Editing The Pen Addict 630/transcript (section)

== Conspiracy theories and secondary markets for Hobonichi products ==

* Right? Because they need to pick up every possible customer they can to make sure that they're selling enough of this stuff that this continues to, like, be a viable thing for them. And, like, I read a good article that you put in the show notes from Ask a Planner Nerd. Like, one of the things that they were talking about was, like, conspiracy theories that people now are posting online about, like, oh, so many things are saying they're out of stock, but they're not out of stock, right? Which is what you mentioned. But, like, this just comes back to the online logistics issue. Like, if 50 people put something in their car and then the website crashed, like, that inventory is just locked up. Yeah, like, where are we at? Yeah. It's like, this to me seems more that just, like, oh, the website was just disastrous more than, oh, they're trying to get you. You know? Right. They're trying to get you. Because that doesn't make any sense, right? Like, they want to sell you the products. Like, trust me. You want to buy them, but they want to sell you the more than you want to buy them. Like, that is how this works. Like, there isn't, for a company the size of Hobonichi, there is just not a reason at all to produce a scarcity thing like that. Like, to artificially meter a product. It doesn't make sense to me. Right. I feel like that would be a really bad idea for them to do that.
* Yeah, because they're selling dated goods, right? Yeah. That seems to me, that seems like a horrible business to be in. Yeah. Than when I think about the inventory and how to manage that and not lose your shirt. Like, the covers. Eh, some are, some aren't. But, yeah. Okay. A lot of the covers, a lot of the covers are, a lot of the loose covers are not. But then the hard cover stuff is dated. So, yes, that's true. So, yeah, you can use your cover from year to year to year. God, this just seems... I would love to be in a situation where people cared about the products that I make to this degree, like, because of the success that it would grant. But, like, my word, would it be horrible?
* Yeah. So, last little comment on this. If you got caught up in not getting what you wanted because of site issues, just be patient. This, one of the things, one of the not-so-great things about Hobonichi's success is there is an instantaneous secondary market, right? Which you see for a lot of products. Just hold off. Like, you can probably find your item at one of these retailers that is carrying. Like, if you really specifically wanted a cover and it's sold out and it's really sold out, you can probably find it before having to go to a secondary market because there's so many retailers around the world.
* And, you know, I know some products are more limited than others for sure. But just, you know, take a breath before going to the secondary market and you might have a chance of getting what you want. So, that's just a thing. Because I noticed an odd thing. Like, when I was clicking through, like, some of the out-of-stock versus the in-stock ones, they have a limit of 10 on each product. Like, a cover. Like, someone could buy, like, 10 of, like, a really popular one and probably just put it out there to resell, which is uncool. But, yeah. So, just be patient. They have a lot of great stuff out there for you to get. And I super love them. And, you know, we're going to talk about what we're using in a very small fashion because, for me, nothing's changing. And for you, maybe there's something changing? I'm currently using two journals every day. Like, they're two distinct things. I have my theme system journal and another journal that I'm making. And so, I'm testing it out right now. And I'm very happy with it. It's a new kind of take on an old idea. Okay. In a way. I've told you about it. Yeah. In a way that I'm kind of surprised that nobody's done it yet. So, like, I am convinced somebody's going to do it before I put it out. Because, I don't know, it seems obvious to me. But maybe it isn't to others. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a bad thing. I'm not sure. But, yeah. This is a product that I'm hoping, hoping we can have on sale next year. But I've got a lot of irons in the fire right now, Brad. Sure, sure, sure. So, I'm hoping we can do it. Because I have, like, the production of the product, like, is completely finished. I think. Like, all of the hard work has been done. Because I've been working on this idea for, like, two years again. On and off. Trying to get it to function the way that I want to. Like, it's not.
* This product is more interesting in its layout than its function. But, like, I had some specific things that I wanted. And I wanted to get them just right.
* So, I'm happy with that. Now, I'm kind of just using it. And making sure that it makes sense for me. And I'm pretty sure that it does. And now, I need to work out how to visually represent the layout. That's kind of the only thing left. I think at first I was overthinking it. But I've got to work that part out. But now, I think it really is just a case of, like, I've got to wait for an opening.
* Okay. To have it. But I'm really hoping that we'll have it on sale next year. Kind of, like, immediately. And this will be Cortex. Cortex brand. This is a Cortex brand product. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So, I'm hoping that we can have it on sale, like, summer. With the idea of it's. Because it's. You know, it's like all these things. I don't like any product that is, like, so strictly dated. That I can only sell it one time a year. That's the thing with a theme system journal. A theme system journal, you just write your own date on it. Right? Yeah. That works for me.
* And so, I'm hoping that we will be able to put it on sale middle of next year to get some feedback from people in case there's any tweaks we want to make. And then maybe next holiday season, like, make a big push. Gotcha. Yeah. All right. So, yeah. So, short answer is I'm doing two different journals right now. Okay. What I'm using this other one for is kind of more just, like, gratitude-y, reflection-y stuff. It's not like a system, like the theme system. Right? Like, it's not like a thing. Right. And I think that's what I'm looking to add, more of a just a reflective type journal. So, I have my Plot or Narrow. That's my planner. Right? I use that all the time, just, like, consistently.
* It organizes my week, and then it has a place for, like, notes. And it's generally work-related stuff, anything related to anything that I have my hands in. You know, I'll put notes in there, things like that. Then I also have my Hobonichi five-year. That kind of counts reflection-wise. But it's such a short, short little paragraph space. I just put one of those up because I was, like, interested in looking at that. And I was really surprised, like, that the three-year and the five-year are the same physical size. Right. So, if you had a five-year, you basically can, like, write a sentence, which, I don't know. That's not for me. Especially, yeah, like, for someone who doesn't have handwriting like me, who does stay in between the lines on those, like, four-millimeter grid lines. So, yeah, for me, it's, like, five lines. Like, I can hit all the lines. But it's relatively limiting, and that's the idea. It's supposed to be easy on the daily aspect of it, but it's difficult in the longevity of the product. How long have you been using it for? So, we're a year and a half. Okay, so you're getting the wraparound now. Yes. So, it's pretty cool when you start to see the previous year stuff. Like, you have to, like, not only do you have to commit to that first year, but to really get the value out of it, you have to get into year two. It's a really difficult product to sell, I think. But I did it. Like, I'm committed to it. And, you know, at the end of this year, that'll be two years in. So, it's going well. Actually, rewinding to the Hobonichi talk, I did buy something around Hobonichi time, but it wasn't, like, a new product. I bought a cover for the five-year journal just to pop on it since I've stuck with it. I bought a cover for it, just, like, an inexpensive, like, if it's, like, a $30, $35 cover for it, which will be cool because I'm very happy with that. So, between that and the plotter, I don't really have, like, a journal journal. Like, you're talking about, like, reflection and stuff. So, I'm looking to add maybe something next year, but if I do, it'll just be in one of my regular notebooks, just kind of rethinking how I use some of my notebooks on a daily or weekly basis. So, yeah, no specific product. And, as a matter of fact, I could go back into the theme system journal, which I haven't been using, but I've been kind of looking for a little bit more somewhere along those lines. And then maybe a little bit looser. So, I'm playing around with that a little bit, just in my own just blank notebooks. Yeah, I meant to mention, I was listening to a video game podcast recently, and they were talking about the Mother series. Sure. And they stumbled across the fact that the guy who created Mother now has a notebook company, and I found that very funny.
* 20 years later. I was also talking to Tom and Dan about Obanichi recently, and they were blown away by the URL that they have, 1101. Yeah. Just like two funny things about that company. Yeah. It's great. It's great. And still, some of the Mother covers are some of the best that they do every year, but it's for a very specific audience. This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Factor. Summer's coming to an end. Fuel up for fall with Factor's no-prep, no-mess meals. Meet your wellness goals thanks to the menu of chef-crafted meals like options like CalorieSmart, Protein Plus, and Keto. Factor's fresh, never-frozen meals are dietician approved, and they're ready to eat in just two minutes. So, no matter how busy you are, you'll always have time to enjoy a nutritious, great-tasting meal. Make today the day you kickstart a new, healthy routine with Factor. There's so much to love about what they do. They have 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, so you're always going to have a new flavor to explore. You can reach your wellness goals with dietician-approved meals and ingredients that you can trust, and make your day delicious from breakfast to dessert. You can stay fueled with easy, nutritious options, and you can also treat yourself to restaurant-quality products with premium ingredients like filet mignon, shrimp, and blackened salmon. With Factor, you can keep kitchen time to a minimum. Their meals are ready in just two minutes with no shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up, so you're able to enjoy an effortless support for your lifestyle and choose from six menu preferences to help you manage calories, maximize protein, avoid meat, or simply eat well-balanced. They have the options for you. I know that you've been a big Factor fan, Brad. I'm actually kind of mad right now, Myke, because I forgot to order my Factor for last week, and I needed it so bad. So like I was telling you all last week, we did our SpokePen launch, right? And it was great. It was really busy. And up until yesterday, like yesterday was a great example where I could have used Factor, I didn't eat lunch yesterday, right? Like I ate breakfast, worked all day, and just worked right through lunch, ate a granola bar, and boy, I could have used Factor. So what I'm going to do today is when we're done is I'm going to go get my order in. So I'll have these meals that will take me two minutes to cook in the middle of my work day, and it will be an awesome break in the middle of the day with some really, really exceptional food. And I actually look forward to picking out my meals. So I was just mad that I didn't have it ready last week. It feels like you can like tactically deploy them that way, you know? You're like, all right, I know I'm going to have a wild week coming up. I'm going to be in the shipping department. So I'm going to get my two-minute meals ready to go. That was my point. And, you know, sometimes you get too busy to help yourself be less busy. And so that's what Factor is going to help me do very, very soon. So, yeah, I'm going to get that order in. Go to Factor. You can't do this, but go to factormeals.com. Go to factormeals.com. That's Pen Addict 50. Yeah, I'm way past this. To get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That is the code Pen Addict 50 at factormeals.com slash Pen Addict 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Thanks to Factor for the support of this show and Relay. Hey, that's a good sale, good ad content that I'm full price boy over here and still ordering. So it's the good stuff. Exactly. All right. We got a shout out of the week, Myke. Shout out of the week. Pen Fount. Now, I think we might have shouted them out a while ago because they've been doing things on Mastodon and I follow them on Mastodon. It's a good little pen community on Mastodon. But they put out a fun article this week, which is always one of my favorite questions in the stationery hobby. Myke, what is precious resin?
* So I love this article that Paradoxmo put out. They pretty much run the Pen Fount in the whole community. But this is a great article to send people who are always just kind of curious because marketing, right? Like some companies market things a certain way. All you have to do is go to the conclusion to realize what you probably already assumed reading this article. There's not really such a thing as precious resin. It's just we're a fancy company and we have marketing, right? Right. So great article. Enjoyed this thoroughly. I just smiled when I read this because they put it together well. So it's good stuff. So go check them out. Go follow them. And if you're on Mastodon, give them a follow. It's a fun community. So good stuff. Like, look. All right. We use words like bespoke, perfection, satisfying, right? Like this is just how you sell your product, you know? Yeah. Artisanal. Artisanal. Made in the USA. Yeah.
* It's good stuff. Precious resin. Precious resin. We should use that on spoke because we're all metal pins, but we should just say precious resin in there. Well, no, what you're looking for is aerospace grade. That's okay. Aerospace grade aluminum. So I'm going to get Brian on the podcast one day. So Brian's my partner in spoke. He's the quiet partner, but he's the engineer, right? He gets so mad at that stuff because he's like, do you know what this is? Do you know that's worse than what we get? I'm like, yes, Brian. I know. It's like planes are made of paper. He gets so mad. It's like we have this conversation. You should call it like space grade, you know? Yeah. International space grade. Intergalactic. Intergalactic. Yeah, I love it. Yes. Intergalactic grade aluminum.
* He's like, you know, that's a poor. I'm like, yes, Brian. I know. Don't tell me. I didn't say it. I just let him cook on that one. It's always good.
* You know what? All right. I want you to do. What? Go ask Brian to come up with the better phrase for the spoke stuff. Okay. Right? If it's not aerospace grade, what is it? All right. That's what I want to know. Okay.