Editing The Pen Addict 401/transcript (section)

== Preparing for Pen Shows ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Let's see here.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can do this one, right? This is the next question.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, hit this one up. Yeah, and the ones right after that are really quick. All right. So let's do these, and then we'll get into a little bit of fun to wrap it up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. I'll never be a high-end fountain pen buyer. The cost is just prohibitive, and for me, not worth the outlay. I started with the Preppy, then the Lamy Safari, and was lucky enough to win a Lamy Ion, which is not my thing. My grail pen would be a pen that can be eyedroppered and have an ultra extra fine nib on it. So far, I haven't found that pen, so would love your input on one. I would also love to see you do a segment in the future on the extreme low-end fountain pens like the Preppy and talk about how easy it is to convert the Preppy to an eyedropper and the convenience and fun of that. I think more people would take the leap to fountain pens if you encouraged them at the lower end. I know you guys love all the big bucks fountain pens, but there are a lot of us out here who are just trying to get to be a different, more regular buyer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so this is all in the same line. We got question or reply after reply, this type of thing, and I love it. I don't have an answer off the top of my head for an eyedroppered UEF Asian nib, but now I'm interested. These are the kind of things that I don't have all the answers, right? We talk about that all the time. I was like, but I'll see if I can find them. I'm sitting here wondering, well, can you eyedropper a Platinum 3776 or is that section connector metal and it wouldn't seal up well? It's like I can't remember off the top of my head and I have a bunch of those pens. So, you know, yeah, like I love this type of question. I love how important like a pen like the Platinum Preppy is to so many people and that you can not only have your stock Platinum Preppy that you get from, you know, just right off the store shelf, but you can then take it up a notch very inexpensively by using a little silicone grease and getting a bottle of crazy orange ink. And now you have this really wild eyedropper fountain pen with a nib on it. Like it's a little bit hard to go deep, deep dive into that on a podcast, right? That's kind of very visual and video-y type of thing. But I love the idea of this comment, right? It's like they say, I know you guys love the Big Bucks fountain pens. And like that's my point. Yeah, we do, but like I'm about to ball over this guy's Pentel Energel 0.5 that he's found his pen. Like that's it for me. Like, you know, it's – I like hearing about all of this wide-ranging thing, things that we all are attracted to in the stationary world because that's what I'm attracted to. Like that's why I started this blog, right? It's like basically $3 gel ink pens. So, yeah, I love this type of comment and feedback and we can do more with that and, yeah, we'll work on that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The psychology behind pen collecting. What do you think drives a person to collect pens?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hmm. So, I – this can go for anything that we buy outside of the necessities, right? You can be a backpack guy, a shoe guy, a watch person, you know, anything, you know, sunglasses, whatever.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The psychology as a non-psychiatrist, it obviously makes us feel good, right? There is – we definitely feel something different when we're able to have a thing that we thoroughly enjoy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It helps you belong to something, too. It helps you belong to a tribe.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, and I always go back to the storytelling aspect of it. Even, like, my basic Pilot Hi-Tech C. Do you know how many stories I can tell about a black Hi-Tech C gel ink pen? Like, so what drives me to continue to buy other Pilot Hi-Tech Cs and then other pens that are similar to that? And then, oh, you can have a fountain pen that writes as fine as a three-millimeter Hi-Tech C. So, like, that's what drives me is discovery. I always – like, I refer to the totality of the pens we own as a collection of pens. But I would say that we're not necessarily pen collectors, right? We're pen users. And that's where you have to make a distinction. You know, are you collecting a thing to collect it? You know, do you want a shelf full of Retro 51s and their boxes still sealed up? Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Or do you want to buy every Retro 51, crack them open, throw them on your desk, and start using them? Those are both, like, two different valid ways to do things. So, it depends on, you know, how you're going about it. And there's no right or wrong answer. No one will look at you differently for that. But I think in general, we think of ourselves as pen users, not pen collectors. So, that psychology is, well, I'm going to find something that makes my handwriting look cool. That's it for me. You know, and then there's, you know, extraneous things that go on top of that. It's like, oh, how does it look? Are there fancy materials? Or is there something interesting about this pen? But, yeah. Like, that's a... That we need one of our psychology friends online to discuss that. And, you know, and then still never reach an answer. Because it's not an easy question.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So, next one. Kind of a fountain pen 101. Do you put ink back in the bottle if you want to change colors but haven't written your pen dry yet? No. Never do this. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. This is a hard left turn from all the other questions. But it comes up a lot. And it should be like in the fountain pen 101. And, Myke, I will tell you, for the first couple years, I did this. Yeah, yeah. I get it. I put the ink back in the bottle. Right? So, this is the type of question I want to see asked. That's why I included this. Because this is a thing I did. And the more I talked to people and the more I realized what was actually going on, the more I realized that that's a big no-no. You don't want to do that. Just for contamination's sake, it's generally not a good idea. Yeah. And no matter how, you know, protected you think your ink bottle and your ink cartridge or converter is, it's never a good idea. You just want to go ahead. If you want to get rid of that ink, you just flush it down the drain and don't do that. So, yeah, there you go. So, this goes into the last one. How Not to Be Scared of Fountain Pen Ink and Maintenance. The best thing I ever learned about fountain pen maintenance was to accept the fact that your fingers will be inky.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, that's going to happen. I still get my, every time I fill any pen still, my hand is just covered.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Once you accept that you're going to get ink on your hands, everything else comes into place. If you're trying to avoid getting ink on your hands at all costs, you're going to be endlessly frustrated just by cleaning the pen or inking the pen or having to open an ink bottle. Part of the fountain pen fun is that they're a little bit particular and you have to be, you know, meticulous in doing certain things and they can get a little bit messy. And that's part of the pleasure that a lot of us enjoy. You know, there's a payoff at the end for going through an ink bottle that you can barely get open and you're squeezing like you're wrenching it. Then you get ink on your hands opening it. Then you get ink on your hands filling it. And, you know, you just have to own that stuff. And once I got past that point, I used to be the person that didn't want a drop of ink on my hands or a drop of ink on my nib. I would endlessly like paper towel, you know, twist the paper towel into a little point to get the little dabs of ink off my nib because I wanted it to look pretty. Once you realize that that's normal and that's accepted and that's okay, everything else comes so easy. You'll do anything to clean a fountain pen and switch an ink out and things like that. So, except the fact that you're going to get ink on your hands, everything else is easy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Get a rag.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like I have a singular rag that I use for like all my fountain pen cleaning. It's got ink all over it. Yeah. It's great. I love using it because it's loved. It's a well-loved rag.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Great. All right. Let's take our final break. We'll finish up with some more memes and themes because we left some off, some stuff. Gosh. We're going to play a game that we play on this show every now and again. Today's episode is also brought to you by Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace as though that you easily create a website for your next idea or project. They give you all of the tools that you need. You can register a domain name, customize award-winning templates. You can even set up an online store. Squarespace have everything you need for your next project. They are an all-in-one platform. There's nothing to install or patch or upgrade. You have to worry about any of that. Squarespace have got you covered and they back everything up with 24-7 customer support. The Pen Addict, the blog that we mentioned, penaddict.com, runs on Squarespace. It's run on Squarespace for as long as we've known each other, I think. I can't even remember it being anywhere else. So, you know, and Knock as well, your website there, that runs there. We use the RealFM blog, runs on Squarespace. I have used Squarespace for so many projects over the years. I will have lost count, themesystem.com, Squarespace website. It's just so easy to get set up. If you have something you want to do, something you want to promote, something you want to sell, something you want to show to the world, Squarespace makes it easy for you to get started so you can actually do everything you want to do rather than spending days trying to get a website set up from scratch. Their plans start at just $12 a month, but you can sign up for a trial today with no credit card required. Just go to squarespace.com slash penaddict. When you decide to sign up, use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for 10% off your first purchase. So thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So when I was going through all the comments for last week's episode, we had a lot of people asking to explain things like the Visionaire and the Scribble Pen, which we did last week. Like what are the recurring, you know, funny things that we talk about? What are the inside jokes that come up every now and then? And I thought I did a pretty good job of hitting all the main ones. You hit the big ones. We hit the big ones. But I have to say the ones I put on the page for us to discuss today did not even cross my mind. And these were really fun and important things that came up a bunch of times. Like, for example, the first one is penaddict bingo. So I was walking Monday out to the NotCo shipping department, which is behind my house, and I get like halfway there. And I don't know how it hit me. I just like, oh my gosh, penaddict bingo. We didn't talk about that. But so frequent listeners of the show like to get on us a little bit, and completely, fairly, and rightfully so, of repeating ourselves, talking about the same topics over and over again. There are a lot of times we do that. That's just how the show rolls sometimes. So our listeners devised, along with our good friend Alexander, created this page. And our wonderful third host, who will come up again momentarily, Anna Reinhardt, created a physical copy when we do in-person podcasts. So you can go to tpabingo.com and tick off the bingo boxes and try to make a bingo just by listening to our show. Just to give you an example of this card, if you're not looking at it right now, the free space in the center of the bingo card is Sailor on this card. This card regenerates when you refresh the page. But Sailor's the free space, and then there's all kinds of other things on here. I bet we would have probably a bingo already on this card. So look, Brad and or Myke Tears Up. That's one. Check that box off today, because Brad almost lost it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, yeah, you did. Yeah, yeah, you did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, I love Panatic Bingo, and we should bring that up more often. And we maybe need to, I'll get with Alexander, we might need a refresh of the board options, because there's a couple in there that aren't necessarily applicable anymore. When I mentioned that on my Twitch stream Tuesday, that I'd completely forgotten about TPA Bingo, you know what else I forgot about, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Something you want to forget about.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Something you want to forget about. So we'll officially call this the Nightmare Coloring Page, because there's no other way to introduce this. But when you see this, if you've forgotten about this, if you're a long-time listener.