Editing The Pen Addict 215/transcript (section)

== Lamy Safari ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's, it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's really, really interesting looking. One of the ones that you picked out as well is a pen called the Lamy Balloon. Uh, I haven't, I've never heard of or seen the Lamy Balloon before. Well, what is this?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So here's where you'll be proven wrong again. We have absolutely talked about this on the podcast. And, and the reason I put this in here is very specific. This is one of the best pens Lamy ever did, except the refill they did was absolute garbage. And there was a lot of talk about this at the time. This is pens. This is probably like three years ago. Um, when I reviewed this pen and it was like a proprietary refill, you couldn't fit anything else into this barrel. It is such a great pen. I don't even know if they sell it anymore because the refill is really bad. And everyone who bought one and reviewed one kind of had the same problems. Like you were desperate to use this pen because it's so cool. It's built well. It's Lamy. You know what the styles look like. Um, you just couldn't write with it. And it was one of the, it was just a huge disappointment of a pen. Um, and then the other one, the Safari ballpoint, that's one of the snow ones that you talked about. Um, it's just a really cool, really cool look. Um, yeah. So Mikey did a great job on this. So y'all check out the, this, you'll, you'll lose a, you'll definitely lose some time, uh, scrolling through all these images, but he did a really great job. And, um, yeah, there's just hundreds and hundreds of images on here. So it was a really cool project. And thanks for sharing that with us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Definitely. Definitely. Go check it out. It's in the show notes. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I got a big, uh, I placed a big order with CW pencils this week or last week. It came in yesterday or two days ago. It's been sitting in the box and I was around yesterday morning and I thought, yeah, I'll periscope this. So I periscoped, uh, my CW pencils haul and it turns out there was a big surprise in it. So I was kind of glad that I did that because I didn't know what was in the box other than the stuff that I ordered. So what the reason for my order was I wanted, I decided to go for one more box of the Blackwing 56s. I was hemming and hawing. Do I need it? Well, of course I don't need it, but do I want it? And I was like, I kind of want it. So that was the impetus for, for buying it. They had the 56s in. So I was like, well, if I'm there and I'm ordering this, I might as well see what other stuff they have. Right. So I scrolled through every pencil page, picked out a few things that looked interesting. And then I bought a very expensive pencil, um, a very expensive clutch pencil that we'll get to. But I thought I'd go over some of these pencils real quick. Um, kind of give you my first thoughts on it since we don't talk about pencils too much because there's some interesting stuff in here. Um, that cool with you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I guess.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You might like this fixed pencil. Wait till I, till I talk about this. But I really want to talk about, about two of the products the most.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The thing is though, like this is the, this is the same thing that happened to me when I went to CW. Whilst I don't really use them, the stuff is so enchanting and it's presented so well that it's difficult to not spend a ton of money on really interesting looking, amazing things that they, they produce.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. So you spent, when you were in the store, you spent like over a hundred dollars, didn't you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I think this order of mine was like $108. It's easy to do. It just happens. Um, but what's really cool is, okay. If I committed to spending, you know, 50 bucks on this big pencil, I can still get some other pencils for like 50 cents or $1.50. That's what, that's what gets you in trouble. You know, you, you, you do that. And the next thing you know, you're spending a hundred dollars at CW pencils, which is great because everyone should. But anyway, this first pencil is one I'm probably going to look into getting more. I've seen it on a few of the blogs. It's called, uh, the brand is called camel and it's made in Japan. And it's a very simple looking pencil. But what caught my eye was I thought the end cap was dipped, but it's actually this weird eraser that goes over the back of the pencil. Like if you, like if you pulled down like a rubber glove, if you will, like over your hand, you just, it kind of goes over the barrel a little bit, but I don't know if it comes off. And the whole thing is like an eraser. It was very, very weird. And I like this pencil a lot. It's got this cool, um, like paint job. It's like this camel color, little, little bit of tan. You can see like the red and the cedar wood. It brings out the color of it. It writes really well for an HB pencil. It's a dollar 50. So it's not like dirt cheap, but, um, it's like cheaper than black wings who like run around $2 or something like that. Um, it's really cool. I'm going to look and see, you know, what other options they have for this camel pencil, but I'm going to definitely be reviewing this one. I like it a lot. The ones, the Aspara absolute extra strong pencil caught my eye just because of the name, uh, extra dark and extra strong. Sounds just like you. Yeah. It's totally like me. You have to watch this video that they did for this pencil. Um, feel free to watch it now if you want. It's only like a 30 second, uh, thing while I talk, but they, uh, it's an Indian pencil company, uh, Hinduistan pencil company out of India. And it's really like a school pencil, you know, for the students over there in India. And the durability is like legit. Like it, the, the video shows the kids essentially playing drums with the pencils. It's just a great, super cute video. They did a really good job. And, uh, it is extra dark. It's actually a little bit soft. I thought it would be, uh, extra strong, extra dark, extra firm. Um, the, the graphite is actually a little bit softer than I thought, but that's kind of what you kind of, the give and take with the, uh, darkness. The Tombow Mono Professional HB is just kind of a plain stock pencil. Um, the Tombow Mono 100 is a little bit better looking, feels a little bit better. It's, it's kind of average. I wouldn't necessarily recommend, um, recommended over other pencils. The Kohenor Blue Highlighter Pencil is actually the dud of the bunch, which you kind of know going into it that a colored pencil is not going to be great. But I expected a little more from this one. There has to be a term for this, Myke. When I sharpened the pencil, it never stopped sharpening it. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, if you sharpen a pencil in a handheld sharpener, when it's very sharp, you're essentially sharpening air. It's done sharpening, right? Yeah, it just spins. Yeah, it just spins. This one never, it's never stopped. So I chewed up like a quarter of the pencil before realizing what I was doing. It just kept going. Um, but it's a, it's a wood pencil. It's not like the Wopex with that weird material. Um, it's like a plasticky pencil. It's not. But, um, in the, uh, the blue clay, um, highlight, uh, the actual, the business end of the pencil, it's kind of, you expect it to be light. It's even lighter than I, I thought it would be. You have to get it, um, right on the edge to get a dark line, but it's made to be a highlighter. So it's not meant to be used all the time. Aside from the, the 56s that I ordered this one, I didn't know they had this pencil in stock. And I had written about it like a month or so ago in the, in refill, which is the pen addict members newsletter that I saw this pencil. And I was kind of fascinated by it. Well, they happened to have it in stock. I was like, well, I kind of got to buy it now. It's expensive for a lead holder. Um, basically, you know, a clutch pencil, like an engineering pencil. It was $53. Um, but it's beautiful. It's cron dash. So, you know, you pay in a premium for that, but so far, this is my favorite of the bunch, uh, regardless of price, because the, the lead is really nice. The graphite is nice. It's a very good color. Um, HB, you know, graphite, it writes dark. It also comes with other colors, red, blue, green, and yellow. So you can swap those in. And in the cap of the pencil is the sharpener. So you just uncap it and you twist it in there and then you tap it out. Um, it's like your little cocaine vial where you tap out the little, tap out the little, uh, everyone totally can relate to that. But it's weird when you empty it out, it's just this little pile of sand, uh, from your graphite there. It looks, that's the first thing I thought is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So this is a mechanical lead holder, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It's just like any other lead holder. You have the click, um, mechanism at the end that, that, um, expands like the, the teeth that grab that the clutch part that clutches onto the, to the graphite.

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

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you need the, you know, like the, like the pen show except, uh, with more mechanics in it. Um, and it's, it's just really cool. I'm going to carry this a lot. This is going like straight into my like everyday carry stuff for pencils because I'm enjoying writing with pencils and this one will, it's kind of all self-contained, you know, with the sharpener. I don't have to carry an extra sharpener and the firmness and darkness of the lead is good enough to where it's not too soft. I can just like keep writing with it, things like that. Um, it's expensive, you know, it's hard to recommend like a clutch pencil. That's this expensive when you can get them for like $10. And, uh, I don't know. I'm just kind of fascinated with it. I was when I stumbled across it, um, you know, a month or two ago. And then once I saw it in here, I was like a foregone conclusion that I was going to end up with it. The other thing that I'm super impressed with are these right notepads, notebooks. I haven't used the three pack that I bought, but they make a special one for CW pencil enterprise called the ledger notepad. It is killer. Like I wrote my show notes for that today. Um, in that little notepad, when you open it up, it's like a little, um, the format of the page is like, uh, an old library card. If you will, it's got, uh, several columns for your ledger items. So, um, I'll take a picture of that, uh, when I'm done with the, with the show notes and put that in the, uh, put that in the Instagram when I'm done with the show. So, um, everyone has said how good right notepads are for pencil. And you can tell just the way the paper is like, it's not a fountain pen friendly paper necessarily, but for pencil, it has just that enough tooth to where, you know, your pencils writing. Well, the lead, the graphite is going to stay there. It's not really going to smudge. It's just kind of, it's the right tactile feel if you will, for a pencil. So they're really cool. So I plan on using that a bunch and getting into the, the notepads. Um, you've never used one of the notepads. I don't think, right? No. They're really cool looking. They do an awesome job with packaging. Um, I put an extra link in the show notes to one of our listeners, uh, Mark Dunham, who sent me a link to check out his new blog. And he has some great pictures of one of their additions that they just did, um, where they actually use the butcher orange, uh, French paper company, butcher orange for their covers. Huh? Which is really, really pretty. They just, they spend a lot on the aesthetic part of it, which can sometimes go either way. If you spend that much time on the aesthetic, sometimes you wonder if the product's going to live up to how good it looks. And in this case, they, they do live up to how good they look. So it's kind of a, uh, a double whammy of goodness there. So it's really, really cool. So if you couldn't tell, I was pretty excited about this order. So that's what I ordered. And then I'm opening this package live on Periscope and I get to the bottom of it and I pull out. So CW enterprises, they, um, I guess you could call it gift wrap. Like everything that's in the box has is wrapped in like little stacks and like yellow paper and this blue and white thread. It's wonderful. So I get to the bottom and at the bottom of this box is this square thing. I was like, Hmm, I don't remember ordering a notebook this size with my order. And I'm sitting there confused. And they, they had written me a letter that was on top. And since I was doing it live, I just put the letter to the side and, uh, just started going through the unboxing. And then I get to the bottom. I start unwrapping this thing and I see it's the entire set of the high uni Mitsubishi high uni pencils with 22 degrees of graphite hardness in there from 10 B all the way to 10 H the full range of pencils. And then I was like, number one, this shocked me because I knew I didn't order it. And number two, I said, well, I should probably read the letter that came with this to see why this is in here. And the, the girls at CW pencil, um, were nice enough to include this, um, to further my pencil knowledge. They wanted to give me something that I could base like the graphite hardness.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the high, high uni 22 pencil art set. I'm assuming. Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's basically one of everything. It's one of everything. So they gave this to me so I could now have a sample of what every grade of graphite should be. And we'll have something to compare. Oh, it's how good is that? That is super, super thoughtful. It was like, you know, since you're a recent convert, here's a way to have a baseline for everything that's made out there on the market. And I just thought that was so thoughtful and so wonderful. So thank you, uh, everyone at CW pencils. Um, that was quite a surprise in my order to say the least. So yeah, I'm, I'm a burgeoning pencilaholic, man. It's, it's going to be a problem. I'm on board of it. You can go, go for it. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoy, I enjoy writing with pencils at my desk. The thing is, you know, the pen is, is the tool I use when I leave the house. Right. It's, there's different, different uses for different things, which is what we talk about all the time. So anyway, I wanted to, uh, talk about all that stuff. Cause you're going to be seeing and hearing more of this stuff, uh, from me as we go through, as we go through, uh, episode 1000 of the pen addict podcast. It's going to happen. It's totally going to happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can you imagine that? Can you imagine if we got there? I can, I can imagine that. Should we just go daily?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I don't think so. So we can move it up a bit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You don't want to do a daily show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't want to do a daily show. I'm sorry, mate. I love you. Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't want to go daily.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. You know, I just want to say something real quick. Cause you were saying about how lovely it is to use pencils and I agree. And this is a completely different thought, but I'm using my pilot M90 today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just out there in the world. If you ever see one of these buy it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, so we're going to have a little conversation about this in one of our ask TPA questions.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, in, in relation to that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, I've got to say this is, it's just an absolute treat to use. It is. It's a great pen. Makes me feel so happy. Thomas Hall. I love you so much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Since we were talking about our episode 1000 that we hope to get to one day, I wanted to point out our good friends at Anderson pens cracked number 200 last night.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How did they do that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cause they're awesome. That's how they did it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I feel like that they started way after us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, well they go, they, I think they started before us to be perfectly honest. Really? Huh. Look at that. Yeah. But they have, they have, um, you know, gaps in there, you know, cause they travel so much they can't always do it weekly. But I, I'm pretty sure that they started before we did, but I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The first episode, I'm struggling here. No, I'm, I'm seeing if I can find it. I'm seeing if I can find it.