Editing The Pen Addict 521/transcript (section)

== Paper Size Standards ==


'''Myke:''' It's A5-ish. Look, it doesn't appear that Neil, like, requires it for specific sizing. It's just like, it's roughly an A5 thing. The central notebook is a dot grid notebook with page numbers and white paper.

'''Myke:''' You can go buy that. It's smart-sized. It's smart-sized. I improved upon A5. I improved upon it.

'''Brad:''' I made a better size, I think. So, there you go. What have you become?

'''Myke:''' I've become a paper magnate. Well, you know. You just wait. If there's anyone here. See what I'm working on right now.

'''Brad:''' I've got something. That's different. Like, I can't say what it is. That's different. That is not this. This is different. This is, you're trying to ride on the coattails of international paper sizing that are these standards that are built in. You think you're better than them. I've gone ahead and created my own size now.

'''Myke:''' I've gone. Seriously, we're working on something. It doesn't conform to sizes. I've made my own size. It's Myke 1, I'm going to call it.

'''Brad:''' So, everyone knows my stance on this. So, Myke is just getting me agitated on purpose. I'm a big fan of the standards.

'''Myke:''' Who needs standards? Standards? Shmandards. You know what I'm saying?

'''Brad:''' Yeah. So, okay.

'''Myke:''' Standards? Shmandards.

'''Brad:''' So, there you go, Neil. Myke is selling you his own non-A5 notebook. It's A5. To fit your needs. Come on. Not even hardcover.

'''Myke:''' Did Neil request hardcover?

'''Brad:''' No, that's just what the roadie is. Yeah. The Stalogy is not either. Then you have the Nebula by Colorverse. The Nebula is another option, which I forget about. That's a really good notebook. It gets great reviews, great paper. The Endless Recorder is an option if you like Tomoe River. Same with the Galen Leather Tomoe River cover. So, you have a few options. And then, Myke, the last but not least, we might have mentioned this once on the podcast before, but we should mention it more often. The greatest named product that we'll speak of today. The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' What?

'''Brad:''' The Clairefontaine Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' This seems like news to me. I don't know what this is.

'''Brad:''' Maybe we've just talked about it on stream because I have no idea why it's named this. Is it actually called Age Bag?

'''Myke:''' Click on.

'''Brad:''' It's on. No, no, no, no.

'''Myke:''' I can. I read it, right? Like, I can see it. But like, is this something said with an accent? Is like one half of these words not actually English?

'''Brad:''' Is it like French or something? I mean, it's a French company, but it's not. It's not Age Bag. What if it's Age Bag? Age Bag. Yeah, it's Age Bag. It is in the Age Bag collection. And like, maybe I'm Americanizing the words. Like, I don't know how else you pronounce Age Bag. A-G-E space B-A-G. What does it mean? There's no accents. There's no anything. But it, hey, it meets the requirements of Neil. This was a recommendation from Twitch viewers. And you know what? They were right. And it's called the Age Bag.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' I can't figure that out. Like, I'm looking.

'''Myke:''' Now, what's worse, right? A5-ish or calling your product Age Bag?

'''Brad:''' Yeah, I'm going to let you win this one.

'''Myke:''' I'm not going to. See, look, I can make it A5, but then I've got to call it Age Bag. So, like, you know what I'm saying? It's one or the other.

'''Brad:''' Maybe that's French for A5.

'''Brad:''' That's not correct at all.

'''Brad:''' You've just said. Un, deux, trois, cinq. Sank.

'''Myke:''' Un, deux, trois, cat bag.

'''Brad:''' I had to figure it out.

'''Myke:''' Why is it called Age Bag? Like, can somebody write in and let us know? Like, I'm Googling furiously. And there's no, like, I can't find, like, a page, like, on Claire Fontaine's website that, like, talks about the theory of Age Bag. So, like, if anyone knows why it's called Age Bag, I desperately would like to know the answer to this question.

'''Brad:''' Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. All of the aforementioned products that I mentioned are all traditional international standard A5 sizes.

'''Myke:''' Except that one that I mentioned, which is superior size.

'''Brad:''' You mentioned that one. I did not mention that one. Created by a genius. Smart size. You should just call them Cortex size or something. I think I might go, like, CB, right? Because I call it a brand. So, we'll go, like, CB1 or something? Yeah. CB5. You got to at least troll us standards.

'''Myke:''' No, but you see, that's where I'm going to make it worse. Right? Where, like, I'm going to name them, but not in size order.

'''Brad:''' There you go.

'''Myke:''' So, CB1 is the first size, and then CB2 is going to be a completely different size.

'''Brad:''' There needs to be a decimal, too. Not logical. Do a 1.e and just make it random. All right.

'''Myke:''' I can do that.

'''Brad:''' You asked for it. Oh, man. I did not ask for this whatsoever.

'''Myke:''' I'm just, I'm completely shook by age bag. Honestly. I can tell. I can't think about anything else right now. I don't understand.

'''Brad:''' Well, think about this next Ask TPA. Let's do one more. All right.

'''Myke:''' It comes from John. I recently got into needlepoint on microtip pens inspired by the list on your website, Brad. I started with Japanese.

'''Brad:''' That needs to be greatly updated. Sorry. Wow.

'''Myke:''' I started with Japanese gel pens. Scene. Like the high-tech C. Recently, I purchased a Nagahara needlepoint from Franklin Kristoff. At first, I thought that microtip gel pens seemed like the easier, less fussy solution to wanting to write really small. But as a dyed-in-the-wool fountain pen obsessor, I couldn't resist the siren call of a needlepoint nib. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint nib? What makes you choose between the two? Which tiny writer better provides the better tiny writing experience?

'''Brad:''' This is such a good question. Talk about right up my alley.

'''Myke:''' Hold me closer, tiny writer.

'''Brad:''' Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is right up my alley. So let's take this first question. When do you use a microtip gel pen, and when do you use a needlepoint? Paper dependent. So the fountain pen, I do consider the paper more than when I'm using a microtip gel pen. The microtip gel pen will work on more papers than the fountain pen. So the fountain pen, I'm generally more specific on the paper choices. You know, Timoe River, Rodia, Clairefontaine, Morimon, Life. Like, I mean, literally, like, all the papers I use are great, are purposely designed to work well with fountain pens, including needlepoints. If I'm using, like, more standard notebook papers, field notes, things like that, I will never use a needle tip fountain pen because they tend to grab the fibers, right? They're just not made with that type of nib in mind. So that's the win.

'''Brad:''' Which tiny writer provides the better tiny writing experience? This is a much harder question for me, Myke.

'''Brad:''' I think it's the microtip gel pen is the better experience because of consistency, right? It is pure in size, in general, like, in general senses, right? You do get slight variations in needlepoints in fountain pens, whether they're steel or gold, whether, you know, the paper you're using is rough or smooth. So if you want deadly consistent lines, the microtip gel pens are going to provide that.

'''Brad:''' The needlepoints, I just tend to, I don't know, I just enjoy using them and don't worry necessarily like if, you know, like one downstroke is a little bit different from another downstroke. It's just kind of the nature of the beast, right? Like I'm prone, I will accept the variance in a fountain pen needle tip knowing that, hey, I'm using a fountain pen needle tip. I'm getting generally what I want. But it's not going to give you the precision control of a microtip gel ink pen because there's no flexibility in a gel ink pen tip, right? It just is. So the only thing that's going to mess up a gel tip pen is if the, you know, the paper, like if it gets a little bit messed up, you know, like the paper fibers get in the tip and that's going to be, make it inconsistent. But then that's the same problem that you have with a fountain pen. I just think the, depending on what you're looking for, like if the consistency is the key, the gel pen is going to be better. But I just think for overall enjoyment, I use more fountain pen needle tips than, I won't say, maybe almost anything. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. I do like my fine cursive italic nibs. That's probably like my, one and one A is needle point and fine cursive, Japanese cursive italics, which is, you know, pretty, a pretty narrow line. So yeah, that's an awesome question. I really, really like this question because I too have a Nagahara needle point that is so fine. It's really, really good. But it's, you know, it's particular, right? These, these are the very particular things that we obsess over kind of like international paper sizes. So yeah, there you go.

'''Myke:''' If you would like to send in a question of your own to be answered on a future episode of the pen addict, just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask TPA, or you can use question mark ask TPA in the Relay FM members discord. You can go and find show notes for this week's episode at relay.fm slash pen addict slash 521. If you want to keep up with Brad, you can go to pen addict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. You can go to twitch.tv slash pen addict where you can find Brad. Brad is Jenny's photo on photo Jenny, I should say. On eBay. If you just want another one to like just toss in there.

'''Brad:''' Don't follow me there. You're not going to see much there ever.

'''Myke:''' Go to spoke design.com pen addict.com. If you want to find me online, I'm at I Myke I M Y K E and you can find wonderful products in perfect sizing over at cortex, much.com. We'll be back next time. Thank you to trade and pen chalet for the support of this week's episode. And of course, most importantly, thank you for listening until then say goodbye, Brad. Bye Brad.

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