Editing The Pen Addict 18/transcript (section)

== Retro 51 Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Because not only did I buy, I bought just loads of stuff, just like a big haul of stuff from JetPens. I also procured three new Retro 51s. And I know we have a lot of our fans. We've got them hooked on the Retros. And I know that it's been driving people crazy. People have been asking me what I've got and I won't tell them. Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do first off, which is something that I promised that I would do, is tell people the name of the place where I bought my Retros from.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And you bought three of them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I bought three of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, you don't have a problem at all.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, it's no issue to anybody. So the site where I bought, so basically it's an American company called Art Brown.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah, sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I was able to buy the pens from them and they were able to ship them to me. I thought they were going to be caught in customs, but they didn't. So I was very pleased about that. So artbrown.com, the link will be in the show notes for them. Fantastic customer service, good prices, and an excellent selection. They sell loads of pens, but they have a real, real great selection of the Retros. And actually the models that I've purchased, the links in the show notes will be to their page because they were the only place that I could find them to be delivered to me in the UK.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very cool. Because, yeah, I think they have some brick-and-mortar stores in the US. I don't know that I've been to one. I think they're based out of New York. Decades, decades, yeah. I don't know if that's the only place where they have brick-and-mortar stores. But, yeah, definitely a lot of people. I've heard of them. I've never bought anything from them, but they're a pretty decent-sized outfit. So very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So are you ready?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm ready. I'm anxious because I didn't realize there was three of them. I saw the picture of one, and now I'm like, oh, my goodness. What have you gotten into?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But do you know what?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to make it worse. I'm going to do a sponsor beforehand.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I usually wouldn't do this. I just know that there are people that will be screaming at their iPhones or their iPods now just because they want to hear. That was good. So I'm going to do our first sponsor. But, you know, it's awesome to take a break for these guys because they're so amazing, and it's Squarespace. Now, Brad, you're fully on Squarespace now, loving Squarespace.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Full on board. Before, I know you're going to do the sponsor reading and all the good stuff that you normally do. Let me just say the iOS apps alone might be worth the price of admission just because I've had a rash of spelling mistakes here in the past week or two. And, you know, people email me and correct me, which I always appreciate. I'm not one of those crazy people like, don't tell me what I'm supposed to spell. And because, you know, it's embarrassing to me, and I hate typos and just little silly things like that. And, you know, I'll get an email and, you know, I'm not at home or something like that, and I'll just pop on my iPhone. I can go in, edit the post, you know, clean up my stupid little typo and republish the post and be done with it. I mean, the iOS apps have been just stellar, one of my favorite things.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How great are stats?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They're loaded to the hilt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, so the stats are excellent in two places. So they're great in the iOS apps. I mean, you get the basics, you know, you get your page views, your unique visitors, and you get your referrers and your search information, which is the standard stuff, right? So that's pretty good. But then when you go in on the website as well, you can really break that stuff down. Like, you can get, you know, basically everything that you would want from Google Analytics, really, but it's built right in. And that way, you know it's accurate. I mean, in the past, I have had some real problems with Google Analytics, and I know it's given me wrong information, but there's no way to tell, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You just know in your heart, you know, in your heart of hearts, you know that it's not giving you the correct info. So, you know, but the Squarespace app, it just, you just know that they are spot on because it's built in, so they know the information. I mean, you can get things like, you can, I mean, you can see your traffic over monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis, which is really good for us. It's good for when we're talking with advertisers like Fusion. I mean, they want to know what our monthly traffic is, and I can give them that really easy. And it shows me a nice chart as well, so I can see what's going up and down. I can find out who, you know, what OS's people are using, what systems they're using, if it's iOS or Mac, Windows, that's all in there. If somebody's linked to us, I can find out what they've linked to. If there has been, you know, if, for example, I think that there might be one post or something that's got a lot of traffic, I can break down my traffic by the most visited pages. It's great. It's fantastic. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. The iOS apps and the statistics are just awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, with the statistics, anytime I've ever created a blog in the past, it's like, okay, you know, register for the service, pick out my template and grab a Google Analytics code and install it. And this one, I didn't even bother. There's no need. I just used the built-in Squarespace stats, and it's given me everything I've wanted from a statistical perspective. You know, I don't even realize Google Analytics aren't there because I just don't need it. Exactly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why would you? So aside from all of this, you get the excellent ability to post in it from the iOS apps. If you buy an annual plan, you get free domains. Squarespace is a full package. It's extremely reliable web hosting and excellent WYSIWYG blog creating tools. You have the ability to post. If you have a designer and you have a website designed where you can just drop the CSS right in, it's not a problem. It doesn't have to be one of their templates. It's Squarespace is the full package. Go check it out. Start your two-week free trial by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. No credit card required to do this. And if you sign up, make sure you use the code 70decibels6. That's 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S-6 at checkout. This way you'll get 10% off and Squarespace will know that we sent you. So, here we go. I bought three retros. Okay? So, now, the one that I'm going to talk about first is my favorite. And it's now my favorite Retro 51 that I own. And it's from the new Metal Smith series. And it's the Lincoln. Now, anybody that follows me on Instagram, this was the image that I posted. I posted a little sneak image the other day of a notepad that I'm going to talk about in a moment. Now, the Lincoln is the antique copper finish. And this thing is beautiful. The photos do not do it justice. In the photos, it kind of looks like it's meant to look like it's rusted. But it doesn't. It is sleek, shiny, beautifully finished. It's got a fine grain that runs through the whole copper. The entire thing is copper. It feels incredible in the hand. And I absolutely love this model. They have done a stunning job of this. It looks so unique. Like a copper pen, you know. It's like just brown metal. But it looks fantastic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, like the finish of it, it's like the, say, where, you know, the silver parts or the chrome parts on the standard 51 Tornado. Or now on this one, it's copper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Everything's copper.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Everything's copper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Except, like, you know the little disc that sits in the top? Yeah. That's the silver metal. Okay, gotcha. Which looks really cool. But this pen is, it's beautiful. It really is a, they did a very, very good job. And it's a shame that it doesn't photograph very well. I was excited. Much better in person. It's so much better in person. Because it does look like in the press images that they got, it looks a bit rusted. Which I also thought looked cool, you know, but not beautiful. But this is, this is a real stunner.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Real stunner. Now, is it, it's the same, it's a 51 Tornado. Is it the same, same dimension, same weight, all that good stuff?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Slightly heavier, I think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's, yeah, no, it is heavier. It's definitely heavier.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm looking at pictures of it now. It's really good looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would really suggest this one. If you get, this is actually, this is, this is, this is the 51 that I would suggest you buy. Because it's got a real nice weight to it. And it, it looks very different. I mean, they all look very, the pen itself is very different. And it's, it's quite striking. But this one is, is, is real, really, really elegant. Beautiful pen. The next one I bought, also from the Metal Smith series, is the Jefferson.