Editing The Pen Addict 21/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 21
| title           = The Pens That Shall Not be Named
| date            = July 5th, 2012
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/21 Episode 21]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/penaddict-021.mp3 Audio Episode 21]
| length          = 39
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hello and welcome to episode 21 of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that we love so dearly. I'm Myke Hurley of the 70 Decibels Network and I'm joined by your host, The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey, Myke. How's it going?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Very well, my man. This episode is brought to you by Zoomf and Squarespace and you're going to hear a bit about them in today's episode. So you just come back. Oh, happy Independence Day to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I celebrated by working all night. No rest for the weary. My job is a 24-7, 365 job and I drew the short straw and was working. So, you know, the funny thing is I worked third shift and, you know, I was driving into work last night and there's usually no cars on the road when I'm going into work. But man, there were cars everywhere. Last night, everyone was out for the 4th of July. Oh, really? Yep, yep. So I didn't do too much celebrating.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, that's a shame, man. But you had a week off though.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did. I did. And it was a good vacation, good recharge with the family. And, you know, I didn't think about it while I was on vacation. But when I got back, I was like, you know what? I was gone for a week. I don't think I picked up a pen at all. Like not even once to write a note or anything like that.



== Pen Addict Card ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It was kind of strange. I think you're going to have your pen addict card removed.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. It was weird. I was actually, you know, I didn't think about it at the time. You know, I'm just having vacation. You know, it was – went to a beach, you know, and got the family. And so I'm doing all kinds of things. It's all good. And it didn't even cross my mind, which was a good thing. So, you know, nice little break from the pens. And I came back and I was like, oh, hey, look. There's all my pens in my pen case. I wonder what I should use.

'''Myke Hurley:''' My precious.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Of course, I dropped – I jumped right back into the – I guess I have a pen that should remain nameless and you have a pen that should remain nameless. Is that what we're going to attempt to do? Yeah, should we actually try and do that? Yeah. Our friend Anna on Twitter, I sent out – before today's episode, I sent out a call just to see if there were any topics, you know, people wanted to hear. And Anna said, how about trying to get Myke not to say **** for the whole episode, try to get Brad not to say **** for the whole episode. So I guess I've failed already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, you have failed already. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to blank out the names.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the tweet so people can see. Although I'm sure they already guess what they are, but I'm going to blank them out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but just in case they're listening without knowing the back story, the little blank out. So wondering if something's wrong. So that will be funny.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So there you go.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But yeah, it's kind of hard not to talk about them. They are our favorites. That was probably the first pen I went back to, went back to work, broke out the trusty vanishing point and went to work. Although I will say I've been using more and more fine tip gel pens at work recently than vanishing point. It's going more to like a 50-50 type of thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm needing some of the different colors for some of the projects I'm working on and things like that. And I like the gel ink pens. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know, just so I can mix and match, do some colors, you know, like when I'm laying out projects or doing things like that. So I use the for general writing, general notes, things like that. But when I'm... You said it again. I know. I know. I got to get my money. My money's worth. That was an expensive pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I know, but now I'm going to have to blank it out again. No more. I know. Because I'm not going to do it.



== Favorite Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, what's your favorite pen, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't even remember.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's what's been going on with me. I had an inadvertent pen vacation as well as a regular vacation. But I'm back in the saddle now. What's been going on with you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I haven't. Unfortunately, I've not purchased anything recently. I'm going to have to make a change to that soon. But I haven't really got anything burning on the must-buy list at the moment. But I've been continuing to use and love my Pelle journal with the field notes and notebooks inside that I spoke about for a couple of weeks. I've been... You know, with all these sorts of things, with a notebook that you're carrying around with you, you've got to use it to get the most out of it. And I really have.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was such a cool idea. I'm still really, really excited about giving that a shot myself. I haven't done it yet. But when you said that, I thought that was just like the biggest no-brainer idea ever. Something so simple.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, the product that you like and use and are familiar with, you know, to slide into that Pelle and, you know, allows you to... Do you have it with three field notes in it yet? Are you still using some of the Pelle paper for now until you use it up? Or how is that working?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I haven't really worked out how you could comfortably get free notebooks in it. If I'm being totally honest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It gets pretty fat. Yeah. You know. It's certainly not something you could carry in your pocket with three notebooks.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. Do you carry it in your pocket with just what you have or do you just keep it in your backpack or something?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I keep it in my backpack, but I carry it around a lot. So I'll pick it up and take it to places with me, you know? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Just like, you know, carry it in your hand. Like if you're going to walk around the office or going to Starbucks or whatever. Exactly. Kind of like your man purse.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just like my man purse, which I also carry around when I'm drinking my girl drinks, eh, Brad? And, yeah, it's been just an excellent experience. And I'm happy with just, I just have the one field notes and then the Pele insert.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So you've got two inserts in there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I've got two books in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. You know, I'm sitting on one. I've got one. I've got the black leather one. And I haven't used it yet. It's, you know, I got kind of, I don't know, I got a few things stacked up I need to get trying. And, you know, notebooks are harder to test out for me than pens, right? I mean, that's a lot bigger commitment than, you know, I can take a pen out for a couple days, you know, just use it exclusively. You know, take it for a test drive, do whatever, and write a review on it. It's not that easy with a notebook for me. You know, I want to give it some more time, you know, break it in. And see more about how I'm going to use it than, you know, just a straight review, you know, paper quality and build quality and things like that, like I do on a pen. So I tend to, you know, I have several cool notebooks I need to review. And those, for whatever reason, tend to get pushed to the side a little bit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know why. I think it's just a time thing. I can do the pens quicker. And the notebooks, you know, it's a bigger purchase, so I want to give it more time. So I just, I need to get on that one because you're making me, you're making me anxious to try it out and make a, kind of make a conversion, you know, make it, make that notebook something I carry around with me all the time. And I need to get on that.



== Gel Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So aside from a pen that can't be named, what gel pens have you been using then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know what? It's funny you ask that question because I'm going back to one that has been an all-time favorite of mine. It did make my recent top five list. But for some reason at work, at the office, this pen works great for me. And it's the Uniball Sino DX 0.38.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. It's a, it's the perfect kind of pick up and go pen for me. Like I can have five of them laying around in different colors and just pick one up and go do something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, if I was sitting down writing, you know, I'd use the pen that can't be named or I've been using the Pilot Hi-Tech C 0.3, which I like so much. Now with that pen, the Hi-Tech C, it's a, I've talked many, many times about how it's kind of a little touchy, finicky pen, right? If you pick it up and sometimes it takes a little scribbling to get started. Well, sometimes I don't, I don't have time for that. So I grab a DX and that people ask for, you know, colored ink recommendations like color gel inks, who makes the brightest or the best colors. It's the Uniball Sino or Signo DX line. And for me, bar none, the Hi-Tech C has some great vibrant colors, but the DX colors are really, really excellent. And I use, I mean, I probably use five or six colors all the time. I mean, literally several times a week, you know, basic black, blue, black, lime green, sky blue. Um, the yellow, I think it's called, I get all the yellows mixed up. I think this one might be golden yellow. I'll have to look. Um, and the purple, um, those are kind of my main go-to colors. You use a lot of them. Yeah. I mean, and I'll keep them all sitting, sitting right on my desk next to my notebook. So when I'm working on, you know, I have a project notebook at work and then that, you know, that's not open all the time, but it's sitting there. And then I'll have like a scratch pad, you know, for just quick jotting down stuff. My project notebook is that big Doan, um, idea journal, which is the greatest notebook of all time. Um, in my opinion, and it's not even close. And then I have a little rhodia scratch pad there that I just jot down things and, you know, and I'll, I'll just keep a stack of those Uni Sino DXs and all those colors laying there like by my project notebook. And when I'm working on something in there and I don't know, it's just the easy grab and go. So, so that's, that's kind of a, uh, a resurgent pen in, uh, in my arsenal of late because when I was working at the house full time for jet pens, I never used that pen. And I don't know why. I don't, I guess I didn't have a need for all the different colors and I wasn't really using the, you know, the black, the basic black or the basic blue for day to day stuff. I was using, I don't know, anything, you know, testing out all kinds of different pens all day long anyway. So I never really had the need, but now it seems that now that I've gone back to work, I, I did this before when I was, you know, I went back to my previous job when I was there the first time I use a DX constantly. And now it just kind of happened. I didn't even think about it. I was just like, that's the best pen for the, the situation I'm in. And that's always key.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good stuff. Yep. So, uh, should we do our first sponsor before we move on? Yes, let's do it. So, um, obviously joining us this week because they are awesome. It's Squarespace and they come back to join us again for another month. So I want to talk today about, I want to give people a refresher. I want to give, this is what I'm doing this week. I'm trying to give a refresher to our listeners or some information to new listeners, a good roundup of all, some of the fantastic features that Squarespace have. Will you indulge me with that, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Will you do this? I might even chime in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would like you to. Um, Squarespace give you everything you need to create a website or blog, um, all in one package. They integrate absolutely everything. So you only have to be concerned with paying one fee, one account, and everything's taken care of. The stuff you don't want to have to manage, like hosting, you know, statistics, that sort of stuff. You just want that stuff to work. You don't want to have to be setting up a hosting account. You don't want to have to be putting code into your site to make sure you can get analytics working. Well, Squarespace, they just, they have it all built in. You know, all as part of their plan, all as part of their packages. They have powerful tools to help you create your site using their simple-to-master WYSIWYG design editor. Or you can even hack around with a CSS if that's your bag. Um, they have beautiful templates. Really well-designed templates that you can build on using their editors. Um, and they also integrate the Google Fonts library. So you can choose some real great fonts, um, to make your site look absolutely fantastic and really readable. Um, without, again, having to enter any code for it. It's just as part of the package. Their hosting is absolutely rock-solid. Not only is it simple and you don't actually have to configure anything, it never goes down. Their sites are so strong. Um, they are what's known as the tier, they use tier one hosting. Now, it's, you know, if you go on to, if you go look at the Squarespace site tour, they explain stuff like that. You don't need to know about it. You just need to know. It never goes down. They also provide you with excellent analytics so you can easily understand the traffic to your site. Who's linking to you? Who's searching for you? That sort of stuff. They have a great iOS app that lets you see those stats and post on the go. You can have free custom domain names for every annual plan purchase. They set up Google Apps integration as well so you can use, um, email with the new domain that you just purchased. They have a great blog importer, um, that will take care of everything. That's what we've spoken about before. Brad's helped develop in some peculiar way.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Um, anything I've missed?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, the iOS apps. Yes, I only briefly mentioned it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I only briefly mentioned it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's been my, that's been my new favorite thing and I've, I've mentioned it several times before. And I, to be more specific, it's really the, the access to the comments on, um, on the iOS apps. That's been a huge, it's been, it's honestly made a change in my workflow on, on the blog because I've turned off. Um, I used to, you know, at, at TypePad, I just, and like with any blog host, you get a comment and you, you know, you can turn on to send it to you in email, right? And that way you can follow up with it. And, well, the, the Squarespace apps, iOS apps are so good. I've turned off the email, send the, send the comments to my email address. So I've really, I've gotten a reprieve in my inbox from all the comments and I can just, you know, I take the time every day to just log into the iOS app, look at the recent comments. Cause I like to, you know, whether you like comments or not, that's a, that's a, uh, that's an episode for some of the other shows on the network. Um, but I, I do like comments on my blog and I like to make sure I've applied everyone who has a question or is looking for feedback. So that's an important thing for me. So instead of, you know, just fire hosing those comments into my inbox, I flat out turned them off and I make time, you know, a couple of times a day to go into the iOS app and respond to any, any comments that, uh, I have. And it's really, it's actually changed my workflow and it's made my inbox much more manageable. Um, so that's working out really well for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Awesome. So Squarespace, um, they've hooked us up with a couple of great deals. You can go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels to start your two week free trial. And after you've played around with the trial and you decide you want to sign up for an account, use the coupon code 70 decibels seven, that's seven zero DEC IBE LS seven at checkout. And you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring.



== Fountain Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So what do you want to talk about now, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't have a, I didn't have a big list of topics for today or nothing. You know, one huge topic that I wanted to cover. So I, I, I sent out a, a call for ideas on, on Twitter this morning and we got some good ones. And, uh, one, a really good one, which we, I don't think we've completely delved into is, is came from, uh, Mary Collis who, uh, who writes a blog called from the pen cup. It's really, really good. She does great, very thorough reviews and she has a great writing style. I like reading her, um, her blog entries. And she, she tweeted, says, how about a pen wishlist? What are you and Myke drooling over that you don't have yet? And I thought that was a really kind of, really kind of a good topic that we haven't, you know, uh, approach. You know, we talk about what we get and how awesome, you know, some like we've had, you know, I've had, we've both had, you know, pens. We shall not name on wishlists that we've ordered, but you know, what other things have, you know, you know, tickled our fancies or in, in, in my case, I, you know, I have a wishlist item that almost for Kickstarter, right? I don't have, there's not, I don't have like a wishlist of a pen that's in existence. I have a wishlist item that I would like to be manufactured or me manufacturer or me work with someone to get manufactured, you know, things like that. So, you know, I sent out a link this morning. Um, if y'all don't follow Patrick Ng on, on Twitter, um, we'll, we'll put a link on show notes. This guy, he, he lives in Hong Kong and, you know, he works in the, in the stationary business and things. So he gets a lot of, uh, advanced looks at things. So if you want to see some neat stuff that you will add to your wishlist, he sent out a picture on Instagram this morning. And that's actually where I caught it first and I retweeted it of a, a new Kaweco AL sport model.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' He calls it the, he says it's Kaweco's new AL sport, shiny fountain pen. And I don't know if that's the official name of it, but it's almost like a mirrored barrel instead of like a brushed aluminum. It's a shiny mirrored barrel. And if I've ever had a pin on the wishlist at the top of the list, it's going to be this one. Cause that picture he sent out is awesome. You got to take a look at that pin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's incredible. It's like a mirror finish.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Really nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's, uh, I don't even know how to describe it. It's awesome. You just, you're going to have to look at the link of this. Um, when I saw, I sent out that pin this morning before I sent out, you know, the question about topics. Then Mary sent about how about wishlist. And I was like, well, if there's a pin on the wishlist right now, it is sure as heck this, this AL sport. I don't know anything about it. Um, I don't know when it's coming out. Um, I mean, maybe it's a prototype. He doesn't act like it's a prototype. Um, you know, this, if, if I'm ranking a wishlist, this is number one and there's probably not anything else close. Um, so, so that's something I'm, I'm really anxious about, but one pin that I've always wanted, um, for a, a kind of a, I don't know, a wishlist item or just, you know, a fantasy pin or a manufactured pin. And, and, and I didn't know you were going to, you know, uh, get into the Uniball Sino DX conversation earlier, but I have always wanted an aluminum barrel Sino DX.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, they make for, you know, the inexpensive plastic barrel gel ink pens that I use, you know, people have, you know, why the high tech C became so popular on Kickstarter was people did not like that barrel. Right. It's kind of cheap and lightweight. Well, comparatively the Sino DX or Signo, I just for, for everyone that's going to email me, I know it's Signo. I just can't say it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I prefer Sino.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Too many years in my head. It's been sucked. So Sino is, is what comes out. I apologize. It just seems more natural, but you know, it in compared, in comparison to the high tech C barrel, it's a much, much sturdier and more durable barrel. Right. I mean, it's, it's a little more heavy duty and, um, it's got a nice rubber grip and I've always thought Uniball was kind of missing the mark and not having an upgraded barrel for the DX. Um, you know, they do like, they, they have some jet stream, you know, upgraded barrels, you know, like the, that are aluminum and have a, um, their alpha gel grip. And, you know, they have several upgraded barrels to the Uniball Curitoga pencil, you know, the roulette and the high grade. The DX is probably got to be one of their most popular pens and it doesn't get any, you know, barrel love. It doesn't, it doesn't have that next step up, you know, the, you know, five to $10 or probably $10 to $15 barrel range. There's not like a premier, uh, the, the Sino 207 has an upgrade barrel option, right? It's got a Sino premiere. I've always wanted a DX upgrade barrel. There's been projects on Kickstarter that have added the DX as an afterthought, right? Like the, the, the PHX one, um, said you can fit in a high tech C or a DX. I didn't have a good experience with the DX. The high tech C fit in that barrel. Great. The DX did not fit in very well for me. And plus that was a really heavy barrel. I think that was a stainless steel barrel. I think I'll have to go back and look. Um, but the same guys that did the PHX one have now come up with a, this solid titanium pin plus stylus. Um, I don't know if it fits the DX or not. I'll have to take a look. Um, let's see here. I've got to pull up on my screen. No, it fits the, the Sino 207 and the Sino RTs and the Sino UMN 152, which is, this is the UMN 151. So we'll have to see if this fits. Um, but I've always thought just a very specific, you know, barrel for the Uni-Ball Sino DX has been on, that's been a wishlist item or a fantasy item of mine for probably three years now. Um, just cause it's a really good pin and it, it deserves a little bit more. So, uh, I've rambled on long enough about that, but that's, that's, that's something I think about. Like, you know, if I was, you know, um, had a, you know, was a manufacturer or wanted to get in on a project, I'd design it around this barrel. And I honestly wouldn't change very much as far as dimension wise. I would just make something nicer for it. Um, you know, it doesn't need a, a $100, you know, pin barrel to, to make it a great pin. It's already a great pin, but, you know, just something a little bit nicer than the base plastic barrel. So that's, that's kind of my all time wishlist pin. If there was, if there was one thing out there that I could upgrade that I don't understand why, you know, based on the rest of the Uni-Ball market out there, why it hasn't gotten that upgrade love yet. So what about you? Do you have any, uh, wishlist items or, uh, or some people call them a, a Franken pin, you know, when you're putting together a, you know, you like this about this pin or like this part about this pin and kind of mash them up together. Is there any pins that have been, uh, you've been looking at recently?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I definitely have a wishlist pen. Um, but it's, I know it's such a far way away that it's kind of unattainable really, which is the Lamy Dialogue 3. Yeah. It's like $300.



== Fountain Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my voice even cracked. It was, uh, yeah, it's like a $300 pen and it's a fountain pen. So it's retractable like pen that cannot be named, but it's by twisting, not clicking. Um, I really want to try out that mechanism.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, yeah, I, I, I held one at the pen show where I picked up the, uh, pen that cannot be named and it's an impressive pen. Um, I know you're, both of us are, are, are fans of Lamy and they make really good, really good quality pens. And, um, I don't know if that's on the wishlist for me. It's on the radar for me, but yeah, it's, it's kind of cost prohibitive right now. That's, that's one of those, uh, you know, have to think about it for a good long while and, and see, but it's, it's a beautiful pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks great.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Actually, you know, since, since you've mentioned that, if any, if any listeners have a Dialogue 3, email me or email Myke or, you know, send us, send us a message. We'll, we'll get all our contact information. I, I'd like to hear about it and hear more about what you think about it. And heck, if you wanted to, you could even do a guest post, guest review, you know, on, on the pen addict blog about it. Um, it's just because it's one of those pens that, you know, it, it, it's awesome looking and it's, it's beautiful, but you know, you're, you're not just going to, you know, wake up in the morning and decide to drop $300 on a pen. Right. You know, you gotta, you gotta think about it and make sure it's going to fit into, to your, to your use. And, you know, you, you, you've got room to use it. You don't want to buy that pen and, and have it sit there and collect dust. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a real beauty. And, uh, I, I really would like to get my hands on one of them. Very, very, very nice looking pen. Yeah. Um, in regards, I've been trying to rack my brain in regards to like a, a Franken pen, as you call it. And I don't think I have, you know, I don't actually think I have one. Um, I would maybe like a, um, you know, I'll tell you something I would quite like. My favorite pen in the world. Um, I would love it. See, I think it kind of doesn't count if we're talking about it, but name, but, uh, I know, but nevermind.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not really working out well for us, is it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would love it in the form factor of a Kaweco. Yeah. Shorter? Shorter. Mm-hmm. They do, they, I believe they do shorter ones and I haven't seen them in person. So they may be, um, they may be what I'm after, but that would be really cool. I think like a nice one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a good idea. I like that idea a lot, actually. And I think even if they, even if they don't do it, that's something that I would think they could pull off pretty well. I don't know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They do have one called the Mini Elite Series. I don't know how small it is. It's 8.5 centimeters. So it's actually quite small, isn't it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That seems pretty small. Yeah. Let me see if it's a Kaweco. Yeah. I'll have to look at that one. Do you have a link to that one? Put it in the show notes? Because I want to see that. I haven't looked at that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I will write the name out in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We won't blank those out. Or you could just, you could just make them, you know, the white background or whatever background and people will have to, you know, highlight over to, to see the name. That, that wouldn't be very nice, would it?



== Kaweco Length ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't find, um, on JetPens, like the length of the Kaweco.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Um, they, you have to scroll down probably a little bit. I'll find it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 4.1 inches. Mm-hmm. Now I need to work out inches to centimeters.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Dear, oh dear. Who knows, Matt? Who knows these systems? I'll bring up my fancy ruler. It's actually, whoa, that, what happened there?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was my ruler. It's a, it's one of these, this is one of these rulers that's probably not TSA compliant. Okay.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Do you know what? It's actually smaller than a Kaweco.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is because what's four inches is a little bit over 10, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Ooh, this, that's, there you go. I've just added something to my wish list. Like it's literally going on my wish list now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' See, aren't you glad we had this episode? And you know what? We can blame Mary for this. We get called enablers all the time. You know what? Mary, call us. You're an enabler. Yeah. See what you did to us? See what you've done? No, we, we love you, Mary. You're awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Everyone that, uh, everyone that, uh, gives us a hard time about, uh, getting into their wallets. We think it's, we think it's fun. We think it's funny. And you know what? We try to, you know, we certainly don't tell you to spend your money, but you know, if you are going to spend your money, we hopefully give you some good information that can make your decisions off of.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So we give you good things to purchase with that money. Right. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, uh, yeah, that's kind of the, that's kind of the wishlist stuff. Do you want to, uh, you want to get in our second sponsor here real quick?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do. Yeah. Our second sponsor is Zoomf. Now that's Z-O-O-N-P-F. What Zoomf do is they make software solutions for website creators to find and fix performance issues that may be impacting the speed and responsiveness of their site. Faster websites have better, more engaged users, better Google rankings, and an overall improved user experience. When surfing the web, we all want it to be snappy. That's what keeps us coming back to a site day after day. Zoomf check your website against 400 performance best practices, and they find server issues, including compression, caching, and HTTP connection problems. Design issues like both bloated images and unused styles, and many more, including some browser specific issues that may be slowing your site down. For each of these problems, when they highlight them, Zoomf will tell you exactly what the issue is, why it's important to you, and clearly detail what you need to do to resolve it with a step-by-step guide. Go to zoomf.com slash free, that's Z-O-O-N-P-F dot com slash F-R-E-E, to get a free performance analysis, where they'll show you all of the problems that may exist on your website. And if you decide you need their services to help with the step-by-step guide, so you know how to fix the issues that they've found, you can get 20% off the lifetime of your account by going to zoomf.com, that's Z-O-O-N-P-F dot com forward slash 70 decibels. So there you go. Thank you very much to Zoomf for sponsoring.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So, you know, Myke and I, the last two episodes, Myke and I talked about our top five pens, and we got in some lists from readers, and we talked about it on the show, and we got another one this week, and I think it's kind of a fun topic to hear about other readers and listeners' top five pens. And so we'd love it if you guys would continue sending in your top five pen lists, and we'll read them on the episode, on, you know, episodes when we can fit them in and things like that. So, you know, Myke and I, you know, we look at a lot of pens and things, but there's always other pens out there that we haven't heard of or haven't used, and we always want to hear, you know, what y'all's experiences are with pens. So, you know, definitely send us some top five lists, and we'd love to read them on the show. And we got one today from Joe Lebo, who writes a blog, and we'll have all this in the show notes. His blog's called A Young Old Soul, and he did a blog post on his top five pens after listening to our episodes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a really good list. Did you take a look at this link, Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, it came up. When Joe sent it in, I was recording, and I've been recording all evening, so I've not been able to take a look at it yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No problem. You will be very familiar with number one on this list, as I am. It's the Lamy Safari EF Nib, the black matte finish. Do you have that model?



== TWSBI Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't have the black matte. I wish I did, though. I have white.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I've got the black matte, and the EF Nib is black, too, which is killer, and the clip's black. That's why I love... That was before I got into the pen that shall not be named. That was probably one of my favorite fountain pens. It's really nice. So that's his number one. Number two is an awesome pen. It's a favorite of mine. It didn't make the top five, but it's always there, and it's always in my pen case, and it's the Copic Multiliner SP, 0.5 millimeter. I don't know how much we've even talked about that. We've probably talked about it in passing, but it's a drawing pen. It's an art pen, a plastic tip art pen, but it comes in a really, really well-made, lightweight aluminum barrel, and on top of that, it's refillable. It's refillable with ink. The tips are replaceable if you damage one. I mean, a lot of artists go through a lot of plastic tip pens. They're not the most durable pens in the world. It allows you to keep that nice aluminum barrel and replace the parts as you go. So Joe even mentioned that, let me read what he said about the Copic Multiliner, because this was my favorite entry in his post. He says, I have a very type A, black and white, regimented personality, which doesn't lend itself very well to being creative. It only took one time using the pen to change that. I immediately felt more creative while using it during a recent work-related training session where I even tried my hand at sketchnoting. The pen is built solidly and should last me a long time considering there are replacement nibs and ink cartridges available. Thanks for the recommendation, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a really good pen. And if you're an artist or a creative type, that's certainly one that should be on your radar.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought that was a really neat entry because I'm very much the same way. Type A, black and white, regimented. Like, you know, I'm very detailed and anal and I feel like I'm not creative, but when I use those types of pens, sometimes that helps get those juices flowing. So that was, that was a cool one to see on the list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They do a 0.03 nib.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And one of the manufacturers does a 0.005.

'''Myke Hurley:''' How?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. I've got one laying around here somewhere. It's impossible to use. I mean, it's, that's not something I can use. Why does it exist? You can hardly see the tip and, you know, you feel like you're just going to break it the first time you use it. But I guess for, if you're really slow and doing extremely detailed work, I know Pilot makes one, the Pilot drawing pen comes in 0.05. And the standard Copic multiliner, the plastic barrel, not the SP, might come in that width too, but I'm not positive. There's a couple of manufacturers that make a 0.05.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's crazy, isn't it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Incredible. I don't even know why you would, why somebody would want it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. You have to have a very specific use for that. I've actually, like I said, I've bought one. I've got one laying around. I mean, for me, I could never use that pen. I think I might've even reviewed it at one time. I might, I think I bought it on accident thinking I was buying a 0.5 and bought the 0.05. And I was like, what is this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' What has happened to you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think, I think I bought the Pilot. It's probably a review from like four years ago or something. But anyway, Joe's, Joe's number three is the TWSBI Diamond 540 MNib clear demonstrator. And I've talked about my Diamond 540. It's a really beautiful fountain pen. You know, I don't know what else to say about it. It's, it's a really, it's a, it's a fountain pen user's fountain pen. If I can say it like that, you know, it's not extremely portable like a Safari is. It's, it's a little bit bigger, a little bit wider. The cap doesn't post, you know, for as well for writing on the go. But if you're, if you know someone that uses fountain pens, this, when people talk about fountain pens, TWSBI makes fountain pens. You know, they're very traditional looking. They're super high quality at a really good price. So seeing this on a, on a top five list is no surprise at all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Number four, I'm not allowed to say, but we'll say, I will say that it has crossword in the name.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. Yeah. I know what that was. I'll put that in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. I'm allowed to say that word, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, you know, I don't know what else I can say on that one either, but that, that's kind of a no brainer for, for you and me and, and everyone that listens to this show. They, they know all about that pen. And now the last one is a really, really good choice for a top five. And one I consider from time to time. Cause I always carry one with me, but I don't have it in my top five. It's the Fisher space pen bullet black mat finish. Now you're familiar with the Fisher space pen, right? Myke?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And this bullet black mat, it, it, Joe's, Joe's, Joe's, uh, Joe is, uh, list is, it's really good. It's, it's a lot of exact. He's very exact in, in the things that he, he likes. And I have this exact Fisher space pen. I only have one and it's this bullet black mat finish and it's really nice. And then his, his notes are, are interesting. And I'll tell you why. Let me read what he says. He says, this is a great everyday carry pen, especially when paired with the matching black clip and a field notes, notebooks, or some frictionless capture cards. It can write at any angle on any paper, in any temperature or weather conditioning. You can always trust this pen to capture whatever random thoughts pop into your head. Here's what's interesting about this. And this is a little sidebar. He mentions the frictionless, frictionless capture cards. And those are made by our friend and podcast made and designer to the stars, Aaron Mankey. I met Aaron in person back in March of this year. And he had in his back pocket, his stacks of the previous iteration of the frictionless caption cards, which were the Helvet index cards, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mm-hmm.



== Fisher Space Pen ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So he pulls that out. And Joe, do you know what pen he pulled out to use with that, with that set of cards? The Fisher Space Pen Bullet Black Matte Finish with the Matching Black Clip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So great minds think alike. I thought that was interesting when I read that. I was like, you know, that's the exact pen that Aaron carries around with him to use for his capture cards as well. So I thought that was pretty neat. It's a good list. It's a great list. I love this list. It's kind of got everything in it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, I mean, hey, this is, you know, he's got all the bases covered. And, you know, it's got some really, the best thing I like about this list is these are not your typical, not a fly-by-night disposable type of pen. Like, I include the Pilot Hitec C. And even when I talked about reviewing it, I say, I keep one everywhere, you know, because it's disposable. These are pens that you will have for a long time. He's done some good work, put some good thought into this list. And we definitely really appreciate it. And we'd love to have other people's lists. And, you know, you can send them, you can send a link to me on Twitter at Dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. You can go to penaddict.com, hit the contact button. That'll email me directly. You know, any other readers that want to send me a list, you don't have to do a blog post. You can send it to me in an email or anything you'd like to do. And I'd be happy to read them and share them online. I think it's a fun thing to do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Excellent stuff. So, I'm also on Twitter as well. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. I think we've about wrapped up this episode. Brad, would you agree? I think so. Excellent. So, yeah, thank you very much for listening to this week's episode of the Pen Addict Podcast. I'm Myke Hurley. He's the Pen Addict, Brad Dowdy. Until next time, bye-bye.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Bye-bye.

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