Editing The Pen Addict 556/transcript (section)

== Monthly pen usage and favorites ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So every now and then, I don't know, once a month, once every couple months, we discuss the things that are right at the, on the tips of our fingers from pens, pencils, notebooks related. What are we using the most? And one of the things I talk about whenever we do this is how I select a pen of the week type of thing for myself every week, because I want to be able to use all my things in a reasonable manner. This is, there's no official system built in, but I do pick out a pen of the week because as we'll get to on, on what I use for paper, it helps with my planning. So I pick a planning pen, Myke, if you will. And that becomes the pen that writes the notes for the week, writes the tasks list for the week, gets carried with me for the week for the most part. And it's just kind of the number one, slotted into the number one slot of my rotation for the week. And this week, it is the Spoke Pen Model 2 in Lava Crush with a 0.38 millimeter black Uniball Signo DX refill. So why this pen? This pen lives on my desk and it has my favorite refill in it, which is the 0.38 Signo DX. We sell it with the 0.5. For those who are new to the show, Spoke Pen, I am a partner in, so my company, hashtag disclosure, along with my wonderful, yeah, just wait, just wait. You want to, let's, we need a button. We need a button for this episode for what's about to happen here in a minute. But yeah, I love this pen, obviously, because I put my name on it. And I have been using a bunch of fountain pens recently, right? I've been on the huge fountain pen kick, had the Baltimore Pen Show. I'm getting ready to go to the Atlanta Pen Show, which we'll talk about next week. So I am knee-deep in fountain pens, so I tend to, when I'm working at home, if I've been using fountain pens a bunch, I will switch back into a standard pen. And this is one of my favorites, right? I just love the 0.38 line of these gel pens and having a body like the Spoke Pen, especially this fiery orange crush model with the silver trim. I don't know. It's just kind of all of it for me. So it's one of those pens that I pick up on Monday morning, and I start to write my notes. And the line that comes out of it with this refill and the feel of the pen, I just smile. I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is it. This is a pen for me, Myke. So that's my number one pen of the week is the Spoke Pen Model 2. And it's just kind of my go-to, but I'm still using plenty of fountain pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's not necessarily a ranking of my fountain pens here, but I have three. Yeah, I'd say probably three that I'm using more than most over the past week or two. Number one is the Aurora 88 Unica. This is the all-black Aurora 88 that I had gotten from Kenro Industries, which is Aurora's U.S. distributor, for a project last year for Sarah doing her Nano Rhimo project. This was the singular pen she used for the 50,000 words on that project. So now I have the pen. I'm going to review this pen I carried with me to the Baltimore Pen Show. It is an extra fine nib. It was a little bit of a wonky nib for me, the way I write. So I had our friend Annabelle look at it at the Baltimore Pen Show. She tuned it up, just got it aligned better than I had it aligned, working on it myself. And I have it inked with the Contraband in the United States ink, Myke Pelican Blue Black, which is always a top-tier ink for me that I don't use a lot. I had initially inked this pen up with Bungu Box Imperial Purple, which is one of my favorite inks. But that combination with this nib, it was just a very wet writer, right? So we talk about a lot of inks. Inks can change how a nib writes, right? Which we've discussed in the past. If you have a very wet or lubricated ink and a nib that is tuned to be a wet writer, well, my extra fine nib would turn into like a fine or a medium line, which is fine. It will look great. But I wanted to dial in the extra fineness of this Aurora nib so I could get a real test. So I went on the opposite end of the spectrum. The Pelican Blue Black ink is a very dry ink and dries quickly and is kind of an even better match for this Aurora 88. So I've been using that combination a lot because I love a good classic blue black ink like Pelican Blue Black. And I like calling it Contraband ink because it is not legal to sell this ink in the U.S. for some weird chemical composition that's like banned in California.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was wondering what that meant. I didn't know what you meant by saying it was illegal. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, that's kind of in quotes. Like you can get it like, you know, places. But you usually can't buy it online. But like if I wanted to, I could go to like, I think I could go to like a European retailer and order it and just have it sent here. But like just as the norm, like Pelican does not distribute this ink in the U.S. So it's weird. Whatever. Next up is your favorite pen that I currently own that you do not is the Edison Stormwinds Palomino Waltz that I picked up at the Baltimore Pen Show. That has proven to be a great writer. It's proven to be exactly what I hoped it would be. Knowing that I'm a fan of the Edison Beaumont pen shape, being a smaller pen, being a cool material with some cool hardware and a nice extra fine steel nib. It's been inked up with, I'm going to go with Perfect Match, inked up with a Perfect Match in the Sailor Chushu ink, which that's one of those inks like Sailor Apricot and Sailor Sky High and Sailor Grenade that they have made, I don't know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago in some cases. That have come in and out of the ink lineup. It's back. You can get it in the Shikiori lineup now, but it's kind of this grayish purple, which, you know, trying to find a match for this Palomino Waltz pen. And that wasn't just a blue. Like, I could have picked out a blue that's gone with the blue swirls in this pen. I wanted something to go along with, like, the grays and the purples. So Chushu might be the Perfect Match for this. We'll see. The Aurora has been my most used fountain pen this week, but this Edison is right there with it. Like, I've been doing some writing with that pen, and I just really like the ink combination with that. And that comes to this third pen that is at the top of my usage charts this week because of the combination and the coolness of the pen and the coolness of the ink. It's the Enigma Stationery Novelure Brilliant Bunny, which another hashtag disclosure. Myke, they sponsored the show, what, about a month ago and sent me this pen at no charge to check out. The reason I've been using this pen is, number one, it's awesome. Right. I love the red material that is in use on this Nautilus model of the Novelure, which I don't have before. This is my only Nautilus model pen. So this is a larger piston filler with, like, kind of the porthole designed for the ink windows. Mm-hmm. And it's got this sparkly, really neat red material. But what is really has me interested in testing it and why I'm continuing to use it is because I'm going to end up reviewing this pen, which no one has asked me to do. Like, that wasn't part of the deal or anything like that. I could have done anything I wanted with this pen. But I'm going to review it because it has Narwhal's or Novelure's gold nib, which is their first kind of foray into 14-carat gold nibs. So I want to get a review out there for that. Right. And I have it paired with Robert Oster Blue Lagoon, which is a very, very bright blue, as you may imagine by the name. It's like that, you know, like the Caribbean blue waters that is just, like, clear. And having that combination of the bright blue with the bright red pen is, like, one of my favorite things to do. So I am thoroughly enjoying that setup. So that's kind of my pen setup this week. So I have my spoke pen for a standard pen. That's kind of my notebook pen and note-taking and taskless pen. And then I'm just mixing and matching these three very different fountain pens to either with the Aurora and the Enigma Novelure, trying to get a feel for them for future reviews. And then the Edison just, it's a new pen that I'm just thoroughly enjoying. So most of my writing or planning with the spoke pen is in the Plotter Narrow. That continues to be my core notebook.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Planning mostly and taskless. Any other writing, and I didn't put this in the show notes, I am so close, Myke. I'm so close to being done with this Musubi notebook. I counted this morning. I have five pages left I need to fill. Because I'm anxious to close the book on this one, if you will. I've been writing a lot with that, with the Edison pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just write some Laura Mitchell in the back. And then just get done. I know. I know. You know what I mean?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. I know. It's so close. And I'm kind of, I'm really anxious to get it done. And I keep not finishing it. And I just need to just make a point to go in and finish it this week. Because I have another notebook I'm anxious to get tested. So that's my setup for this week. I do have some ancillary products that are kind of sitting within reach that I'm thinking about. So this is how, like, my mental setup is. So I have products I'm using for various reasons. And then I have products I'm testing for review reasons. So those test products, I have the Pentel Orans Nero, which is a mechanical pencil. And the Orans model of Pentel is one of these strange products that needs a review to where the lead actually doesn't come out the lead pipe visually when you're writing with it. Right? It's protected by the lead pipe. And so you think it doesn't work as, you know, like, technically this is going to be terrible. But Pentel has designed this Orans lineup to make it work. And what it's good for is for thinner lead widths. So I have a 0.3.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm looking at images of this thing and I don't know how it's supposed to. It feels like you would have to be gripping it in such a specific way.