Editing The Pen Addict 408/transcript (section)

== Economy Reopening Through Purchases ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. I made the economy happen this past week, Myke. You reopened the economy. That's what I mean. I reopened the economy all on my own. I don't know what got into me. But it started with an order I placed about a month ago with Van S pens. I was like, I need to get some new things to review. There's some inks that are interesting to me. And oh, this pen is nice. So I picked up about sometime in March, I picked up the Montegrappa Elmo, which was also the impetus for that whole $150 to $200 pen conversation. That one's going to be reviewed soon, probably before the Curie Doss. So that pen helped me write that article. Then I also picked up the Aurora orange ink, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, which is a very nice but expensive orange. And then I picked up the standard Bindery Stargaze, which I use for my Y Studio resin fountain pen review. And then I reviewed the ink itself this past week because I found it so interesting in a surprising kind of way. Like, why am I latched onto this black ink so much? So I had a really good purchase experience. And I've kind of gone through those things. The Montegrappa Elmo is kind of the last thing out of that batch I have to review. There's some other inks in that order. Another standard Bindery ink. I think Sarah is going to review. I can't remember if I sent it to Sarah or Susan. But anyway, so I need things for review. And then I need things to just satiate my stationary addiction. So last week, like Thursday or Friday, I just got a bug. I was like, all right, I ordered from Vaness. I'm going to take the rest of my sponsors on my sidebar, which are JetPens, Goldspot, and Penchelet. I'm going to go to their sites and I'm going to find things that I need. You know, need, right? Air quote, need. But, you know, we can use them for the blog, use them for personal use, use them for giveaways. So I wrote in this document, it says, I loaded up on things I wanted for myself to give away and want to review. That Venn diagram is full overlap. Naturally. So that Venn diagram is just like one solid circle of things I want, things I want to give away, and things I want to review. So here we go, Myke. I went off a little bit. I went to Penchelet. I used the code, Myke, Addict10 at checkout for an additional 10.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is that our code? Yeah. Good. Well, because the code changes, though. So what you really should do is hit the podcast link at the top of the website and then turn the password PenAddict to get your hands on the code that you need.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, that was the code when I went to the page and then it worked at checkout. So I got an additional 10% off my order. Amazing. And I ordered one of the items on the list from last week, which is the Leonardo Messenger. So that was one that was a really crazy good price on the PenAddict page. And I ordered, the color is called Water, which is a very good name. That's a shockingly weird name for a pen. Which one did you get? I got Leonardo Messenger Water. Like the other ones are like orange and red. This one's just called Water.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Which color is the water?

'''Myke Hurley:''' The bright green, like turquoise-y one. Okay. Not the green green. There's green and then there's water.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, you see, any other, like ocean, sea. Yes. And, you know, like not just water, just element.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hell, turquoise. Yeah. Fire, wind. But it's caramel, green, orange, red, and water. It's like, okay. What? Yeah. What is going on with that naming? So those are the five in the series. So, but anyway, it was at a ridiculous price. I bought that one in a fine nib. So that water is on its way to me, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The reason I went over there to Pen Chalet in the first place was they have these Leonardo Memento Zeros in Pen Chalet exclusive colors. And I bought the turquoise green one with the matte black cap and grip section. Yeah, that one's pretty nice. That one's going to be for me. We'll see what the messenger is, if it's a giveaway or I've already given away one messenger to Pen Addict members, give away the orange one. I don't know what I'll do with the other one. Maybe I'll just review it because it's a different model. That'll at least be my excuse. You're going to hear a lot of my reasoning, you know, the thing, the way I talk myself into all these things. Oh, I can just use it for review or, oh, I can give that away. So yeah, that was my Pen Chalet order. Doubled down on the Leonardo's, but hey, it's hard to beat those prices. So next up, I went over to JetPens, Myke. I just went through the new products feed, which is kind of the thing I do. Like I get advanced look at products and then I get to pick out what I want from JetPens. That's a danger zone right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get that. I get those ahead of schedule. And then once products release, I go back and look through and see what I skipped the first time, right? I don't get everything. I don't say, oh, send me everything. And then sometimes I need to restock things and sometimes I learn new things. So that's what this was all about. So I ordered the Zebra Blend ballpoint. If you remember, Myke, that was number two in that Japanese survey that we shared. I forget the name because it's a weird name, like OWC 48 or something like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, would this be the first time you've used this pen then?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, a kind listener sent me one and I really enjoyed it. So I wanted to try this gray body and 0.5 millimeter one. So a wonderful leader sent it to me. And it's, oh, leader, reader sent it to me. It's really, really great. Um, the second thing I added was the Kunisawa Fine Smart Note Notebook, which I didn't know about until Joe from the Gentleman Station or posted about it last week. It's kind of like the Kokuyo Sketch Note. Maybe a little bit bigger, a little bit thicker pages. Definitely more expensive, but it's a format that I like. So I wanted to try that. I bought one, two, three, four, five secure picker Micron 05s. That's normally bigger in tip size than I go. I usually like the, the three or the three, five. I forget what they call it. I think it's the O3. But I've been doing this notebook project just kind of on my own off to the side. And I like using the Microns for it. So I ordered black, orange, rose, sepia, and purple. We're going through all the things I bought. This is everything I bought like on last Friday. It's stupid. I'm not a smart person. And then lastly, I ordered Diamine Indigo and Diamine Havasau Turquoise. And I have Kelly at Mountain to Ink to blame for those. These are two classic Diamine colors that I do not have, right? These are like in the pantheon of like the OG Diamine colors. And they're really, really good colors that I just want to have.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, the turquoise is really bright. And the Indigo has that blue, black, gray kind of color that I like. So how are we doing so far? Have we bought everything yet? Don't think so. Okay, good, good. Because, yeah, we didn't. We then went on to Goldspot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' See, I just went down the line of my sponsors. I don't know why. I'm sure they're lining up to sponsor me because I just give them their money right back when I buy stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So gold. Yeah. So like, oh, yeah, we'll sponsor Brad. Wink, wink. So the Edison worked with Goldspot to create a new shape of a pen. It's called the Newark. And a couple of new colors. And this high voltage green just popped off the screen. I was like, I'm totally ordering that. And I ordered that to give it away. So I ended up giving that away to Pen Addict members last week or this past weekend. And along with the Colorverse, they have a Goldspot collaboration. I like to buy the collaborations, right, that all these companies do with all of our friends that run all these companies. So the Colorverse Goldspot, SolarWind, and Magnetosphere ink set. So I gave those away already. So those will pass through my hands onto their final destination. I bought a pen that I didn't think I would ever buy. And that's why I bought it. Again, this is one of those justification things. Like, this is why I'm like into red pens all of a sudden, because I didn't think I would ever like red. I started buying red pens, and it turns out that I really like red. The Kaweco Supra, Myke, is an interesting pen. Have you seen this, not this particular one, but they did the brass one about a year ago, maybe two years ago. Do you recall seeing this pen? It's a sectional pen that can go from full size. It's basically got three intersecting parts that can screw together, where I can make it a two-section short pen or a three-section long pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But one of the sections, would you just leave it at home?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, you would have to just stash it somewhere.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, so you choose whether you want a pocket pen or a full-size pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. And the difference between this and the AL Sports that I like is it takes a number six nib. So it's got the big nib in it, and this is a wider barrel. Why does it step like that?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because those are the inserts into the other sections, I guess is the best way to put it. Right? So there's not really that much of a step in the middle. And normally, you're not going to write with this cap on the back, because that just makes it like a baton.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I just... It would be... I don't like that it doesn't sit flush, though. Like, if you're not keeping these things together in some kind of telescoping, it frustrates me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Look at the real photo, like the gray background photo. Okay, that doesn't look as much. It's great. It's not as offset as you think that those pictures show. Like, it definitely has some offset in it for the way it screws together. But when I tried the brass one, I didn't think it was outrageous. I just thought, I don't really think I would use this. But now they have a stainless steel, and I'm fascinated with stainless steel pens. I have all the other Kaweco stainless steel, so I ordered the Supra.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The Lamy special editions, the Lamy candy editions, I ordered the mango and violet pens, and then I ordered the mango ink cartridges. So the mango has the ink for this section, for this release. I don't think the ink bottle was worth it for me. It seemed a little too light, even though I like those orange-yellows. But I bought cartridges to use with the mango pen, and I'll do that for a giveaway. Then I'm going to keep the violet one for myself. So that's my plan going into that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I also bought a Tasha ink, which I have zero of. So I wanted to change that for review. So I bought a bright blue. It's called Hokusai Fucandina. I don't know how to say that, but it's like a turquoise-y, bright blue type of thing. And the thing I might be the most excited about in this whole list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no, it's the next one. Carry on. Carry on, sorry. It's the next one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Carry on. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Myke has something mad coming up to me. I bought a pack of J'erban blotter paper.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Blotter paper.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Blotter paper. So when I'm writing on my desk, I always use some type of paper, usually like a folded over A4 sheet or just a regular A5 sheet to rest my hand on when I'm writing just for oils, for humidity, sweat, anything like that. Any dirty thing when I'm handwriting on my page. It's just a personal habit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is that for everything or just for reviews?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Depends. It's for a lot of everything. Right. Not all the time, but definitely for reviews, right? I want it to be clean. So I have this orange blotter paper that I don't know if it came out of one of the Nanami books or came out of the Yoseka book or came out of the Clairefontaine book. But I have this one sheet of this pink blotter paper that I use that I got out of some book. I was like, oh, I can order these sheets and don't have to use these torn up rhodia sheets that I just end up throwing away and they end up laying all over my desk. Now I have these pink ones and I'm pretty happy about that, Myke. This is, I'm very, very happy about that. Last one. I did not. This is not a sponsor, Myke. But, you know, maybe after this episode and seeing how much money I spent with them, I got my neon inks on the way, Myke.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is what I'm mad at you about.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Why are you mad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I didn't know that these were even available anywhere to buy. You didn't tell me nothing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Matterals sold out. Yep. Yep. And since I've bought them, they have all sold out. Yes. Except for yellow. Except for yellow is available. So here's the deal. From Shiger Inks, I bought the Kala Neon Inks. I knew they were coming there. I did not tell Myke. I might hook you up or something. You know, I'm a nice guy sometimes. Okay. Let's see. So here's the deal. I went into it. Oh, if there's an eight pack set, I'll buy them. I'll just click and make the eight pack set happen, right? Because there's eight colors of the neon ink. This is what we went through. Like how hard would it be to pick just one ink out of this whole set? And it really is hard. So I picked four. If there was an option to buy all eight with one click, I would have just done that. But there wasn't. So now I had to choose. I could have chose all eight, but I don't roll that way. So I picked four.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do we want to play a guessing game or it's really not worth it? Probably.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Just tell me. I don't think I'm going to guess. Especially if it's half.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's half of them. So I bought Groovy, which is the violet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I bought Boogie, which is the, they call it neon purple, but it's the magenta kind of pink one. It's not the light pink. It's the dark pink one. I bought neon joy, which is the orange, the joy ink. Then I bought dude, which is the neon blue ink. So I have the purple, magenta, orange, and blue. I think that's a good setup. So I skipped on pink, green, red, and yellow.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So I bought those inks. And then I also, well, you know, since I was there, since I was there, Myke, they have other ink brands that I've read about online, but I haven't tested myself. Like a bunch of people have tried brands called Tono and Limbs, Lennon Toolbar, iPaper, and Color Traveler. Shiger carries all those. So I ordered a bottle or two of each.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is a quactic selection of brand names. Tono and Limbs, Lennon Toolbar, iPaper, and Color Traveler.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, iPaper is a terrible name. I'm sorry to the iPaper estate, but that's an awful name for an ink brand. But whatever, do your thing. Tono and Limbs makes me think of Pimm's Cup. So I'm pretty happy about that. Lennon Toolbar is the most confusing, but it might be the best name out of all of them. Like there's something there if you think about it a lot. Like put some depth into that. I was like, damn, that's a really good name. And then Color Traveler.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But like I don't understand how like it's translated, right? Like it's translated to Lennon Toolbar.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Are you sure? That's the brand name. I don't know that that's translated.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I guess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Lennon Toolbar was founded in 2014 at Tamasui, Taiwan. I think Lennon Toolbar is the for real non-translated name.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I know what you're saying. I think I'm struggling to like get across what I'm trying to get across here. But like Lennon Toolbar, fine. Like it's written in...

'''Myke Hurley:''' The best way possible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, they have it written in English on the bottles.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is very confusing to me. Because like it must then be translated back into...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think you're trying too hard. It literally says on their manufactured bottles, Lennon Toolbar.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right, right, right, right. I'm just checking. I built, you know, so maybe these are in Mandarin. I don't know. But my point is that above Lennon Toolbar are characters, right? Which I'm assuming, I don't know. I'm assuming a Mandarin. So it's been translated back into something. And I'm just wondering if... But by Lennon Toolbar. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. But what I'm wondering is like in Taiwan, like what does it translate to? Does it translate literally to Lennon Toolbar? That's my thing, right? Because like it's just... It's such a weird name.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He's imike on Twitter. At I-M-Y-K-E.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I want to know. I do want to know. Does it say Lennon Toolbar? Like exactly. Like is that the translation?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Or is it something else? You know what I mean? So go pull up their real site and get out your Google Translate and see if it... It was probably going to say Lennon Toolbar because that's defeating the purpose of what you're trying to prove here. But like...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just like...

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm just like... Like can we talk about iPaper? Like that's a way more egregiously terrible name.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, no. But like I know how you got to that. It was just a bad decision based on the iPod, right? Like that doesn't take... That's not difficult to get your head around. Like maybe they were started in the early 2000s and it like just seemed like the cool thing to do. But Lennon Toolbar is like...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't even know where that came from. Like I can't get my head around that one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I can't wait till I get these inks and we can talk about them more.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I also can't find like what would be an official website. That's the challenge. Yeah. I did look at that too. Lennon Toolbar. Toolbar.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Lennon Toolbar.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And for those of you playing at home and don't have the show notes pulled up, it's Lennon like John Lennon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what makes it even more like...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's not Lennon or like Lennon like the fabric. It's Lennon like John Lennon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' John Lennon's Toolbar.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't believe out of all the things we've talked about, this is the thing you're stuck on. Oh yeah, it's also not like The Dictator. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That one too. Well anyway, Lennon Toolbar is just quite a brand name and I'm very intrigued by it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I love everything about it. That's what I want in my Asian brands, right? This is my expectation. My expectation is Lennon Toolbar, not eye paper. Like some kid with like Dreamweaver from 2000 can come up with the eye paper, right? Yes. I need the depth of thinking that Lennon Toolbar comes out of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You see, because like Tono and Limbs, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. That's like, cool, I'm on board with this. That's traditional, hey, let's make a cool hip name. Yeah. It's going to be something and something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Color Inks, right? Like K-L-A-A. Like I'm on, like Color Traveler. Like all of these things, they're like, I can see how you got there. But Lennon Toolbar, I don't understand it. It doesn't, like it's not like just somebody's name or like words that sound like cool for the thing, like descriptive, like Color Traveler, right? Like you make ink, Color Traveler make ink. Even eye paper, it's like, I see how you got there. Lennon Toolbar, I don't know how that was achieved. Like, I don't know how, like, what is a Toolbar? You know?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't know if I love you or hate you right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Why?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because this is an amazing conversation. This is not at all my expectation of where we would have gone here. This is like something I would do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They camel case Toolbar as one word.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes, they do. That is, right? Yes, but I took the name off of the rewriting of the sales page, but the bottle has camel case Toolbar in it. Toolbar, one word. Yes, that makes it actually technically worse.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And more confusing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That does not help their situation at all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Lennon Toolbar. Oh my God.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This, yeah. Email Myke. Tweet at him. I don't want to hear your Toolbar dissertations.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wonder if, like, they have a brand name, but when you say it, it's close enough in English that it sounds like Lennon Toolbar.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' God. Now, wouldn't that be interesting?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right? Jacob's going to be emailing me, like, in no time. After this drops, he's going to have all the answers. Jacob and CY will have all the answers for us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Give me the answers, because this one is just fascinating to me.