Editing The Pen Addict 499/transcript (section)

== Metal Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Okay. So, I was in the right, you know, category of metal. You know, we're not into, like, the ultra premiums. We're not into precious. The platinums and the silvers and things like that. So, yeah. Basic. Oh, now then Kate's in here being, you know, the wise one. Says, you know, you can still do it, by the way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, but we've said it now. It's too late.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, now we've said it out loud. We've ruined the whole thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, now Brad bought himself a present. So, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, go me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm going to have to buy myself a present.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would genuinely, like, I would really, honestly, I think it would be nice for me to also buy one of these pens that you've bought. Because that just, I don't know, there's something nice about that. Then it's like a team. The same, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm not sure how I would feel about it. So, I want to see what you think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, yep, yep. So, and I mean, it's not like I haven't bought other pens recently, like one of which we're going to talk about here down below. But, like, this one, this is a big purchase for me. And I am excited. And I really look forward to it. And, you know, I will definitely share the experience when I get it. You know, the only hang up with this pen that I think most people will have besides the price is, you know, it's just like your Kaweco Sports short international cartridge, right? So, you have to be someone like myself who is totally content with using short cartridges or little refill, little converters that barely hold any ink and manipulating, you know, syringe filling cartridges to get like an ink you want. If you spend that much on a pen, you don't want to skimp on your ink. So, I'll be, you know, refilling cartridges or figuring something out to use all kinds of, you know, other inks other than inks that just come in cartridges. So, there you go. There you go. All right. I got more pens to talk about this week. Where do I talk about them the most, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' On your website, which is powered by our friends at Squarespace, which, you know, as we approach 500, it's probably worth saying, Squarespace is our longest running sponsor on the show. They have been sponsoring the pen addict for basically the entire time that the show has been running, which is kind of an incredible thing. I might actually look in a minute when was the first time that they sponsored it. I don't know if I have that information, but I'll see if I can kind of try and find it because that would be fun. So, thank you to Squarespace for their continued support of the show. It means a lot to us. And let me tell our listeners why Squarespace is so amazing. They are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Whether you want to make a website, an online store, or anything in between, Squarespace have got you covered. And they back it up with their fantastic marketing tools, analytics, cutting-edge design, world-class engineering, their top-of-the-line security, their dependable resources, and their unlimited hosting. It's an incredible package that you get with Squarespace. I was today just updating something on one of my Squarespace websites, and it's just a case of just clicking around. Like, I want to change the text on the website. I just click the little button and start typing. This is so amazing. It's why I've been using it for so long. I don't want to have to, like, change it on some back-end system and then publish it and go look at it. No, no, no. I just want to see how it's going to look in line. That's what I love about Squarespace. You start with one of their beautiful modern website templates that you can drag and drop and make your own. They're all professionally designed, but you can still customize the look and feel of it. You can customize the settings, the products you have on sale on your website if you want to sell stuff. Just a few clicks, you can get everything going, just what I was talking about. And every Squarespace website is optimized for all screen sizes as well. There's nothing to patch, install, or upgrade. They have 24-7 customer support, domain name registration, SEO, and email marketing tools as well. It's the full package. Whether you want to publish your next blog post about pens, maybe. Promote your business where you sell pen stuff, maybe. Announce an upcoming event. Showcase your work of an incredible portfolio. Or turn your big idea into a new website. Just go to squarespace.com slash penaddict for a free trial right now with no credit card required. You can build that website. You can just build the whole thing as part of the trial. Then when you're ready to launch it to the world, use the offer code penaddict to check out. And you'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict and you will get yourself 10% off your first purchase. To show your support for this show, our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. And Kate, coming in clutch in the Discord. Episode 2. That's mind-boggling. So, for 10 years from these incredible folks. Wow. And that's also, again, people say, like, how can Squarespace still, you know, be sponsoring? Because our listeners redeem the code. So, thank you to our listeners as well who continue to support the show by supporting our sponsors because it supports us. So, thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like, it's really telling when sponsors stick around for a long time. It's a two-way relationship, right? So, when you see, like, someone, like a sponsor even come back for the second time, that's a really important marker for people like Myke and myself. Like, I talk about that a lot and think about that a lot. So, like, to have Squarespace around for 10 years, thank you so much. It's really cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Man, they sponsored just, like, every episode, too. Like, I'm just, like, clicking through for a while. Things were really different back then. And the arrangement we had with them was kind of funny. Thinking about that. It's much more official now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was pre-relay. I mean, that was a long time ago. That was 70 dB. Yeah. That was some OG. That was probably, like, Squarespace version 3, I think, is probably where I started with them. Probably. Yeah, something like that, which is over a decade ago. So, crazy. All right. I will be writing about these pens on my Squarespace blog, thepenaddict, penaddict.com. In the future. I've just received the Pentel Energel 05. They have chosen to call these the black colors, which I'm not a big fan of the name. But what the...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's just a terrible name. That's so bad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, what these are, in the gel pen and in the rollerball ink pen world, some of the companies, Uniball especially, has taken to... And done a good thing and mixed black ink with other colors to make some really interesting colors, right? So, one of my all-time favorite gel ink colors is called Lavender Black. It's a Uniball color that they use in the Signo lineup. And then Uni came out with a whole lineup called BLX, which not a great name either, but still, you know, better than black colors. You know, we can at least say they're the BLX. So, this is very similar. Like, take your black gel ink and mix it with purple and green and red and blue and other things. And just give people a little bit of a different option.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is so funny to me. So, I'm on the JetPens website. And I'm looking at... I have an image, right? Of these, what they look like. It took me a long time of looking at this image to see where there's any differences between the black. Like, to my eyes, it's really hard to see that any of these black colors look any different from each other.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, I titled this section, Things I'm Loving.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not these. Okay. All right. All right. Fine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not that they're bad. It's that they're not what I think they should be. And they're extraordinarily expensive. So, they're great pens, right? The Pentel Energel 0.5 needle tip. I take these out and write with them. I'm like, yeah, this is just like a tier one pen. It's a great, great, great pen. I cannot, you know, express enough how good this pen is for what it is for a gel ink pen. The problem. The problem. The first problem I have with this, Myke, it's six colors in this set. One of the six colors. Can you guess what one of the six colors is? I bet you can because you've looked at it. Yeah. Well, what do you mean? Like, which one of these does not belong?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, charcoal?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. Oh, just black? Just black. Why are you making a set that mixes the... One of those two.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's why I say charcoal. Because charcoal black and black. Like, what's the difference? I don't really know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is there a difference? So there's six colors. Bordeaux black, charcoal black, crimson black, indigo black, olive black, and black. Why are you giving me the base black gel pen in this? Like, I don't understand that decision. Give me a different color. Give me green. Like, I know you have olive. Like, it's not... That's more of a yellowy color. Give me, like, a green black or something. You know, something different. Pink. I don't care. Just not, like... Or make it a five-pin set. No one cares that it's six pins. You know, give me, like, Uniball or none of... Everyone else sells just a standard black gel. I don't need... I don't need this set because these pins are almost $5 a pin. $4.80. $28.75 for the six-pin set. What you get in color differentiation from a standard black ink, as you alluded to right at the jump, is not a lot. So, people like Uni's BLX colors because there is a little bit of differentiation on the page. Now, if you look closely, and you can see it, right? Like you were saying, and I have written with these.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I had to... I mean, like, I opened the image, and I was like, there's absolutely zero difference. And then it was... You know when you kind of, like... If you're in, like, a dark room, and you go into a bright room, and then your eyes eventually start to adjust? It's like, as I left the image open on my computer, I could kind of start to see the separation between the colors. Right. It's there, but it's very subtle. And I agree with you that they kind of wasted one of them, which is a bit of a shame.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Crimson black is the standout as far as, like, the color differentiation from a standard black. Right? So, crimson black, like, if I'm writing with those, I can tell that's crimson black. Everything else is a challenge, especially, like, charcoal black, like you were alluding to. Like, it's not even gray. It's, like... It's just... It's light black. There's black, and there's light black. So, like, you've wasted, like, two pins in this set that nobody needs. So, maybe I'm down to a four-pin set now, right?