Editing The Pen Addict 29/transcript (section)

== Mini Pen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I got a pen that I didn't think much of when I ordered it. It was just one that looked interesting I wanted to try. That actually has greatly, greatly surprised me. And it's the Monteverde Poquito Ballpoint Pen and Stylus. And what this pen is, and I ordered it off JetPens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What this pen is, the pictures don't do it justice. It is really, really tiny. It's a tiny, compact, portable mini pen. Whatever terminology you want to use for a small pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, wow. Yeah, I can see. This is a small pen. Because there's pictures of it, and I thought they were holding it up to a tablet, but they're holding it up to a phone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. You can't... When I ordered it, from when I ordered it, I had a mental expectation of what the pen looked like. To when I actually opened the package and saw it come out, I was like, what? Did I order this? I honestly thought it was a mistake. I was like, what is this pen? And then I read it closer. I was like, oh, yeah, this is that pen I ordered. Wow, it's way smaller than I even imagined. I mean, honestly, it's really hard to tell by the pictures just how tiny this pen is. It's unbelievably well made. It writes. I've never used a Monteverde ballpoint cartridge before. I don't think I've used any Monteverde cartridges before, I don't think. The black ballpoint ink is killer. I mean, it's dark and smooth and doesn't skip and doesn't blob. And the problem I've had with pens like this before that I've reviewed, like mini pens with styluses on them. I've had styluses that are completely unresponsive. I don't think I've had a miss with this stylus yet in a touch, tap, or swipe on my iPhone or iPad. I kept doing it just going, okay, this is going to stop working here in a minute. And it never did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This was an awesome pen. I haven't been shocked by a pen in a while. Based on my expectations, right? I mean, this pen, in the grand scheme, it's not that big of a deal. But my expectations were it's just going to be a pen. Whether it's turned out, I think it's an exceptional pen, which doesn't happen. I don't get that surprised that often. I usually know what I'm getting into when I get it and have a general idea. You know, like I just did a big review on the new tool pens. I generally knew going beforehand, you know, this is going to be pretty good. And, you know, I know how these write. I know how they wrote in the past. You know, they made some cosmetic changes and, you know, made them a little bit better. This one, completely off the radar surprise pen. So I'll throw that out there as a big shock to the system.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So are you going to be getting any of the new Field Notes stuff?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The leather or the boxes? No. And here's why. I have a Doan leather utility cover that I bought last year and that I love. And it fits the same size notebook. It fits all that pocket size notebook. And those things are expensive. I mean, I think I paid probably like 70 something for the Doan cover. I don't need another 80 or 90 dollar cover. I'm not going to carry two of them in my pocket. Put it that way. Because I use the Doan one still all the time. That goes with me constantly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The box is interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd have to buy two of them right out the gate.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's kind of a negative if I wanted to store all of that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And the most interesting, I think, is the pouch. If I bought any of those products, I thought the pouch was well done.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What a beautiful leather color.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' A beautiful leather color they've chosen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. If I love all those products, and if there's any one of them I purchased, it would be the pouch. I thought that was pretty cool. I just can't figure out how I would use it, but it's pretty cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The other products, I'm covered on the cover and the box. I just think my plastic bins are doing fine, I think, for that. I don't – it's not a showpiece, I guess. I wouldn't have it out. It would just be stuck in the closet. I don't need a $35 wooden box to stick my field notes in a closet in, or two of them at that, because I would blow out the quantity count of the first one. I forget how much they hold. They hold quite a bit, but I have more than that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' $60.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'm around that, too. But I will say – we should do a – we'll mark this, make a note to do an episode. This is one of the episodes I want to talk about coming back is field notes collecting. You've probably seen some of my tweets, and I made a post, and I've been talking to a bunch of people that were trying to track down a bunch of the older model field notes, and it's become a big collector's thing, which is kind of crazy. You'd be shocked at some of the prices I've been offered for some of my field – some of my old field notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That I turned down.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Please note that down. I think that would actually be a really interesting episode. Yeah. But I'll just mention before we – I was going to say here that if you want to find the show notes that I've mentioned and all of the links for the pens and the items that we're talking about today, just go to 70wrestlebells.com forward slash thepenaddict, and then you can just find episode 29 from the list there, and you'll see all of the links. I really love the new field notes stuff, and I've been really – I feel like I've constantly gone backwards and forwards about field notes. Because I really want the subscription, but I just don't think I would use that many notebooks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Then I'd feel like I'm wasting them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean I obviously don't use that many notebooks. I just like the style and design, but I don't do the subscription because I don't order them if they're not pleasing to the eye to me. There's been several editions where I haven't ordered just because I didn't care for it as much, didn't like it, or just wasn't my style. So I didn't want to be tied into the subscription model if I didn't really want that particular product. I'm willing to whatever small monetary penalty there is to buy them as they release them. I'm willing to do just to get the ones that I want.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So what is the subscription price at the moment?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' $125 annually for four releases. Is that right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm trying to find it now. I'm sure it's in – for some reason I can't seem to find it, which is peculiar because I can always find it when I don't want it because it just pops up and I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to buy it again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Plus, you know, I like to manage the quantities too. Sometimes I buy extras.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'd rather – I vote – I'd rather pay more to have the freedom. I guess that's the easy way to say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Field Notes Colors subscription is – oh, man, why is this so difficult to find? Yeah, I got it right here. Oh, it's $97 at the moment. Okay. I think they've got it on set. It was $129.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was $129, so I guess that's where I got the number from. So $97 gets you four quarterly shipments of two three-packs each.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you get six notebooks every three months for $97 a year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So what's that, $20, $40, $60, $80? It's really not even a break because they're $995 to buy them individually. Plus, I guess, does that include shipping?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know. I think the idea for it really is they sell out quite quickly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, yeah. Shipping is included. So you're basically guaranteed to get the color and you get free shipping.