Editing The Pen Addict 483/transcript (section)

== Grail Pens ==


'''Myke:''' It kills all further acquisitive urges. What would it be? If you can only buy one more pen that kills all interest in your current collection, which would that be? Suddenly we don't have a fallback plan.

'''Brad:''' So I've thought about this a little bit and it wouldn't require me to make another purchase, right? I could end up with a singular pen that I already own if I was forced to get rid of everything and keep one. Does that make sense? Like I'm in a position now where, you know, I've been fortunate to have the access and the means to acquire the things that I want. So I'm actually not looking at anything. I've never really had this grail mentality.

'''Myke:''' Because it doesn't exist. There is no grail.

'''Brad:''' There is no end game.

'''Brad:''' Oh, did I strike a nerve with this one? I don't know this whole, I don't know this whole scenario by you, but I guess we're thinking along the same lines.

'''Myke:''' Because I'm in two hobbies where this is a thing. Keyboards and pens. Everyone's finding their grail or their end game as if products stop getting made at some point. Right. Right, right, right. It's just not true. There's always going to be something new that you're going to like. There is no end if you're in the hobby. It doesn't end.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So I don't have an exit pin because it's just not a philosophy, I guess, that I've fallen into. Yeah, I struggled with this.

'''Myke:''' Because it's like, this isn't going to happen. Like, this isn't, there is no pen that I could buy that would mean I would never need another pen. I probably already own that pen.

'''Brad:''' That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah.

'''Myke:''' It's probably just a retro 51 or whatever. Right.

'''Brad:''' Like, I'm there. Yeah. I could pick one of five pens right now and be content the rest of my life. Like, I'm good. Like, I'm covered on that. So I don't know. Like, maybe that's not the answer you want frames. But I, there is, I thought about this when I read the post from Anthony and I was just like, there's, there's not. Because I'm never not going to love this stuff and I'm never not going to be looking. But I'm also not wanting for the one, right? The one doesn't exist for me.

'''Myke:''' Yeah. Realistically, we passed out a long time ago.

'''Myke:''' Kim asks, why are color mechanical pencil refills so rare? I found only one local shop that carries one brand of red 0.5 graphites in Budapest, European capital with 2 million people.

'''Brad:''' Color mechanical pencil refills are so rare because they're terrible. Yes. Like, they're literally a bad product. Soft. Really soft. Yeah. Right. And no one's going to be able to solve that in a 0.5 millimeter stick. That's why colored pencils are more popular. Because they're almost universally poor quality. Even the best ones are going to be lighter and more fragile than anything you could get in a traditional wooden cased colored pencil. So they're almost like manufacturers make them because they feel like they have to make them in small quantities to, to fit, you know, a market here or a market there, but they don't exist in a wider scale because they're not very good. It's as simple as that.

'''Speaker 00:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Myke:''' Jay asks, you both have niche communities of companies like Twitch increasing awareness. What tools, apps, platforms, et cetera, would you like to see that you think would truly help the pen community?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, it's been interesting over this pandemic time, you know, and not having pen shows and seeing like what we're missing, like as a community. I don't think we're, I don't think we have any huge gaps as a community. I like what Urban does at Fountain Pen Companion. I think the continual build out of that, which is selfish of me to say because that's not Urban's full-time job, but I think he really has something there, right? Like digital tools that help analog people manage their stuff. Like let's be honest with ourselves. We're into stuff. We have stuff. We're fortunate to be able to have this stuff. And some of us like to track this stuff in certain ways. So I like to see the continued support of tools like Fountain Pen Companion because they provide individual benefit to, to, to the community. You know, people can get in there and use that tool. I would like to see, you know, like Jay's talking about, Jay's started to stream some, you know, he's got a wonderful new podcast with Kathy here on Relay FM. Yep. It's called Conduit. Go check it out. Conduit. So they're like on episode seven. So they're doing a really good job so far. And Jay's streaming on Twitch. I love Twitch as a platform. I'm going to continue to try to grow on that. But I'm just so pro sharing and pro education and pro lift everybody up. Anything that allows me to shine a light on other people while having fun and, you know, sharing information with listeners or followers or readers like I'm for. But like, I don't know that there is a specific tool that I'm missing that, you know, for the community wide. I just like, you know, seeing stuff like FBC.ink being continued to build out. I don't know if you have anything on that.

'''Myke:''' Not for pens, but Jay did ask if I a bonus for me for around keyboards and I do have one. So a lot of the way that the keyboard stuff works is is products kind of have these stages where first they go through what's called an interest check where someone puts up a design and they are asking for feedback on that design. So they're like, hey, what do you think? Like with key caps, for example, like do you like the colors? Like what kind of tweaks would you like to see to the design parts of it? For a keyboard, right? Like this is what I'm thinking of keyboard, like for a keyboard design I'm working on. Like what would you like to see me change? That kind of stuff. And then also to collect not just feedback, but like email addresses for people that when it eventually goes up for preorder to be able to contact those people and be like, hey, you remember this thing that you like look up where you can buy it now, right? Then you have something called group buy, which is the typical way that products are sold, which is like a preorder of those products, right? So, hey, here's a product. I'm putting up a preorder and it's bananas because it's like, all right, you might be waiting one to three years for this, right? It's like that's the way the keyboard hobby works at the moment. Hopefully it's going to change, but that's the way it works right now. All of this stuff is centralized around a platform called GeekHack, G-E-E-K-H-A-C-K, which is not just for keyboard stuff, but that's what it is. And it's a very old forum. Like it's old. It's bad and old. And I find it so frustrating that all of this stuff is done on this really old system where like nothing is really able to keep track. You're not able to easily see updates. The platform is horrible. Like I would love to be able to go in and put in the stuff that I've bought, you know, like a kind of a fountain pen companion and keep a track of all of that, as well as have this system where people can go in and post updates on the projects that they're working on. It should be a better, much more modern centralized system. Considering keyboards are used by people in technology, you'd kind of hope that there would be a better system, but there isn't Geek Hack sucks and I want someone to replace it. Nice. There you go. Myke has spoken. Evan asks, who would you go to for tuning a VHS? I don't know what that is. Palladium nib. Visconti.

'''Brad:''' Visconti. Homo sapiens. Yeah. Palladium nib. Who would you go to for tuning a

'''Myke:''' Palladium nib of a Visconti Homo sapien?

'''Brad:''' Easiest question of the whole thing. It's Mark Bacchus at nibgrinder.com and here's why. He has been Coles of London, the US distributor for Visconti. He has been their nib person for, I don't know, well over a year now. I don't know if he still currently is. I believe he still is. So he handles more of those nibs than anyone and that's who you should go to. Easy peasy.

'''Myke:''' That's actually a fantastic answer. Perfect.

'''Brad:''' Next question. Not so easy.

'''Myke:''' Eric asks, is there an A5 or half letter size disc notebook with the binding at the top? I found them in full letter, but my work from home desk needs the smaller size. Traditional side binding gets in my way too much.

'''Brad:''' I am racking my brain because I swear I've seen this and I couldn't come up with them. I don't know if Levenger's had them in the past. Basically a top bound disc bound system for loose sheets. I have seen them. I don't know if it's one of the Japanese brands like Kikuyo. They make so many different, like not necessarily disc bound systems, but bound systems, right? With clips or rings, ring bound, I guess I should say. So I would look at those two brands and see what they've done. And if anyone else knows, let me know because I swear I've seen this and I can't come up with the proper answer. So it's basically like your A5 desk pad with discs at the top instead of side bound, which I think is a cool, cool layout if you can find it.

'''Myke:''' I think that, who was it earlier on in the show? Who wanted the, is it Daniel? Yeah, Daniel and Eric should get together, I think, and try and work on something for the, for the, for the, for

'''Brad:''' the, the junior legal cover.

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

'''Brad:''' There's clearly something going on there. I'm with you. We get this question a lot, like no one solved them yet.

'''Myke:''' And Tiny Badge asks, any advice for when you've lost that love and feeling about Pence?

'''Brad:''' Thank you for doing that, Myke. I left the, I left the musical notes in there, so Tiny Badge will appreciate that. And I put this question last.

'''Speaker 00:''' You've lost that love and feeling, now it's gone, gone, gone.

'''Brad:''' Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. We have gone way too long. Take a break. Just take a break. That's 100% the answer. Stop looking at new stuff.

'''Myke:''' Stop listening to the show. We'll still be here. You know?

'''Brad:''' Stop shopping for pens. Yep. Come back. Put everything down. Mm-hmm. Dig in the depths of your storage. Find something you haven't used. Find like the cheapest ballpoint pen or wooden pencil, something that you haven't used in a long time. But at some point you bought for a reason. And find out what that reason is. And just use that stuff for a while. And maybe a few months from now, yeah, you might say, hey, this fountain pen, I haven't used it in a while. Let me find a new orange ink for it. And then you go look for it then. You just gotta, you have to stop. Like, you just do. I go through this stuff. I go through cycles where I don't want to use fountain pens. Yep. So guess what? I just don't. Mm-hmm. And I only use regular pens. And then when I get back to my fountain pens, I'm like, yeah, I miss these things. And let's use them all up. And like, it was a nice break. And just go from there. You have to stop. Stop looking at stuff. Stop reading stuff. Stop listening. Just, you know, take a clean slate. Work from the minimum viable products that you can get through your day in and leave the rest alone for a while. And then you'll see. Then you'll figure it out. Like, do I want to come back to these other things? Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. Maybe your tastes change. It's okay. Like, you gotta stop. You've lost that love.

'''Speaker 00:''' Anyway, that's my entire day now.

'''Brad:''' Thanks, tiny badge. And it's gone.

'''Myke:''' Anyway, all right. If you'd like to send in a question. This show is gone. On the show. Just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. Or use question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members discord. Or you can send in an email to hello at penaddict.com. Thank you so much to Squarespace and SD by Akutron. Or Akutron by SD. For their support of this week's episode. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com. Knock.co. Spokedesign.com. You can find Brad on Twitch as well. Twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. Brad on micro.blog. I am imike. I am y-k-e. And you can go to cortexmerch.com for some great paper products as well. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

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