Editing The Pen Addict 506/transcript (section)

== Formula 1 Pens ==


'''Myke:''' Well, I bought the Tactile Turn GT as well because I wanted to support my boy Lando, you know. Yes. And there are some similar color overlaps there. I will also say that the red that you chose for your pen is better than the red that Ferrari chose for its own car, which is good. Yes. Good work on you.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Very strong opinion from you this year, which I don't disagree with.

'''Myke:''' And what I'll say is like, I don't know if necessarily I would like just buy something because it matches the color. But in the sense of like with say the spoke icon where you can do some color choices of your own, you know, you can buy some extra parts or whatever. As a way to create a color combination for myself, I could see doing this because I don't necessarily know, especially buying online, like what is the right combination for me? Like the best combination, you know, like of all of the stuff, what is the stuff that goes best together? Because that was the thing, right? Where like I bought mine and I'm happy with it, right? Like I got the orange inside of the black, but as you were putting stuff together and it was like, oh, I had no idea this and this would go well together. Right. Right. And so if I was faced with that kind of decision, I could see myself choosing. Like I now genuinely wish that you had like yellow. Yeah. Because then I could make a Mercedes, like I could make a Lewis focused pen.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. I really want a teal. I'll talk to Brian, see if I can get some like teal parts because I think that would work good with like some of the black and the silver. Like that's the one I want to make to see if I could get it close. And I can't right now with the parts. Like the greens are too lime and the oranges are too gold and orange. Yeah. They're not yellow.

'''Myke:''' The actual like Mercedes colors is like that teal, right? But I'm very into all of this pops of yellow that Lewis put on his card this year as well. But like, you know, I could imagine like a silver pen with a black grip section and then one of those colors would look really great for a Mercedes pen, you know? Yep. So I would do that. And I imagine it's one of the reasons that people do, which is like if you're faced with color options, what colors do you choose? And an easy thing is just to like support the thing that you enjoy, you know? Yeah. Because I wouldn't know what to get otherwise really. Yeah. It's a fun little story you can tell. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' It's a fun little attachment to it. But yeah, I don't think it's a huge thing. It's something I'm more like to have fun with. And, you know, I was sitting there. I was like, I got to do this. Like, I'm going to make this after this weekend. So I went and did it. And it was fun. It came out really well. And I'm actually, I took the nib out of my Lando pen, which is what I call the spoke icon. So it's sitting there in the pit right now. So the Ferrari can have the nib. So there you go. This is what happens to Brad when you leave him alone for any period of time. I enjoy it. I enjoy it at least. All right. Let's turn to a serious bit here for a second. And I know a lot of you have been reaching out to me and to other companies and other bloggers and everyone asking about Benupin. And their relation isn't the right word. But they're a Moscow, Russia-based pen brand that we are all fans of. You know, me personally, I'm a fan of Benu. I've worked with them for years. And I know a lot of people had some questions like, what's going on with Benu? You know, what is their stance? And they have made it very clear that they are anti-war, you know, anti-current administration, anti-all the bad things that are happening in Russia. To the end where they are actually picking up and moving to Armenia. Not just moving. You know, the owner is just moving. They said they're moving their employees. They're going to be basically an Armenian-based company. Going forward, they have, you know, pledged their support to the people in Ukraine and anti-you know, the Russian war sentiment. So, I just wanted to point that out for people that are asking. They are not very active on social media right now for obvious reasons, right? They're in a tough situation personally. So, I'm just hoping the best for Benu. I've emailed Kate, who is my contact there, one of the founders. And we've had a great relationship over the years. And, you know, I haven't heard back from her, which is very, very understandable. So, like, I would just preach patience with everything that they're doing. I feel like they're doing the right things and the best things for them as a company and as people and as, you know, believers in, you know, doing good for the world. So, I think the best thing we can do is support them as much as we can. Although, like, direct via Benu support may be a little tough right now. We can always support them through retailers. I've reached out to the U.S. distributor here just to see, hey, is there anything we can do to help support them? What's the right path to take? So, when I hear back from any of that, I will definitely let people know. Let them know on Twitter or mention it on the podcast here. But they are making a stance. And I support them wholeheartedly. And I hope they come out unscathed through all this. But I can't imagine, you know, what they're going through, much less what, you know, the people in Ukraine who didn't ask for this are going through right now. So, they definitely have all my support. And, you know, we're all affected, like, by this in different ways. And having someone directly affected, like Benu Pen in our space, you know, it hits home a little bit more. And I just support them completely. And, like I said, I hope to hear from them soon once they get set up. And hopefully this war ends very, very soon for all of our sake. Like, you know.

'''Myke:''' What a thing to have to contend with.

'''Brad:''' Yep. Yep. It's, I can't imagine. Like, I held off emailing Kate for the longest time. I was like, they don't need an email in their inbox. I was like, you know, I'm just going to tell them I support them. Is there anything I can do? And not expecting to ever hear back. Like, they're just, you know. So, I hope we all can continue to enjoy their fun, sparkly, amazing pens. I need to go ink up my Benu after the show, as a matter of fact. And start posting about it. Because I really love my Benu talisman that I have. Do you have a Benu? I don't think. Like, I know it's the Benu. Hey, completely separate topic of conversation. Speaking of not for everybody, Benu pens are not for everybody. They are wild and sparkly and weird and odd shapes and just crazy pens. Like, I don't think you have one. Am I right? No. Yeah, yeah. Like, nor should you. Like, I don't think it's a pen for you. Again, like, we talk about these things. Like, I can say I love something, you know. Until the cows come home, that doesn't mean it's for you. And Benu pens are not for everyone. But I know the one that I have, I really, really love. And I've seen some other ones that I love, too. So, if you're a Benu pen fan, stay tuned. Hopefully, we'll have more from them in the near future.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. They're not for me, Benu pens. Yeah. Totally. Not my style. Absolutely.

'''Brad:''' And they weren't for me for years, right? I've talked about this.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Like, I was just like, yeah, it's cool. It's not for me whatsoever. And then, like, slowly over the years, I was like, okay, I think this is the one. Like, they make a lot of different styles, a lot of different shapes, and they hit a shape that I like. I've always liked the materials to a degree. Like, there's certain ones I really don't like, obviously. And there's some that I do. But when I found, like, the match of shape, which was more important, to color, which was the secondary factor, I was like, yep, I'm in. And I'm glad I did.

'''Myke:''' All right. Should we take our second break? Let's do that.

'''Brad:''' Then we'll get to some Ask TPA. And then we'll keep on writing about some other stuff.

'''Myke:''' This episode of The Pen Addict is brought to you by Microsoft Lists. Are you looking for a new way to track and manage work and life from start to finish? Microsoft Lists is here to help you clear your brain space and get organized. And it all starts at lists.live.com. Microsoft kicked off a preview program to try Lists with your Microsoft account. It's all designed for small businesses and individual use. You start by creating and sharing your Lists with your work colleagues, maybe partners, friends, soccer team, your neighbors, whatever you want. You know, maybe you want to create a list of books or movies for your monthly meetings, track home improvement and important receipts throughout the year, or build out team rosters for your soccer team or volunteer group. I am a big believer in if there's some information to be stored, it should be. And lists are the perfect way to do that. You know, like if you want to keep track of stuff, especially sharing them with other people, so everyone, you know, remains on the same page and you don't have to rely on everybody keeping track of the list themselves, right? Like if it's all shared, it's pretty amazing. At lists.live.com, you can get started quickly with ready-made templates and use filters and views to visualize your information so you can get one list of a bunch of views on it. So you can share your lists as links draw to others. Sorry, you can share your lists as links that then draw others in and work together. You could do a lot with lists. The ready-made templates save you time or you can start blank and add in exactly what and how you want to track your information. It's super flexible and great for stuff like gift ideas, issue trackers, event itineraries. What about keeping track of the inks that you want to try and the inks you've got in your pens, all that kind of stuff. You could do that with Microsoft Lists if you wanted to. Go and try the preview now at no cost. Go to your browser and type in lists.live.com. That's lists.live.com. Sign up, sign in, and track what matters most. Check it out and let Microsoft know what you like and any feature requests that you might have. Our thanks to Microsoft for the support of this show and all of RelayFM.

'''Brad:''' Interesting. I will be checking this out. I like this idea. See how it can be used for fountain pens also, Myke. You might have heard I play pickleball and we have a lot of friends that play. I am aware of your pickleball activities. We might contract how we do some things better in a collaborative aspect like this. Hmm. Hmm. Pondering. Pondering. All right, let's ponder some Ask TPA.

'''Myke:''' You know, I will say about your pickleball, I get scared every time I see you playing pickleball.

'''Brad:''' Nah, I'm good. That's why I'm losing weight. Hey, look, I know you're looking great, but like, you know,

'''Myke:''' you had a horrific accident, you know? I did. I did. So I get scared. I'm scared. I don't want you to get hurt again.

'''Brad:''' That's fair. It's fair.

'''Myke:''' Because I know you. I know you're not half playing it either. I know you're going like hard, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I mean, we had a tournament this weekend. We got a gold. We got a silver. We're going for it, man. We're playing hard. We're putting the hurt on some people out there and just not myself.

'''Myke:''' Please, just keep it that way, will you? All right, JemH asked, I'm just randomly wondering if you ever cogitated on the name Fountain Pen for our beloved writing instruments. I mean, fountain and pen. Did they used to spurt like fountains? Anyway, if you ever suffer from insomnia, if you ever suffer from insomnia, that's a hard sentence to say, you're welcome. So you can tell that JemH was obviously staying awake one night and wondering where on earth did the term fountain pen come from. Have you ever thought about this or looked into it, Brad? I'm sure.

'''Brad:''' No, but I do enjoy the spurt-like fountains aspect of it, right? You know, we've all seen, you know, the fountain pen being used as a weapon to shoot ink in the bad guy's eyes. I'm sure this is a very popular Mr. Bean activity to actually shoot the fountain pen as a weapon. So I think of it in that aspect, but never as actually the literal fountain aspect of it. So yeah, no, I haven't thought of it that deeply, but it's funny. We think about all these things, especially in this online world that we're in, like we refer to each other as people's screen names a lot of times without even thinking twice about, like if I said this out loud in person, like in a crowd of people, I would get looked at very strangely, but fountain pen has just, it's entered the normal terminology besides, aside from the fact it's just a very, very odd name for something we write on paper with. So I like this thought. I will not think about it any further than that though.

'''Myke:''' Like I often say this about things, at some point the name of a thing just becomes the name of the thing and it's not about what the name means.

'''Brad:''' Right. You know? Right, right. So yeah, I'm sure like the chat's saying, there's probably articles out there about where the actual fountain aspect of it came.

'''Myke:''' I did a quick scan of a Wikipedia and it didn't help me.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we'll have to work on that. And by we, I mean not you or I, someone else. The royal we.

'''Myke:''' The royal we. Via David, this one comes from, favorite erasers for good, clean pencil case erasing without shredding paper or leaving graphite behind.

'''Brad:''' So you want perfection, David. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah. You want like the.

'''Myke:''' Good, clean pencil erasing, no paper shredding, no graphite left behind. So perfect one in every way is what David is looking for.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I wish I could give you that answer. I don't have the full eraser experience. I do know that I will always use a Tombow mono white eraser when I get the chance just for their erasability. You know, they get, they are soft enough to not shred the paper. They do a great enough job at cleaning the graphite off the page. They still have a little bit of, you know, eraser shrapnel, you know, when you're, when you're done erasing, but not as much as some others that I've used, but Tombow mono is considered one of the best. It's the one that I kind of keep sitting on my desk. Um, when I need to reach for, uh, either a block eraser or Tombow also has like the, the pen, pen type erasers where they, they're like in a pen barrel, you know, where you can just like click them forward for like more fine erasing. But I, I prefer just like the block style Tombow mono eraser.

'''Myke:''' Uh, frames asks me, Myke, is there any reason you haven't delved into the world of nib grinds as heavily as Brad?

'''Myke:''' I think there's a few things. I can answer this question. I would like you to test. What do you think? And then I'll tell you what I think. It's not what you need from your writing. That's true. I mean, for me as well, it's just like, there's just so much, it just feels like more hassle for me than, than is worth it. Especially when a lot of the grinds, a lot of the grinds, a lot of the popular grinds, it's like, how fine can I make this nib? You know, I just don't want that at all. Like I've used like architect grinds and stuff and I don't enjoy it. Like it, it makes the writing experience less enjoyable for me. And some of this can be exacerbated by the fact that I am an overhooking left-handed writer. Right. So some of this stuff is just really complex. Like it's just really like not well suited to someone with my writing style. For me, you know, I like big nibs, right? Like that's, that tends to be what I enjoy the most. And so I've never really been into these specific grinds. Like the stuff that I like is the stuff that's really readily available. Like, you know, stub nibs and italic grind. Like I like the SIG. I've used the SIG a few times. It's a stub italic, right? Yeah. And I like that. Like that, that actually, I quite enjoy that. But outside of, you know, then going into all the stuff that Brad gets involved in, it's just like, not really for me. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So I use a lot of what I've referred to as picky stuff. And I don't mean that in choice. I mean that as they can pick the paper, right? Or the edge. And that's either like a sharp cursive italic edge or a needle point. If you don't hold them at the right angle, they, they pick at the paper, right? Which is a bad experience. I hate that. And yeah. Yeah. So the way I write, I, that doesn't affect me. Right. But if someone else picked up my pen, you know, there's a high likelihood they're going to dislike it just because of how kind of extreme some of the edges or the points are. So like, so like you, like you're just, I, I refer to you as just like a stock medium person. Right. And then everything kind of morphs from there. Right. Start me with that. That's going to be my best universal answer. And if I can get some type of experience that rotates around, you know, that little space right there, you know, be it a stub nib that has a rounded edge or something like that, then, then I'm in. But then if you stray too far from that center of the universe, it, it, it's, it doesn't work as well for you.

'''Myke:''' Yeah, I agree. That is 100% my, my experience. Thomas says, I'm planning to pick up a Caran d'Ache fixed pencil 22, but I just noticed that some come with a rough texture grip section. Is this new? Have you had any experience with it? Would you choose rough or classic smooth?

'''Brad:''' This is a great question because I was not clear exactly what Thomas was asking, or I answered it incorrectly the first time because I wanted to know more. So there's actually three different styles of fixed pencil grips, which I learned after talks, talking to Thomas, you have your standard, you know, just painted barrel standard eight 49 that just goes on the, you know, the roller balls, the ball points, the fixed pencils, you just, your basic smooth grip.

'''Myke:''' Uh-huh.

'''Brad:''' There is a grip that I dislike that they just started to do. Caran d'Ache that is where they would take the edge of the facet and groove it. Right. So it wouldn't be like a concentric circles, like all around the grip. It would just be on the edge and the edge of each raised part of the facet would be notched. And it's really uncomfortable. I dislike, I dislike that. So I was like, if you're talking about that, no, I would get the smooth, but he said, no, let me send you a picture. And there's actually a third grip, which I hadn't seen before. It's almost like they sandblast the grip area of the pencil to where it has that more of a texture than just the glossy smooth. And I imagine that's fine because it didn't look overly textured. Like it didn't look like if it's going to be rough on your fingers, but it would actually give you some grip to where, you know, maybe the smooth one is too slick for some people. It would give you a little bit more of a grip. So yeah, that one looks cool. I will actually, I actually want to get one of those to test out, but I have tested ones with ridges on the edge and I instantly disliked it. Like it would, I don't know how this became a product because it digs into your fingers. Like it's, it's not, not beneficial to, to the, uh, writing, uh, well with a fixed pencil or a ballpoint or whatever else they're using this grip on. I hope it goes away soon.

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Myke:''' And Sam asks, do you know of any good fountain pen friendly index cards that are blank on both sides?

'''Myke:''' No,

'''Brad:''' I, I, I don't. A blank is,

'''Myke:''' we've got to be rare for index cards, right?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Blank is the hardest to get to begin with. And, you know, I want to say, Exacompta might do them. I would even have to look. Exacompta is more known for either their color cards or their grid cards. They might offer a blank in white.

'''Brad:''' Um, so that's what I would look at. Um, Exacompta. Yeah. Um, unfortunately, knock has never made a blank one. I've been asked to make a blank card before when we were making things at knock rip. Um, but I always had a weird feeling about selling a blank card, right? It's just like, what did I do to actually create this? It's like selling you oxygen or something, right? It's just so basic. Like I felt dirty.

'''Brad:''' So I, I don't think other companies would think that way, but I check Exacompta for some reason. I'm thinking they might have an option now for blank. They, I think they might actually do a few different rulings. I'll have to look at this. I'll see if I can follow up with Sam. I'll, I'll look myself, but, um, there's really, uh, just a dearth of options in fountain pen friendly index cards. So maybe these knock, knock ones should, um, should live on somewhere, somehow, some way.

'''Myke:''' If you would like to send in a question of your own for us to answer on a future episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA or use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. You can also email them to hello at pen addict.com. Uh, if you want to find Brad online, you can go to pen addict on Instagram. He's dowdyism on Twitter and at pen addict.com spoke design.com as well. And you can find bad Brad streaming live on Twitch three times a week at twitch.tv slash pen addict. You can find me. I'm at I Myke. I am Myke. A E. You could check out my new formula one podcast. If you're interested at relay.fm slash back markers. And we stream. There's also a video version. You can get a back markers. Live. And we stream, uh, that basically as soon as after the races as we can. So we've done one episode so far. We're going to be streaming after every race weekend. Uh, so come check it out. If you are so inclined, if you're not inclined, watch formula one drive to survive, uh, on, uh, Netflix. And then maybe you will be because that's what got me and Brad into it. Uh, if you want to find our show notes for this week's episode, you can go to relay.fm slash pen addicts slash five zero six. Thanks to Pen Chalet and Microsoft lists for their support of this show. But most of all, as always, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time until then say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]