Editing The Pen Addict 425/transcript (section)

== Building Legos Together ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' We've also developed our own kind of understanding of each other when doing these things now, which I think makes it trickier for other people. Yes. Well, like, I know what words you mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There are a few assumptions built in that we have between each other right now that don't translate to, Hey, let's make a YouTube where I built, I'll walk you through this, like I said. Mm-hmm. Right. So, yeah. No one won't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's good. It's good though. So, maybe one of these years, Myke, we'll have to, like, do a stream Lego build. I don't know how that would work. Like.

'''Myke Hurley:''' People have asked and, like, suggested if we could do it for the podcast I've done this year, but I can't work out how.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Exactly. But at least now I have availability to do that now that I have real internet in my house. I don't know if you can tell, Myke, or listeners. So crisp. You know, I have real internet. I'm not even on, like, the fastest speed network I now have in my house because it's just like this whole spider web of things going on that I have to really, really sit down and make work to the best of their ability, but I'm very happy with that. So, I did my first at-home stream, Myke, yesterday. It was a relief to get that done, get that in. And so, Myke always mentions that I'm on twitch.tv slash penaddict at the end of our episodes, but I wanted to bring this one up forward because I'm going to be doing more streaming. And we're going to do more stationary stuff. We're going to do some handwriting. We're going to do ink swatches. We're going to do some busy work. We're going to do all kinds of cool, boring pen nerdery, plus some games. And, you know, I'll be able to have, you know, friends on to play games and just do other fun stuff. So, the opportunity for me to do more on Twitch has now arrived. And, you know, it's not going to be immediate, like, cut over to, hey, we're going to have this whole, like, Hollywood production thing. But this will be slowly growing over time, you know, in the, you know, the next month, I'm pretty, pretty jam-packed busy-wise. But after that, through the rest of the year, I think we're going to start seeing a lot of fun stuff. So, definitely follow me over there. And I appreciate y'all, everyone who does already. It's a really, really good group we have going. Anytime I pop on stream, we talk about pens. And then we get, we drag in some new people that find the channel naturally. And it's always fun to integrate them into the pen addict community. It's been really, really great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, you brought this up, and I was meaning to have this conversation with you offline, but I'll just have it with you now. I've been watching some keyboard streamers now. All right, look, leave me alone, okay?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do a stream about pens. I can't complain.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. But it's like, it's a really interesting, like, sub-genre of the hobby, the mechanical keyboard hobby. And it's a lot of time people building stuff, or they're, like, looping switches, or, like, whatever. Whatever. I feel like I just said a phrase there that people aren't going to understand. So, underneath each key on a mechanical keyboard is a switch, right? Like, it's the thing that clicks. People actually lube them so they move more smoothly. This is a thing that I've been finding out. And that takes a long time. So, people tend to stream, and they're talking, and stuff like that. But the production values of these streamers look really good, but I can see it's done relatively, kind of, like, not easily, but the production values are great, and it makes things, like, infinitely more watchable and interesting and professional. And I wanted to recommend one channel to you to watch for some tips. There's a guy called Alex Otos who have been watching his stuff for the last couple of weeks and really been enjoying it. But there's a couple of parts of it that I wanted to note. All of the keyboard streamers play, like, lo-fi hip-hop in the background. Mm-hmm. You should totally do this. Yep. Because it's, like, set in that chill vibe. And it kind of sets the idea of, like, I'm going to be here for, like, a couple of hours. Just put me on in the background. Yep. Right? And that really works for them. Plus, they obviously have multiple cameras. You need to have multiple cameras. Like, I know you know this. Yep. But it's definitely a thing that you need, like a top-down shot or whatever to show your hands. Like, that kind of stuff is, like, imperative for your stream. But now that you're able to put more time into it, this is the kind of stuff that I think you should be thinking about. Exactly. But the background music is, like, that's, like, blew my mind how much of a different vibe that provides. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So... Yeah. I'll find the, what do they call it? The open-to-use streams that a lot of people, music streams that a lot of people use for background music. The non-DCMA streams. So, yeah. No, this is great. This is exactly what I want to be working on now, which I wasn't going to invest in that time and money to do that on, in a location I knew that wasn't mine and not permanent. But then over here, we will be able to do that. So, yeah. Like, my stream is, like, super boring and plain right now, but we're going to keep going.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I'm thinking about it again because I'm investing in so much gear here for the podcast-a-thon. It's just like, oh, I've got it now. So, yeah. Might as well do it. I've got lights and all kinds of nonsense. So, I don't know. I've dabbled in it before, like, playing games and stuff, but there might be some, like, actual person-to-person stuff I could do, like me. Right. But I've got to find the time for it first. Right. All right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. They'll let you easily create a website for your next idea or project and give you all of the tools that you're going to need to make it at home online. You can get a unique domain name registered and set up so easily so your website has the brand that you're looking for. And then when people come to that domain, they're going to see something that looks fantastic because all of Squarespace's templates are professionally designed to make your content, to make your business stand out and sing. It is an all-in-one platform, Squarespace, so it's perfect for that, for, like, getting your website set up because there's nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They take care of all of that stuff so you don't have to. They've got you covered and then they back everything up with award-winning 24-7 customer support. If you want to create a blog or a portfolio, super easy. So, if your business is a breeze. What about an online store? That seems complicated, right? Not for Squarespace. You can just add this functionality into your Squarespace website. Super, super simple. This is one of the reasons I love Squarespace is it's super adaptable and lets you change what you need to when you need to. You can sign up for a trial today by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict and that will get you set up immediately so you can try out Squarespace for yourself right now. And then when you sign up for a plan, they start at just $12 a month, but you can use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. So, once again, that's squarespace.com slash penaddict. Go right now and use the code penaddict as well and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. We got a lot of businessing out of the way. Let's talk about pens now on this show called The Pen Addict Podcast. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Eh, why not?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Eh, let's go for it. A little bit of a rehash of the Sailor 1911 Compass that we've mentioned recently. I guess it was last week where we talked about it. It's Sailor's new entry-level steel nib fountain pen, right? It's a rainbow of colors. It's about $40. $40. $40. $40. And the questions just keep on coming from, you know, readers and listeners and followers. You know, tell us about this pen. Tell us about this pen. I finally have one. Theoretically, it's in a box sitting at my desk right now. But I'm holding that box because I like to do my unboxings when I get lots of things on live on stream. Again, another reason to follow me. Like, I did a JetPens unboxing on Tuesday. On Thursday, I will do a Gold Spot Pen unboxing. And there's supposedly a compass in that box. So I will be checking that out. I will review that. I will move that to the front of the review queue and see if I can get some feedback on that for people who were asking about how this compass is going to work. And the compass is an interesting product in light of recent sailor news on the Tokyo Inklings emergency podcast number two, Myke, which you and I have both listened to appropriately called Sailor Minus. It's a beautiful play on words. I'm a very, very big fan of the title. You'll have to go listen. And if you're not familiar with what's going on with Sailor, they've been bought out by a company. Or is bought out the right term? I don't think bought out's the right term.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Taken over might actually be a... They had a significant investment from that company plus. Now we've given away the joke. We spoke about that multiple weeks ago. And it was basically the idea of they owned a large stake in the company now and basically had the ability to convert this stake into effectively owning the company, which is something that they'll be able to do in a nutshell. But basically, this company plus, which is a stationary and office supplies and everything else kind of company. We've seen a lot of these types of companies in Japan. We've come across this quite a bit. These very large conglomerates owning these even niche stationary brands. But it seems to happen quite frequently there now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Basically, they own enough of the Sailor brand now that they effectively run the show or can make significant requests of Sailor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that went into effect in the beginning of August. So the emergency podcast, which I'll let you all... I don't want to talk about this too much. I don't want to... I want you all to go listen to what CY and Jacob discuss. But the reason that they chose to record this podcast is kind of the first news came down the pipe after the ownership change. And there was about six product lines that just got completely whacked out of Sailor's catalog.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But apparently, they're going about it in a weird way. Like, they're not going via the traditional means of talking about reducing a product line. And they're kind of... It seems like Sailor are being a little bit cagey about exactly what's been removed. But like, spoiler, you don't care about any of the pens that are getting rid of. You cannot name one... Which is the reason to get rid of them, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. This is... I am 100% for all of this. I'm so on board of this. Focus. Focus. If I asked you, you couldn't have named one of those products that was getting killed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There was only one of them that I knew, but I didn't know the name of it before. But I knew what it looked like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There was only one of them that I knew that I can recall. Well, I knew all of them once I read them. But the one that I knew that we have actually discussed is actually a terrible product. And it should be killed. And it's like the... It's the ProGear version 2. I think they call it Sigma. Where they redesigned the clip. And ruined it. And tried to make this really modern pen. And they just did a terrible job with it. And it needed to go.