Editing The Pen Addict 104/transcript (section)

== Baron Fig Confidant ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's teasing that he might do a podcast, and he's already got some reviews up on the blog. He's got the Baron Fig Confidant review up. He's going to have some guest contributors like our other friend, Harry Marks, who I very much enjoy from Curious Rat. And if you're familiar with Patrick at all and Patrick's work, you know that this is going to be extraordinarily well done and spectacular. And I can't wait to see what the guys are going to do with this blog. So you guys check it out. I did a post today on The Pen Addict, which I rarely do, but I appreciate everything that Patrick's ever done for me, and I wanted to show him some support by giving him a boost right out the gate. And, you know, like a lot of long-time listeners of The Pen Addict know that it was you, Mr. Hurley, and Mr. Patrick Rohn, that got me involved into creating this podcast. So I thank both of you for that, and I will never forget it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He is an instrumental part of our history.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Absolutely.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And now he's building his own pen future.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So good luck, Patrick, and I'm sure we will be talking more about your blog soon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. On my blog this past week, Myke, I had a lot of changes, a lot of updates, especially to the Top 5 Pens page, which is the perpetually late Top 5 Pens page. I can tell it's time for an update. If I haven't done it in about three or four months, the emails start to come in. Hey, when are you going to update your Top 5 Pens? Hey, have you done it yet? When are you going to do it? Have you done it yet? So once I started getting about a couple of those a week, I know it's about time for me to update it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this was a pretty good update. There was a decent amount of changes, and I just wanted to go through a few, if that's okay with you, and see what you think. I'd love it. So I just wrote a short little intro post saying that it had been six months since I've updated the Top 5 Pens list, and there were a couple of things. Looking at the old list compared to the list that's now currently published, I've noticed a couple things, and those kind of bullet points were that my fountain pen love and knowledge continues to grow. I have a serious fountain pen ink problem, which is so true. There's lack of innovation in the office supply stores, which we all know that, and if you're a listener of this podcast or reader of the blog, you know I have little patience for that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I say good pens stay good, which there's some things that are just hard to be beaten on a lot of these lists, and also that I'm perpetually behind on reviews. When I make a new Top 5 list, Myke, and I'm going in to link the posts, and I don't have a link to the product that I want to review, of the product that I've put in the list, I know I'm kind of behind on the reviews when I see all the unlinked items on the Top 5 list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I was about to ask you that, why some had links, and now I realized it, but yeah, you've just answered the question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm starting to take care of that, especially on some of the inks that I've already done. I've already started on the reviews to kind of fill in those blanks, so it's a good reference for me to see what needs to be filled in on the blog, what reviews I need to get done. So let's look at the list real quick. So my overall Top 5, which I just think are, they're pens I recommend a lot to people. You know, either their first fountain pen, or an upgrade to their fountain pen, or a great micro gel ink pen, or a great ballpoint pen. These are pens that are kind of tried and tested, and every time I recommend them, people seem to enjoy them. I still enjoy them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They've held up with the test of time, I guess. So this is the list that a lot of people say, hey, I just bought all the pens on your Top 5 list, and I love them all. Thank you for doing that. So I try to keep this list, I don't know, kind of covers a lot of bases, if you will. You've got a fountain pen in the number one spot, the TWSBI 580. That was at the number one spot last time, too. It's just a really good quality pen for a really great price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've said before just how much of a great value that pen is, how much enjoyment I get out of using it, how much versatility you get out of it by being a piston filler. You can change the inks real quick, clean it out real quick, put in a new ink. The nib units are replaceable, which someone made that point in the comments, or in an email to me, you know, saying that adds value, that you can switch out from an extra fine nib to a stub nib, on the fly if you wanted to. So it's a really versatile pen, and it's hard to beat the price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then two of my favorite pens that I always carry with me, the Uniball Sino DX 0.38, which I just recommended to someone on Twitter about 15 minutes ago. That one comes up a lot. And the Oto Graphic Liner, which I still use a lot. That's a real good Field Notes pen. Those two, actually, the Sino DX and the Graphic Liner, I use those in my Field Notes a lot. Now, one pen fell off the top five, because I'm not using it as much as I used to. And in its place, the pen that fell off is the Secura Pigma Micron, which I love. There's really no problem with that pen. I just find myself reaching for the Kuretaki Zig Cartoonist Mangaka pen. Of course you are. For my plastic tip pen. Huh? Of course. Of course, absolutely. Do you not know this pen? No, it's just the name. Yeah, it's it. I think that's even the short version of the name. I actually think it's longer than that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What's on the plastic tip pen topic? Because I don't take fountain pens away. Right. I took with me an Oto Graphic Liner and a Sharpie pen. I have the aluminium Sharpie pen. I loved using the Sharpie pen this week. Yeah. Yeah. Just a real solid, just solid, good workhorse, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. What I love so much about these plastic tip pens is kind of they have a sharp line. Yeah. Like the edge is sharp. And it generally, it tends to make your handwriting look better, honestly. And it's just a good, it's just a good writer and good sketch pen and just a good all-around pen. So I actually use them, use them a lot. I use them, I'll definitely use them more than ballpoints. I probably don't use them more than gel ink pens, but probably gel ink pens and then plastic tip pens outside of fountain pens are what I use the most. And then the Uniball Jetstream rounds out the top five. That's just such a good all-around pen that's available everywhere and is affordable. And it fits a lot of needs for a lot of people and being smooth and good-looking ink and quick-drying and archival. And it's a ballpoint, so the ink refills kind of last a little bit longer. Like I recommend them to a lot of students. I've had that email a bunch in the past couple weeks. You know, a lot of them are doing finals and having to write papers or, you know, doing exams and things like that. And they need something that's going to last through like a whole exam session and, you know, not give them any problems. And Jetstream comes up a lot for that. So that's the top five. It's going to be hard-pressed for that to change a lot unless I, you know, really get sideswiped by something. These are, like I said, these are just the tried-and-true pens that have never let me down and a lot of people enjoy. The top five micro gel ink pens, they pretty much stayed the same, except the Pilot Juice .38 has made the jump into the top five. That's the pen I've been using for any non-high-tech seat Kickstarter pens that I get because they fit. A lot of them are made for the Pilot G2 ink refill. And you can just kind of get some of the basic colors. With the G2, with the Juice, you can get about 20 different colors. And you can get them all in the .38 millimeter size. The blue-black is my go-to Pilot Juice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' If I don't have a high-tech C in all my Kickstarter barrels, I have the .38 blue-black Pilot Juice. It's really, really good. But, yeah, I could see it even moving up the charts further. I recommend that pen a lot. And the reason it's better than the G2, I find the ink not to be as blobby. It's a little bit cleaner writer, a little bit smoother writer. And the ink is archival if you care about those kind of things. That's kind of a big feature for a lot of people. So that's something to consider if you're looking for a pen. And all these gel ink pens, I don't think any of them are over $3. The high-tech C might be over $3 now. It might be like $3.30. But I think most of these are around the $2, $2.50 range. So you can check out all these and see what you like. And definitely check out the Juice. It doesn't get a lot of play. But it's a pen I find myself using more and recommending more.