Editing The Pen Addict 267/transcript (section)

== Polka Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the first one is the Polka pen, which is a pretty new pen. It's been around for maybe a year and they've advertised on the blog and they've sent me a bunch of pens. And I love this pen because it's so small and so light and it's really, really cheap. Like it's not the best writer out of this bunch. It's probably the worst writer out of this bunch, but it's a ballpoint that's good enough. And, you know, you can get like four or five pens for $10 or something like that. And they're really neat. They're they're like plastic molded pens that go down into this compact bullet size. They were actually made because the guy who designed them was a Fisher Space pen fan and he kept losing them and he was tired of basically losing $20 bills every time he'd lose a Fisher Space pen. So he's like, well, I need to make something cheaper. That's just as nice that I can't lose. So, you know, the losing the pens is a big deal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I was going to say, like, it's not that much cheaper. It's half the price. And I realized, oh, it's half the price for a free pack.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Yeah. So they're about three bucks each, something like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's it's it's a fun pen. My kids use those pens a lot. Right. Because they're cool colors and they have this neat snapping sound and they just feel good in the hand. And, you know, they think they're cool. So the Fisher Space pen clearly makes the list. I probably use that. The Fisher Space pen and the shown design pen, which I talk about. I probably use those two the most. The Fisher Space pen stays in my car a lot. If I forget a pen, I have that one handy. It came in handy for me a couple of weeks ago when I lost my lily put ballpoint or misplaced. I shouldn't say lost it because I did find it. I misplaced it for about a week. The Space pen came in handy. So it's that's the good backup pen. Then I have the two lily puts, the ball, the brass ballpoint and the brass wave fountain pen, both of the both of those, which I very much enjoy. I also use the, if I'm not using the brass wave, I'll use the fire blue, which is just a really, really cool looking Kaweco. The shown design uses the Fisher Space pen refill, which I like. I can get the medium blue refill, which I talk about all the time. It's the best Fisher Space pen refill. And that out of this list, that that's probably my number one most carried out of this list of, say, six pens. It's the most durable, functional. It's a little bit bigger, which is kind of helpful. Like a lot of people won't be able to use the Kaweco lily put ballpoint because it is really, really small and thin. So the shown design pen comes in handy with that. And I like the construction of it and the style of it. So that's probably my number one pocket pen, ballpoint pocket pen at least. And then the last one is the Timber Twist from Metal Shop CT. So they've made bullet pencils for a while. This is, they did, they did a batch in aluminum, which I have. And then they did a second batch with wood barrels, which that's what this one is, the Timber Twist. And it holds a, like a pencil stub, like a wood case pencil stub. And like in mine is the Blackwing 602. So it's just really, really cool if I want to carry a pencil because carrying a wooden pencil is not the easiest thing to do. If you're just, you know, putting your keys in your pocket and hitting the road, it's hard to carry a wooden pencil unless you have it protected. And something like the Timber Twist is very useful for that. So that's kind of my grouping of pocket pens that I use. The Lamy Pico just missed out because I didn't have it with me at the time, but I use that one pretty frequently. I have a White Barrel one. I actually don't like that one as much. And then someone asked me in the comments, where's my pen type B? Well, that's not a pocket pen. I carry it in my pocket, but it is very big and very heavy. And I don't recommend it as a pocket pen. I just recommend it as an awesome pen. And so that's kind of my pocket pen list. I mean, I know you have the M90 from Pilot, the fountain pen, the small, but that's not, I mean, I guess that would be considered a pocket pen, but you don't really dabble in this genre of pens, do you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, it's very rare for me to find a pen that is considered a pocket pen that I find comfortable to use, right? Sure. Because it's either like, it's too small with the cap off or the cap on, I tend not to like it, right? Like the Fisher Space Pen and the M90, the only two that I've ever used that I really like, you know, like the Coveco's, like the AL Sport and the Sport and the Classic Sport, that kind of thing. It's like, they're nice. But over time, I find myself getting frustrated with them, right? Because there's no happy medium to it. So yeah, I tend not to dabble too much in the pocket pen arena, but I totally understand why people like them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the Fisher Space Pen is so popular because it extends to full size when you write with it, right? I mean, that's one of the features of it. It's small and pocketable when it's stored away, but when you go to use it, it's the length of a full length pen. So that's one of the reasons why it's so popular. Not to mention the refill that it uses, the write anywhere-ness of the refill. So yeah. Anyway, I wanted to bring that up because I had a few questions on that and just in general why I love pocket pens so much. And it's just because they're convenient and useful and you can do a lot of cool things with them that you don't see in other pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, they are unique in that way, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I know it's, God, I can't believe it's DC time, but it's also membership. Myke, RelayFM membership. Tell us all about it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, so I just wanted to take a moment today. We're going to talk about this a couple more times over the next few weeks. But in August, it is RelayFM's third anniversary. And over this period of time, we have a bunch of things that we do every year. And one of them is bonus episodes of a bunch of shows for RelayFM members. So you may or may not know this, but if you want to become a member of RelayFM, you can give us money on a monthly or annual basis and you get a bunch of benefits. And these come from bonus shows to previews of new shows. We have a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter. And there is actually a new members-only podcast, which didn't exist last year, in which Stephen Hackett interviews two hosts about a big topic each month. So you can go, you can do a couple of things. You can go to RelayFM slash PenAddict. And you can just, there's buttons on the page right there. And you can choose to give us money if you want. All of the membership tiers get the exact same benefits. The only difference is how much money you want to give us. Or if you want to give to other shows or you want to give to all RelayFM shows, you can go to Relay.fm slash Membership and you can do it there. Or, you know, you can choose whatever shows you want from the list that you'll find on the page. When you sign up, you'll be given a link to subscribe to the special feeds that you need. And if you are already a RelayFM member, the same feed that you subscribed to last year will be the year, one that we used for this year too. And me and Brad have already recorded our special episode that will be coming out in the middle of August. The bonus episodes begin to drop on August the 14th, which is the beginning of our anniversary week. And I'll share a little bit of a detail. I used to do a show called Inquisitive and Inquisitive's last run was favorite albums. And me and Brad did a kind of mashup of the two shows. So we talk about a playlist of Joy Division songs that Brad has created. And I'm really proud of how the episode turned out. I think it came out really, really well. And if you are a RelayFM member, you will get that. And that's the only way you'll get that. So go become a RelayFM member. Support the Pen Addict. Go to relay.fm slash Pen Addict. Hit one of the buttons there and start giving us some money. And you'll get some cool perks as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And you get not just the extra Pen Addict episode, even though it's not about pens. You get all the extra episodes from all the shows. And I was also on the membership podcast with David Sparks talking about community. So you can catch that. It was fun. And, you know, you get the newsletter. We got a new host this week, Myke. I got to learn all about her in the membership newsletter. So there's very cool stuff happening.