Editing The Pen Addict 666/transcript (section)

== Detailed review of a specific notebook and its features. ==

* So, I got the notebook in hand. Now, we both have the notebook. And I have way more to say about this notebook than I thought I would. Okay. After receiving it. So, first, I need to make a correction slash apology. Uh-oh. I understood the feature of this notebook incorrectly. And you'll see why. Except it was basically a lack of reading comprehension on my part. Not putting two and two together without having the product in my hand. So, I kept talking about how the lines on the page were like the letterpress style. Where there's an indention on the page. There's not. But what throws you off is the cover is. Right? So, the cover of the book is indented. But the pages themselves. The lines are like you would see a watermark in, you know, a standard sheet of paper. Like, if you have a loose leaf, nice, you know, crown inlaid paper. Right? You hold it up to the light and you can see like the producer's mark. So, what I did was these lines which I thought were basically indentions. Which, that's the type of letterpress print paper that I'm experienced with with Plotter. And I put a link in the show notes. Or I will put a link in the show notes to show people what I'm talking about. That's what I thought we were getting here. In this page. But it turns out it's a watermark within the page. So, the page is essentially flat. Right? Flat and smooth. The page. And I was mistaken. So, I want to apologize for an incorrect description of that. So, that's good and bad. So, sticking on the lines for a second. This is ostensibly a blank notebook. Because you cannot see the lines well.
* I don't find the line watermark to be a feature. If that makes sense. It's just there.
* But is it? Like, you can't always see it. Yeah. Like, it is possible to see. Right? Yeah. But, yes, I agree with you. Not in most circumstances. Like, you can see it when you turn the page. Like, you really see it then. You know? Right. When you're writing on the page as a normal notebook. Right? Where there's, you know, another hundred pages down below this. You can't see the lines on the page. So, they're not guidelines. You almost need a backing board if you want a real guideline for a line page. Right? Just like a watermark. If you're seeing, like, a brand logo. You can't see that generally when you're writing the page. But if you pick it up and the light catches it in the right way, you're like, oh, look. There's the watermark. Just so in this case, it's like, oh, look. There's the lines.
* In my testing, there's no way I could stay on the lines. Like, without, like, craning my neck.
* Trying to get the light to hit it in the right spot and staying on the line. So, I would, if you're going into this as a, this is going to be a great lined notebook for me to use. You're going to have a challenge unless you're using, you know, one of those light boxes to write on. Which would be a terrible experience. Right? It's, it exists. It's there. But if you're looking for line guidance and, like, that's a mandatory thing for you, it's going to be frustrating, I think.
* The first thing I noticed, I'm rewinding now. I just kind of wanted to continue it, continue that since we were on the watermarking part. Rewinding back the packaging, like you said, like, elite. It's so extra. It's really good and really extra. But what I found to be the most extra, number one, this book is thicker than I thought. Yeah. Right? So, it was, if you take, I always like to refer to, like, the classic A5 Leuchtturm, right? 192 pages or whatever. It's, what, a good third thicker than that? I don't have it side by side. It's, like, the same amount of pages, I believe. I meant to look this up before. I'll find the page count. Find the page count for me.
* 144. 144. Yeah. 144 pages. 144 sheets. Yeah. So, 288 sides. So, what they do is they put in, they chose the nuclear option for the cover binding. So, the covers are ultra thick, like, cardboard. I wouldn't even call this, like, a card stock. It's basically, like, a backing board. And it's awesome. Like, it's really awesome. The binding is super clean and nice.
* This is a binding style that I like. Which I don't like. Yeah, it's, like, exposed. I don't like the exposed style. It's essentially where you're seeing the threading that's used to pull the pages together. And then there's sometimes a bit of glue on the edge. There is a name for this. I don't remember it. Yeah. And then there's, like, a tape over. Yeah. There's no cover over it. There's no tape over it. Like, the paper is exposed to the world. A lot of companies use this, I think, honestly, as kind of like a, kind of maybe being a bit mean here. But it is a cheat to get lay flat.
* Yeah. There are ways to get lay flat binding where you have a cover. But it's hard and it's expensive. This is an easy way to do it. Yeah. Which I like. So, I have a second notebook like this. I like Midori's notebooks. It's becoming more and more common because people want lay flat and they don't realize how hard lay flat is to achieve with a cover. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I mean, yeah. I guess lay flat's never been a thing for me. Like, I'm good either way as long as I have good paper and good performance. It's a big deal now in marketing. It is. Oh, it is. Like, it's like you, if you're going to market a notebook, you need to be able to say that, right? Yeah. And, like, that's, like, almost, like, the starting point these days. I agree. I agree. It's becoming table sticks. And the thing is, it's very, very hard to do. Yeah. So, I like the binding. I think it looks great. I like the cover stock. It is so dense and thick. I like it. Some say that is a good descriptor of me as well.
* So.
* It's dense, but we like him. Yeah. It's dense, but we like him. Okay.
* Okay. So, everything, you know, good, good build, good quality, good style, good design, bad. I think the watermark is. It's an uppiece. I don't know the right word. Yeah. It's unnecessary. Like, it does not. It. The watermark adds nothing other than to be able to say, this is what we did. And, like, technically, that's cool, right? I think from a technical aspect, hey, this is kind of cool. But from a usability standpoint, it doesn't mean anything. So, let's get into the testing. And this is where I was mostly anxious to try this notebook for obvious reasons, right? Because we like to use our things. And you had had one, and you said, yeah, it's kind of mid for fountain pens. Like, some was good, some was bad. You didn't like the texture. You have, like, you felt like there was a texture with a nib. Yes. So, I started throwing ink at this, and I genuinely like this paper. I don't understand. I don't understand. You will understand. As soon as I say this next part, you will understand. Okay. Because then I had to go do some research. This reminds me of bank paper. Okay. And I like bank paper. So, what bank paper offers, it's a firm page, right? Like, it's a firm, crispy page, right? There's no depth or give to the page. It's very fine and firm, crispy type of paper. And it has a slight texture when you use pens on it, even standard pens or, like, fine liners, which I used, which also translates to fountain pens. Some people very much don't like bank paper because of that. Right. I happen to enjoy it. And I didn't see any feathering, any bleeding, no show through. So, there's a lot of ghosting, right? The ghosting level, we're almost in Tomoe River ghosting. Yeah. Which is a bit, I think, is pretty unfortunate. Yeah. For what this product is because it's like the whole conceit of it is, you know, we have these lines and they're so subtle. But then, you know, they disappear. But when you turn it over, it's like, well, I can see where the lines are because it's where there's not writing. You know, it's like, I can see on the other side. It's a funny thing. If you're adamant about using both sides of the page and for a notebook this expensive, you should be able to use both sides of the page, I think you're going to have a bad time. Even with light color inks, right? If I used, if I wrote completely on both sides, which I will for my final review when I review it on the blog, I'll actually have writing on both sides just so you can see the difference. It's not great for that. Like the ghosting is for real, even with like lighter colors, like you can really see through it, which is kind of interesting because this is not a thin page, right?
* It's just how the page performs. But on the top layer, like where you're writing and looking at the page, I thought the inks handled very, very well. The colors were good. You didn't get a ton of shade or sheen, but you got a little bit and which is good for fountain pens. It's kind of like bank paper is similar. Um, the performance, I thought, I thought the performance was great. I was surprised. I was pleasantly surprised, put it that way at the performance because I expected worse and it was actually really good. I threw, threw a lot of ink at it in some areas and I threw some extra fine lines in some areas to see, you know, how, um, sometimes like an extra fine nib doesn't work as well as a medium nib on papers with a little bit of texture, right? You feel it too much or it makes it not enjoyable. So that's, that's a downside again, why people don't like bank paper, but I happen to like bank paper because my lines are true to the nib or tip size that I'm using in a pen, right? Which is a challenge for some other papers, um, in the past, like Cosmo or Light, like your lines would be wider on the page. So again, this is a really interesting notebook. I am on board with everything for the price. Like they charged a premium. I feel like they delivered a premium product. I think it's very usable with fountain pens. This is weird to me. This is really weird to me. The lines are like, yeah, that's why I want to talk about it. So, I just, I mean, I know like you're saying you have like experience with a different paper. I was like, I can't even imagine what that paper must feel to use. Like I was so turned off by this notebook. Like the, it looks and feels incredible, but to use it is really like not good for me. Like really, really not good. I need to send you some bank paper just to, just to test. Sure. Um, because bank paper is, you know, you bank paper is one of those where people will take sides. Like people can use it and love it or people just can't use it because of the texture and the feel of it. And I, one who can use, I'm mostly relating this to bank paper. So, when I do my final review, I will definitely have a bank paper side by side comparison. Um, just from comparison sakes, put it this way. I would use this notebook as like my primary desk notebook. Um, I would prefer it not to be blank. Like I, I'm not even calling this a line notebook. I'd prefer my blank is better than line notebooks, but I would prefer, you know, like a graph or dot grid. Um, I genuinely, but like I could totally use this as my, so, uh, different in our opinion about product. Yeah. I would literally never use this product. Right. Right. Right. That is wild to me. So, you need to bring it to me. Yeah. Yeah. You can have, you can have it. I'll bring it. I'll bring it to you. I don't want it. Yeah. So, it is, yeah, we're pretty diametrically opposed on this one from a, from a performance perspective, like all the other stuff. I think we agree on like the design and feel. Oh, it's fantastic. Um, I know why it won the red dot. Like it's easy for me to see that. Like, but I, I just don't find it to be a satisfying product to use. Yep. Yep. So, um, I'm going to need to write more on it. I'm going to need to write many, many more pages. I'm going to need to do some more comparisons, uh, with other papers that I feel are similar. So, uh, specifically bank paper, which is going away. So, I looked up this paper. Uh, I was like, man, did they actually use bank paper, even though it's going away? Which I doubt, I didn't think they would because that is already watermarked with the Mitsubishi three diamonds in the bank paper. Um, bank paper is also watermarked the classic, um, and that's obviously not in here. So, this is a brand called Araveal, um, uh, which from Takeo paper. So, I actually kind of want to find out some more about this paper. Okay. Um, because I'm, I'm compelled even though you're, uh, not to buy it. So, um, so yeah, there we go. I will have much more on this paper. Um, when I do, I'll do a proper review of this, you know, give me a few weeks, a month or so to mess around with it. Like I said, I bought two, I'll give another one away and then I'll have another one coming from Myke one day. But yeah, I, I, I did not expect this. I didn't expect this because we're usually pretty well aligned, but I see something in this paper that speaks to me, which again, like does not work for a lot of people. People refuse to use bank paper for the reasons that I like bank paper. So, okay. Well, at least I don't feel like I'm completely out of it then, but like, I feel like people that don't like bank paper will feel this way about this product. And it's clearly a taste thing. Maybe like I'm more sent. I'm just more sensitive. Again, this might be a thing where the way that I write is more of a problem, right? That like the way that the fibers interact with the nibs because the way I hold my pens could potentially be causing me some issue. Yeah. It's not a smooth paper, but it handles ink. Well, if you want to put it that way, it's how I put it. So, so this means that this product is definitely not for everybody. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling a business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings for a professional website, grow your brand and get paid all in one place. With Squarespace, you can make the most of Blueprint AI. This is Squarespace. Squarespace is AI enhanced website builder that will let you quickly and easily build a site bespoke to your business. 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All right, Myke, we got our shout out of the week. Shout out of the week.
* Yes.
* Mountain of Ink. You know Mountain of Ink. Long time shout out person. Long time shout out. Multiple reasons I wanted to shout Kelly over at Mountain of Ink now.