Editing The Pen Addict 390/transcript (section)

== Time Blocking Inquiry ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Bad Genius asks, is there any planner you can recommend to do time blocking? What is time blocking?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just keep reading it. It'll, you'll understand.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That has a proper amount of space to write in. I love to Kokoyo, Jibun, Techo. But the space to write in is kind of small. Extra points. If you can log 15 minute spaces. That's how I plan out my schedule, any size.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, like the Jibun Techo will take your hour and break it down into a 15 minute block per like a single 3 or 4 millimeter grid line. Okay? Yep. And that's on a half page of an A, well, I guess one side of an A5 or A5 Slim notebook. It's not a lot of space for that individual 15 minute block. And I don't know that you're going to find anything with huge 15 minute blocks for like an entire day. But there's got to be something out there. That's why I wanted to make sure to ask this question because there's probably something out there that I'm missing that will have your blocks. You know, like one side of the page for a day broken out into 15 minute blocks. You might have to roll your own with like a bullet journal type system. Um, you know, I put in the notes, the chronodex, which is a time slice tracker. Oh, I know this one. Yeah. So, I don't know if that's exactly what Bad Genius is looking for. It's at least something to consider, even though there's not all, it's not, you can't really get a pre-printed one. I don't know if Patrick ever did the one with Midori. I think he was going to do a Midori branded one, but I'm not totally spun up on that, but you can print your own or you can get a chronodex stamp and use it on a blank notebook. And, um, it's basically slicing as opposed to just a, you know, vertical page lines of 15 minute blocks. So, you know, those are the kinds of things I'd look at, but I feel like I'm missing something. I feel like there has to be a single page layout or like a two day spread on the left page and the right page with just that full day being broken out into a more sizable time slots in 15 minute breaks. I feel like there's something out there. So y'all let me know, um, if you have seen anything like this out there and I'll let Bad Genius know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is from Jay. I'm buying my first high tech C Kalito and now I am absolutely befuddled by the varieties of body. I have what JetPens calls the 1000, but I honestly have no idea what makes it any different from the 500 or the N3 that you've been repping for so long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Pilots kind of screwed the pooch on this one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the, uh, the high tech C multi pen. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's my favorite multi pen. And I've used it since I started the blog, if not before the blog, it's one of the first pens I've ever reviewed. It's fantastic. I love it. I've tried so many of their different barrels. I will tell Jay this. The more you spend on a high tech C barrel, the greater your disappointment level will be. My favorite is the 500 and it's like a $6 barrel. The 1000 is like a 12 or $13 barrel. There's not that much difference at all. And I think the 500 is better. It has a, I like the grip better on the 500, but the basic, I don't even know what the entry level one's called. The three cartridge basic clear body. One is like three bucks. I'd either use that or the 500 because the more expensive ones are still just plastic barrels. I keep, they make them appear like they're metal, right? They have that metallic finish or they'll do them in, you know, like these copper, coppery colors or just like silver colors. It looks like it could be, Oh, cool. Aluminum barrel for the Coleto. That would be awesome. It's not, it's just fancy plastic barrels. So my tip for the Coleto is get by the lowest price barrel that you think is good looking. It's all about the refills. They all function the same. Yeah. What you really want is the refills. On that note, I prefer the three barrel over the four and five. It gets a little bit too wide when you get into the fours and fives there. One of the models has a very thin four slot barrel. It might be the 500. Um, that's actually a reasonable diameter on the barrel, but some of the fours and fives get to be a really wide barrel. And I find when you're using such a fine tip gel pen, like a 0.3 Coleto refill, that wider barrel doesn't work as well for that. And when you're writing with a, a fine nib, a fine tip pen. So that's my, my thoughts on the Coleto. Uniball style fit does the same thing. And it's just kind of annoying.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Alexander asks, if you're not finished of a notebook at the end of the year or month, do you force the jump to a new one or run the current one down? What's the cutoff for that decision?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You force the new one or you wouldn't be doing this in the first place. Right? I completely agree with you. It's based on the definition that you set at the beginning of the month that this is December's notebook. Whether you fill one page or 48 pages, it's December's notebook. Otherwise, it's just your notebook. Yep. Right? So this decision's made by the rules you set up at the start. Don't break them. Don't break them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Standard of the system, what do you have? Yep. This comes from Adam. My wife is looking for a comfortable gel pen to take notes with. Other pens have too hard of a grip. This is her current solution. What was the current solution?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was like a foam insert that they cut out of a box and then jammed the pen through it. It was pretty awesome. But you can picture just like a piece of blue foam like packing material.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was awesome. In a terrible way. So there you go. In a terrible way. Do you have any recommendations for a super soft grip gel pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Alpha gels grips are the best. Uni-ball makes those. They make them for a bunch of their pen models. I use the Alpha Jetstream. To this day, I still use that pen. It's a great pen. It's got the squishiest grip. It's very comfortable. And bonus, it's a Jetstream refill. They also have standard Uni-ball alpha gel grip ballpoint pens with standard ballpoint refills. I don't know why you'd choose that other than looks over the Jetstream one. The Jetstream is a little bit of a funkier design than a more traditional design of their regular ballpoints. And then they also do this pen for the Kurutoga and things like that. So anything Alpha grip. I would not suggest the Doctor Grip, which is Pilot's attempt at wider squishier grips. They are much firmer than the Alpha grip. The Alpha grip has way more give to it by a long shot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I hate this question from Greg.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I made sure to put this one in. Not because you hate it, because I think it's a good question.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is, but I hate it. I don't hate... You'll see. How much force should it take to bend a steel nib?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like, why do we have this question?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I bent a tine by accident, and it took much more force than I expected to realign it. It was a number six Bok nib, if that's relevant.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Greg. I love this question. Greg. Greg. I'm afraid you need to replace the nib, Greg. I think at this point. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, I'm not like Adam Savage over here, like, running tests on, you know, how much pressure I need to exert on a nib to test them out. I will say, from anecdotal experiences, that Bok nibs are easier to spring than Yovo nibs. I feel that they're a little bit thinner and a little bit softer. I don't know if that... That doesn't help Greg at all. But you shouldn't be able to manipulate this without tools. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And if you're doing it yourself, and you're just, like, making it happen, it's probably not a great idea to keep using it for too long. You should probably start looking at trying to get a replacement. At least it's a steel nib, so easy to replace. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It shouldn't cost you much. Mm-hmm. You can just get... If you look, you can probably get just the nib without the feed and the collar and all the other parts for less than $10 and just replace it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the last Twitter question, and we have some email questions. This comes from MRJ71. How can I get an extra fine Pelican nib to write, like, a fine or extra fine?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's correct. That's correct. Read it again. This is the correct wording. This is why I love this question so much. Read that exact question exactly as it's written.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. How can I get an EF Pelican nib to write, like, an F or EF? Currently, it writes almost as a broad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you understand?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't finish.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Pelican nibs are notoriously wide. I cannot and will not use anything.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The problem was not finishing that question, because if you stop where I stopped, which is where I got confused, you end up in a situation. Yeah. Pelican nibs are serious stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They are the widest, like, bar none, stock nibs out there. Steel, gold, whatever. And how can you get it to write like that? Well, you can't unless you get someone to modify it after the fact. Right? That's why I like when I was talking about the M205 before, I have a steel EF nib in it, and that's the best Pelican nib I own that hasn't been touched. It's better than the gold nibs as far as line thickness and width. So, the extra fine I have in the 400, that's a gold nib, I got modified into, like, a needle point, because I just know it's just not going to write as fine as I want to. Pelican nibs are notoriously wide. If you want something smaller than an extra fine, you're going to have to get it modified in the secondary market. Like, it's as simple as that, even though that's probably not the answer you want.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I feel, it's just like a good kind of just, like, general rule of thumb. You can't make a fountain pen write differently unless you make a physical change to the nib. Like, you can't change it. You can't be like, oh, this life hack or anything you would do yourself. You're just going to ruin it. Right? Because you can get that, like, that paper. I can't remember what it's called. It's like a very fine grit sandpaper. Yeah. Sure. And you could do, I mean, but you shouldn't do that, right? You just shouldn't. Get it taken care of by a nib grinder.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We could find you the driest ink on the least absorbent paper to make the thinnest line possible, but then you're may not going to enjoy it as much. It's not fun anymore.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Get it, get it, get it, get it mended. Find a good nib grinder and get it taken care of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So many, so many Pelican users will just send the nibs off to, to get worked and get worked on because the Pelican nib units are so easy to swap in between Pelicans that, you know, people have just like a stock of two or three Pelican nibs that they use and swap between pens and, you know, for different situations. And that's just what you're going to have to do if you want it finer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's episode is brought to you in part by Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They have wonderful accessories as well, like carrying cases and refills and ink and fountain pen converters and pen holders, even everything that you're looking for can be found at Pen Chalet. They have all of your favorite brands and they do. They really do believe to give you the 100% satisfaction guarantee. This is with very fast and reliable customer service and great shipping rates too. You get free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US, and they also sell internationally with really great shipping rates as well. They're always adding new styles of pens every single month and running special discounts and closeout specials every two weeks. Go to Pen Chalet, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, PenChalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Pen Addict. This is where you will get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet at any time, exclusive for Pen Addict listeners, and also to get your hands on our special offers this week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What have we got? So we have Lamy Safari. The shiny black model, was that a specific model? I know it wasn't a limited model, but is that different from their stock black? Because the shiny black is on sale, and that's a great looking pen, especially for a gift. But it's funny, the next thing is the Acme Studios crayon rollerball pins, which I've actually bought as a gift for people in the past because it looks like a crayon, but it's like a full-size rollerball pin. And the steel of the century is the Kaweco AL Sport. That's at a price that is abnormal, and if you're in the market for that type of pen, you should go look at this deal at PenChalet.com.