Editing The Pen Addict 100/transcript (section)

== Field Notes Reaction ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Field notes freak out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's been crazy this week. I don't think we've ever had such a reaction to something we've spoken about on the show before. But, basically, I mean, I haven't been keeping an accurate score about this. But I would say that the response has been pretty mixed, like pretty 50-50, between people that agree with you and people that think you're insane about your feelings on the field notes shelterward.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, there's definitely no middle ground.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. People either think that it's the greatest thing ever or not. And one of the funny things, and this is not necessarily saying anything about my opinion, is a lot of the people that said that they loved it didn't yet receive them, if that makes sense, in the same way as I did. It was like, how could you hate this? They look amazing. They hadn't yet received them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. I don't think it was actually close to 50-50. I think it was more like about 25% on my side and about 75% on loving it. Okay. So I didn't think it was quite 50-50. But, I mean, it did – not that I was trying to prove a point, but I'm glad I'm not on an island. Not that I would gladly be on an island if that was the case because that's how I honestly feel about it. But, I mean, there was other people that kind of could see where I was coming from. And understood the point about how amazing and in addition this is and how technically awesome it is. But you're just not going to write in it, and that's kind of where I stood. And there were plenty of other people that felt like that. I think the majority, though, love it. I think in our listenership, it's probably like one out of every four is probably on my side. In the general public, I would be just looking at like field nuts and just the general tweets. It would be probably one out of every ten would be on the, eh, didn't care for it so much side. But still, it's a pretty amazing addition by field notes. That's one thing we can all agree on for sure. And so I'm excited for you to finally get yours.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. So when we talked, we talked like six or eight hours ago, and you didn't have them yet. So this is a fresh arrival since you've been home from work, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So let's hear it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, first off, this was the renewal of my color subscription. I have more craft packs than I know what to do with. They're basically just stacking up now. Like, I just don't use them. I feel like I should start giving them away. So, shelterwood.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't really know where to start. I've written some notes down, but I don't really know where to start with it. The way that they feel and smell is incredible.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it actually leads me into sort of a bit of self-follow-up, but I'll get to that in a second. So the way that these feel is so strange. You can feel the wood grain in them, but not in like – it's unsanded, right? That's how it feels anyway, but it's not like you're getting splinters. But you can feel the wood grain, and they smell so interesting and great, actually, and outdoorsy. Now, there's been something that's been mulling over in my head constantly since last week's episode. You asked me, if I went into a shop and saw them on the shelf, would I buy them? And I kind of was like backwards and forwards on it, didn't really know what to say. But I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think that I've come up with something for my feeling on it. If I saw these in a shop on a shelf, I'd think it wasn't real wood. If I'd known it was real wood, I'd probably look at it differently, which is why I feel I look at these differently. Does that make sense?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I just – my whole shop question, would you buy them in a shop? I made sure to quantify that in a world that Field Notes didn't exist where you didn't know about how awesome this brand is. Like if you were just going in and you saw a general row of notebooks, and you had a row of notebooks to choose from, and one of them included a woodcover notebook, would the woodcover notebook be the one you would choose out of that row of notebooks?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, see, I don't know. Again, I still don't know, but anyway. Sure. Okay, so let me say a better thing that I don't like. Right. They have a harder job of not just staying closed but staying flat.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Correct.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So the staying closed thing, whatever, I mainly have – my Field Notes never stay closed. Anyway, these definitely are more prominently open, but more or less open is not an issue. I mean, if it's open, it's open. Does that make sense? Yes. No matter how open it is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It's always open. Doesn't matter if it's 10 degrees open or 45 degrees open.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because it's open. And most of the time, I have my Field Notes with either my pen on like the right edge so it's keeping the book closed. Gotcha. Or I have it tucked under my keyboard so it stays closed. Or quite a lot. I put my phone on it. If it serves two purposes, it keeps my notebook closed, and it stops the vibration of my phone going into the desk and annoying everyone around me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm laughing because I do the exact same thing with the phone. That's how I – if it's not in my pocket, that's how I usually have it set down on my desk.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I reckon probably everyone is nodding along at this point.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The only other thing is also with that, it doesn't do a great job of staying closed when you're writing in it. But I'm finding that as I'm writing in it, my hand tends to hold the book open anyway. Sure. But it feels like just the sheer – the thickness of this and the staples that they've had to use has meant that the book suffers from that a little bit. However, I'm happy to sacrifice that for this paper. Yeah. I love this paper so much. Like, it's perfect for me because I get paper that I can use any fountain pen in. It doesn't bleed through. Like, it has a bit of bleed through, but it doesn't bleed through enough that it's ever going to be a problem. No matter how thick I want my pen to be, fountain pens, gel pens, my autographic liner, like all of those, it's fine. And it also feels great to write in. I actually quite like the lined because I tend to take, like, written notes. It's not a big thing for me. A lot of the times I can ignore the lines if I want to. I don't feel boxed in by that. The way that I am at this at the moment, I think currently they're probably my second favorite after Dark Sky.

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

'''Myke Hurley:''' That could change after using them more because, again, it's the paper. But, man, I love these. The way they look, like, that is something special. I'm going to take this in to work with me tomorrow, and I'm going to see if anybody asks me any questions. People do ask me questions about field notes, and I want to see if people do the same for this one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have to imagine that, yeah, this is maybe the best-looking edition, the most talked-about edition visually. Like, if someone who didn't know anything about 100 episodes of a pen podcast, right, they're going to see that and go, what is that, and let me see it, and whoa, that's pretty cool. No doubt.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, I'm happy that I've bought so many of these because I know I'm going to use them, and I'll be bummed if I only had, like, five of these. Cool. You know? Remember I mentioned Night Sky last week?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I have a benefactor.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm getting, like, six packs. Whoa. I'll talk about it when they arrive. Sweet. Yeah, I want to hear it. I'm very, very... I had a couple of emails, like, a couple of people offering to sell me them, and I was starting to go down the process of doing it, and then this person was like, I don't like them. I wanted a black cover. Then they released... What's the other ones? Pitch Black. Pitch Black. And that's what I want. So, I have, like, a bunch of these that I don't want. So, do you want them? And I was like, yes, how much? Like, just pay for shipping. I'm like, okay. Yeah.