Editing The Pen Addict 607/transcript (section)

== Jetstream Light Touch Ink and product features ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So, Brad, I'm having that thing happen again. So, I opened the webpage in Safari for the Jetstream Light Touch Inc. All right? I'm going to read to you from the auto translation. Which I will say, by the way, in Safari, which is pretty cool, they have actually translated the text that is in the images.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have seen that, and it actually makes things worse. Yes. I mean, it's cool that they can do that. As a feature, it's great, because I was doing the same thing, and I was like, what are these words that I'm reading? So, you'll be our official translator today.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The reason I'm jumping in now is because I want to read what this says before you actually tell us what this product really is. Okay. So, equipped with the newly developed Jetstream Light Touch Inc., it's a habit, smooth writing taste. Newly developed Jetstream Light Touch Inc. with a more mellow writing taste from the world's first revolutionary ink series to realize.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They're very big on the mellow. Smooth writing taste. Yeah. They're very big on the mellow. Whatever word they're using. Yeah. Mellow and taste are, like, all through that page in the translation. So, it's amazing. So, we'll find out why.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's an image of an ad with a lady standing on a lake with a reflection of clouds, and it says, to the heart, lightly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Have you gone to the Instagram page, just the main page? Yeah. So, they're doing the blocking, right? Mm-hmm. So, the lady image has its own, like, six-image, six-panel block of just that image. So, they're, like, leaning into this release. So, yesterday, we didn't have, when we were looking at this online, and we'll have the link in the show notes, so y'all can go click on the Instagram page. They didn't have the laptop image with the notebook and the two-block image. So, they have definitely laid this out for quite some time here yesterday. So, what we have here is a new, it's two things that are new. It's a new ink formulation, and then a new pen barrel, and we'll touch on these separately. So, the ink formulation is obviously what gets me the most excited to discuss and to test. I do not have this in my hands. It is launched in Japan. Some of my Japanese friends have them. We'll talk about that here in a minute. I've reached out to Uniball USA to see when we're going to get them in the States. My contact, I got an out-of-office notification for that, so I don't have any update on that. But I did email to see. Once this pen comes out, and this is, like, a standard issue pen, it should be in the States pretty shortly if it's launching in Japan. And it's a basic pen. So, anyway, the ink formulation is designed, compared to the standard Jetstream, it's designed to be smoother. Tasty. It's designed to be, yeah, mellower. It's designed to be darker. It's designed to be less messy, which the Jetstream is already, none of these things, right? The Jetstream is already the best ballpoint ink on the market. So, they have, theoretically, improved what's already a really, really great product. Now, they've done this in conjunction with a pen barrel that takes from the Zebra Blin, which, when we talked about the Blin last year, the Blin was designed more as a barrel that eliminated vibrations and tip rattle and noise. So, you had this combination of smooth writing and then a barrel that was very stable. So, now, what the Jetstream light touch is taking a new ink formulation and a refill and making a barrel that is quieter, right? So, the ink should be smoother. It should glide over the page better. It should be darker. And all of these things are in relation to the current Jetstream that I love. And then it would have, like, a less, a more stress-free writing experience. So, the barrel has vibration suppression in the knock mechanism. So, all of these things. So, it's doubling down on its Jetstreaminess and then adding in this vibration dampening that the Zebra Blin made very, very popular. So, I'm interested to see how this compares. We have a comparison video I'll put in the show notes. Someone did a video comparing the current Jetstream that a lot of us already have with the new one that they have. And as I was watching the video, it's in Japanese. The person doing the comparison was literally giggling at how different it is. And that's exactly how I am when I do these things. When I do, like, a one-to-one comparison, that it was so much darker and smoother than what we already think is a brilliant pen. That it was so different, it made them laugh. Like, they're like, oh, my gosh, like, giggling. It was pretty funny to see. So, I'm interested in that. So, yeah, like, my main question is, is this the new Jetstream and all Jetstreams going forward are going to be this ink formulation? Or is this going to be a subset of Jetstreams and ink, like we have the Signo gel ink lineup from Uniball? And then we have the one gel ink lineup from Uniball. So, what Uniball is not saying yet is if this is just, like, taking over the lineup or is this going to be a side-by-side? Right? Because the Uniball 1, it wasn't designed as, hey, we've made a better gel ink pen. It's designed as we've made a different gel ink pen. Right? We've made an ink that is darker for this type of pen. And you still have the Signo. Let's just say the Signo 207. It could be anything in the Signo lineup. So, that's your standard gel. And then we have the one gel ink formulation that's different. Right? It is, if you need a more pigmented, saturated color in your gel ink pen for whatever reason, this is the one you want to try. It did not completely usurp the existing Signo lineup. They are together. Right? They're side-by-side. Here's their choice. So, now we're going to have a standard Jetstream pen. And then we're going to have a Jetstream light touch. Because the light touch isn't just related to the barrel. It's a completely new ink formula. Which is a little bit weird that they've combined those two things into one, now that I say that out loud. It's almost like the light touch ink should be its own thing. And then the barrel should be its own thing. And they can use the barrel for other things, too. So, I don't know. That's my biggest question is, is this going to take over the full Jetstream lineup? Or are we going to have a side-by-side saying, hey, here's your Jetstream options? I'm thinking the latter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because...

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's confusing to me, though. Like, why not? If you're going to have two different inks, right? Mm-hmm. Then why is this a Jetstream? Why can't it be something else? Right. Why is it a Jetstream?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I agree with you. But it's because the Jetstream is 15 years into being one of the most popular pens ever. Right? It's like the Pilot G2.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So then why screw around with it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because they can. Because I want them to push forward ink technology, right? So maybe eventually it just overwrites all of it and it becomes the new Jetstream refill. But they have such a built-in office supply cabinet Jetstream thing going on that I'm sure they sell millions of those pens in that fashion. And I wonder if this will take over that or if it's going to be like the Uniball 1. The Uniball 1 is not the office pen, right? The Signo 207 is the office pen. And so that continues to exist and push, you know, hundreds of thousands of units, I'm sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But like, I see what you're saying. But like, I feel like what you're also saying is like Uni can have multiple models, right? So why does this one, why is this called the Jetstream? If it's a different design, a different ink, and it's going to sit alongside the existing one, that doesn't make any sense to me. Like, why is this not just its own pen, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Yeah, I agree. Why? Because they're leveraging the name, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' But they have loads of brands, though. You know what? Like, I don't know if, like, I see what you're saying. I'm just not sure that you need it to, like, I don't think that is imperative. Otherwise, the Jetstream would be called the 207J or something. Right, right. Which isn't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What you're saying is like, this is the new Jetstream, make it so, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, that's what I think it could be.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' And like, so they're just like, but they're like moving that in. But because you were proposing, like, is that the case? Or are they going to offer both of these? Mm-hmm. But to me, offering both of them seems strange. Now, if this was called the Jetstream 1 or whatever, and it was the same ink with a new barrel type, you know? Or even called the Jetstream Lite, right? It's called the Jetstream Lite because the colors are light and it's nice and smooth and it's got a different thing. Like, but it's still got the Jetstream ink inside. It's like, okay, it's a new model of Jetstream, but this is not, this is a different pen. I agree. It's like a different pen. Yes. It's like, this is like a ship of Theseus kind of thing. If you change the body and the ink, well, we're not a Jetstream anymore, are we? Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I agree with you completely. Right? That's the biggest outline question.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What we're going to, this is a Trojan horse situation and that if the light touch ink is accepted, that like Jetstream's plan is it replaces the current refill in the Jetstream. That's what I would, that's what I would, that's my bet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think they're, I think you're right. And I do. And like in Jacob's note, so Jacob from FoodayFan has an Instagram post on this. He's got them in hand as well. So he's saying like, you know, they have at least designed the refills. They're using the same refills, the same shape. The refills are going to be compatible with all the other stuff. So it looks like we're heading down that path. Right? It's just that if you like pull the rug out from the Jetstream, hardcore Jetstream users of the current one, you know, you don't want to have like a new Coke situation happen. So I think they just have to mix this in and then eventually, you know, it's going to, it's going to take over. It's, it's kind of what I'm thinking as well. So it's super interesting. Like this is, this is the, this is the kind of stuff I love because it's, it's so insignificant. It's so insignificant. It's not, it's not. I want to point out before we move on one little note I made this morning that I skipped over and this goes into the translation thing. And I don't think I've ever seen a company do this or at least acknowledge this. And this is like on the main light touch ink page and discussing how, how the pen writes. So the translation says the phenomenon that the ball is difficult to slide and write due to conditions such as paper quality. So they actually called out paper quality when say talking about the ball gliding over the page, right? They're saying this new ink formulation is going to glide better across any page, but it's very rare that a company will just straight up call out the paper quality. Hey, if you use crappy paper, you're going to have a bad time, right? So.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But again, to me, that feels like something that Uniball can do with the Jetstream specifically because it's so popular. Yeah. You know, so they're very aware of the fact that like they are not the brand where somebody buys their notebook and their pen, you know, like people are just using their pens on like whatever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And so that's what I've been screaming for years, right? I think these companies should make paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. But I actually think they've done it the right way around this time, which is that they've taken that in mind when it came to designing and formulating the new ink of like people are going to use bad stuff. How do we make it better? I'm actually really keen to try this because I don't like the Jetstream, right? Like the Jetstream has never worked for me. I don't like the way it feels compared to the 207, which I love. The Jetstream just doesn't do it for me. Like if you're looking at uni products or whatever. Right. And I'm wondering if the light touch will be more pleasing for me. I'm actually pretty keen about that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am, I have very high hopes for this pen. So I'm already setting myself up for failure, but like, you know, I already, I already think the world of Uniball's products, right? I think they just do some of the best work. And, you know, I found this super interesting and like they, they have to deliver on this, right? Because the, the, you don't met, like there's things you don't mess with. You don't mess with the Pilot G2. You don't mess with the Jetstream, right? So it better, they better come correct with this ink. And I have a feeling that it's, it's going to be good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke, we're not done yet. While I was researching this this morning, I came across another post from Uniball. The new W-speed engine in the Uni Curitoga turns lead twice as fast as the original, ensuring continuous sharpening with every 20 strokes and keeping the tip consistently sharp and precise. I didn't know that there was a new engine in Uni. It is race week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's powered by steam.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a 20 stroke engine. I guess the old one is maybe a 10 stroke engine. It's a hybrid. It's a hybrid. So anyway, we, I, I never knew that. I've never heard anyone like have a problem. It's like, oh, this just does not rotate fast enough for me. Um, so I, I thought that was, I thought that was an interesting, uh, addition to this complete Uniball ownership of this show so far, uh, which leads to my final point, Myke. Do you think Lamy knows what they're getting into here? I mean, like, just, just look at the. Which is good though, right? These are, these are technology driven decisions. This isn't like, hey, let's make another color safari.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, but I think that that is exactly what Lamy need. All right. This is what we've been talking about. Like they need a company. They need to be a company that takes its design aesthetic and couples it with, with leading technology. And so I'm actually pretty seeing stuff like this. I'm pretty psyched about it, to be honest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, just look at like the, the Uni Mitsubishi Instagram page. Like, can you imagine Lamy ever doing something like that? Like they've, they've, Lamy shout out to Lamy. They've done a really good job here recently, like on their social media and stuff and doing a really good job. You know, turning a little bit of a corner into like modernization and fun and, you know, not taking themselves too seriously. But do you think they look at like, do they wonder what is going on over there at UniBall? And, and hopefully they're saying, and can we have some of it? Not like, OMG, like what are we getting into?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, someone at Lamy said that, which is now why UniBall owned them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And, and, you know, looking back at that, at the Lamy thing, it's literally like the, the, the Lamy family just like wanted out. Like they were, they're just, there was no real, like, there's not many original Lamy ties in anymore. You know, the CEOs are not, you know, last name Lamy anymore. So I think it was just like, as a company, they were probably just ready to move on. So the, the current leadership is maybe like looking into this as like a super positive thing. Like, I think it could be good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do imagine that there were probably, there could have been a few suitors for Lamy though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, that's great IP. Yeah. You think? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, spectacular stuff from UniBall. Um, this will not be the last you hear of it. I'll obviously get, uh, the light touch as soon as I can. Um, hopefully it won't be too long in the U S market. Um, again, like this is, this is designed. They didn't design the original light touch ink to be like an expensive premium pen. They designed it to be like a $2 ballpoint pen. So I would imagine we're going to have easy access to it here. Uh, it, uh, outside of Japan here pretty quickly. Like it seems like it's going to be a pretty wide release as best as I can tell. Then they have multi-pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will be buying one myself when I find them because I'm, I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued actually. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So they've already, they, what they launched with was like a standard, um, single cartridge and then a four plus one, uh, multi-pen for the, the jet stream light touch. So there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. This episode is brought to you in part by our friends at Enigma stationery who offer unique items made from in-house designs alongside top brands and hard to find imports. This is really what sets Enigma apart. I think you can go to their website and buy such a range of items. Like for example, they have the new Kaveco collection, apricot pearl. So it's the sport you love in a new orangey hue. They also have a new Lilliput ballpoint pen from Kaveco available in black or silver, but then there's also super cute accessories from blushes, including a plush Anthurium plant for your desk that never needs watering. Yes. Like a great idea. And a huge restock. Exactly. Super cute stamps, washi tape, sticky notes, bookmarks, and enamel pins from the clever clove. This is what I say again, I just love this about Enigma. They have such a great selection of items. This plushie is fantastic. There's also, I think, probably from the same brand. There's a few other things, including a Boba Milk keychain, which I like. Some great stickers, as well as like the pens that you might be looking for, the products you might be looking for. They really make like the best stocking stuffers and like items that you can add to your order. So I think they're really great for that over at Enigma. They're doing some really fun stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I finally got my psychedelic desk mat order in. Oh, so good. Which is like one of the coolest things ever. I'm not actually using it at my stream desk because like it's a little much for the camera, but it's on like one of my regular desks, like in the bedroom that I write on. And it's the funnest thing to look at. And I just love using that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I streamed a couple of weeks ago and I broke it out and people were like, what is that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I took it out just to show what it would look like. And everyone's like, oh no. And I was like, oh yes. It's amazing. Very much, yes. And then I bought a bunch of washi tape as well. I'm a huge washi tape fan. As you know from my newsletter, I gave a huge shout out to just washi tape in general. Recently that I use it for all kinds of things. And I bought some fun, some cat and dog ninja washi tape, which was like, I couldn't pass that up. And just some really, really fun stuff. And some little ninja sticky notes that I use as bookmarks and notes to like when I'm giving away items, I put a little sticky note on there. So I remember who I'm giving these things away to. So all of this stuff you can find in Enigma Stationery. I love shopping through there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you want to get yourself free US shipping or discounted international shipping on orders of $50 or more, including a free gift, go to enigmastationery.com slash penaddict and use the code penaddict24 at checkout. That is enigmastationery.com slash penaddict. You can check out all of the new stock that Enigma have. Plus get yourself a free gift and free US shipping on orders of $50 or more with the code penaddict24. Our thanks to Enigma Stationery for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Shout out of the week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Fountain Pen Companion. Our good friend Urban Hafner. We haven't talked about them in a while and everything going on at Fountain Pen Companion. And the reason why I wanted to bring them back up is not only should everyone be aware of Fountain Pen Companion to track your ink collection. If you are, you know, someone who has, you know, a few, even just a few Fountain Pen inks talking about tracking and keeping order of what you have, you know, what you might want to purchase in the future, what other things look like, things like that. You can track them there. And now Urban has a new column for the pens. So I put in a link to a blog post that he made a few days ago that is adding more pen tracking into Fountain Pen Companion, which I think a lot of people will get a lot out of. So just shout out to Urban for continuing to work on Fountain Pen Companion. It's a great resource for a lot of people in this hobby. And you have not checked this out. You really, really should. Urban does a great job over there. So go check them out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My favorite part of Fountain Pen Companion is the leaderboards. I do look at that every now and then. Which is, it's mostly people, like what they have, but there's also popular inks and popular pens. Yeah. But just put it out there. Mountain of ink, naturally, number one, with 3,616 inks. Golly. Where'd you even put them? That's amazing. I mean, obviously there's a mountain of them, but where do they, you know, where does it go? Can't even imagine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I think Kelly has reviewed, so she has 3,616 inks listed. I think the reviews on the blog totals over like 2,500, like of actual reviews. Right? So not only does she have that many, she's actually physically done a review. I want it. I mean, I would say. I think it's over 2,500. It's somewhere around there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' To be fair, if you're going to have 3,000 inks, you should have reviewed them. You know what I mean? Like, really, you shouldn't have that many inks, otherwise would be what I would say. You know? Because you can't do that. One human cannot deal with that. Like, how does Kelly choose blue, you know? You know what I mean? Oh, I want a blue. Like, what do you do? You know? Yeah. I would like to know. This is on a postcard. How do you make your choices?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, she pulls up her blue ink page and goes and looks at the samples and says, yes, I will have that one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just, the choice, you know? I just, I don't know. How do you do it? I just don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's great. It's great. So, I have an irrational number of inks, but it is nowhere that would come close to this leaderboard. I would, if I had to guess, like if I went in there and counted, it's probably 200, I guess. I don't know. Maybe not that many. Probably 150 to 200, I'm guessing. One of these days I'll count because it's, you say it's not that many when you look at something like this, but when you say it out loud, it's like, that's a ridiculous amount of ink. So, there you go. So, yeah, go play around with the leaderboards. And hey, like Myke said, you can go see what inks are most popular. What inks were most popular? I literally just closed the page when I asked that question out loud. Let me go back and see. Oh, the most popular inks. I'd already closed it too. Yeah. Let me see. I got it right here. I want to look now. Now I'm invested. Leaderboards.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pilot, Oshizuku, Yamabudo. Really? It's the most popular ink. Yeah. Okay. Do you have a top five? Yeah. Diamine Oxblood. Okay. J'ai a Bon Emerald of Chivu. Wow. Okay. That doesn't surprise me because I feel like that was an ink everybody bought when it came out. Yeah. Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, even if you don't like shimmer or you want to try shimmer, that's the one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Or even if you're not using it now, right? Yeah. It's singular. Ancient Copper. All right. Classic. Pilot, Oshizuku, Kompeki. Interesting. I'm just going to give it the full 10. Okay. Diamine Earl Grey. Oh, that's a surprise. Diamine Writer's Blood. All right. Not a surprise. Yeah, that's a surprise. Diamine Aurora Borealis. Mm-hmm. Noodler's Apache Sunset. Mm-hmm. And Pilot, Oshizuku, Shinkai. So really, this is dominated by Diamine with Oshizuku following up, which is interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I'm surprised that, like, half of the top 10 is Diamine. Like, that's just like, that is, considering how many inks there are available. Yeah. Like, how many brands. That is a surprise to me that is so heavily dominated by one brand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Earl Grey is the real outlier to me here. Right. Because it's grey. Like, grey inks are true. We've spoken about it before. Grey inks are traditionally very hard to get accurate, an accurate idea of grey ink on a page. And that's one of them. So that's probably the only one that's actually a surprise to me that it's on the page. But I guess because grey, you buy one grey ink and you're good. And that's probably, like, the one. So that makes sense. So interesting. Good stuff. All right. Fountain Pen Companion. Awesome stuff. Thank you so much. Speaking of awesome stuff, Myke, you have one week left to get in on the Notice Sector Dive GMT Pen Addict Edition watch. I'm excited to get mine. I'm actually going to get the prototype that's been going around that Michael's had that he did the blog post on. I'm going to get the prototype here in a week or two to play around with wear it. So if you're interested in this really fun project that we're doing with Notice Watches, we'll have a link in the show notes. We talked about it last week. We had an interview with Wes Kwok from Notice, and we got a lot of great feedback on that. So go check that out. The pre-orders are open for one more week, and then they're going to get going on ordering and construction and building the watches and get them out to everyone this summer. So I very, very much look forward to it. Wonderful. Since we were so busy last week, I held over the Kaweco DIY sport conversation I wanted to have.