserve Ink here in a minute. And then I just kept scrolling, Myke. And all of a sudden, I got to, hey, this is a big list of Platinum 3776s. And hey, Myke, further down from that, this is a huge... Huge list of Leonardo Memento Zeros. So, if you're in the market for one of those two truly excellent pens. Platinum 3776s, Visconti, you can't get to the San Francisco pen show this weekend, you might want to stop by Penn Chalet. Use the code PENADDICT in the YouTube radio podcast link and check out all these deals because they're pretty much on fire.

'''Myke:''' Thanks to Penn Chalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' All right.

'''Brad:''' I went on a spending spree.

'''Myke:''' All right. Happy birthday.

'''Brad:''' Last week. But, yeah, I tempered myself. Like, I got the pens that I wanted, like, in the last couple of months. Like, that's why we had to have a pen sale. I bought pens, sold pens to make up for the pens that I bought. I have no pens on my radar right now that I'm looking for for my personal use. Like, I obviously have, like, hey, I got this TWSBI swipe and, hey, I've got these other pens that I'm checking out. You know, that's more from a review perspective. Personal pens, like, I'm good. I got that Nakaya. I got that Visconti. Like, I'm golden. I'm literally not shopping for anything. But you know what I am shopping for, Myke?

'''Brad:''' You read the doc. It's inks. Yeah, I know. I don't know where to. I'm looking at it. So let me count. I'm clicking the links right now. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. 18 inks are now in my possession. Oh, bro. As of yesterday.

'''Brad:''' They will not all be in my possession. Some of these are going out to review, to the review crew, which is the review crew, the Pen Attic review crew is what got me on Van Demons, on this Van Demons kick. They've been reviewing them. They've been very happy with them. I have not tried them. And they keep coming up with new colors, new fun things. Like, what's the main thing now? The Deep Sea. What are they called? I don't even think I got any of the Deep Sea because they're so hot. You can't. The Underwater Series, Myke. The Underwater Series. They're so hot. They're selling out all across the Pinternet. So, I picked up some classics under some recommendations from followers. So, I got Van Demons Pepperberry, which is like a blue-black. Van Demons Pixie Parasols, which I just bought for the name. It's a lighter blue color that I think is really nice. That's a color that I like. And then, purely on recommendation, I got Devil's Kitchen, which that's a recommendation from Jonathan Brooks. And then, was second, thirded, and fifth in the chat as a red. That is just awesome. He said when he went to the DC Pen Show that he went through two bottles of that, like testing and filling and letting people fill their bottles with it. It's such a good ink. So, these are the recommendations I need for me to go out and try a bunch of inks. Because I really, for all the inks I have, I really kind of, you know, sit in my corner and have a hard time not branching out, even in my own ink cabinet. So, I'm trying to do that. I included some Pannonia inks, of course. One of my new favorites, Myke, is the Pannonia ink. So, another red ink. I'm not a red ink person, but chat in Twitch or on Twitter are telling me this. There's no way I get this name right. It looks like Meg Yes, but I'm sure that's not how you pronounce it. It is this killer bright red that looks like it's going to be awesome. But I don't know what it means.

'''Myke:''' What's all these red inks in? I don't know.

'''Brad:''' Pens.

'''Myke:''' I have a lot of pens. Huh. All right. Red always feels like, you know, you've got to have something for it. I don't know.

'''Brad:''' That's the thing is, like, I've never been a red ink guy. Like, I have one pen that I enjoy, the one red ink that I use all the time. I have a Nakaya with the red trim, black and red, that I use Robert Oster red candy. That's, like, my favorite setup. Outside of that, I rarely use red. So, I'm going to try these because I'm trying to experiment, Myke. I also got Lichen, which is a very light green. I'm going to send that out for review. Sarah picked that out to review. It's a very light green Pannonia ink. One of the newer Pannonia inks that are lighter, more pastel, and have a little more character.

'''Brad:''' Kala inks, which we've discussed before, Myke, as having pigmented waterproof inks, which I've tested before. They now have some standard inks, which I was very, very anxious to try. Two of the Island series, Island Kingshi Cliff. I'm sure I pronounced that incorrectly. I have that inked up in my, what is that pen? I can't even remember which pen I've inked it up in yet. That one. So, we'll just go with that pen. And then, Myke, the lovely Island snack series, Sweet Potato Balls. Like, I'm feeling that's going to be a good one. They have these neat little bottle designs that are really cool. Oh, that Kingshi Cliff is in my Mayora. I finally found it on my desk to remember which one it was in. Okay. But, yeah, I mean, how can you turn down Sweet Potato Balls ink, right? I mean, it's just facts. It's unable, it's unskippable when you're going to order interesting inks. I added in the Venta Neon Collection, Myke. That's going to be a giveaway. They look fun. I love the packaging of this one. It's really, really neat. I bought that purposefully for a giveaway, Adam. So, look for that on the Pen Addict coming soon. Birmingham inks, I went all in again. This is where most of my inks are coming from right now that I wanted to test. So, two specialty inks out of this list. Voltaic Arc is a blue sheening ink, and I normally don't go for sheening inks. Like, heavy sheeners, I really don't like. But I wanted to try this because, again, experimental. And then Flamingo, Myke, is a hot pink permanent ink, which I wanted to try out. What does that mean? It means it's pink, it's fire, and it's not going to wash away when you leave your notebook out in the rain. Just like a Flamingo.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I mean, okay. Are you having a lot of trouble with, like, it's the permanent part is what I'm stuck on.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, why? You don't like permanents?

'''Myke:''' No, it's not that. It's just interesting. I don't know. You're fine with the other inks, right? Permanent, isn't it? I'm just intrigued. Like, is the permanents a selling point for you? Because it's not normal.

'''Brad:''' You don't normally get this color.

'''Myke:''' I think that's kind of why I was angling out a little bit more. Those two things together seemed like a different, maybe interesting mixture.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So it's like, so remember the Kala Neons that were bright colors? Those were pigmented.

'''Myke:''' Oh, yeah.

'''Brad:''' I remember those. Those are the same. That's the same idea. So it's a pigmented ink, right, which leads to permanents on the page. It's not necessarily like an iron gall formulation. It's a pigment formulation to add that permanents into the page. So it's just interesting. It is experimental. Again, those are two inks that I don't necessarily anticipate going, hey, I'm going to use this all the time. But I think they're worth, like, from a pen addict perspective to test and say, hey, is this good? Is this not so good? Why is it this way? Does it work as it's intended? Those types of things. And then I got six other Birmingham inks that are just like their normal ink lineups because they do a lot of neat colors. So I don't even know that reading these names off would do the colors justice, like kyanite, shortleaf pine, hydrangea, Ohio River, Kentucky bluegrass. So it's a I'm trying to expand my testing on Birmingham inks because they do so many and I've tested so few. Like I've done one review and I've been happy with it. So I want to continue to explore and see how how they are. This is really why I bought all these inks. And this last one is probably the most boring, but it's one that needs to be tested. And it's private reserve because private reserve is now on their, I think, third owner in the past five or six years. Um, and different formulations of ink that are now in the hands of Monteverde's owners, Yaffa brands. So my faith in the product has gone up because of that, because the Monteverde inks are so good. So I want to see, I bought a ink called infinity turquoise just to try out. I, I, I don't even know what to say about it because I haven't used a private reserve ink in so many years, but they're making a push, making them, I don't want to say come back, but you're starting to see them a little bit more. Um, my only concern with this one so far, it is in a weird bottle in that it's a very normal bottle. If you were using like a moisturizer, you know, like those big tubs, it's like, it's like a, yeah.

'''Myke:''' Wide mouth is an interesting, uh, feature for an ink bottle.

'''Brad:''' It's very heavy. It's like inordinately heavy, wide mouth, short depth.

'''Myke:''' You know, though, looking at it, I'm sure we've all been in this situation where you have an ink bottle and there's like a little bit of ink in it and you can't get to it because like you can't like hold the pen, like, like, like, like hold the pen and angle the bottle in such a way you can get to that last little bit in the edge. Right. You wouldn't have that with this cause it's going to be so steady. You just put it down on the table and you just, you know.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. But you don't have any depth to it. Like I think after like a few fills, we're going to be past the depth.

'''Myke:''' It's weird. Like, I don't think I agree with this.

'''Brad:''' It's a little concerning. It's a strange bottle. It really is. It's a moisturizer bottle.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. It's just like a little jar.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. A tub. It's like a little jar. It's super, super dense. Very, very heavy. Very thick glass base. It is. It is. It is. So anyway, like that's a lot of inks. I want to test a bunch of them. I only have one inked up so far out of that entire batch. I'll probably have another two more inked up in the next day or two. I've got some pens I need to test out, get ready for review, do some little combo meals with a pen and an ink combination, figure out what I'm going to do. And then I'm going to send out some of these inks to the review crew. I'm going to give some of them away. But anyway, it was an ink smorgasbord mic that I went shopping for last week. They're all here. And I'm actually just trying them out. I'm actually very, very excited. I'm going to test them out Thursday on Twitch, twitch.tv slash penenict. We're going to open all these bottles and test them out on paper, do some swab, do some ink playing around. So if you want to see what that's all about, come check it out.

'''Myke:''' All right. Should we do some hashtag ask TPA today? Yes. Yes, we should. All right. First question comes from Beth. Tell me about distributors. When I get amazing service from a store or vendor, it's easy to know how to support them. I buy more from them. I tell my friends to do likewise, give them good reviews, all that kind of stuff. Is there anything I can do when a distributor turns out to be awesome? So a bit of context. My current favorite pen in the universe is my Bennu Chameleon Graceful. Dropping it on the hardwood floor broke the cap. Not fatally. The threads are okay, but it's not the same thing that it once was. Pen Chalet suggested I call the distributor to see if they had any extra parts or any advice on getting it fixed. So I did, and Bryce from Luxury Brands USA literally sent me an entirely new pen the same day. What can I do as a regular consumer to support them?

'''Brad:''' This is a great question. That's why I wanted to make sure we got this in here. And we've had it for a couple weeks.

'''Brad:''' I'm trying to think how to lay this out. But basically, you want to think of our hobby as an ecosystem, right? And distributors play a role in that ecosystem in making your life as an end consumer make everything run smoothly. They deal with the shops that you are supporting. You usually don't deal one-on-one with a distributor. Our hobby is unique in the fact that it's small enough to where a distributor, if they so choose, can have a direct relationship with the consumer, which you don't see in a lot of other businesses, I don't think. And in our hobby, some of these distributors have made a concerted effort to come out in front of the table, if you will. And then some distributors stay behind the scenes and you don't hear from them. And it really pays off in seeing things like Beth and her comments on the Bennu, who is distributed by luxury brands, which she mentioned. And I'm friends with Bryce and talk to him regularly. Like, these front-facing distributors, I think, are not normal in other capacities. So, how can you support them directly? By continuing to share their stories, by continuing to support the products through the retailers that they work with. And you just make sure people know that the experience was great. Like, if you boil it down just into the black and white, the distributors are most benefited by buying stuff, right? Let's not sugarcoat that. But the way this community is, word travels fast and it's easy to have something good communicated and something bad communicated by experience. And either way, the distributors that put the most into this community are the quickest to respond, the most to handle any problems, the most to praise the good things happen, the most to support all the different cogs in the machinery. You know, I work with distributors to get products to review. You know, they have gotten to know me over the years, understand how I work, and I have always had great working relationships with distributors I deal with. In the end, they still need you to purchase products from retailers and that's how they stay in business. So just sharing their stories and appreciating the fact that we have access to someone like Bryce from Luxury Brands as, hey, I got to work with Bryce and he fixed this thing for me. Like, you don't hear that level of conversation, I don't think, in a lot of communities, right? You're like, I don't know who the person behind the curtain is and I'm just helpless out here. And I think that's what's so enjoyable about this community is the openness of a lot of, you know, people behind the scenes to give you the real, the real deal, the real truth, the support you need. And, yeah, so I think it's important to support the distributors. You know, I don't want to be, like, you know, completely off point by saying I certainly have my issues with distributors from time to time too, right? But the fact that we can have, like, these conversations in our community I think are really cool. And, like, Beth is alluding to, like, I think we should support the people that want to support us as end users. And that's what the good distributors do.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. And don't forget, like, I get this feeling. But, like, just buy the product. Buying the products supports them. You know, like, I get the feeling of wanting to do more. But I think that wanting to do more feeling comes from the fact that there are so many makers in our space. So, like, we're used to, well, this is an individual whose products we really like. We know them. They're a nice person. The distributors may not need that feeling in the same way as an individual. Like, they tend to be typically larger businesses. So...

'''Brad:''' I think that the distributors want to see the retailers they work with succeed. Yes.

'''Myke:''' That's the goal of them. It's why they're most of the time not public-facing in any way. Because it's not really what they need. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I feel like we're just in a bit of a unique situation. Where there's this feeling of wanting to support. Mm-hmm. But if their retailers are happy... They're happy. They're happy. Yep.

'''Myke:''' Let's do a final break and we'll come back for some more hashtags. Ask TPA. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. A few decades ago, even less than that, it was easy to be a private person. But the internet has changed all of that. Think of everything that you've browsed, searched for, watched, tweeted. The sad truth is this data could be crawled through. People can use it against you. They can aggregate it, collect it, and it could be sold. And it's your information. You know, you don't want to have to think about this stuff. In an era when everyone's online, anyone can be a public figure. To keep your data private, you can turn to ExpressVPN. There are hundreds of data brokers out there, and their sole business is to buy and sell that data. The worst part is they don't have to tell you who they're selling it to or get your consent for it. One of these data points can be your IP address. This is uniquely identified to your location, to you. But with ExpressVPN, your connection can be routed through an encrypted server, and your IP address is masked. So when you turn ExpressVPN on, you're given a random IP address shared by other ExpressVPN customers. This makes it incredibly difficult for third parties to identify individuals and harvest data that is unique to them. And the best part is how easy ExpressVPN is to use. You get all of that protection. You get that peace of mind on any device that you're on. Your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. All you have to do is tap one button to get protected. One of my favorite uses is, like, if I'm traveling or I'm in a hotel. It's like we have been doing a couple of things in central London recently. We've had a bunch of plans. We've had to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. Now all these things are happening at the same time. Like, I just, for my birthday in 2020, Stephen bought me a wine tasting experience. That was January of 2020. We just did it last week. So we stayed in a hotel in London for that, and they have free Wi-Fi. And I'm like, hmm, I would like the free Wi-Fi. But this Wi-Fi is free. So I turn on ExpressVPN, and I don't have to worry about it. So if, like me, you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number one rated VPN on the market. Visit expressvpn.com slash penaddict and get three extra months for free. That's expressvpn.com slash penaddict. To learn more, one last time, expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' All right, let's hit a few more of these. All right.

== Drillog Nib Compatibility ==

'''Myke:''' Sam asks, do you know if the Drillog nib would fit with any other pen body? Can I just back the nib, or is the nib only option only really for you if you're going to get a second nib for your pen with the body?

'''Brad:''' I mean, technically, someone can make something that threads onto the back. Like, I have dip nib front end units. Like, I have a dip nib unit that at one time I commissioned Sean Newton to make a holder for. So, I mean, the answer is sure, but it's not designed out of the box to say, hey, this is going to screw into a Yovo housing. Like, if that's the question, no. But if the question is, is it theoretically possible for someone to make something that fits in this type of threading? Yes. But I think the question is more of, hey, can I put this into something I have today without it getting custom made? The answer is no.

'''Myke:''' Next question comes from Gustavo. When it comes to expensive pens, are there specific things I should look for that warrant that price tag? Or is it more about how the pen makes me feel?

'''Brad:''' That's a tough question, honestly.

'''Brad:''' I think you start with the latter, right? Like, you're only going to pick up the pen in the first place because you have a certain feeling about it.

'''Myke:''' Don't buy a pen just because it's made of expensive materials.

'''Brad:''' That's a good way to put it. Like, yeah. Like, in short, yes, that's a great answer. Because you're never going to be happy with a product that you're just not inherently happy with, holding, using, looking at, you know, appearance, feel, wise, despite going, ooh, man, this one is full sterling silver barrel. Like, that's fancy. And that warrants the price tags because it's, like, literal silver and it's expensive. But is it functional? Is it fun? Does it put a smile on your face? Those are the more important things in buying expensive pens. Like, you know, my vice for, like, the expensive pens is the Nakaya. And I know that, first and foremost, whenever I use one, and the reason why I like them so much is they make me feel good. They, it feels like I'm holding a story that someone told in my hand. And that's why I like Nakaya's, not because, hey, this is a $900 pen or whatever, and, like, it's got a gold nib, and it took, you know, six or nine months to make, but that there's a story within this writing instrument. That's what's important to me, and that's the way I kind of look at it when I think about that. So, yeah, I mean, the bigger question is the warrant, the price tag bit of the question, and that's such an individual thing. You know, we all value different things differently. So, are there technical things like a piston filler and a gold nib that warrant prices? Yes, right? Like, but does a pen that doesn't have either of those things and cost the same price just as worthwhile? Also, yes, right? So, it's a complex question to answer directly, but I think you've got to look at how it makes you feel first. And if you're, importantly, if you're going to use it for its intended use, which is writing instead of staring at, you know, you start from there, and then you kind of figure the rest out.

'''Myke:''' I think that there are things to look for, right? Like, if a pen feels good in your hands, but it's really expensive, unless it has some elements to it, too, though, right? Like, you don't want to buy it. Like, $700 steel nib pen. You're like, all right, I need to check what's going on here. You know what I mean?

'''Brad:''' You have to ask more questions. You have to ask more questions of yourself.

'''Myke:''' Because maybe there's a good reason, right? But, like, you want to confirm what's going on with that. So, there are definitely boxes you might want to tick off or things you might want to check. You know, like, how is it made? What is it made of? What are the key parts? I don't know. But, as you say, it does start with a few. This actually goes into a second question, which I think might help a bit more. Yeah. Chris, what is most important to you? One, how a pen looks. Two, how it feels in the hand. Three, how it writes. And what is, like, a combination of three? How do you rank this? For me, it is that exact order is my importance. I want to... The look has to be a thing that grabs me and draws me in the first time.

'''Myke:''' Then, when I pick it up, how does it feel comfortable for me to hold? With how it writes being last. The reason being is that's the one thing I can change.

'''Myke:''' How it writes is definitely last. Yes. For me. Because it is... That is a changeable thing. Now, I mean, I'll say, like, there's the odd occasion where somebody gives me a pen and they're like, don't just trust me. And then it can change the order, right? Then it could be like, all right, I don't like how this pen looks, but it is unbelievable to write with or whatever, right? And that was kind of like the king of pen for me where I thought it looked kind of ridiculous. And then I tried it and was like, oh my God, this is incredible. So, stuff can move around. But typically, that is my order when looking at a pen myself.

'''Brad:''' Right. And having how it writes last is definitely a luxury of experience, right? Someone with less experience, that's going to be number one because they may not have, like, the knowledge or education to go, you know what? We can change this if necessary. But why should I have to, right? So, maybe writing is number one for some people. I think writing is number three for me also. I want to say number two is first, but I don't think I can. I'm trying to get there, but I think I'm still not going to figure out how it feels unless I think it looks good first. And I'm trying to think of a situation where the feel trumped the aesthetic.

'''Brad:''' And I don't know that I can come up with a real answer off the top of my head. So, it must be that order one, two, three for me. And it's honestly, three is, I don't want to say three is insignificant because it's not. Because, like, if I have a pen that looks perfect and feels great and has a broad nib in it, I end up buying it and it gets sold. Like, I just proved that in the sale that I've made. I sold two Nakayas with broad nibs because they do not write well for me. That doesn't mean they're not perfect in looks and perfect in feel, but they're not perfect in writing. So, it does have to be down to all three. But, I guess it's looks. But, I'm trying to determine a way that it's not looks first, Myke.

'''Brad:''' I don't know.

'''Myke:''' You just don't want to be judging a book by its cover, right?

'''Brad:''' It's not even that. You know, like, my fancy pens. You know, like, my gaudy, like, ridiculous looking pens. Like, so, maybe it's just how it looks. But, like, you know, there's some great looking pens that feel terrible, too. That's important. Both of those are more important than how it writes, I guess, though. So, yeah, I guess I have to go with how it looks, then how it feels, and then how it writes. Way down the list.

'''Myke:''' Last question today comes from Match3. I accidentally dyed a fountain pen with a white grip section while refilling it. What are my options? Hashtag horror stories. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' I'm asking this question, and this is in the show notes, because I literally do not know. Most of the time, I'm going to say there's no way out of this, right? Because you're dealing with materials that are absorbent, in whichever case this pen is. It's some type of absorbent material, and to reverse that process with a fountain pen ink, and some type of either just basically water or chemical, is going to be detrimental. It just has to be. So, I am asking listeners.

'''Myke:''' To remove it in any way, you're kind of attacking it further. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, this doesn't sound like it's an exterior surface issue. Because you just clean it, wouldn't you? Yeah. Well, I don't know necessarily. It could still die. I want this question in here in case anyone has any feedback and has any experience with anything like this. I've only had some fibrous pens that I've stained, and there's just no coming back from a MyCarta stain or anything like that. There's nothing that I'm willing to do. I'm not going to bleach it or something like that. It just is what it is. But for this, maybe even if you had a more specific, tell me the pen. And if listeners have had any experience doing this, I would love to hear it. Because I don't have an answer other than I don't see how it's possible to reverse this without... And make yourself happy with the end result. Like, that's what I'm getting at. Can you get back to 100% normal? I doubt it. But we'll see. I will definitely get some feedback. So Match 3, reach out to me with some more specifics. And any listeners, let me know.

'''Myke:''' If you'd like to send out a question of your own, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. You can use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members Discord. Or you can email longer questions to hello at penaddict.com. At penaddict.com is where you'll find Brad's writing along with a talented crew of pen addicts. You can find loads of great reviews and info over there. You can go to Spokedesign.com and Noc.co to pick up Brad's wonderful products. Brad streams live three days a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. It's 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then basically straight after we finish our recording of the podcast on Wednesday. So you can go follow Brad there and you'll be notified when he goes live. You can find Brad on Instagram. He's penaddict. Dowdyism on Twitter. Brad on micro.blog. I am imike. I-M-Y-K-E. I have products of my own. Journals and notebooks over at cortexmerch.com. And please donate to St. Jude. Go to stjude.org slash relay. But don't forget we have something fun to talk about about that next week. With Brad's wonderful raffle going on. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. Thank you to our friends over at ExpressVPN, Pen Chalet, and Canalea Penco for their support of this show. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 475/transcript

2026-06-11T06:22:11Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 475
| title = Butter-Softly
| date = August 18th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/475 Episode 475]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_475.mp3 Audio Episode 475]
| length = 57
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 475. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Uni Pizza Ovens. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad:''' Hey, Myke Hurley, how are you?

'''Myke:''' I'm good, my friend. I said to you today before we started, I was a little bit sleepy today, but I've got a coffee here. I'm drinking actually today, Brad, what is called a dirty chai. Do you know what that is? I feel like you've explained this to me before. I think we may have had this conversation, maybe dirty chai is my Wednesday drink. Maybe. It is like a latte with chai tea in it.

'''Brad:''' Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So yeah, it's not just like the straight up chai.

'''Myke:''' It's not a chai latte, right? Because a chai latte is just chai tea with foamed milk kind of thing. This is like a full on, like it's already a latte and you've just added another caffeine concoction to it, which might be why I'm in a better mood now than I was 20 minutes ago. No, no, it's because me. It's because me and The Pen Addict podcast. I was talking to you because I was talking to you because I was talking to you.

'''Brad:''' That wasn't the part you were supposed to say out loud, Myke. Sorry, I got to mix up. Just keep that in your head.

'''Myke:''' Hey, Brad. Yes. What's going on with you?

'''Brad:''' That's a great question, Myke. And I wish I knew, but it's time to talk about this on the podcast because I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of weeks. That the cracked collar issue from Yovo, which I think we spoke about it maybe like in the spring time, several months ago, people were finding their Yovo nib units having, when they would go to ink their pen, they would leak. So they would unscrew the nib unit from the housing, from the grip section. And kind of the black outer piece that goes around the nib in the feed, it's called the collar, would have a crack in it and not like a small crack, like a very easily noticeable with the eye crack.

== Nibs Discussion ==

'''Myke:''' Something I noticed of Yovo nibs, which I've actually never spoken about on the show, I don't know why. I've had two Yovo nib sections, the feeds where it connects to the, like, you know, like the part on the back, I can't think of the words now, of the back of the nib, right? What is that called? Like, is that, that's not the feed, is it? So the feed is, is like the fan type of thing. Yeah. But the part that's attached to the back of the nib just snapped clean off. I've had that happen twice. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So I don't know. Just could be like a setting issue. It could just be a thing.

'''Myke:''' Like, you know, it's bad luck, but I've never had it happen with other pens. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It depends on how much those get manipulated. You can kind of loosen the feed around the collar and, you know, if you manipulate them a lot, they can wear out and things like that. But this was happening. These were like visible cracks and it was happening a lot. And to the point where Yovo actually made, it became enough of a stink that back in April, Yovo apparently created an Instagram account. It has one post saying, this is April 9th, saying that they have re-received information about defective housing. So I call it the collar, but it's really the housing, the circular part that goes around the feed. Kind of like what you're talking about. The solid, solid piece.

'''Myke:''' Was the only place they could have given this on an Instagram account? Why did they do that?

'''Brad:''' I think we're going to explore this a little bit more as we go. So just in general, not that I have an answer for you, but I think you're on to something there. It sounds to me that they're like a very old stuck in their ways type of situation, right? That now we have this new type of customer for their nibs that has a more direct and more public-facing feedback loop for products. Like this is the internet world that you and I live in, but maybe Yovo wasn't exactly ready for that.

'''Myke:''' I mean, I think you could take a lot of opinions as to whether this is right or wrong or the right way to be or the wrong way to be. But customers now are much more demanding for information from companies than they have been previously. And part of that is because it is so easy to get the information out there. You know, like I see this a lot in the keyboard hobby more than the pen hobby where like in the keyboard hobby, there seems to be this like intrinsic demand that like a demand that you have to know where something's made, like who makes it. Mm-hmm. It's being shady. And it's really strange. I mean, because this is the kind of thing that gets born out of a community. Like the community was small and now it started to grow and it had like just these ways because, you know, and I understand it because for this type of product, who makes it does actually have an impact on the quality. But people are untrusting. They will not trust a new company. And that's the thing that I find strange of like if you don't want to trust it, just don't buy it. Wait for somebody to buy it and see what they say about it. But, you know, it's just like these are the things that are – it's like a strange way that some of these communities are. But my point is that like customers now are much more demanding of information.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And so that's come out to bear here in the last few weeks, probably the last month or so, that nothing has really seemed to change since that April post from Yovo. Yovo and, you know, we have more people like speaking up and putting pressure on the brand. Although through like some of the – customers don't deal directly with Yovo, right? So Yovo has – based in Germany, they have a U.S. distributorship and then that distributor sends out the products to the makers. And then the makers sell the nibs to the customers, including us at Spoke. We are a Yovo distributor, U.S. distributor customer. And so it works backwards that way too. So the customer comes to, let's just say us, even though we haven't seen like a rash of problems, but just for, you know, consistency's sake. So the customer will come back to us saying, hey, we got this feed problem or this, you know, housing problem and it's cracked. It's like, okay, we'll send the nib back to me and then I'll replace it. Well, then now the customer's got five and then five other customers have five and then all of a sudden I can't replace all those. So I'm going to my distributor and my distributor is going, well, I'm talking with Yovo and they can't figure out the problem and that's the information I'm getting. And so we're just stuck in this loop of nothing progressing. And it finally came to a head here in like in the last couple of weeks. There's a great account on Instagram that you should follow, PermisWorld. We'll put a link in the chat. And they've been communicating recently with Yovo because they were one of the ones that sent like a video. Like they opened up all their pens and they had like double digit housing failures. Like just crack after crack after crack after crack. And, you know, trying to figure out what's going on to the point of like wanting to not, I'm not saying Permis, but I'm just saying like the groundswell was like, let's, you know, let's all switch to Bach and have all these other issues with Bach. There's a reason that everybody switched to Jowo and it's because Bach nibs were bad. Yeah. Yeah. But PermisWorld's done actually a good job of sharing their communication with Yovo. Yovo says theoretically they're going to have a message out on their wonderful one post Instagram. Their Instagram is just going to be a quarterly apology saying we haven't done anything yet. So sorry. Waiting with bated breath.

'''Myke:''' So sorry. So that's just kind of, that's all it is.

'''Brad:''' So back to your point. Back to your point is we, and I say we as consumers, that the we, we need more information, especially when we have provable consistent failures like this and we need confirmation and conversation with the manufacturer, not the makers, say me, not the distributors, but with the actual manufacturer of the product. Why does this keep happening? And the previous statements and subsequent fixes have not happened. So why are we in this situation? And we, I think, need that level of communication. We almost expect that level of communication in this modern consumer world that we live in. And I think it's fair. Like I absolutely think it's fair. But what I don't want to see is like, I know we can't all have like a direct line to Yovo. Like my customers can have a direct line to me. Right. And then my conversation is not with Yovo either. It's with my distributor. So like as bad as it sounds, like these things take time and we can't just, you know, expect a large manufacturer to jump through hoops. And I'm not excusing anything that they've done in this. But they need to do a better job, Yovo that is, of communicating with their customer base. Because this is not going away despite assurances that we're past this issue. It doesn't. The thing is about this product is you don't know when the nib that, let's just take me for example at SpokePen. I don't know when the nib that I currently have is going to make it into the hands of the customer. Like I could have a nib sitting here that might not be in someone's hands for a year and then they find out there's a problem even if I've inspected it the first. So these things, there's like a long tail failure that can happen, which keeps this in, you know, keeps it being a topic in the community. Right. So that's the challenge that Yovo has to come out and say, we can't, it's not as easy as saying it's fixed this time because of the long tail of the problem. So fortunately us in the U.S., we're lucky to have a great distributor, Meister Nibs, who has, is dealing with directly with Yovo. So I'll have some links in the show notes to Jonathan Brooks's Instagram account where he's posted Meister Nibs communication with the community. So Meister Nibs is taking it upon themselves to replace everyone's housings at no charge. You just have to get in touch with Meister Nibs. You know, that doesn't solve the failures, right? But it hopefully repairs the issues that you currently have. And the next step is to, okay, Yovo needs to step up and come clean on what has happened, why they're experiencing this level of failure, and what's going to be done to prevent it in the future. So we have some great support in this community from Jonathan Brooks and all of the makers who really rely on Yovo Nibs because they do provide the best nib platform. And they are affected negatively by this, you know, this failure of communication, not just of a structural failure of the product. You know, they're affected by customers not wanting to buy these nibs because of the stories they're hearing about them and the pictures they're seeing of all of these failures making customers go, Hey, maybe I shouldn't buy this pen or maybe I should go find someone who uses a Bach fitting. And, you know, it's a little bit scary, I think, for some of the makers out there to have this kind of groundswell of problems with something that's really out of their hands. And no one's blaming makers for this. You know, the blame lies solely on Yovo, but we as a community are not getting enough from Yovo. And that's what we all need to see. So I'm thankful for Jonathan and for Meister Nibs for kind of taking the lead and fixing the end result. But we have to fix the source. And that's what Yovo needs to step up to the plate and do.

'''Myke:''' This is one of those things that's always interesting and kind of weird to me where it's like, oh, we're having this problem. And we're not necessarily saying what it is, which honestly suggests that they may be not 100% sure how to maintain the quality because that can be difficult to do sometimes. But we'll replace them. What with? Right. Right. What are you going to replace them with? Like, we're just going to keep replacing it with the same product and hoping that you're not one of the one in X that break. Right. Yeah, like a numbers game. Yeah. I mean, I know that's kind of all you can do, but it's pretty awkward, right?

'''Brad:''' Right. And that's where the difference is, the difference in the customer dealing with the maker versus the customer dealing with the manufacturer. And, you know, so the manufacturers don't, I'm not going to say this right, but they don't have as much incentive to fix it, as bad as that sounds. Right. I mean, they do in the end, but they don't have the immediacy, the immediate incentive that, say, a maker like myself has to hopefully allow my customer.

'''Myke:''' You don't have the customer email sitting in your inbox.

'''Brad:''' Like, my customer's, yeah, my customer's going to yell at me, and I'm like, yeah, I'm with you. And Yovo's just going to go, eh, there's probably a problem. We'll look into it.

'''Myke:''' But that thing of, like, yeah, I'm with you doesn't really matter to the customer either, right? Like, I know what you're saying. I feel it. Right. Exactly. But it's, they don't, kind of don't care. Like, it is your job for them, you know, for the customer. It's your job, Brad, to fix this for them, you know?

'''Brad:''' Right. However, that gets done. I agree. Yes. So, it's now, we're beyond this point, and it's time for Yovo to do something publicly about this.

'''Myke:''' So, as far as you're aware, has the issue, have they fixed it?

== Yovo Issues ==

'''Brad:''' It's an unanswerable question, because I can sit here today as a Yovo customer through the U.S. distributor who has sold and stocks hundreds of nibs. I cannot show you one single nib with this problem.

'''Brad:''' But then I go to someone like Permis World who, on their counter right now, has 10 cracked housings. Right? It's, there's, I don't know what to say about that, right? There's a definite problem. I do not have a bad batch of those nibs today. I mean, a lot of these nibs, you know, look fine also when they leave, you know? And they're, it's happening later when, you know, maybe they're getting screwed in and out for cleaning, and then you put it back in, and like, oh, like the first time I've actually unscrewed this nib, it actually caused an additional pressure that caused this crack. And it's like, I literally have zero nibs on hand with this problem. I also haven't gone through and inspected, like, all of my personal pens that I own. Say, like, you know, a bunch of Franklin Kristoff's, or Edison's, or Brooks pens, whatever uses Yovo, which is a crap ton of pens that I own. I haven't gone through and visually inspected them. So, and I certainly wouldn't be able to track, like, a time frame. Like, you know, it's like an impossible tracking situation, but it's a definitive issue, right?

'''Myke:''' How fun.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, good times, good times. So, it's, we're at the point, like I said, I said this already, and just to put a bow on it, it's, Yovo has to step up now. So, we haven't, I don't want to say we've done everything we can do, because there's always more, but everything that needs to be done from the consumer side, the maker side, and the distributor side is happening. Now it's in the manufacturer's lap to fix this permanently.

'''Myke:''' Oh, boy.

'''Brad:''' Hey, don't worry, Myke. We got more, we got more pen failures to talk about in this episode.

'''Myke:''' My favorite. Let's talk about something a little bit better before that, then. Which is our friends over at Uni Pizza Ovens. They are the world's number one pizza oven company. They make surprisingly small ovens that are powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, or gas, letting you make restaurant-quality pizza in your very own backyard. Uni Pizza Ovens are incredibly easy to use and really portable. They're going to fit into any outside space, and they're good to move. It's like you could take it over to a friend's house if you wanted to sit outside and make pizza, that kind of thing. Uni Pizza Ovens can reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit or 500 degrees Celsius. This is what enables you to cook restaurant-quality pizza in a little 60 seconds. This is so much hotter than your home oven can produce, and that's what separates them, and that's what makes these pizzas truly special. One of Uni's most popular models is the Koda 16. This is a gas-powered oven that can cook up to 16-inch pieces and has an innovative L-shaped burner at the back, giving you even heat distribution. Uni Pizza Ovens start from just $299 of free shipping to the US, UK, and EU, with two of their fantastic models, the most popular ones, being the multi-fueled Uni Karu, which can use wood, charcoal, or gas, or the Koda 16. They also have a great app as well that you can use to help perfect your dough recipe and give you loads of pizza-making tips. Brad, can you tell our listeners about your experiences of Uni?

'''Brad:''' It is. It makes cooking fun. It's almost like the party pizza oven, even though we use it just for our family and just say, we want pizza night, we'll cook it. But if we're going to have people over, we will make it an event where everyone can make their own pizzas, top them how they wish, and then I can have 10 pizzas cooked in the span of about 15 minutes if I'm efficient at moving them in and out, which is, it just blows people's minds at how cool and efficient this thing is and how good of a job it does. So yeah, huge Uni fan here at the Pen Addict household. Can't speak highly of it enough.

'''Myke:''' Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Uni pizza oven, which could be up to $50 off an Uni Koda 16. Just go to uni.com and use the code PENADDICT0821 at checkout. When you're there, you'll also find a great range of accessories, from peels to cutters to oven tables. So many people want to make pizza at home right now, and this is the perfect tool for the job. And that explains why they are in such high demand. So don't miss out. Uni pizza ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own backyard. Go to uni.com, that's O-O-N-I.com, and use the code PENADDICT, or one word, 0821. So it's all together. That is in the show notes, too. And you'll get 10% off. A thanks to Uni Pizza Ovens for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' All right, so I heard about this next issue on Tokyo Inklings. When I was talking about them last week, I should have brought it up, but it kind of just went over my head a little bit. I kind of didn't think too much of it. And it was an issue with the Pilot Capless LS. And if you don't recall this pen, this is the Vanishing Point model with that twist mechanism on the top.

'''Myke:''' What was that thing? Like, there was like a whole thing about it, right? It was hilarious to us.

'''Brad:''' I don't remember what it was now, though. It was like the twist, twist, knock thing. Knock twist. Yeah, knock twist. Yeah, so it's the knock twist. You would knock it, then it would twist, and then you would untwist, and it would re-knock the thing. So it's that pen. And it never really gained a ton of traction, despite being really cool and very quality-made. It was two to three times the price of a traditional Vanishing Point. Right, so where the Vanishing Point, you can get for under $200. These were more like mid-$400. I don't have the prices in front of me. But it was like the only new feature was that mechanism. And it's like, you know, you have to really be like a super fan. And so when they talked about it...

'''Myke:''' The whole idea was like people want to be on the move and fast, and it's just you just instead of clicking it down, you push it around.

'''Brad:''' It was dumb. It was dumb. So that's not why I'm bringing it up. I'm bringing it up because Pilot, I'm bringing this up because I don't recall ever seeing this before. And I want listeners to remind me, if I have, or you to remind me, Myke. I don't ever remember seeing a corporation issue a recall for a pen. Like, this is like a literal recall. Like, from Pilot Corporation.

'''Myke:''' This was funny to me when I saw it, because recalls are usually like, this is going to harm you, you know? Yes. Which I doubt, well, I mean, you can tell me, but I doubt that's what's happening here.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Yeah, so like, I'm going to read, this is a really short, short little document. It says, Thank you very much for your patronage of our Pilot products. Regarding our fountain pen, Capless LS, we regret to inform you that there is a possibility to cause a malfunction in the retractable function by rusting on the internal surface of the upper barrel. Therefore, we would like to replace the concern part with a new one. If you have any questions, contact us. In addition, we regret to inform you that the timing or the replacement could be started on or around November due to the unique clicking system specifically for the Capless LS. We shall inform you again as soon as the replacement part is ready. Please accept our sincere apology for any inconveniences. So there is the new twist-twist knock mechanism that is actually failing. It's rusting, and it's causing failures. Yeah, on the internals.

'''Myke:''' That's super weird, right?

== Pilot Recall ==

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Rust? It is super weird. So, like, I was trying to rack my brain. Like, I remember the Platinum Curie-Dos, right, had a feed-cracking issue. Like, it was a clear issue. But Platinum never, like, issued an official recall. Like, it was basically said, hey, if you have this issue, we'll fix it. Just get in touch. Manage it with your retailer. And, you know...

'''Myke:''' It feels to be much more like an ad hoc thing usually, right? Like, hey, we think there might be this problem. If you have it, contact these people or contact us. But this is different to be like, hey, everyone that bought one, we want them back. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That's how I read it. I mean, obviously, you don't have to send it back or do whatever. But it's like an auto recall. Like, hey, the airbag in the passenger seat could be a failure. You should take this in. We'll repair it for free. But, like, there's a problem you need to go fix. By the way, we're not going to be ready for you until January 2022. Yeah. Is that what they're saying? It's November. November. Right.

'''Myke:''' But here's what I will say, Brad, about what I think the difference is of why you would maybe do a recall as opposed to dealing with it the other way. If you're confident that this is going to happen to a large percentage of the customer base.

'''Brad:''' Oh, yeah. This is like... This is basically... We're pretty sure this is 100%. They're all going to do this. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. And that is rough. Yeah. So, that's what the point I wanted to bring up is, like, I don't recall this level of recall. It's pretty aggressive. Like, it's wild. And, you know, I don't know how many of these they sold. Or, you know, it's obviously, like, in Japan, you know, the customers will have an easier time replacing this. They can probably go through a lot of stores with Pilot Relationships and have this done. But it sounds like you got to send off your pen and get it fixed. So, interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. So, I thought that was worth discussing a little bit further, even though I kind of glossed over it at first.

'''Myke:''' Rust in a fountain pen. That's a new one for me. Rust. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think so. Also, like, it shows it must be real bad because these pens aren't even a year old yet. If they're rusting already, that doesn't seem like it was going very well, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a little interesting because, like, you know, people, like, this was an ultra premium pen. Mm-hmm. So, it was interesting. But that's why I wanted to bring it up.

'''Myke:''' Tony is saying in the Discord, all two people who actually bought one will be very disappointed.

'''Brad:''' I mean, unlike a lot of times, he's not wrong in this case. I don't know how well they sold. Like, it's a cool idea, but it's really expensive. It's like, just go over here. All right. I want to talk about some new products. We brought up Kaweco last week for not some great things, and we might actually revisit that later in the show if we have time. But Kaweco, to assuage the flood of bad PR, they've released their upcoming summertime releases, and they have a very interesting product, Myke. And they're calling this the Kaweco Premium Nib.

'''Brad:''' And my eyes and ears perked up the moment I saw this email come in from Kaweco. I'm going to read this a little bit. The shiny premium nib for a delicate writing feeling. Those who focus on writing comfort and not on the material gold can now enjoy the unique writing pleasure of a gold nib with the Kaweco Premium Steel Nib. Apart from its beautiful sun-shaped engraving, the larger iridium grain offers you perfect writing behavior. Due to the hand-finished inner edge rounding, the nib glides smoothly and butter softly over the paper.

'''Myke:''' Butter softly?

'''Brad:''' Butter softly.

'''Myke:''' That's what we're saying now? Butter softly.

'''Brad:''' Butter. Butter softly. Butter softly. Okay. So, I have all kinds of questions here, as you can imagine. So, this is a steel Kaweco Nib, which we're all very familiar with, that has new engraving. This is me.

'''Myke:''' It's much of smooth. Okay. All right? Not softly.

'''Brad:''' It has new engravings on the top of the nib.

'''Brad:''' It has more tipping to allow for butter softness. And they will charge you accordingly, which is 35 euros for a nib unit. What does that translate into? America dollars. $40. So, for the privilege of new nib stamping and a larger iridium blob on the end of it, it's $40, where their replacement nibs were probably like around 20. Mm-hmm. And, or 25, I don't even know. Not that expensive for a nib. Oh, excuse me, Myke. $11.50. $11.00. So, for the privilege of a new stamping and a new tipping, $40 versus $12, let's call it. And I don't know what is why. Why? Why? I don't know what is why. I don't know what's happening here. What are they trying to tell me here? Is that their regular steel nibs aren't good enough and you need a premium nib? Or are they saying our gold nibs are too expensive? So, we're going to give you this faux writing experience with the tipping to make it act like a gold nib pen because you can't afford our $150 gold nib pens. I am super confused at why someone would purchase this nib over their standard replacement nibs. That's all I have to say. I don't, I don't, I, it really caught me off guard. I'm like, you're trying to sell me a premium steel nib for almost four times what you sell your current replacement steel nib for. And what I get for it is a new stamping design and larger and buttery softness because you're telling me the other nibs aren't buttery soft enough. So, anyway, that was, look for, look for very expensive Kaweco premium nibs soon. I will say they do have black ones. So, they're going to have like the steel rhodium plated, the gold plated, and then they're going to have the black plated ones. So, it's fine. But, anyway, moving on. The new Kaweco collection color mic. Let's hope they get the stamping right on these. You remember the original, the lavender one that they put the wrong stamping on. So, the new Kaweco collection. It's dark olive. It's a very pretty dark olive with the gold trim. I'm assuming this does not come with a premium nib on it. This is going to be a whole problem for me is do the new collections come with the standard nibs? Of course, of course, they're going to come with the standard nibs because then they cannot upgrade you 40 more dollars for a nib that they can sell for you separately. But, I digress. So, that one's coming soon. What I thought was interesting, and I might have missed this earlier, or maybe I mentioned it and I forgot that I mentioned it because I am old. But, I think it's really smart. For that pen barrel, you know, in that $15 to $20 range, maybe even less than $15, I don't have them pulled up. To have a rollerball in that same vein, like the Lamy Safari makes the entry-level pen have the fountain pen, the rollerball, the ballpoint, and the pencil. Is the Perkyo going to be that platform for Kaweco? I would be all for it. The new Perkyos look great. You know, they have like teal and green, and they're going to be nice. So, I will be very anxious to get one of the new rollerballs in hand. So, that's pretty much it. I just wanted to mention they have a bunch of new things coming up. They have one more random thing. This isn't, I don't think it's as egregious as the nib itself, and I didn't link this in the show notes, so you're not going to look at it. So, Kaweco does a product called the SketchUp, which is their like 5.6 millimeter clutch pencil, right? It's the short stubby with the wide graphite cords. It's their kind of drawing sketch pencil. They're now selling that setup, but with an eraser instead of the lead. So, you can get actually like a brass barrel Kaweco SketchUp with an eraser in it, which is pretty well. It looks really cool. But it's actually, that whole piece is only 30 euros, so less than the new premium nib, a brass barrel eraser. So, that's a whole thing. And they're coming out with a new student in jazz. You know, that popular full-sized, I think you liked the shape of them. Yeah, I like the colors. The red and the colors. Yeah, they're doing a red and a brown edition of that. So, anyway, that was Kaweco's new PR push in the email, but it was really about these nibs.

'''Myke:''' I'm intrigued to see what people say about the nibs. I mean, I've never had a problem with Kaweco nibs. I've always liked them. Yeah. But, like, I don't really know what makes these premium, especially at $35.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm missing something.

== Kaweco Steel Pen ==

'''Myke:''' Because it's buttery softly.

'''Brad:''' We'll see. They have all new packaging. Like, I didn't send you the full link to the Dropbox, because I didn't want, I probably shouldn't share that. But, like, I'm in, you know, like, the PR Dropbox has, like, all, everything has, like, new packaging designs. They're super clean, super nice. Like, Kaweco's always done a great job visually and graphically, and the products have always been great. I'm just wondering, as I'm fond to say, what story are they trying to tell me with these nibs? And I don't know.

'''Myke:''' All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Squarespace, the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace has you covered. They combine cutting-edge design with world-class engineering to make it easier than ever to establish your home online and make your ideas a reality. You can use Squarespace to turn your next big idea into a new website. Give it that home online for people to come to. You can showcase your work with their incredible portfolio designs, publish your next blog post, promote your business, announce an upcoming event, and so much more. And they make it so easy to create a beautiful and modern website because they give you all of these tools. You start with a beautiful template that is optimized for mobile, so it's going to look great on every single type of device that is coming to your site. And you can use drag-and-drop tools to customize it and make it your own. Really get the look, the feel, the settings, even the products that you have on sale all done in just a few clicks. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support. They have unlimited hosting, top-of-the-line security, dependable resources, and there's nothing to patch or upgrade. They take care of all of that for you. You can grab a domain name really easily and also take advantage of SEO and email marketing tools. Squarespace really is the full package for somebody looking to put something online. It's why I've been using them for so many years. Go to squarespace.com slash penaddict and you'll get a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict and you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and support the show. So squarespace.com slash penaddict and then when you decide to sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. A thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I've gotten a lot of email this week about a particular product that is not for your fountain pen usage, Myke. And I want to be very clear. So good friend of the show, Stuart Simple. Just kidding. I have followed the Stuart Simple lifestyle for a while. Long story short, just Google Vantablack and you will find everything you need about why I enjoy Stuart Simple's work.

'''Brad:''' And without getting into the entire Vantablack story, he has built a brand going on the anti-Vantablack bandwagon. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just seriously Google it. It's worth your time. It's a great read. So Stuart's always coming up with new colors, new inks, new properties, new paint.

'''Brad:''' He's really leaned into this part of his life as an artist. He's now more of a color maker. So the latest is an item called Blink, the blackest black ink. He puts it in a very fountain pen ink style bottle or nail polish style bottle, which they're practically one in the same. And under no circumstances ever should you put this in your fountain pens. So hopefully that wards off some of the emails saying, hey, I saw this. Can we use it in fountain pens? The answer is no. This is like an India ink, right? This is an artist ink. This is for dip nibs. This is for brushes. This is for any type of external application. You do not want this ink anywhere on any internals that it could ruin or destroy. He does not come out and clearly say this, which I wish he would. But this is what this is. The chat is making me laugh. Pixel is saying, well, not with that attitude, Brad. You're not going to be able to use it in a fountain pen. I had to see that and stop. That was very funny. Feel free. I would probably choose the Visionaire if you ever did decide to use this ink in a fountain pen. Because this is the same idea, right? This is an artist ink. It's basically a very aggressively black dark ink like an India ink. And it should only be used with external writing implements like dip nibs and brushes. And anything else besides a fountain pen. So there you go. I do wish there would be a caveat on the page. Because by no way is it marketing like that. But it's not not marketing like that either, right? So I would like a few words saying, hey, don't stick this inside of a fountain pen.

'''Brad:''' Don't do it, Myke. I know you have a Visionaire. You should use it for your Visionaire.

'''Myke:''' So Brad has told you what he has told you. Don't listen to anything I'm going to say. Has anyone? Has anyone?

'''Myke:''' Not that I know of. I'm sure someone will. Someone should. Yeah. Just to know.

'''Brad:''' Well, yeah. You can do it. And it will be like a quick failure. And then you'll clean it out. It's not going to flow through there. Right. And if you leave it more than like the hour you have that you're messing around with it, it's going to start eating the parts.

'''Myke:''' It's going to be bad news. I mean, this is a dip nib product, right? Yes. Hey, you know what? We can all buy it for our drillugs.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. That's exactly right. So we'll have to look at it for that.

== Review Challenges ==

'''Myke:''' That's actually a pretty fun thought because it's like, oh, what would I use the drill log for? Well, I could use it for this.

'''Brad:''' Like I have some of his inks just sitting here, the paints like that I'm never going to use, but I've always supported him because I think it's really, really smart what he's doing. And I'm really anti-Vantablack like he is or the concept of what they did with Vantablack. And I like to support him for that. I just don't want people putting Blink in their fountain pens.

'''Brad:''' So we'll drill log it and then we'll go from there.

'''Myke:''' You posted a review of the Narwhal original. This is something that came up on an RSTPA recently. If somebody had asked you if you ever tried out Narwhal pens, because they seem to be pretty good prices for pretty good quality products. And you said you hadn't and you wanted to rectify it, even though other people in the kind of the pen act temp I had tried them before. And I think I could probably sum up this entire review for you, which is does a good job. Yeah, it's good.

'''Brad:''' Like the end. That's what I wrote about. I wrote about the challenge of reviewing a good pen, not a bad pen or not a pen with a flaw or not a great pen that is changing the way I think about pens or think about using pens or would make a difference in someone starting with pens. It's just all around good. It's completely fine. It's really fairly priced. It has a piston filling mechanism, which is honestly, if it didn't have that, it wouldn't be that special. It's got a good nib made in-house. It's like there wasn't a lot to say about it because there was nothing bad to say and there was nothing outstanding to say. It's just good. It's well priced. It's solidly built. It feels good. I think if you bought it, you would like it. It's not transcendent. And is it fair for me to want every product I have to be game-changing or game-destroying if it's terrible? And of course not. Like sometimes products are just good. And that's where this one lands. Now, the question you asked me in the document is, could this pen be good enough to make it into the top five under $50?

'''Myke:''' Yep.

'''Brad:''' Right now, no. Why? Because I think it's not as... Trying to answer the question of what people are looking for in a fountain pen under $50 leads me towards this is going to be their first dalliance with a fountain pen. And therefore, I'm a little more risk-averse in the recommendations. A lot of cartridge fillers or a lot of more rock-solid piston fillers for much less money to get into. Because you've got TWSBI Eco on there. Right. So I have the TWSBI Eco on there, but it's less than $30. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you made my point. I would put this on the one-to-watch list, right, if I had such a list. Like, it could be, eventually. I think it's going to price itself out of the... Like, this one is exactly $50. They have other models that are like $60. So I think $50 is going to be the base for them. I actually think they're going to be in the next tier, which is a weird tier, which actually they have a better chance of, like, meeting those expectations in that $50 to $100 tier. And they're definitely in the one-to-watch phase because I think they're going to be working with some other people. And, like, we've started to see them do, like, some diamond cast material and doing some different materials for their pens instead of the base acrylics. And then still having the piston filling mechanisms. They don't have a lot of nib options right now. So I think that holds them back. You can get finer, medium. That's it. So if you're good with those, you know, great. Knock yourself out. But I would like to see the full range of what a stock, you know, nib setup would be from extra fine to broad. And even maybe a stub. But I wouldn't even count that at first. That's always, like, a second or third tier thing. So Narwhal is good. I don't know if they'll cross that great threshold. And they don't have to, right? I don't know that I'd say Twisby is great. I think they're better. If you're asking me personally one-to-one, I'm going to take the Twisby 580 over the Narwhal every time. But I've also had how many years of experience with the Twisby, right? So Narwhal is on the one-to-watch list. I will continue to watch what they do. I will continue to try out new models as they come out and see if they broaden their horizons on their nibs. They make their own nibs. So I'd be interested to see are there going to be other options for that in the future. And then we'll go from there. Like, it's still a pretty new brand, right? They've only been around for, what, a year or two? So people who use them like them. And, like, that's the best praise you can give, I think, right? People who have tried them out and tested them say, oh, yeah, it's good. I like it. So that's good enough for me right now. And it's not more than that.

'''Myke:''' Fair enough. All right. We have a couple of RSTPAs we want to do. One is like a follow-up, and there's two that are connected, and they're time-sensitive. So we're going to knock those out today before we finish.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' First comes from Ed. So this is a bit of text here, so I'll get through it. So I just listened to the latest episode and was happy to hear a couple of intellectual property issues come up.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, boy.

== Stipulonetto Ink Patent ==

'''Myke:''' The first had to do with the mysterious Stipulonetto ink wall. Since they claim it is patented, I went and found the patent. It's in Italian, but Google Translate seems to do the trick. I'll put a link in the show notes in case, I don't know, you want to find the patent for yourself.

'''Brad:''' But right away, we know we're not dealing with a normal human being right here.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''Brad:''' We're in it now. Ed's like a real hero right here.

'''Myke:''' Uh-huh. Here's how it works. We've referenced one of the patent figures. There is an internal tube, and the bottom of the tube is immersed in ink. The tube has grooves inside the tube wall, which draws the ink up from the bottom to the top, where the nib is then inserted. The pen's section contacts a rubber ring around the mouth of the ink wall, which is labeled 7 in the figure. So when you then draw back the plunger of the pen's filling mechanism, there is a seal at the top, and it draws ink up from the bottom of the ink wall. The ink passes the grooves inside the wall of the tube and comes out of the tube to fill the nib's reservoir. Basically, rather than having an ink miser arrangement where you have to turn the ink bottle upside down, this will let you draw ink into the special nib reservoir using just the suction from the pen's own filling mechanism. Then the bottle's cap seals the nib reservoir so you only ever have that small amount of ink exposed. The big advantage over the ink miser setup seems to be that the pen's section wouldn't touch ink, so it won't get messy. I hope that was clear. That was clear, and I actually think this is a pretty clever product. Is it $250 clever, Myke? No, because it's not that much of a problem for me, but I do think it's smart.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I get it. I didn't know that this was a thing. I didn't know this was a thing that we needed. Apparently, we don't. But this is basically allowing you to fill your pen and keep the section above the ink is the short version of the way I read this. And it's really wild that someone designed this, and it's kind of cool. Like, I have no intention of getting one, even at 50% off, but I wouldn't be opposed to someone else doing it. Let me know how it goes for you, just because I'm not going to keep, like, a bottle specifically for that. But I'm kind of intrigued with the explanation that Ed gave. I still don't technically know how it works, but I get that there's, like, some sealing off. And it's basically drawing the ink up through the nib and feed without sealing off the section completely or dipping the section, like, below oxygen level to really seal that off. So, yeah, cool. I think it's cool. When I saw this email, like, the image popped up in there. I'm like, oh, my gosh. What is happening here? Then I read it, and I was like, Ed, you are my hero. So, it was really, really good. So, thank you for doing this, Ed. I'm fascinated. I'm going to look at this picture a little bit more. But I had to read the description a couple of times to get it, but I think I've got it. And, yeah, it's wild. So, I'm glad we have these type of listeners that go, oh, yeah, I know how to go get the patent for the thing in Italy. Yeah, I'm in.

'''Myke:''' Love it. All right, but there's more, though. There's more. We're not done. The other thing that was discussed was the Kaweco whole situation, that IP thing. I was the IP lawyer whose Reddit comment Tokyo Inklings read out in their podcast. There you go. It is a ridiculous mess, and I think the only thing keeping Kaweco from serious legal trouble is the fact that the Chinese companies don't care enough to fight them on it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, obviously, I don't know enough about this in relation to Ed, but after listening to the Tokyo Inklings and thinking about it and discussing it here, there's – I'm failing to see any benefit to Kaweco from, at minimum, a public perception perspective, right? They're obviously looking at it differently because they're looking at a business slash bottom line perspective. And that's maybe not wrong of them to look at, but it also puts a certain PR stamp on it publicly. Hopefully, that may end in a different result than they think it might, and is it worth it to continue?

'''Myke:''' Yeah, and I think if I'm reading it right, it's like they're trying to say that they have an intellectual property claim that they probably don't, and if somebody fights them on it, they could end up losing big time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, I thought it was interesting, and Ed is now our go-to IP lawyer for the Pen Addict. Official IP lawyer of the Pen Addict. Welcome, Ed.

'''Myke:''' We now have an IP person.

'''Brad:''' He's on the pretend payroll that we also have.

'''Myke:''' All right, two last questions. Kyle says, as a new Pen Addict who has only used a couple of pens and never been to a pen show, what should I expect, and how should I prepare for the 2021 San Francisco Pen Show?

'''Brad:''' Love it. Love this question. There's always some great content around the Internet. We'll put a couple of links into the show notes. One recently by our friend Myke at Ink Dependence did a video called How to Pen Show, and it's really great, and it's really current, especially in the new COVID times. Like, I know San Francisco is under some different restrictions, and their masks are going to be mandatory. I don't know what else is going to be mandatory for the show.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, we actually, like, preparing for a pen show right now is not what it was like to prepare for a pen show before, and honestly, we both are a little bit lost, because neither of us have been to one or are going to one. So it's slightly different at the moment than it has been in the past.

'''Brad:''' Right. So you should also read the recaps from the DC Pen Show from the Gentleman Stationer from Kimberly at the Pen Addict, and then Myke also did a, Ink Dependence Myke also did a walkthrough, live walkthrough, and there's a couple other things. So we'll put, I'll get those links for the show notes, but in short, in short, Kyle, you should go with the expectation to browse. Right? You know, have a list of things you want to check out, not necessarily purchase, but, you know, I haven't seen a vanishing point. Let me see how that feels in my hand and how the knock clicks, and would I enjoy the clip being in that particular spot. You know, how does a Leonardo grip section feel in my hand? You know, these are the type of things you should be thinking about, you know, what you personally are trying to accomplish with, like, your own writing or your own fountain pens. You know, how does this paper handle pens? Like, you'll see some people selling paper, they'll have a sample book out, and you can see, like, oh, does this handle these inks well? So, what I really implore you to do is browse a lot. Don't go in there, like, have to buy all the things. Don't go in there seeing, oh, my gosh, this is overwhelming. Go slow. Look. Ask questions. Touch things that you can. I know we're in a little bit different COVID times. There might be some different rules there. But go in with more of a list of questions that you want to try to answer for yourself as opposed to a shopping list, if that makes sense. And that's kind of how I would approach it being new. Really, really, I implore you to just take it slow because it can be overwhelming.

'''Myke:''' And as my wife, Adina, is pointing out in the Discord, quite rightly so, we did do an episode about going to your first pen show, which I'll also put a link to in the show notes. But again, just bear in mind, as Brad said, there are different things. So, like, maybe, like, we have our basics and then add in some of the other stuff now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, and Adina's was the San Francisco show, right? Yeah. Like, that was the show we referred to in the podcast. So, even though, yes, it will be very different setup-wise, the ideas will be great. It's great perspective from Adina not having experienced that before and then coming and talking about it.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm. And the last question that we have today comes from Judica, who asks, do you have a way to calculate how much ink you'll need on a trip based on the amount of writing that you expect? I'm hoping to not bring quite so many pens on my trip this time.

'''Brad:''' So, I kind of have an answer for this, and it's probably not going to be the answer you're looking for. I will at least bring one pen that takes cartridges and bring extra cartridges.

'''Brad:''' So, if I'm going to go on a trip and I have my awesome piston fillers or my converters filled with ink in bottles that I don't want to carry around, I'll make sure they're full. And then I will have one pen that I only use cartridges with, and therefore, I can pack extra cartridges for that particular pen. So, I end up taking less pens that way. I try to take less pens in general because I always end up writing less than I need, unless I know I'm doing something specific that's going to take a lot of writing. So, take your favorites, ink them up completely, then make sure you have a really enjoyable pen that takes a cartridge and pack extra cartridges for that. That's my tip.

'''Myke:''' That's a very good tip.

'''Myke:''' Do you do this?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I always take, like, the Pilot Vanishing Point would always be that pen for me. Right. So, I would bring, like, three or four pens, and they're all inked and ready to go with my green ink or my orange ink or my purple ink. And then I'll have a Vanishing Point with a Pilot Blue-Black cartridge and then take, like, two extra Pilot Blue-Black cartridges. And that's it. Like, I would never worry. And, of course, I would never, never once have I popped in one of those cartridges because I've written so much. But that covered me. That kept me from worrying about having, oh, do I need to bring this ink because I'm going to run out? I just wouldn't worry about it. I would use what I had, and then if it got extreme enough, I would pop in a new cartridge in a pen that I enjoyed with an ink cartridge that I enjoyed.

'''Myke:''' Nice. Mm-hmm. Very nice. All right. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag RSTPA. You can use question mark RSTPA in the RelayFM members' Discord or email them to hello at penaddict.com. At penaddict.com, the website is where you can find Brad's work along with many other talented pen aficionados and writers. You can go to knock.co and spokedesign.com for Brad's products. And you can also catch Brad on Twitch. It's twitch.tv slash penaddict. Brad streams multiple times a week. Do you have a schedule right now, Brad, or are you like?

'''Brad:''' I do. I do. Tuesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern, usually until about noon, so about two hours each stream. And then Wednesday after we record the podcast, as long as the podcast is on a normal schedule, I will go around between 11.30 and noon Eastern time on Wednesday. So it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

'''Myke:''' Nice. Very nice. You can find Brad on Twitter. He is at dowdyism. He's penaddict on Instagram. And Brad on micro.blog. I am iMike. I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much to Squarespace and Ooni Pizza Ovens for their support of this week's episode. And of course, to you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]

The Pen Addict 474/transcript

2026-06-11T06:21:41Z

Memm: fixed speakers

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name = The Pen Addict
| number = 474
| title = Grippier Grips
| date = August 11th, 2021
| hosts = [[Brad Dowdy]] 
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests =
| link = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/474 Episode 474]
| audiolink = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_474.mp3 Audio Episode 474]
| length = 54
}}

'''Myke:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 474, and today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

== Episode Introduction ==

'''Brad:''' Welcome back, Myke Hurley. I've been on 474 episodes. How many have you been on?

'''Myke:''' Maybe like 460, maybe 455, something like that. Have you been on all? Yeah, you've been on all of them, right? But you haven't skipped any. I don't think there's been any episode where you've not been around.

'''Brad:''' Like we've taken weeks off, right? We've had a gap in a week, like at the end of the year, you know, holiday type of stuff, which we rarely do.

'''Myke:''' This show isn't called The Myke Show, is it? It's The Pen Addict. It's you. So, you know, what am I supposed to do?

'''Brad:''' You know, what are we going to do about that? I've actually never literally thought about that.

'''Myke:''' So if you're not here, then what's the point, right?

'''Brad:''' 474 times that I've never actually thought about that.

'''Myke:''' The branding is one and the same at this point. It's our very unique relationship that we have here.

== Guest Mention ==

'''Brad:''' So you were gone last week. I brought in an amazing guest, the Nib Doctor herself, Audrey Madison.

'''Myke:''' That was an all-time guest episode, I think. I thoroughly enjoyed that episode. So I would also like to extend my thanks to Audrey for filling in for me last week. And, you know, in many ways, as some of our best guests do, doing a better job than I can.

'''Brad:''' I feel great about how that episode went. I'm glad you said that. We got a lot of great feedback from the community. Everyone really, really enjoyed my conversation with Audrey because she's awesome. And it was really, really good to just like, it was one of those conversations where we basically, we would kind of have mostly the same conversation if we were just sitting around hanging out. I mean, obviously, you know, I had to direct, you know, a little bit, hey, tell me about the Franklin Christophe Nib thing and how did that go? But in general, our conversation was just like our conversation that we would normally have. Luckily, I've known Audrey for years and it was easy to do. And it was just fantastic. So I'm very, very glad that she joined us last week and I'm glad you are not here.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I honestly, I hope that she'll come back on the show at another point because I feel like you two could have gone into even more detail if time would have allowed, you know?

'''Brad:''' Yep. You might have caught, I don't doubt you listened to any of the after edit, but as soon as like we stopped the show show, I said, we could have done three more hours on completely new topics. And she was like, I know. So yeah, that's exactly how it went. So good. Glad, glad you liked it. Um, what's, what's been your stationary status, you know, the last couple of weeks, I feel even when I have like a week off from talking to you about pens, I don't know what your like pen and paper status is like, where are you at in like using things? What's, what's tickling your fancy mate?

'''Myke:''' Uh, well, I don't really, I took some stuff with me, but I didn't really use any of it. Like for me, stationary for me typically is I'm, I use it when I'm working. If I'm not working, it doesn't get used, you know? So when I was traveling, I was in Romania last week visiting family. Uh, I didn't really use too much. Uh, since I came back, I mean, I'm working on a new product for Cortex Brown right now. And I have prototypes of that. So I'm super jazzed about that, but I'm not going to say anything more. Um, I have been really digging still the pen addict to Johto pen.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. First batches in, in people's hands now. And, uh, they're, they're loving it. I'm loving it. I, I love, I love the texture on that thing. It feels really cool. I'm enjoying using it and we'll have a lot more in the October timeframe for those of you who are still looking. I'm good. I'm glad you still like that.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I'm still really digging it. Um, and the, I got my blue Mark one as well. Oh yeah. Nice. Which is also super good. And it took me days to realize, uh, that they put a blue refill in it. I just, you just didn't really pay attention to it. I don't know why. And it was the right call.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Schmidt blue is pretty dark. Like exactly.

'''Myke:''' Maybe, you know, I just, I don't expect it. I like the Schmidt blue, but it's just harder to find. So I tend to just end up with the black one. Uh, they do a bunch of colors, but it's just really people only tend to want the black one. Uh, but I liked it. I liked that, uh, addition. So yeah, I've been using those and, uh, just like partnering around and nothing too special going on right now.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I still like the black Schmidt refill a Johto at one point with a previous order of mine. They sent me one of each of the colors, which is the standard, um, black, blue, red, green, um, rollerball refills. And I have like, I have the blue in one pen, but I really just stick with the black and then the red and green are just kind of laying around just because I wouldn't use them that much. Like the pen would be too nice for me to put a refill in it that I'm not going to use. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I've been using like one of the things I wanted to do since I hadn't talked to you in two weeks is like, what are the things that I've been using recently? Even if we've, we've talked about them before. And I have a couple of things. Um, one that I'm actually using right now, as we're talking, that we're going to talk about later in the show. So I'll hold it to then, but I've got some new spoke stuff that I teased on Twitch that we'll be bringing out weeks, weeks away, maybe by the end of the month. If we're lucky. Um, but the icon, the fountain pen barrel, the modular barrel, we got some new barrel colors. We have brass inserts for that. Myke, we have a brass sleeve and a brass grip section. Oh yeah. And it feels good. I'm, I've, I've got that right here as well. I'm using that. Is they available for sale? They will be in like about three weeks or so. Right. You've got to, so we've got some finishing, finishing up to do, but, um, and then we have some grip sections that have, um, like grooves. You know, for better grip. Cause the, the previous, like the, just the anodized grips are pretty slick. Right. Yeah. So people were wanting some grippier grips. So we have those, we have titanium parts in, um, lots of new barrel color. So it's going to be fun. So I've been using that, um, pin I made a, so you will like this one. It's like a British racing green icon barrel with a brass sleeve and a brass grip. It's, it's pretty slick. I'm not going to lie. I do like the sound of that. I know it's my own thing, but like, I really like it. It's really good. I'm happy with it. Um, on top of that, oddly enough, well, not oddly, if you know me and I, I guess you said it, this is my show. My name's in it. Um, the Pentel carry mechanical pencil, the one that caps that I about once a year, I just fawn over publicly, even though I use it kind of all the time, but I always get like a bug to talk about the carry because it's still just an extremely underrated mechanical pencil. And I have an orange one that was a special edition that I bought from you, Seiko stationary, and it just sits on my desk. And I've been using my planner, um, using it, uh, in conjunction with whichever pen I've chosen for the week, which happened to be this spoke pen and this orange, um, Pentel carry. And I just love that combination. I love the idea of that pencil. I love having my planner, which that's also in the, what I'm using phase. I'm, I'm digging the hourly layout that I have. So I like, I'll write that part in pen, which I'll have like a pen of the week and write out my whole week in the schedule. And then I'll use the pencil for a lot of notes and a lot of, you know, the arrow going here and the scratching out going there.

'''Myke:''' So you're still really digging that, huh?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. That's been a good setup. I'm still, I am going to look at new planners. We'll probably do a whole planner show like in the next month or so, because Hobonichi is going to launch before the end of the month, I think. And I just want to see what kind of layouts are out there. I found one layout like this William Hanna that I like. I just, not that I want to switch out of the William Hanna, but I just want to see what my options are now that I've changed how I do a planner setup. So we'll do a larger episode on that coming soon.

'''Myke:''' Do you think the Hobonichi is going to still be using the paper? What is it called? Oh my God.

== Planner Discussion ==

'''Brad:''' Tomoe River paper. That's a great question, Myke. And we're going to cover that later. I'm going to type this in. And so we don't get too sidetracked. I'm going to type this in right here. It's being added to our show notes as we speak. Yeah, because I actually have some commentary on that from our good friends at Tokyo Inkling. Spoiler alert, I'm going to be talking about that podcast momentarily. And that's one of the topics we will discuss. On top of that, my Nakaya Decapod. That's kind of the move. The Midori Tamanuri with the extra fine, slightly flexy nib and the Bungu Box Imperial Purple Ink. I've written a bunch of pages in what I have listed here as redacted in the sheet. So I have basically two notebooks going. One of them I can't talk about yet. Another couple weeks, maybe another few weeks. I'll get to talk about that. So embargo, one embargo busted, which we're going to talk about later in the show, the Estherbrook JR Pocket Paradise. That was one of my embargoes. I got to finally came clear on the date. And then this next one we will talk about in a few weeks. So I am excited to talk about it. It's a product I'm using very actively. And I think you will find it very interesting. Do I know anything about this? Absolutely nothing.

'''Myke:''' When will I know something about this?

'''Brad:''' About three weeks, maybe.

'''Myke:''' That's a shame. Hmm.

'''Brad:''' Hmm. It's unfortunate for you. It's not for me because I'm getting to enjoy it.

'''Myke:''' Hmm.

'''Brad:''' Hmm.

'''Brad:''' Hmm. Hmm. So yeah, that's the stuff I'm using. Oh, one other thing. With my planner, this whole planner, everything's driven by my planner as far as like the things I'm using the most. So I'll pick usually a fountain pen, sometimes my Ajoado to be like the quote pen of the week, right? That's where all the planning gets done with this pen. And then I'll have the pencil. And, you know, I've used a Pentel graph, which I've reviewed recently. I'm using the Pentel carry right now. I'm using the Pentel Fitline highlighter still, the one with the interesting tip that moves, bends, question mark. And I'm really a big fan, Myke. I haven't done it yet. I haven't done my ruler roundup yet, Myke. But the Traveler's Brass Ruler is the one I reach for every time. So Ruler Mafia is not going to be happy with me that I'm not going to use one of the hinge rulers. I haven't got a ruler.

'''Myke:''' Like nobody recommended a ruler for me. Like I think Rosemary Orchard recommended one that I like, but it was out of stock everywhere. Outside of that, I got nothing. Remember, what I'm looking for, in case you know and forgot, 30 centimeters, nice. That's all. That's my two. The two things I want, 30 centimeters and nice. I want a premium ruler. I don't just necessarily want a plastic ruler. What I really want is a 30 centimeter version of the Brassing Ruler from Y Studio. But they don't make it. Yeah. God, that's a good looking ruler.

'''Brad:''' Maybe we can talk them into making that. That would be good.

'''Myke:''' Maybe you can.

'''Brad:''' I'll work on that. I know people.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I would be in. That would be the ruler. I'm with you. Give me that Brassing Ruler in 30 centimeters. Yet, that would be a nice alternative to my 15 centimeter skinny brass traveler's ruler. So.

'''Myke:''' I have started to get into the mindset that I'm sure you are in sometimes now because of where you are in your life, which is ultimately, I think, quite a dangerous one, which is, well, I could just make it.

'''Myke:''' Right. I don't want to. I'm not saying anything.

'''Brad:''' I'm not saying anything because I may or may not have seen like 3D printed things of things I discuss.

'''Myke:''' So, you know.

'''Brad:''' I don't want to make a ruler.

'''Myke:''' Right? Like, that's not. Well, at least not right now. That's not going to be a bestseller.

'''Brad:''' No. That would not be the bestseller. We're not going to call that one the bestseller. But I have.

'''Myke:''' It's just that once you've got into a point where like, like, we're kind of where I'm starting to move towards a way you kind of are, where like you have experience with product manufacturer. You've ended up getting into a point, which I am now, where it's like, I have 2.5 products that I have dreamt up because I want them and now they exist. So, it's kind of like, well, can't I just do it? No, I'm not going to make a ruler.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I have ruler prototypes floating around and that's not why I'm talking about them. Just because, hey, I'm setting y'all up to drop a ruler on you later. It's just that, oh, by the way, you know.

'''Myke:''' Let me tell you the exact reason I never would want to make a ruler. That thing has to be perfectly straight.

'''Brad:''' You don't trust yourself or your manufacturers?

'''Myke:''' I just, with all of the issues I've had with various manufacturing processes over the last couple of years, I do not trust that.

'''Brad:''' I bought a wood scale once, like, you know, the triangular scale. Yeah. And I, like, literally used, I ran, like, a pen or a pencil across it one time and just threw it out. Yeah. Because it was crooked. It's like, how do you make something like this? Crooked or there's a little chip in it. It's, like, wavy.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it's, like, wavy. Or you haven't measured the millimeters correctly. You know?

'''Brad:''' You do have to be very correct.

'''Myke:''' This is the thing, which is a precision tool. Uh, I have not gotten to the part in my manufacturing experience where, like, guaranteeing precision is something that I feel like I can do. So, that's not gonna happen. You mean, you're not taking it? But why studio? You should do it for me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, why studio should do it? You're not taking, uh, you're not taking your creations over to, like, the Lord's measuring scales and of officialness to verify their spacing.

'''Myke:''' Go to, like, the kilogram, you know? Yeah, exactly. Measure against the kilogram. Mm-hmm. This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Pen Chalet. You know, Pen Chalet do make guarantees, by the way. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their high-quality pens because they want you to be happy with what you buy there. And they have everything you're looking for from all of your favorite brands. Whether you want a new fountain pen or you're looking for a mechanical pencil. Maybe you want to buy somebody in your life a ballpoint pen or a rollerball. Doesn't matter what you're looking for. They've got it. They also have a ton of accessories. They have ink. They have carrying cases, pen holders, refills. And they have so many brands. Like, I have a list here of what would be the favorite brands. You know, brands like Pelican and Lamy and Pilot. But you can just go to Pen Chalet now and you just click that button at the top. This is brands. And that page just goes on and on. They have Y Studio products. They have Rickshaw products. They have Parker products. Colorverse, Clairefontaine, Caran D'Ache, Estabrook, Lamy, Namiki, Pelican. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on. So many products. So many things from all of your favorite brands. And that's one of the reasons why I love Pen Chalet. Because also, they have fantastic prices on those products. They're always doing discounts. They have specials. They have extra secret specials for pen addict listeners. And they do great shipping. They do great shipping prices for overseas, for international stuff. Great shipping rates there. And if you're in the U.S., $50, orders over $50, I should say, free shipping. So if you buy over $50 at Pen Chalet, your shipping will be free in the U.S., which is awesome. So go to PenChalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password Pen Addict for this special offer. And to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time. So what have they got, Brad? Ron always tells me I've got special things to you this week. So he says to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. He's not lying. This is a stock up day. If you're a Colorverse fan, two things. One, the Colorverse Nebula Premium Memo Notebooks. Those notebooks are excellent for fountain pens. And these are like crazy inexpensively priced. This is a thing that if you like this paper, this is the time where you stock up on it. But on top of that, Colorverse Inc., which I rarely see go on sale. Three colors of the Eye on the Universe set, which we all really, really enjoyed talking about when they came out. The Hippocamp Comet combo, the Hubble HST combo, and the SM1 CoStar combo are all like crazy on sale. And like then you drop your 10% off coupon on top of that. But there is a slew of Bennu fountain pens here, which I enjoy very much. And some different shapes and some different sizes from the Briolette, which is one of the first ones that came out. To the Euphoria, which is a shape that I like. To the Supreme and the Talisman. Like they're all on sale. Then Ron dropped a secret down here at the bottom. You got to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. That's the great thing about this page. Which Opus 88 Halo is like one of the classically really excellent Opus 88s. And let's just say it's less than 88. That's all I'll say. That's shockingly good. It's a crazy good price for a really, really high quality pen. So I'll let you finish this ad, Myke. And then there is one more item on this list that I would like to discuss. But I think it needs to be post-ad. All right.

'''Myke:''' Penchalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. And use the password of Pen Addict to see these special offers. And get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Penchalet. Our thanks to our great friends at Penchalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

== Pen Discovery ==

'''Brad:''' On this list, Myke, I have found something I have never seen before. And it is called the Stipula Netto Patented Filling System Pen Care Supplies. I mean, it's basically the filling system. Yeah. Stipula Netto Patented Filling System. $250, Myke.

'''Brad:''' Much, much cheaper on the sale page. I will let you all go look at the amazing price on here. I am very confused on what's happening here. I'm... Hmm. The Netto Filling System consists... Why is it blinged out like this? Why is it wearing a necklace? It's got like a rope chain. And it's got like a medallion on there. Rocking it out. Yeah. It says... I think it probably says... What is this? I am fascinated. I want to know if anyone has one of these. And why. And what does it do? So, I'm going to read like the second paragraph here. The Netto Filling System consists of a small device that screws onto the Stipula ink bottle in place of the bottle's lid. So, this is basically just like a topper or a cap. When using the Stipula Netto Filling System, fountain pen users can refill their fountain pen without dipping the nib and sometimes the pen section or grip directly into fountain pen ink. Instead, the Netto System allows writers to dip the nib in a clean, dry well. The liquid ink converges in that same clean, dry well through micropipes thanks to the principle of capillarity. I don't understand anything. It makes no sense.

'''Myke:''' I don't care what it does.

'''Brad:''' What does it do? This is breaking my brain right now.

'''Myke:''' I don't know what that means.

'''Brad:''' And I would love to test this out, but not even at the sale price. Am I getting like Run DMC ink bottle over here?

'''Myke:''' So, it fills it without getting any ink on it? Like, I don't understand what that's meant to do. I don't get it.

'''Brad:''' I'm done. I don't know what else to say.

'''Myke:''' Without dipping the nib directly into fountain pen, the Netto System allows writers to dip the nib in a clean, dry well. The liquid ink converges in that same clean, dry well through micropipes.

'''Brad:''' We're going to need to find a video or something on this. This is...

'''Myke:''' I love when like people claim a thing and it's just like, thanks to the principle of capillarity. What does that mean?

'''Brad:''' It's science, Myke. Thanks to science. Thanks to physics.

'''Myke:''' I found a YouTube video that was showing off the chain. I don't understand. Like, I'm just looking at this video and it doesn't help me understand what's going on.

'''Myke:''' But the guy just dipped the thing in and then they came out with ink on it. So, I don't understand what... Well, sure. You know, I think all it means is you just don't dip it in the bottle. You're still dipping it in the ink. So, I don't understand what's wrong with dipping it in the bottle.

'''Brad:''' Because you wouldn't be able to spend $250 if you just dipped it in the bottle.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I don't know, man. I feel like I'm going to need somebody to explain this to me. Maybe I'll watch this video.

'''Brad:''' I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, I think we're going to have some follow-up on this one. It's pretty serious. Thanks, Ron. Yeah. I don't know what just happened, but this is why we love... Hey, Brad.

'''Myke:''' Talk about confusing.

'''Myke:''' I know where you're going with this. The Drillog Kickstarter campaign. So, we mentioned it was happening, but never actually spoke about it. I backed it. I assume you backed it. This is one of the more confusing Kickstarter processes that I've been through for two reasons. One, it's just a lot of information. And two, they are using what appears to be a new feature of Kickstarter that I'd not come across before. Where you make a pledge, and then there's like an almost backer kit-like thing afterwards where you select the products that you want. So, you kind of... With the way that you do it here is you say, like, I want this barrel. And then you go through and add some stuff onto it. It's very confusing. I found it very confusing. It took me quite a while. So, I... And also, like, at this point, I don't even know what I've backed anymore. Like, I can't remember the exact particulars. Maybe it tells me if I log into Kickstarter. But this was a very confusing process. I think I'm getting the twin spiral barrel. I think that was what I ended up going for.

'''Brad:''' Gotcha.

'''Myke:''' Because I thought that that looked pretty cool.

'''Brad:''' And two nibs. I think so. If you order that one, you need to get two nibs. Well, I mean, I assume I have. Who can tell at this point, Brad? I got a lot of questions on that launch for exactly what you're saying. There is a new feature in Kickstarter.

'''Myke:''' Oh, because I guess one of the things we didn't mention... One of the things we didn't mention is that we believed that they were going to offer one set of products. And then it ended up that they offered everything. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. But wait, there's more. Yeah, they're doing... So at this point, honestly, I don't know what I have ordered and if it will be correct. I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope that it's right. I think I took a screenshot of it and sent it to you. And it looked like it was right, like from the email. But in Kickstarter system, it isn't very... Let's see if I get it here. Yeah. Twin spiral A plus a nib. So I guess that's an extra... I've got two nibs. Two times nib. You need two nibs. Yeah. And I got a color puddle because I thought it was funny.

== Kickstarter Update ==

'''Myke:''' I just like saying color puddle. I like color puddle. To me, it's like a little inkwell thing, which I would probably never use. But it looks like a nice little thing to put on the desk. Honestly, I thought it looked like a nice little fidgety desk toy, maybe. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I'm still excited about this product, but it's just the Kickstarter campaign has been quite complex. And now they have added more complexity to it, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So when I did my unboxing and kind of mini review, the one thing that I constantly talked about was the length of the barrels. They're all relatively short. And not relatively short. They were short, right? They didn't get kind of over the, you know, your thumb and index finger area, like that kind of little cusp in your grip there. It was pretty low. And like it was fine and usable for me because I don't really have trouble with small pins, but some people do. And that would just eliminate them from literally any offering that Drillog had except for the twin spiral that you bought. Because since it has two caps and room for two nibs, one of the caps screws on the back of the pin, making it a more standard, lengthy pin. And so what Drillog smartly did, even though the Kickstarter process doesn't make you feel smart when you're going through it because of the way this is set up. And this is not Drillog's fault. They have lengthened the standard barrel, the standard aluminum barrel Kickstarter by, oh, I don't have the images pulled up, but a decent amount, like an inch. I can bring it up. It's going to be a really good length.

'''Myke:''' It's from 75.5 millimeters to, oh, I'm confused because they've got, it's a size range.

'''Myke:''' 95.5 to 100.5. I don't think they've decided on the final dimension. Okay. Yeah. So it's not available yet. 95.5 millimeters to 100.5 millimeters.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So they said at the end of August, they'll know which one it's going to be.

'''Myke:''' It's basically 20 to 25 millimeters larger.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And like, I'm going to have to go in and change my pledge to this longer barrel because it is going to be better. If you, if you ordered the classic barrel, the classic material AL, which is just the, the cylinder. And a lot of them are anodized colors. You're going to like the longer length of it. Like you, it doesn't matter, Myke, because you're going to end up getting like a long length pen.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. And also, I mean, for me, I wanted the twin one because it's just, this is already a weird pen. I want to make it as weird as I possibly can, you know? That's the best.

'''Brad:''' That's my favorite barrel out of the bunch. But to use it effectively, you really do need two nibs. So you're adding a lot of cost in that. So I get it though. So that's the best barrel I've, I've felt, but so I backed it for the classic, but I will be switching to the longer, what I'm calling the drill log long boy. Oh boy. I will say they have it available.

'''Myke:''' Look, this is confusing and it is complex, but on both of the things that have made it more complex, I actually tip my hat to them listening to what people want. But yeah, like people didn't want just the standard one. They also wanted the weird ones. So like, all right, we'll put them in. Yep. And then people like, this might be too short. So like, all right, we'll give you an option to make it longer. And yeah, it's tricky. Maybe this is tricky for a couple of reasons, right? Like one, it's hard to follow some of it in some places because there's like, there's a lot of Japanese on the page too, right? Which just makes it like really good. Like, you know, I'm not meaning to be mean or like, but like when I'm coming to the page, sometimes I don't know what I'm reading or like what I should be reading. So that can make it a tad tricky. And I don't know if this is just a kind of a byproduct of Kickstarter's Japanese like platform now. I feel like maybe they should split them out, right? But I don't know how it's working there. You know, because I have Kickstarter Japan. Nevertheless, because I can't imagine it makes it more helpful for people in Japan either to have a bunch of English on the page. Like it's just tricky. But it's also this other system like this, which I actually I applaud Kickstarter for having this. They should have this, right? Where like, yes, on their platform, you can add extras and make choices. So you don't have to have 70 options on the thing, right? So you're like, right. I want to go in on this level. And then on this level, I want these choices. And it's been bananas, I think, that they haven't had this. And like we were looking up, this is brand new, this feature. And Drillog is using it, which is the right thing for them to use. But it just adds to the overall confusion of it all. But I think it's great that they've done it. I will be astounded if they meet their November date. Because they keep adding stuff, right?

'''Brad:''' Where are we? Yeah. But like I'm not like for me, like I'm not going to buy more. I'm going to switch what I have. So it's not necessarily like a plus one that I'm getting. But I would have assumed that they will have more.

'''Myke:''' They like pre-made a bunch of stuff. Skews. And like now it's like oopsies. Now we've got to. Yeah. You know, if we're going into end of August and they don't even know how big it's going to be.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And it was the right decision. It was the right decision to do this. So they could have either taken the short barrel and threaded the back and allow you to post the cap or just make a longer barrel. Either way, I'd be fine. I don't necessarily need both options because then you just have more options. But the Kickstarter side of it is just this will make life easier for people, for curators in the future to just it's the easiest way to add on things up front without having to answer a lot of support emails. How do I add? I want to. How do I, you know, how do I manage my pledge to do that? And it was always a manual process. Well, now you can pledge for one and add the second one like on the next page. So it's good. But yeah. So Tokyo Inklings podcast. Jacob has done a lot of stuff with the drill log. He was one of the first ones to get the drill log living in Japan. So he's talked a lot about this. If you want some more. I finally been able to catch up on some podcasts and that's why I wanted to talk about Tokyo Inklings. I finally listened to like the last three episodes and they see why and Jacob do a lot of deep dive stuff that I really am glad that they do. So I don't have to do it. And nor do I want to do it. Like I've gotten a lot of emails about like, hey, what is Kaweco up to as far as like copyright and patent challenges they're putting on Moonmen in different countries and things like that. I'm like, you know, I really don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like, okay, I've heard like the top level discussion of this and I'm not really tracking. Like I'm sort of tracking. But like Jacob and CY likes Kaweco put out a press release saying why they're actively like trying to attempt to protect their patents. And allegedly it seems like they're failing at doing that, which is probably the right answer.

'''Brad:''' But like you can go find out more from Tokyo Inklings. And that's why I wanted to make sure to bring them up today. Just the last episode, they covered this Kaweco PR mess that Kaweco is kind of digging themselves a hole. It's honestly not a great look. Like there's a couple different ways it can go. And it just doesn't seem like, seems like they're trying to fight some public opinion battle. And I don't, it doesn't really look great from what I'm seeing from Tokyo Inklings. And then they talk about like things like where we get a lot of our sailor information from CY and Jacob because they can get like sailors, you know, public PR releases because they're a public company. And their quarterly reports and their earnings reports. And they talked about how like sailors earnings are up. So maybe now's the time that plus is going to actually finally do the takeover because that's what plus was waiting for to get, you know, a lot of the books cleaned up and get the numbers running. Right. And you asked about the Hobonichi. Well, they found like the Hobonichi press release coming up. Hobonichi is using the old Tomoe River for this run of books. Like they've bought enough to be covered for this year. They haven't announced what they're going to do in 2022. But well, you know, for 20, that's actually probably 2023's launch. So we're about to launch 2022 stuff. All the 2022 stuff is going to be classic Tomoe River, just like you've always expected from your Hobonichi. So my point being here is y'all should listen to Tokyo Inklings podcast. Yeah, I'm behind too.

'''Myke:''' Travel.

'''Brad:''' I save them. I save them depending on like I'm starting to listen to podcasts more. Like I always go in cycles with podcasts. So it's like an all or nothing thing. So right now I've listened to those last three episodes in, you know, the last three days probably. So it's good stuff and y'all should check them out. I got another pin. I want to talk about Myke. The Shown Design Brass Faceted Pocket 6. I finally got my review up on this. I've had this pin for a while. It's been out for a while. And I wanted to tell a little bit of the story about how I first saw the pin and why it was a memory for me being my last pin show that I attended in person. Baltimore 2020 pin show was like right before like the mega lockdowns started to happen. And I got to see this pin and I didn't buy one at the time. And then Ian kindly sent me one to review or to really to do whatever I wanted with. Well, I decided to use it and review it. And it's great. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because the DC pin show happened this past weekend. And before the pin show, Ian had started dabbling with this faceted design in aluminum, which I thought was really strange. Like the brass one looks cool and it makes a lot of sense with the brass having that extra weight and that thickness of the barrel, being able to handle all this design work on the exterior of the barrel. And it looks awesome. And I was like, oh, I would have never thought that would be an aluminum. And he did just like the basic raw aluminum type of pin body the last couple months. And then I saw pictures from DC. We'll put a link in the show notes from the gentleman stationer. Our friend Joe was at the show at DC. And he was talking about how he bought the actual the brass one that I reviewed here recently. But he had some pictures on Ian's table. And I saw this from other people at the show. So the aluminum faceted barrels have the wild anodizations that I like in Ian's other pins. Does that make sense that I finally get there from here? Yeah. So the aluminum barrels have like the pink and purple anodizations, which you don't see on the brass. And the faceting. They look really good. Yeah. They look awesome. So I saw some pictures.

'''Myke:''' The pink and blue one I like the look of a lot. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So we'll have the link in the show notes. I think y'all should check. Just check this out. Like if you liked what you saw from this brass faceted review, Myke and I have talked about the Ian's pins for years and years since you were in DC with me. It was when we first really got into like the ballpoints, you know, and that's when we were buying like the Dexter pin and the Lisa Frank pin. And that's when he first kind of did the anodizations. And now just to see him like really escalate everything. Like I'm here for it. Like that's my jam. So I love it.

'''Myke:''' What is this black Ultem? I thought you could only get Ultem in that weird brown color.

'''Brad:''' So it's the two colors. The amber Ultem has been the more popular of the two. Right. Or I don't know if it's maybe it's been an availability thing too. So there is a black Ultem option. And I don't know. Part of the part of the fun with these Ultem pins is they're really good for eyedropping. So you don't get to see the ink sloshing around as much in the amber. But also the amber is not necessarily everyone's favorite color. It's it's an odd color. I happen to like it a lot. But there is a black option and Ian selling those. And I would like to see that in person before I like jumped in on that one. I definitely love my amber. I have two Ultem pins. They're both amber models. And I would want to see the black. I'm sure it's great. But if I had a choice which one would I check out? You know which one would I like really really want? But I bet the black looks pretty cool. The material is so wild Myke. I want you to see one of these one day. Because it's it's hard to explain. It's air light. It's like it's like if a packing peanut was a pen. But the packing peanut was also indestructible. It's wild.

'''Myke:''' Yeah I don't really know what that means. It's light.

'''Brad:''' It's lighter than any pen you own. And it it it kind of messes with you. Like in the feel of it. Like it's really thin really light. But really strong and cleans really well. So it's just a cool material.

'''Myke:''' DC pen show.

'''Brad:''' Yes. Any regrets? Not going? No. No. Zero. I couldn't. Like I'm happy I didn't go. Yeah. If that makes sense. Like I'm totally happy that I was not there. I'm glad people went. I'm glad people had a good time. I would not have handled it well mentally.

'''Myke:''' You just would it would have been uncomfortable for you? Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Like I would have wouldn't have minded like going to the show and hanging out going to the show and walking around the show with the mask on. And then I probably would have just like gone to my room. And like there's no fun in that. Like part of the show is the people. Yes. And it's like I don't know that I would have wanted to just like hang out for like hours with around a lot of people. Yeah. If I didn't have to. So that's like that's just my choice right now. I don't have to go. So I'm okay not going. Like it's fine. There'll be shows next year. Hopefully we'll be back to normal.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. I think that that's definitely the thing. Right. Like you could just go there and see it. But then all of the other stuff you can't really. I don't really think you can you can really participate in. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like I would have I would have been fine if I live like locally and I would have gone and done a drive by and spent the day you know a few hours there at the show and then left.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Which is why I just didn't want to travel. I don't want to put myself on an airplane. I don't want to go through the airports. I don't. It's just my headspace right now. Mm hmm. Especially with where I live. Like things are escalating where I live. It's making me uncomfortable just being out even though like my entire family is vaccinated. Like so you know it's an easy choice for me to make. And I just hope you know I just hope people that are going you know make make those right choices to you know make sure you're wearing your mask and clean you know washing your hands and doing all that stuff and keeping socially distanced and everyone has a has a good safe time. I'll just I'm going to keep waiting. I'm good.

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'''Brad:''' Speaking of Squarespace, Myke, penaddict blog, penaddict.com, proudly run on Squarespace forever, has had a little writing change, Myke. The awesome and amazing Susan Piggott's last post was a couple weeks ago. And Susan wrote for the penaddict for like six years. Like we have very little turnover in the writing crew at the penaddict. So Susan made a wonderful final post. She's got some life changes that's going to uproot her for the next year or so. So we'll have a link in the show notes. All positive stuff, though. All great stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just worth mentioning that. Just, yeah. But like no time to write for the penaddict anymore on a schedule. And like writing one review post a week is a lot of work for these writers. Like I don't want to undersell like how much effort it takes for one person to do one review per week on a schedule. It is more than you think. So Susan did that just amazingly for the past six years. And Sarah still going strong. Jeff, I'd have to go back and look. Jeff might have a decade under his belt at the penaddict. I don't even know at this point. Probably at least eight years, if not more. And then Sarah has been there for three or four. So it's crazy. It's crazy to see like, hey, Susan's not writing anymore. At least right now. At least probably for the next year. She's going to drop by, do some guest posts, things like that. So I had to fill her spot. Big shoes to fill. No pressure for my friend Kimberly Lau, who wrote her first post on the blog. She's going to be filling Susan's role where she's going to be like a permanent member of the pen addict review crew and writing a weekly post. She just wrote a, now the pen shows are happening. Now what? So it has some great tips. Like if you do go to a pen show, like how to be safe and how to respect, you know, other people's space and how to work with the vendors. And like, this is all new to us, even though like someone like Kimberly has been to two or three times as many pen shows as I have. It's still new for attendees and vendors in these pandemic times, like how to handle that. And she did a great job in her first post. She's probably going to do a DC recap, hopefully, one day. And yeah, I look forward to seeing Kimberly's work. So y'all definitely give Susan a big thanks and Kimberly a warm welcome because I'm excited and thankful to just have these awesome people in my life that want to do this.

'''Myke:''' Very nice. Yep. You do have a great crew.

'''Brad:''' Really do. Really do. Um, you know, I, hopefully they have fun doing it. I think that they do by how long they hang around and put up with me. So yeah, it's great. I'm easy to work for Myke. I don't know if you know this, Myke. I'm.

'''Myke:''' You are a good person though. Like when it comes to these things, cause it's like, if what you like is to review new pens, well, you brag against them all. So you will get your hands on it, you know, man.

'''Brad:''' You are the segue master today because I want to talk about a new pen and then I got my hands on Myke. And this could go up in the, the, what is Brad using, uh, section as well. But I wanted to give this its own little tidbit because I wanted to ask you what you think about the Estherbrook JR Pocket Paradise. So a little, uh, rewind. So Estherbrook, um, the new Estherbrook has made the SD and you know, it's a pen that I like and I like a lot actually. And they came out with the JR in kind of a throwback pen and you and I talked about it. And I can't remember what you thought about them the last time. Cause you've only been able to see them in pictures and I've had them in hand, uh, before. What was your thoughts on the JR and what do you think of the Pocket Paradise?

'''Myke:''' I need to try and remind myself of the colorways of the JR. Yes. Is it JR or is it Junior?

'''Brad:''' I call it the JR. I feel like it's Junior. I think it's JR because it was the Estherbrook J was the main brand. Right.

'''Myke:''' And I guess they haven't, they haven't lowercase the R that's both uppercase.

'''Brad:''' It must be Estherbrook JR. Although I think Junior is cute, but you know. I think Junior's cute because it is a smaller pen, but I think it's actually like J revisited. So like JR.

'''Myke:''' Okay. I think that the new ones are really awesome. The old ones are a bit standard and maybe that was the point, like play it safe with colors and stuff. But I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the color choices that they have gone for here. They are really great and bold. And I think it's awesome. I love that they have the contrasting finials. Are they all blue?

'''Brad:''' No. The orange is on, let's see, yellow is on the blue pen and blue is on the orange and yellow pens on the finials.

'''Myke:''' Okay. Yeah. I think they look fantastic. I think they look really fun. They're super fun pens. Very summer fun style. I'm into it.

'''Brad:''' So here's what I want to talk about. And I actually didn't link this in the show notes and I probably should have. This is what I wanted Parker to do when they relaunched the 51. And I hope this is the way it's going to go because Parker could do the same thing. Right. So they've redid the 51. They came out with the base colors. Right. The black barrel, the teal barrel, the burgundy barrel. Well, the Estabrook redid the J. Their vision of the modern J, they did the base colors. They did the blue and the black. And I can't remember the colors. It was three or four colors. Red. They did the basics. Now, round two, we drop the hammer, say, hey, this is what the future of Estabrook looks like to us. Right. And if Parker would do that with the 51, they would crush it. And I hope that's the path we're going to see from Parker, because I think Estabrook has the idea of modernizing the vintage name. Name alone, even if you don't disagree, like, I mean, it's a traditionally styled pen. Does it live up to the Estabrook J and what it used to be? No. No. And that was a lever filler with a sack. And, like, we're just not going to get that. With the J.R., they've said, hey, we're going to respect, you know, the idea of the old company. But we're going to build it in this modern way that the modern market would appreciate more than a rehash. And I think that's where Parker was missing the boat with the 51. Like, the 51, by, you know, all accounts, is a perfectly fine pen, the modern one. But make it special. Make it modern. I'm going to do it. Do what's – give me a round two. I'm not going to do it. They're not going to do it. I know. I tell you what. I tell you what. It's there. It is there, Myke. It is on the table and they cannot see it. Like, if they came out with just a basic, simple, orange barrel, silver cap, Parker 51, do you know how much hype they would get for that? It's so good.

'''Myke:''' But the thing is, Estabrook, they have their foot in our community, right? Right. And they understand what the modern pen collector, pen aficionado wants in a way that I don't think Parker do or care about. Like, it's not their business, you know? So I don't think that they're looking.

'''Brad:''' I agree. I agree. They're a different company. They're owned as they're part of a conglomerate. And these companies that are part of a conglomerate tend to have different marching orders, if you will, as opposed to a company like Kenro, who marches to the beat of their own drummer. They get to make their own beats where I don't know that Parker gets to. It's just, God, to me, it's just like super obvious and it's not going to happen. It's just not. But that's why I just give credit to Estabrook and what they're doing with these pens. The pen itself, so I'm using the yellow model, which is just completely rad. It's got an extra fine steel barrel. It reminds me so much.

'''Myke:''' I think the yellow is my favorite.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So it lost the poll. So Kenro sent me all three colors. And I did a Twitter poll. I said, hey, which color do you want me to give away? And blue and orange were like within a vote away from each other or two votes away. Orange won, but they were essentially one and one A. And then yellow was a distant three. And I'm like, sweet. I get to keep the yellow for myself. People are playing it safe, man. They just want the colors that they always get.

'''Myke:''' You know, you want blue, you want orange. The reason I like the yellow so much is because it's rarer than to have that.

'''Brad:''' And it looks great. It feels great. It reminds me of the Pelican M205, like a Pelican steel nib. Even though it's not a piston filler, it's a cartridge converter. It's that same size, same weight, same feel. And just good. It's a good pen, right? Like, is it going to be like the top of my list for like the best pen and the perfect pen for me? No. Like, but it's awesome. Like, I want this pen to exist. And it's great. Like, I really love how they just like attack the market with this pen. And I think it's cool to see.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I like it. I like it.

'''Brad:''' All right. Last up, Myke. I did a thing that I've never done before. I wrote a forward for a publication. Okay. Have you ever done that before? Have you ever written a thing?

'''Myke:''' No, nobody wants my thoughts.

'''Brad:''' But that's actually true.

'''Myke:''' It's not good for anyone. Nobody wants that.

== Forward Writing ==

'''Brad:''' That's why I'm here 474 times, Myke, and you aren't. Yeah, exactly. No one is what I have to say. My friend Johnny Gamber. Pencil revolution guru. Longer running blog than the pen addict. Did you know that, Myke? I think we've talked about that before. I did not know that. So he's run pencil revolution like either a year or two longer than the pen addict.

'''Myke:''' I mean, seriously, how can there be so much to say about pencils?

'''Brad:''' Well, Johnny can. And Johnny has taken his prolific skills to the zine world. He's been doing the pencil revolution zine and selling them on Etsy for ages and ages. And they're just really good, really smart. And Johnny's just a smart, funny guy. And I love how he writes. And he's always been pen adjacent. He's been a big fan of the big crystal for as long as he's been a fan of pencils. But his real love is pencils. But then he got some vintage fountain pens and he started playing around. And now he is, as they say around here, Myke, he is eat up with fountain pens. And he decided to put out a pen zine. It's called the Pen Post. And he asked me to write the forward for it. And there's a bunch of cool articles in here from friends and people you'll know about inks, about an ode to the big crystal, which I was talking about, forward by me. Just really, really cool publication. And you should go check this out and support Johnny and order the Pen Post. And he's going to be doing more issues in the near future. And it's just great. I love this type of physical publication just put out by someone who's putting all their hard work into this. And I definitely want to support him doing that. So thank you, Johnny, for asking me to be a part of it. And y'all should go check it out.

'''Myke:''' All right, I think that wraps it up for today, Brad.

'''Brad:''' All right.

'''Myke:''' We covered so many things today.

'''Brad:''' Lots of things. You know, anytime there's like a gap in us, like just conversing, it seems to be we have a lot of – it's surprising how much new stuff or interesting stuff pops into my brain over the two weeks since we last spoke. And I'm glad we got to cover it.

'''Myke:''' If you'd like to find the show notes for this week's episode, you can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 474. Or they should be in your podcast app of choice. You should find links to everything we discussed there. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, knock.co, and spokedesign.com. Brad streams many days a week over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. You can also find Brad on Instagram. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdy is on Twitter. And Brad on micro.blog. My name is Myke. I don't know why I did that. I messed it up. Why am I reintroducing myself? Welcome to this week's episode of the Pen Addict, episode 474. I'd like to thank our sponsors for this week's episode, Squarespace and Pen Chalet. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]