Editing The Pen Addict 563/transcript (section)

== Weekend activities and Chicago trip ==


'''Myke:''' So we just had a big weekend.

'''Brad:''' You had a big weekend. Lots of official documentation going around between you and I.

'''Myke:''' Is that, yeah? Okay. Interesting. I mean, I guess so. I guess I see what you're saying. Yeah. So we just, not, you know, I wasn't involved, but we just had a new king and queen. Watched the whole affair. It was very regal as you could imagine, but it was, I kind of, I enjoyed it. I thought it was really nicely done. There was, it was like quite a beautiful ceremony and the whole thing. And, you know, it was, it was interesting to watch as well as it was weird. It's like a very strange thing. Cause obviously I've never got to see this and it's like, it was super interesting to see how they manage all of the weirdness to it. But also I think added in quite a lot of things that I liked. Like there was a lot of, whilst it is still quite a religious affair because that's just kind of what the monarchy is all tied up in. There was a lot of like multi-faith representation, which I thought was good. It felt like maybe as modern as you could make something like this today. There's lots of music too, which was really good. It was, it was a very, it was also just like super weird, super interesting, but I had, I find it kind of fascinating. But obviously the biggest moment for me was when they gave a document of some description, some kind of declaration to King Charles for him to sign. And he pulled out a fountain pen, which I think concealed a Sharpie. It is like maybe a two millimeter stub nib that this guy's got running on this thing.

'''Brad:''' I've zoomed into that thing and that's about what it looks like. It might be, I think it's probably like double broad.

'''Myke:''' But it was, it was a fat wet line there that he signed. And obviously my mind went to what is the pen, right? Obviously, of course, there were lots of articles written. And I'll put one in the show notes of like, that he, it worked, the pen worked. Because obviously, you know, listeners to the show know. That's the key. Yeah. That he's had issues with his pens working.

'''Myke:''' So yeah, I was really intrigued. What is this pen? And I've been doing some digging and looking around. I've seen a bunch of TikToks and stuff like that in my searching of people trying to work this out. Mm-hmm. And Fibber wrote in asking the question and then sending in a second thing to penoutfeedback.com suggesting that it might be an Onoto pen because they have made a pen called the Coronation pen, which is a very expensive pen. I don't think this is it. I feel very confident in that, actually, that it is not that pen. My expectation is, I don't know who made this. I can't work that out. This is not a pen that anybody else could buy. This was a 100% custom-made piece. That's my thinking. I assume by some British brand, right? Because why would you not? We have them. And that was historically the way it was done, too. Idina was looking around. She could find things about the pen from Queen Elizabeth's Coronation. There was information about that. But there's nothing that I've been able to find to say who made this pen. But I expect it's a British brand of some description. But this is a purely 100% custom, for him, made product.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. And we can't really get a close enough shot of the nib to see. The nib looks refined enough for it to be a legitimate maker, like an Onoto. Not just maybe a metalsmith making a nib. Although they could be very etched. And we do know people who have that type of talent.

'''Myke:''' Oh, I expect it is a pen brand, right? Like a well-known pen brand. But I just think that this was a custom-made pen by that pen brand. That's what I would expect.

'''Brad:''' But maybe between, like, you know, Onoto, Conway Stewart, some of the… Yarder lead? Yeah, Yarder lead. That would be a good choice. What I can't tell if this is, like, a silver with a bunch of etching, or is this, like, Mother of Pearl, like, inlay type of…

'''Myke:''' I think it's silver. I just think from when I was watching it, it looked very silver. And I expect it is a silver pen. Yeah. Or, like, white gold or something, right? But it looked pure metal from the imagery that I saw.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, it's interesting. Who knows, like, can give us evidence, right? Like, we can all make a… Like, you could point to this and nod to him and be like, maybe it was them because they made a coronation pen. But, like, the pen that they're calling the coronation pen does not look like this one to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, hopefully it'll come out eventually, right? I mean, that's now, like, in the history books, right? If you made it, why would you not, right?

'''Myke:''' Like, if you were responsible for making this thing, surely you'd want to talk about it.

'''Brad:''' I know there was a big Reddit thread I was following trying to sort it out, and it was the same kind of conversations that we're having. I don't know if it ever came to a conclusion, if they got any further. But there just weren't many images outside of, like, either the live TV or the images that we're getting, and they're just not telling enough to, like, totally say. And no brand has had the press release, right, saying that… Not that I've been able to find it anyway. Yeah. Here's the cost. Here's the materials, right? There's usually, like, a full detailing of pens like this, right? You know, how we made it, what are the materials, what are the specs of the pen, and stuff like that. So one comment on the actual handwriting, he is a very far-back gripper when signing documents. This was the same as the initial documents he was signing when, you know, the world was fascinated with his terribly working pen. So this is very much a marker-type pen signature. Sure. So I always find that interesting. So, yeah, I will want to get the pen specs. I actually am obviously interested in the ink, right, to see, you know, are we using, you know, your Diamine Registrar's type of ink situation. What did they make? Like, you know, we had that post from a week or two ago talking about, like, the special ink created for the coronation invitations. Did yours ever come? Like, did you ever get your invitation?

'''Myke:''' I think you got lost in the mail. Maybe when we moved and they hadn't updated our address. I expect that's what happened because I didn't get my invitation. Yeah, the timing. I will say there was one person I was looking for in the crowd and couldn't find him, Johnny Ive. I'm assuming he was invited, right? I would think so. Well, he designed the seal, so I couldn't find him. Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't, but I was keeping my eye out. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' So what pen did you use to sign your fealty to the king?

'''Myke:''' It didn't have to do that. There was this thing where they were saying that, like, they were going to ask the public if they wanted to do it during the coronation. And people got real mad about it, and they didn't do that in the end.

'''Brad:''' What a terrible decision that would have been.

'''Myke:''' See, I don't think so. I mean, maybe people are going to hate me for this. But it was an option. It was like, you didn't have to do it.

'''Brad:''' But you're asking for trouble. Well, yeah. Like, you're literally asking for trouble. That's the thing, right? Yeah.

'''Myke:''' Because this is a thing that you do if you are becoming a citizen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to do it. And so there was something about it where it's like, I've experienced that. So this is where maybe my feeling comes across as different. It's like, I experienced Adina do that, and it was a very beautiful moment. Like, it meant a lot to me. It was very emotional. And I just thought about, like, all of the people that truly cared, like, enough to want to become citizens, pledged to the queen. And now they might want to pledge to the king as well. Like, that was kind of where I was coming from. And so, like, to me, it was kind of like, as an option, like, to do it. But, yeah, people didn't like it, so they changed it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, that turned around real quick, real quick. So big, big stationery week in both of our lives. Crazy times. It's funny that, like, we really think about this stuff. It's like, I worried about what pen I was bringing to jury duty. You wanted to see what Ben the King's writing with. Yeah, it's cool. You know, it's cool.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I love talking about this stuff. And those two of equal importance. Absolutely. All right, let's take our second break, and then I want to hear all about the Chicago Pen Show. How does that sound? All right.

'''Myke:''' All right, I'm happy to say that this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Ooni Pizza Ovens, the world's number one pizza oven company. They make a wide range of surprisingly small ovens that are powered by your choice of either wood, charcoal, gas, or now electricity as well. Brad Dowdy. Letting you make restaurant-quality pizza at home. Ooni Pizza Ovens are incredibly easy to use. They'll fit into any outside space, and now they have the Uni Vault Oven, which can fit into an inside space as well. Ooni Pizza Ovens can reach temperatures of up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit or 500 degrees Celsius. This is what enables you to cook restaurant-quality pizza in as little as 60 seconds. That high temperature is what you need to really separate the pizza that you're making from what you can make in a conventional oven. It's just not going to do the job without it. One of Uni's most popular models is the Koda 16. This is the one that Brad has. This will cook up to 16-inch pizzas with an innovative L-shaped burner at the back. This is a gas model. But they do multi-fueled models as well, like the Uni Karu, where you have one pizza oven, and you can choose wood, charcoal, or gas to give you a different effect. And Ooni Pizza Ovens start at just $299 with free shipping to the US, the UK, and the EU. They make an awesome app that can help you perfect your dough recipe to give you pizza-making tips, and they sell all of the tools that you're going to need and accessories, from peels to cutters to oven tables. Ooni Pizza Ovens are always in high demand, so you should never... If you want it, don't miss out. As the weather's starting to change as well, you know, maybe where you live is starting to get a little bit warmer. I know it is for me, and I think it's always warm for Brad, but maybe it's just different. You can maybe go outside and make some pizza yourself. Listeners of this show can get 10% off their purchase of an Ooni Pizza Oven, which is up to $50 off an Uni code of 16. Just go to uni.com, that's O-O-N-I dot com, and use the code ADDICT2023 at checkout, and you will get that awesome 10% off at uni.com, O-O-N-I dot com, and the code ADDICT2023 for 10% off. Ooni Pizza Ovens are the best way to bring restaurant-quality pizza to your own backyard or home. Thanks to Ooni Pizza Ovens for the support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' I saw Christian cooking in his vault the other day. He was putting pictures out on Mastodon. I was like, man, that is just sick. That looks so cool.

'''Myke:''' I would have bought that if we hadn't moved. Now we've moved and I've got a backyard, I want the gas one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

'''Brad:''' I agree. I wouldn't want to trade it out, but I get the option of that and watching him and seeing what he was doing with that.

'''Myke:''' I was like, yeah, that's pretty sick. But we were in the apartment.

'''Brad:''' I would have got the vault. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's cool. That's cool. All right, speaking of pizza, Myke, Chicago, big pizza town. Deep dish, baby. Do you have any deep dish? I had some. I did, I did. First night I was there, Friday night. Our friends at Canalea took me over to Lou Malnati's for a little deep dish, little thin crust, kind of a little mixture of all the things. So yeah, it was good. That's my favorite.

'''Myke:''' I know people have, I'm sure if you're in Chicago, you have your favorites, but I've been to Lou Malnati's a few times and I always have a good time, including when I was there accidentally in September last year, where we, as I tend to be, whenever going to or from Memphis, I have at least one problem. And we had an issue of our flight and we had to stay over the night in Chicago. And we ended up,

'''Myke:''' we stayed over and we arrived late. We're like, look, we're in Chicago just until the morning. I want to get a deep dish. We're like, all right, let's do it. The problem with deep dish is it takes a really long time to cook. And we were so tired. And it was like half past 11 at night and then we're eating a deep dish pizza. Like half past 11, Chicago time.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep.

'''Myke:''' But it's worth it.

'''Brad:''' That's the move. All right. So this trip was worth it. It was good to get back to Chicago. It had been about five years since I've been to the Chicago Pen Show. Literally nothing had changed. Same hotel, same location, same general setup with a hotel, hotel atrium filled with vendors, hotel ballroom filled with vendors, all basically connected. One big show is really good. I actually, when I say nothing has changed, I mean that kind of in a positive way. Like, cause I like the setup and I like the location and I like the hotel. Yes, it's out in the suburbs of Chicago. You're not really getting downtown without a hall. Um, but like for a Pen show, for a self-contained Pen show, we talk a lot of times about how, you know, we're not necessarily, um, going around town for the show. You're in and around the hotel as much as possible. So you kind of want those amenities right there and have some options outside of the hotel close by, like walking over to food, which was easily done at the Chicago show. So that was great. So, um, I like, I actually like the location and the layout and the size of the show. It's a good medium size show, similar to Baltimore, uh, as far as size goes, like bigger than Atlanta, uh, for sure. And, um, the crowds I thought were really nice, you know, it was Friday. I got, I got in one, two o'clock Friday afternoon. Um, so it wasn't overly busy Friday afternoon, you know, it was a decent enough crowd. Um, not slammed. Uh, Saturday seemed to be busy from open to close, which was great. And then I wasn't there Sunday to see what the Sunday was like, but, um, it was very crowded on a Saturday and a Friday night. And, um, it was, it was a good time. So, um, I had two priorities on my list for heading into the show. One was to get my initials painted on my plotter. So I picked up a plotter narrow at the San Francisco pen show. That is now what I use, um, pretty much every day during the week. It's kind of like my main planner task list to do list calendar. Um, and they brought, uh, some of the team over from Japan to Chicago. They had an event earlier in the week at Atlas Stationers, which is a local stationery shop in Chicago. Like, uh, the Wednesday before the show, I think they had an in-store event. So they were definitely bringing, uh, they, they brought a crew with them to Chicago. And I'm very appreciative of, of them for like traveling from Japan over to this show. So they had an, an artisan, like painting, like hand painting initials on a plotter. So they had appointments like every 20 minutes, uh, Friday and Saturday. I was planning on getting, getting up early, going and doing that Saturday, but I came in Friday afternoon, was hanging out over there. They had one spot open for Friday afternoon. So I took that spot and, uh, got that done. So that was the first thing I did. I just went ahead and knocked that out right out the gate. I was very happy with that. Um, the second thing on my list was to check out Newton pens. I wanted to get a prospector, which is one of Sean Newton's oldest designs. It's very, um, visually striking. And it's something that I wanted to pick out in person. Like I, I've never owned a prospector. I've always enjoyed seeing them and enjoyed like, enjoyed, uh, you know, getting to handle other people's prospectors. And I kind of, it wasn't like my first choice when I was buying like a Newton pen. Like I've had a Shinobi for years. Um, but I've kind of, it's kind of grown on me as like, I really, really want that pen. Yeah. Yeah. So it took a while for me to like, get there to like decide. I was like, yeah, the more I use them, the more I kind of fell in love with them. So I wanted to be sure if I was going to get one, I wanted to pick it out in person. I knew Sean was going to be there. And fortunately, um, there was a model or color material that I liked. So he makes them in three different sizes. There might be four, but I think it's three different sizes. Um, and I bought the smallest, uh, which is still a big pen, but if it's like a number six, Yovo nib, and then he makes a one that's a little bit bigger than that, that also fits a number six Yovo nib. And then he makes one even bigger that's designed around a number eight size nib. So, um, when I say I bought the smallest one, it's still, you know, a very, very big, normal size pen. There's just all the rest of them are bigger. So it was nice to talk with Sean and Liz hadn't seen them in a while. Um, you know, he let me just kind of, you know, go to town, testing out all the pens, you know, I was swapping nibs in and out to just kind of get a good feel of what size I wanted. Picked one out, picked out a cool material. Um, I haven't had time to even really unpack all my stationery from the show because I went right into the jury duty thing Monday morning. So I'll have some pictures and start talking about all this stuff later this week. I'm getting back to a more normal schedule starting on Thursday this week. Um, so yeah, I got that. It was great. I am very, very happy with that. He, you know, he, one of the things I didn't know when I bought the pen is he fits his Yovo nibs with the ebonite feeds from I believe it's Flexible Nib Factory. So that's kind of like a nice little upgrade. That's a very nice, uh, good flow feed, right? That's, um, it's kind of, it's not even an add-on. It's basically included with the purchase. So then I got, uh, Gina from Custom Nib Studio to put a Curse of Vitalik grind on a fine steel Yovo nib. And I'm just kind of been, you know, using that ever since I got it. It's really, really great. That's my only pen I bought, uh, for myself. So, um, I did good, like really just knocking out the two things I want to do on Friday, but that put me in position on Saturday to just be wide open, which is not always the best thing.

'''Myke:''' Um, yeah. Worst place to be wide open is a pen show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.