Editing The Pen Addict 464/transcript (section)

== Edible Notepads ==


'''Myke:''' We've all had an interesting time over the pandemic. And I've been snacking a little too much. And, you know, you've got to cut some of that down. So I decided to get rid of the edible notepads.

'''Brad:''' Okay. Okay. Well, I'm all about some edible notepads. And these have made the rounds in the stationary Pinterest over the past couple of days. One of my favorite blogs, a lot of people's favorite blogs of Japanese culture is called Spoon and Tamago. There was a link that popped up there yesterday, I think. Japanese stationary company develops edible notepads to quiet hunger growls. Is that really the marketing we're going to go with here?

'''Myke:''' There are some things I just don't understand.

'''Brad:''' The idea, Myke, is you're in a meeting. Mm-hmm. Okay. And, you know, someone's scheduled one of those terrible like 12 noon meetings without considering everyone else's hunger. Right? And it's lunchtime and some people haven't eaten. So you might bring your notepad in there to be, you know, a good employee and take notes during the meeting. And then all of a sudden, Myke, it's 12.05 and your stomach's growling. You can just reach to the notepad, tear off a sheet, ball it up, and scarf it down. And that will...

'''Myke:''' What is this solving?

'''Brad:''' It's solving hunger pains. You don't want to be embarrassed.

'''Myke:''' No, if you're going to eat the notepad, bring a sandwich into the room. Because if people watch you eating the notepad, not only are you eating anyway, you look bananas. Sitting there eating paper. What are you, a goat?

'''Brad:''' See, that's the thing, Myke. It's not paper. It's made from starch powder, olive oil, and water. I mean, I think you should just go. Yeah, like, that is the move for lunch meetings.

'''Myke:''' Are you supposed to write on these things?

'''Brad:''' Because, like, isn't it toxic to eat the ink? That's my big question. So they actually have a note about that. Because I was like, okay, this is as dumb as this is. Like, what if you write on there? And they say you can write on them using an edible ink pen, water, citric, acid, and coloring. So there's actually a pen in this image called food pen, which just sounds terrible. Everything about this is terrible in the best way possible. And, like, I should probably get these things. And, like, I just feel if you do this, you have to sell it with the pen, though, right? Like, there's no point in just getting them. It doesn't come with a pen? It doesn't come with a pen. Oh, this is silly. But you can get four flavors, though. Vanilla, strawberry, orange, and curry. Like, what would be your choice? I think curry probably.

'''Myke:''' Whoa, that came out of nowhere. That's an interesting – curry is an interesting addition on that list. You know, and I know that, like, people like curry. And I know that curry is very popular in Japan.

'''Brad:''' Oh, it does come with a pen. It does come with a pen. So you're safe.

'''Myke:''' It does come with a pen. Okay, great. But I find it intriguing to have three kind of sweet flavors and then curry. But, you know.

'''Brad:''' I think you kind of blow your cover, though, if you have to use a pen that says food pen on it in your meeting. I think that's going to draw eyeballs as opposed to – Possibly.

'''Myke:''' I think your cover is mostly blown by eating the paper.

'''Brad:''' Okay. That's the worst part. Okay. So I think you should add these to your writing rotation. We should all have these. Like, I don't know what the problem is here. Yeah. Okay. We should all have. I don't know if everyone should have the next thing. But my good friend Jacob at FoodayFan at Tokyo Inklings Podcast.

'''Myke:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad:''' A couple of months ago, I think he posted an Instagram post. I'd have to go look and see the date.

'''Brad:''' And he's like, hey, got this pen. Yeah, February 26th. It's like, hey, got this pen. It's from this Taiwanese pen maker named Mr. Cypress. And look at it. It's G10. And y'all know I have this G10 orange pen that I've talked about for years. Can you remind listeners what G10 is? So it is a fiber stacked – fiber and glue stacked material. It's made for toughness and durability, right? It is popularly known as the knife handle material, right? It's kind of – I don't know, indestructible is probably too far of a sell, too big of a selling point. But it is that type of material, right? It doesn't have anything to do with the steel or the blade on a knife. But it's the handle of the knife for a lot of knife makers because of its durability. The challenge with it for pen making is that it's very tough on pen machinery, right? So it's a – you can imagine that type of hard material just tearing up these delicate machines that are, you know, turning, you know, acrylics or, you know, metal in some situations. Like, this is even tougher on them. So it's got a tactile feel. Like, you can see the fibers, the fiberglass in it. Usually in the pens that I have, you can see that fiberglass. It's something that I like, but it's not for everybody. So he sent this – he showed this picture, and I've never seen a G10 material that kind of had a swirl in it, right? This is colored, so it's black and blue. And I'm just like, you're telling me this is G10 and it's swirly like this. Like, this is like the ultimate Brad pens. Like, I'm going to need this. So it's always been on my radar. I've been following Mr. Cypress. That was a new manufacturer to me. And I found recently that they now have a website. I don't know if they had it before. I don't know how long if Mr. Cypress was just – it almost seems like they just had an Instagram feed for a while, then a website. But I'm not really sure on the origin of it. So anyway, I got a bug, Myke, and went and found their site. So we'll have the link in the show notes. And they have all kinds of wild and wonderful materials that they use in the manufacturing of these pens.

'''Brad:''' And it's a Taiwanese brand, and they have an English site. So I was like, oh, well, let me go look at the G10s. And I was actually going to look at the micardas as well. But, you know, the G10 was at the top of my list, the one like Jacob had. So I found it and, you know, translated it into English and was looking at the pen. And the model I wanted and the color I wanted and the style I wanted with the steel nib was about – it's a little over $200. And I was like, wow, that's a pretty good price.

'''Myke:''' It seems pretty good. Yeah, like I am – For the work person ship that surely has to go into that.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, just the material and the machining on that is a large expense. So I was like, that's completely fair. Let me try this. So I ordered one. While I was there, you know, they do a good job of teasing all the – like if you can imagine a pen, it might be on this site. And I don't know their full like manufacturing situation, like how, you know, who's making these or this is all in-house. Like it looks like a pretty large variety of pens and this would be a lot for like a small company to make. But anyway.

'''Myke:''' And I just wanted to say it's Mr. Cypress, C-Y-P-R-E-S-S, not Cypress like the country. Right. Just in case people are trying to find it or whatever. Obviously, we'll have links in the show notes, but you know.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So I was just bouncing around. I was like, well, if that G10 is a good price, let me look at the Micarta. The Micarta was a good price too, but I didn't like any of the patterns. And then I found some Ebonite that was about half of the – it was like low hundreds. I was like, fine. Fine. Fine if you're going to make me. Right. I'm ordering this pen. And I'm paying, you know, overseas shipping, right? Like, you know, anything cross-country shipping these days is going to cost you $40, $50 no matter what. Well, that shipping is not going to change if I throw in another pen, right? So let's make that happen. So I have two pens coming. So we'll talk about these later. But what I wanted to talk about is just kind of give an idea of the way this site is set up for anyone who's interested in doing this. I've never had this experience before, and I don't know if this is because it's a newer site or a newer type of retailer. But the way they have things set up is like I just had to buy the G10 in the shape and color that I wanted, okay? So the shape I bought is like – it's called the cone shape. It's just a, you know, kind of tapered cylinder pointy ends, you know, just like, you know, the Nakia points or, you know, just the Ben Walsh, you know, pen that I'm using the entry. It's a very basic design. And then you have to email them and say, I want this nib and this size. And then with the Ebonite, I couldn't even pick out the color when I ordered it. So I said, okay, the ordering page for the Ebonite showed five different pens. Well, you can't go in and choose purple, green, blue, whatever. You order the pen. Then I emailed that same email. I said, I want the purple color all the way on the right of the picture. So it's not the most straightforward ordering. Maybe that's going to change in the future. But I do think these are maybe kind of smaller batch. And, you know, I noticed like the Ebonite one, when I went back to get the link for the show notes, it was listed as sold out. Right. Like, and I think they only have like one or two of these different things in inventory. So it was a strange process. And I'll talk about it more once they arrive. But I will say, like the extra steps I had to take, they were super responsive. They're like, okay, good. We got this. Can you confirm this is what you're saying? And it's like, yes, you know, I confirm these, this information. They're like, okay, we'll be shipping it soon. And so it was these weird little extra steps that I haven't had to take. But I think that's just kind of the cost of doing business kind of cross country and around the world. Right. Sometimes, you know, like we expect, like I expected to go in and say, this pin, this color, this nib type, this nib size, place order, pin shows up. Right. And this would take a few extra steps. Like we've done these things before.

'''Myke:''' Especially if there is a website. Yes. You know what I mean? Like I'm more used to giving this kind of information if I'm like buying something via Instagram messages, you know? Yes. And they're just going to send me a PayPal receipt or whatever.

'''Brad:''' Which I think is kind of the origination of how this site, it's what it feels like to me.

'''Myke:''' It seems like that's the case because what I don't know that that. Yeah. They have like the very basics of an online ordering system. And then you still have to communicate with them. It's intriguing to me that they've gone as far as creating the website that they've made, but yet you can't just select these. Especially when it's preset options. Like it's not like, you know, they're like, oh, tell us what two colors you like and how do you want it. You know, there's not really a conversation is what I'm getting. It's kind of just like, which options do you want? And so that's like a funny thing to not then just have a website that lets you pick them.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I really have no point in this. I don't dislike that. But you should go into like if you're doing like these weird things like I am and shopping from these stores all over the world. Like you're expecting, like you set your expectations to like not get frustrated and just like go with the flow. And like I'm looking forward to getting these pens and I had a nice experience with them, but it's different. It was a different process and I wasn't used to it. So I thought it was worth at least talking about for a second.