Editing The Pen Addict 322/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 322
| title           = Burner Pen
| date            = August 22nd, 2018
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/322 Episode 322]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_322.mp3 Audio Episode 322]
| length          = 71
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 322. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's, Squarespace, and Simple Contacts. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The elderly man, Brad Dowdy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Big birthday boy! Big birthday boy! Happy birthday, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thank you, thank you.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 34 years old. Yeah, 29, you know. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' 29-ish.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Sorry for giving out your real age there on the show.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, 29-ish. We're gonna go with that for a while. But I am younger than episode titles, so we'll keep that streak alive, I think. Who knows? In perpetuity.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The immortal Brad Dowdy.



== Lamy Inks Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' On the immortal front, we're gonna pick right up where we've left off the last 50 shows with Lamy Inks, except we're gonna talk about The Crystal again, which we broke down last week. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm talking about the new Lamy Inks, reflecting on the fact that they didn't have an orange. They released 10 new ink colors, didn't have an orange. And the only question that was left in our minds at the time, talking about those inks, was what the price is gonna be, and it looks like they're gonna be legitimately good. Like, it looks like, this is the case. Lamy did a good thing. So, they're already up on Cult Pen's site. I think they're $9.50 with the VAT, and without the VAT, they're like 8-something pounds. Um, so, that's around $10, 10, between $10 and $11 for the 30 milliliter bottle of inks, and you know what? Good job by Lamy. That was, you know, that's a good result, I think, for an area where they could have stuck it to the man, if you will, and really gone off the board on a pricing, um, you know, on a pricing bender. Like a lot of companies do when they introduce special lineups, right? A lot of it is to, you know, increase the bottom line, and you can never, I'll never argue with a company for that, but there's also, all consumers have a breaking point where they'll choose to, you know, continue to support or not support the certain product based on the price. So, good job by Lamy on this one. Um, so, yeah, now we'll just wait and see how the inks work, and I bet they'll probably work pretty well. So, do you have any of these coming? Are you gonna order some?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to, and I might just go for it, actually, because it, I mean, they're so cheap, comparative to some of the stuff that I buy, like I was thinking, oh, I'm not sure which one I'm gonna want. I think I'm actually just gonna order a couple of the colors, um, and go for it, because they're under a tenner each, right? Right. It's really not a lot of money. I know it's not a lot of ink, either, but that was, you know, it's just kind of just like it's, ten pounds, it's fine, right? And I think I'm gonna go for a couple of them. I was interested in the brighter color, so I might go for a road night and azurite, so like a pink and a purple, because I like those colors. So, right. Oh, you can't, you can't pre-order them, they just, an email went in stock on Cold Pens right now. So, they're coming in September. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So, I'll enter my email, and when they, uh, when they let me know, I'll go for it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha. So, they're not even available. I don't know. I haven't looked at all the sites in the U.S. Like, I don't even know if any pre-orders pages are up. I'm not that interested to pre-order, but I'll end up with something somewhere, somehow. You do not need to pre-order these.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right, like, if somewhere has a pre-order, you do not need to do that, right? Like, this is a standard line, and they're gonna make a lot of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, yep. And they're inexpensive. They're not gonna, they're not gonna be flying off the shelves. No, no. Um, I mean, they'll sell well. Don't get me wrong. Sure. But, um, back to your ink quantity. So, uh, I think 30 milliliters is actually the sweet spot for all inks. I wish they all came in 30 milliliters, but the problem that we're having is...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can you let me know, for comparison, what, what, are there any other inks that come in 30 milliliters?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Uh, the new Sailor. So, this is a new, a newer thing. Ah, okay. So, but the problem I was gonna say is, the problem is the 30 milliliters and the increased price. So, you know, it's never the, the actual size of the bottle to me. Someone who uses lots of inks, not like one ink that I need, you know, a hundred milliliters of, or a gallon of, because I'm just gonna use that one ink. I use lots of inks, so I'm good with smaller bottles of inks, just not at two or three times the cost of what your regular inks are. So, that was all I was gonna say. I actually prefer the 30 milliliter bottles. Yeah. So, there you go. Um, so I didn't pick any of those up, but I did pick up one of the new Tactile Turn pencils. So, I like what Will Hudges does with the Tactile Turn brand. I like the pens that he's made. I like the bolt action pens that he's done. And he offered up a pencil, which, you know, I'm a pencil fan, especially mechanical pencils. So, I picked mine up this, just this morning, actually. I keep getting the emails and seeing the articles. You know, I saw Ed Jellie's pictures of them, which he always does such a good job with these pictures. And Will, um, he always has such great anodization colors. Whoever the company he uses for the anodization does really, really good. And I picked one up this morning. I don't know what color I'm gonna get. Probably not orange. Um, the bright blue or pink, I'm thinking. I, I backed the, um, gosh, what was the name of the minimal Kickstarter? Modern Fuel. So, I just got my Modern Fuel. I got a stainless steel .9 millimeter pencil from that Kickstarter campaign. So, I just got that in. So, I've got my silver pencil. So, now, I'll probably get, like, pink this time, uh, just out of the aluminum. But there's brass and copper and titanium. I, I skipped all that. I'm going for the, for probably one of the bright colors, hot pink or purple. Um, we, we reviewed the purple, uh, pen he did recently. And that color looks so good. So, anyway, I wanted to point these out for those of you that are tactile turn fans. And if you like a mechanical pencil, I like the mechanism on the side. How does it work? That he's designed. So, it's just a Schmidt mechanism. So, what these companies use is, you know, our good buddies at Schmidt make really good internals. Right? So, um, it has an internal mechanism where you can just build this apparatus either to come down from the top of the pin or come down from the side of the pin to click on the top of the mechanism to deploy the lead. So, yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But he's made it look like a bolt, which is, which is clever because that's kind of like the, the thing. Right? Yep. Tactile turn, you expect something like that. Um, so I think that is a nice, I think, I just think it looks interesting, you know? Like it's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It looks like a tactile turn pen. It does. Like he's, he's on brand with that type of mechanism.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which, you know, if you would have said to me, oh, look at these pens, he's going to make a mechanical pencil. I wouldn't have been able to fathom how he would do that if it was going to be bolt in style. Right? Because the mover and shaker, they were using the Schmidt, like the silver. The squishy mech.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Although he, um, he redid that for the latest run. He made his own. So the originals were.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Very, very cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Schmidt, the Schmidt squish is what I call it, which I don't mind it. A lot of people mind it, but, uh, it is, it's a weird feel, but I don't, I don't mind it. But yeah, how do you call it the Schmidt squish?

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a good way to describe it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah, it's, uh, it's cool. I like Will's work. He, uh, he always does good stuff. Now yesterday, Michael, you might've noticed I streamed a little bit and we'll, we'll talk about that later. But during that stream, I got a link for a product I had not seen yet. So our good friends at G Herban now have the Jacques Herban by G Herban lineup. Have you heard of this before I put this in the show notes?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cause I had absolutely not. No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you know why we haven't heard of this, Michael?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do now. So why don't you tell our listeners?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because it is only in three retailers worldwide. So the Jacques Herban lineup is G Herban's ultra premium lineup limited so far based on this, this link on the Milligram Australia page, um, which I'll, uh, we'll have the link in the show notes for y'all to check it out or their Instagram posts. And then the actual product pages on their site. This is a luxury collection featuring vibrant inks, exquisite paper, leather accessories, and oh, so smooth writing instruments. So this is like your full leather writing ultra premium kind of setup. And.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Like, I'm not jumping through my screen at this. The prices are expensive. Like the ink bottles are 50 Australian dollars, which I think is 36, 37 us dollars for these 50 milliliter bottles. I don't even have to look. G Herban has lots of different bottles. Yes. There are 50 milliliter bottles, 50 Australian dollars, which I think converts to about 36. So that's definitely on the high end. Um, the colors seem nice, but you're paying a premium for nice, not off the charts. The orange actually looks pretty good. It's a very bright and yellowy. The paper and notebooks are all fine. They're all a premium. The pens are where they lose me here. So like the basic fountain pen just looks like a black acrylic barrel with a steel nib. And it's 299 Australian, which is like 220 us dollars. And that doesn't line up to me. Like this is a premium product. It doesn't look like it. And they are sure as heck charging a premium. So I don't know. Maybe it feels kind of amazing in the hand. I obviously hadn't tried one of these, um, but it doesn't move the needle. And I wonder what G Herban is going to do here long-term. Is this the trial run with these three stores? And then we're going to see the premium products roll out to everywhere. I'm guessing they'll probably do pretty well. Um, just cause G Herban has fans and, um, you know, you know, like a lot of us, you know, we're willing to play, pay the premium for things we're super fans of. And G Herban certainly probably has that. So I'd be interested to know if you even have, if you do have any thoughts on this, what are your thoughts on this? Or, you know, just another day and new product land.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't really have any complex thoughts on this at all. Like I'm looking at these products and I'm like, okay, like these are not for me. Like these are like exact executive line, right? Like, right. That's kind of what it looks like. I think that the fountain pens are really uninspiring. Um, I have no idea why they're making like a glass, um, uh, they call it a glass pen, but what is it? Like a dip pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. They've done, they have an entry level glass dip pen that they've done for a while.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. This thing's a hundred dollars, which is interesting. It's interesting, but it seems like it just, all of it seems a little weird. Like it's, but it's because it's not, this isn't aimed at me and you. And that's, it's not really aimed at anyone really specifically, which is why they're probably only running out in three places in the world. They're just trying to create a super limited exclusive brand for people that need to buy gifts for other people. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I guess my overall thing is when I was, I was surprised by it one, and then I was taken back at how plain it is for a premium lineup. Like lots of companies do lots of premium stuff. And this is just kind of like regular stuff to me at a premium price. Like sometimes that's all that you need though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, sure. And if I was sitting in the J Herban office, you know, this, I could see something that like I could come up with this plan, you know, to make these products. And I think they'll probably do well to be perfectly honest. And we'll probably see them everywhere else. I'm just, it's not compelling to me, if you will, from a personal standpoint to start, you know, picking up some of these things. So I thought it was interesting and it was interesting to point out, I'll be watching to see how this does at, you know, these, that the other stores. We'll, we'll see what the other stores are. If there's only three in the world, one of them's Milligram, who is a really good shop in Australia, I've definitely communicated with them in the past. They seem to be real nice, real well run store. So I'll be interested to know what the other two stores are.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's like, you know, the way I feel about this is like, I don't like cross either. Sure. Right. I mean, that doesn't do it for me, but it's, it's doing it for someone. And it's Anna, right? In the chat room, she's sent a link about the, their Instagram. Mm-hmm. The Jacques, the Jacques Bourbon. It's like very luxury looking.



== J Herban Brand Analysis ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, so I don't have, yeah, I'm not following this page. This is like a completely offshoot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And she's made a really good point that like, if you look at this, that is luxury. Like I follow a couple of watch companies now on Instagram and this is what their stuff looks like. That is a very good call on her. Like they are going for a luxury brand here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I wonder who, I haven't looked at it. I wonder who owns Jay Herbald. Like, are they part of a conglomerate that owns, you know, like other luxury brands?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That could be, that could be one of the pushes here. We'll have to look into it more. Not that I care. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, I think it's good. I, like, I'm glad to see companies doing more, you know, writing lineups, you know, just from a personal taste perspective. Like these aren't the things that move the needle for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It is a subsidiary of the Exacompta Clairefontaine Group since 2003.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's a distributorship. It says, oh, well. Exaclair is a distributor. So I don't know who owns Jay Herbald. Clairefontaine owns them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, okay. That's pretty small. So, yeah. We'll look at it. Not a big deal. Like, I don't, like, this is not, you know, anything like, this is not a visionary level of work that we need to do. No, no. It's just one of those things that's interesting. I find it interesting. Yeah. I definitely find it interesting. So, you know what else I find interesting, Myke? A nice clean shave.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, very nice. It's one of my favorite things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One of my favorite things on the planet.



== Sponsor Mention ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, that's good because today's show is brought to you by Harry's, the company that was created out of the desire to get rid of needing to pay for overpriced razors full of unnecessary features. The founders of Harry's knew that a great shave comes down to great blades. It's simple, right? So if you just make sharp, durable steel blades that last whilst cutting out the unnecessary costs, you can deliver these to people at an amazing price. You get a perfect shave every time. And because they're half the price, you pay just $2 per blade compared to $4 or more with our leading brands. You can shave more often if you want to. And the more fresh blades you use, the better that shave is going to be. Harry's sells their products directly to you over the internet. And they cut that price down significantly because they own the factory that produces these high quality blades. This is a factory that's been around for over 95 years. And this is why Harry's can offer a 100% quality guarantee. If you don't love your shave, let Harry's know within 30 days and they'll give you a refund. Brad, why do you love your Harry's shave?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I'm 100% looking fresh from my shave this morning. So I'm retrimming like the bottom of the beard a little bit, you know, like the neck area. So I can get a nice tight line just with the razor blade because the blades are so good to, you know, kind of re-modify, reshape the beard. You know, it's getting to be, you know, we're still in summertime here, but I'm starting to prepare for the fall where you got to get a little bit more scruffy and a little bit, you know, more, more beard growth, but you got to keep the neck nice and clean. So Harry's hooked me up this morning with my pride handle. Totally the best handle I've ever owned by that. If y'all missed out on that, that's your loss. Love that thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you got to get on it, right? You got to get on it. When we're talking about this stuff, you got to get on it. Harry's stand behind the quality of their blades, but they know that switching razors isn't an easy decision. So they created a special trial offer for listeners of The Pan Addict. You can get yourself a $13 value trial set that comes with everything you need for a close, comfortable shave. A weighted ergonomic razor handle, five blade razor with lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. Join the millions of people who have already switched to Harry's and go to harrys.com slash penaddict today to redeem your trial set. That's harrys.com slash penaddict. Thank you so much to Harry's for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So quick clarification. I was hearing Execlair, not Exacompta. So Execlair distributor, Exacompta, business owner of Clairefontaine, G. Lalo, J. Herban, things like that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So would you say that Myke was right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Myke was right. Hashtag.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Exacompta Clairefontaine. So that's the group that owns Execlair, right? Is that what you're saying? No.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm saying Execlair is the U.S. distributor for those brands.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, it's like a subsidiary company that they created to distribute those brands into America. Right. I see how you got there. Yep. That makes sense. But yeah, so since 2003, they've been a part of that huge conglomerate. Does that answer the questions that you had then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, no. Because I was just curious. There's companies like, say, Ray-Ban or Louis Vuitton. And at one point, Montagrappa was owned by one of those companies that does luxury goods with watches and bags and purses and shoes. It was a stationary company like J. Herban part of one of those, but it doesn't look to be that way. They're just part of a bigger stationary company.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. Okay. That makes sense.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It was a curiosity thing as far as where they see the market. I was just thinking about that. So no big deal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it does make even more sense though, right? In a way, this is a company that owns so many brands, including Rodia and Covades and I don't think I said that right, and Claire Fontaine and so many more, that it kind of makes sense that they would do this high luxury because they don't have one of those.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Right. J. Lalo is their high-end paper product. Like you get it at the stationary stores, like invitations and the higher-end stuff, your paper chases or your other individual stores, that type of thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So G. Lalo. Interesting. Okay. So RelayFM membership. Yes. RelayFM membership. Thank you to everyone who has signed up so far. Woohoo! The membership drive has gone fantastically so far. We're really, really pleased. I wanted to remind everyone that the three-hour bonus episode for the Pen Addict where we build a Lego set in the most silly way possible will be published on August the 24th, which is this Friday. So you have the whole weekend to listen to it because you may need that. So if you want to get your hands on this very special, I mean, we make fun, but it is super weird and we had a great time doing it. You can go and sign up right now and you can get this along with other bonus content and special perks for being a RelayFM member. Plan start at $5 a month. There is a link in our show notes, which you can find in your podcast app of choice or over on relay.fm slash penaddict slash 322. If you just click that button, you'll immediately be taken to a page to sign up for $5 a month for the Pen Addict. Or you can go to relay.fm slash membership to learn more, support more shows, support other shows, whatever you wish. But no matter which show you support, you get access to absolutely all of the bonuses, including a discount code for RelayFM's new merch page. We have a new merch store with some fun items that you may be interested in. And so you can get your hands on a discount code as well if you're a RelayFM member to get some money off this new amazing merch that we have. So thank you so much to everybody that has signed up so far. And you can sign up at any time and you always get access to all of the perks that we've ever done. So all of the bonus episodes are all in the feed. So it is quite a value that you get for your money. So thank you so much to everybody that signed up. While we're thinking about updates for kind people who give us money, do I want to ask you? Do I want to know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, if we recorded at this time yesterday, no, you didn't want to know. But by yesterday afternoon, like the first 100, 125 cases of the Clay Tallulah have left the factory and are heading to my house for final inspection. So we have movement on the case front. Hallelujah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not a day has gone by in the last two weeks where I haven't talked to the factory multiple times a day. And it's just continued madness. It just is. It's like super frustrating. But, you know, it's it's it always works out in the end. At least so far, it's always worked out in the end. And this one's going to work out in the end to just a few weeks behind where we where we were. So standard operating procedure, I guess. But yes, we generally in the past have shipped all these Kickstarters like within a day or two of each other, like all the rewards would ship out in a day or two. This time we might have to stagger them over several weeks, but depending on how these cases come in, like if these cases come in, they're good. And we're ready to ship. We might just start with like, you know, the first hundred backers and start shipping these out instead of waiting to do like all whatever number it is, 500 or so. I think that's a good idea. We'll see. Because like by the time we get to the end, it might be, you know, three more weeks before that last shipment hits. I just don't know at this point. It could be three days, which is unlikely. But you know what I'm saying, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's fine to start sending them out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I think. And I've got all the pins. I've got all the pins carded. And we'll talk about that more in a minute too. But yeah, like everything's ready to go. As far as getting ready to ship, we just need the physical goods and they should start showing up here tomorrow. So maybe next week we can get some out. We'll see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And everything's on track for our mini tour in October.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's actually really on track now. We have everything booked. Yeah. Except our hotel in New York. We got to book that. But that's no big deal. That's like just a couple of nights for us. At least for us, not for you. But yeah, we're booked. We're going to be in New York.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What's the Wednesday? I didn't even look. So it's the 25th and 26th. We'll be in New York. We leave for Toronto Friday the 26th. Sorry, I got those dates mixed up. And then we'll be at Wonder Pen Saturday, October 27th. And then we'll be at the Script is Toronto Pen Show on Saturday, October the 28th. And we head back to our respective homes, London, Atlanta, and Kansas City on the Monday.

'''Myke Hurley:''' As it stands right now, the only kind of like public-y events that we're doing are in Toronto. So as Brad mentioned, we'll have more details as we get closer to this. But this includes the October 27th in-store event, which I'm excited to be a part of. It sounds so fancy at Wonder Pen. Then we're going to be at the Toronto Pen Show on the 28th. We'll be there all day doing whatever it is we're doing. We're not actually selling or doing anything. We're just going to be there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I actually volunteered us to work the tables for Liz at Wonder Pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you're probably going to be working the tables for Liz at Wonder Pen. It's the information that I have just received. So that's what we're going to be doing on the 28th. So that's where you can plan to find us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And delegation, kids, this is how it works. But in New York, we are not currently planning on anything. Because I'm doing some other things in New York. Like we're doing a live show of Connected and stuff like that. So we may not be able to do anything more than that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like we're going to do a... We're going to go to CW Pencils and shoot videos. But we don't know, have like a time or date. And it's not going to be like a huge scheduled event or anything like that. We'll be swinging by and hanging out with Caroline and Caitlin. And we'll probably be there for a while. But there's no like official like date and time meetup type thing.



== Birthday Stream Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So you mentioned that you were streaming. And boy, you were streaming yesterday. Big birthday, boys. Big birthday stream. Which you can still catch for a little bit. It's like four hours. I watched a couple of hours of it. I like just having it on. I just have you in the background. You're very good at the kind of just talking to nothing. Which is a... The chatter. It is a... No, but like you're talking not to anybody. Right? Like you're not having a conversation with anyone. It's a very difficult thing to do. The skill of talking to me doesn't translate into just talking on your own. This is an additional skill that Brad has. Which makes the streams very good. And basically for the whole stream, Brad was poking pins into cards. Which included our heads.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Four straight hours of poking pins.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I heard a rumor that there may be a little bit of DNA on a few of them. Which is a horrifying thought.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Not really. Not really. That was one of our fun jokes of how many times I poked myself. I did the real damage on Sunday when Tyler and I were at the table. When I was starting to do it and didn't quite have my workflow down. I poked myself like really bad one time and then kept sticking myself. So I kept a counter on Twitter. It was only... It was three pokes and one curse word. So that was Sunday status. And then the stream wasn't... I didn't injure myself too bad. But the stream worked out great because... Number one, it was my birthday. Number two, I had new channel artwork to share. Number three, I had something to do. Which as monotonous as it was to sit there and poke heads on cards for four straight hours. Which is literally what I did from the moment we started until I had to leave.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was fun. I enjoyed it. Yesterday worked out perfectly because no one was around to share my birthday with me. The kids were at school and my wife worked all day. So I was like, well, I'm gonna go stream for a while. I got all this new stuff. I got things I got. I'm gonna sit here and poke heads and cards anyway. I might as well do it on stream and talk to people, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's a great idea. And it was a fun stream to watch. And you also unveiled new emotes and subscriber badges. That just looked really incredible. Me and Tiff are a bit jealous of you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I got it. Like, so don't be jealous. It's more laziness. Like, there's things I don't do. Like, I don't do audio editing. And I don't do graphic design. Like, I will gladly pay someone who's much better at those things than I am to do those things. So there's a guy I've been following for a while on Twitter. You know, if you follow streamers and you get kind of linked through, you know, seeing what other people use. And, you know, other streams and other artwork. And I found this guy named Lance. He's on, well, we'll put him in the show notes. He goes by Young Khan online. And I liked his style. Like, I kept seeing his artwork pop up by other people that I followed. I was like, oh, I really like this guy's style. I bet he could do something for me. So I got with him, told him what I wanted. He knocked it out and did a great job. I think it came out really, really cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, they are really good. I'm looking through his stuff now, too. And very, very talented individual.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. Good guy to work with. Easy guy to work with. Would highly recommend it. He, being an artist like he is, he's still, he's not much of a pen guy. Like, I was, you know, I was trying to figure out, you know, what he was using and stuff. He's like, ah, pretty much just use Bix. I'm like, oh, Lance, I'm going to fix that. You're killing me. But, hey, Bix for artists are probably one of the primary tools. So good job by him. But, yeah, it came out good, didn't it? It sure did.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, everyone should go to twitch.tv slash penaddict. Follow and then subscribe with your money. And then you can watch Brad's future streams. And then you get little badges and emotes and all that kind of cool stuff now, too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll use him for future work to do more things.



== Baron Fig Notebook Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' I want to talk about a cool product that flew by my radar yesterday, which is the Baron Fig Wonder Dream Journal. This is genuinely one of the smartest ideas I've seen in a notebook in a while. I think this is frigging genius. Baron Fig have created a dream journal.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Which, that's always the dream of a lot of people. Like, I have dreams. I should write them down. Well, they made a thing to prompt that, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, it is a really good-looking notebook, right? It's got, like, stars and stuff on the front. It looks really, really nice. But the star is the paper inside. So, it is specifically designed for you to record your dreams in. So, the pages are laid out. They've got these big sections, right, on a double-page spread. It's called Recall, Visualize, and Interpret, right? You can understand what they mean, right? So, you write down in the Recall. In the Visualize, you can draw some stuff. And then, I guess, in the morning, you interpret it, right? It's like a double, like, either you've woken up, you write it down, go back to sleep, or however it is you want to record your dreams. And on the edges of the pages, they have these things that they call page bars. And they have little icons for you to check off so you can denote your emotion, your sleep quality, when your dream took place in the night, so, like, the beginning, middle, and end. If your dream was in color or not, what your viewpoint was, was it first person or third person, and basic categorization of your dream. I think this is a really good-looking, really smart notebook. Like, I think this is an awesome-looking product. I don't really have, like, dreams that I consider worth recording. I don't really have vivid dreams very often. So, this isn't, like, something that I would personally buy for myself. But for a person who does a dream like that, or wants to record your dreams, or whatever, this is, like, a perfect product. I love seeing stuff like this, where it's, like, really cleverly thought out, single-purpose things. Especially when you're thinking about, like, we all have so many notebooks, right? Like, everyone has so many notebooks. Isn't it nice to have a notebook which has such a singular purpose that...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Is it? That's, that's, so, that's my argument. Like, I have lots of things to say about this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, go on then.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And it's all, I mean, it's all positive. Like, I love single-purpose use products like this. This is a very specific, built a specific way. I was actually just talking about this, I think, last week in Refill for a different product. Or two weeks ago, there was an auto journal log on Kickstarter. It's like, I love the idea of this. I will never use this product, right? Yep. Those two things can coexist, right? I absolutely love the highly specific products. Like, but on a personal level, this is a product I would never use. Because why do I need the fifth notebook I have active today? I've already got four notebooks active. Do I need a fifth one now, right? But, you know, if you are a, an avid dreamer, you know, maybe you want the specific tool to help you capture those things. And what they delivered was a very good product for that. Now, it's funny that this was in the show notes today because I'm not a dreamer, except I had a freaking insane dream last night.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, I was lost, I was lost in a hotel. Like, that was the whole dream. And it felt like it went on for like two or three hours, you know, when it was probably like a five minute dream.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, you know, I am not of the mental awareness state that I need to like write that down and describe to myself and psychoanalyze, you know, what I just went through. Maybe I should. Maybe I need the dream journal to figure out what's wrong with me. But, like, I see it as a great product and I simultaneously see it as something that I would never in a million years use and would hardly see why a lot of people would use them when they have, you know, their regular journals to write their, to write their dreams.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it's the structure can be useful, right? That you have this specific structure if you're not sure necessarily how to describe what you're seeing. I think, I think this is nice. Like, you know, this, this to me, it's like, okay, I understand your point. But then why do you need a diary with dates in it? You know, like, maybe not you, but anyone. Like, I understand what you're getting at, but.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just like the previous product, I don't have the name in front of me, where they did the half pages, right? The blank, like, creative page up top and then the line page down below. So you could, like, write the image up top and then describe it down below. It's like, they're making, you know, they're delving into, like, the highly specific use cases, which I get. Like, I think being able to design, there's nothing more satisfying than designing a product and then making it exist, right? And so they are, like, taking that with everything. Like, everything gets its own thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they've done a good job with, like, the, just the creative aspect and design aspect of it. So, you know, we'll see who actually do, are they getting used? Are people using these things? So we'll have to see. But people like to have specific use cases for things, even if it's their fourth or fifth journal. It's just not my particular style.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that's fine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But then it doesn't mean it. But I think it looks good. Yeah. Just like the, I thought the, whatever the purple cover one that I keep referring to was one of their best looking designs. But also unnecessary in the scope of a regular journal, which I think this kind of falls in the same category for my use case. Some other people have, you know, five journals for five different things, right? So everyone uses their journals differently. That's why there's so many on the market, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And I think this is a very cool, very valid entry into that kind of, like, single purpose, single use. Because I've never, you know, I've never seen a product like this, you know, before. And I think that they've designed it very well. I think it's well thought out. Like, because you could just take a confidant and put a cover on it and say, this is the dream journal. Right. Or, like, you could do that thing where you just split it into half, just it's every single page is just half blank, half lined. And just say, like, oh, you draw your dreams, you write about your dreams. But all of the additional stuff that goes around it and all of the wording and all that kind of stuff, that shows real product development and real thought and real research that went into the, just having the cool idea. So, I really respect it. I think it's a cool product.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like I said, there's nothing cooler than, like, getting your ideas down and, like, making a thing from it. And I think this is what this is, right? This is something that they were probably pretty excited to do. And then once you start building something like this, you get really hyped about, you know, okay, let's fix the layout and what needs to go here and what needs to go there. And then, okay, it's at the printer now. Then you start freaking out and like, okay, now we got to sell this thing. So, it's fun. It's fun to create things like this, I think.



== Sponsor Break ==


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'''Brad Dowdy:''' As many things as we had in the show notes to talk about today, all really good topics, this is what I want to hear about, Myke. So, I'm letting you drive the Twisby Go conversation because why? You have one? Is that what you're telling me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. I have a Twisby Go. What is happening with my life that you have this cool new pen ahead of me? I got on it, man. I ordered it. Remember when you saw the order page go up? I ordered it immediately and it arrived a few days ago. So, I guess I could just jump straight to the end and say that I really love this thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I kind of had a feeling that was probably going to be the case.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a $19 pen that is significantly better than a $19 pen. Like, all you are losing with this is ink capacity. It's the only thing you lose with this pen. It is super simple in construction. Like, it just feels like the entire thing is just, like, injection molded plastic. Right? It's like the whole grip and filling, like, the whole grip and that, you know, the grip section area, which usually snaps off, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Let's be clear. It's hideous looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is it, though?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. That's what makes it beautiful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I kind of love it because it's so frigging weird. It is also one of those pens that is so much nicer in person. Like, you kind of forgive some of the ugliness and find it cute in its own way. It's a very, this is a very, this is one of the stranger pens I've owned in a while. But, like, what I was going to say was, like, the whole grip section and stuff, it's all one piece. It's just one piece of injection molded plastic. So, like, I personally expect this to be the most resilient Twisby pen that has probably ever been made. Right. So, the thing about this pen is the fill-in system. So, the body of the pen, right, is about 60% spring, 30% ink reservoir. Right. It is, like, size to ink capacity, the worst ratio I have ever seen. Because the reservoir is so small. But it is also the easiest filling system I have ever used. Like, so describe it. Go, like, fill her up. All you do is you just pop the pen into the bottle and you press down on a huge spring. You just hold the pen, you press down on this huge spring. It's got a big plastic button at the end of it. You push it down and then it just fills up. The reason it's easy is, I mean, we've all used pens like this, right? We've all used filling systems where you press something down and the ink goes in. But this is so big and prominent, it's really easy to do. Right? Yeah. The spring and the button you press is huge. It's the same width as the pen body, but it's not fiddly in any way. Like, you just pump it down a couple of times, right? So, you just make sure you got the ink out of it. Like, the air out of the reservoir. And it's done. It's so simple because it's made to be that way. It's not fussy in any way. You're not struggling with it in any way. Like, it's easy to do. It's easy to clean off the ink that you've got around it because, like, it's just plastic. And also, I have put shimmer ink in this because I don't care about it. It's 19 pounds, right? Or $19 or whatever. I'll put any ink in this thing. Oh, I'll buy 10 of them. Do you know what I mean? And just, like, fill them up with a bunch of weird inks. Like, I have no concern about wrecking this pen. But at the same time, I'm getting a really good TWSBI nib out of it. Right? Like, they're not skimping on the nib. Like, the nib is as good as a TWSBI nib is, which I think are always really good. So, I got it in a bold. I've put some J. Aubon. Like, one of the, I think, I can't remember which one it is. Like, the Stormy Sea or something. Or the Emerald de Chivore. I have both of those. I can never tell the difference. I never remember. But it doesn't hold a lot of the ink. Right? Yeah. Fill it up. It's easy to, like, swish it around. Because, again, there's just not much of a reservoir. And then you just use it. And over, I've been using it so much over the last week or so. Like, I'm really happy with this. Like, I really encourage people to get this as, like, a burner pen. Right. Like, it's just something you can throw anything into and try it out. Like, and also, the fill-in system is so simple that you can really easily dump the ink out of this thing as well. It's a fun pen, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You think it'll be easy to clean? You think it'll be easy to clean if you ever decide to clean it? Like, you might not, like, knowing you. Yeah, it might not.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't see why it wouldn't be. Like, it would be as easy. In theory, it should be as easy as any upper pen. Like, I don't see why it would be particularly difficult. I haven't tried to get the feed out of it. So, I don't know what that situation is like. And I'm not going to do it right now. But again, like, I really think that at this price point, you can afford to replace it every six months if it does get all messed up. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can't wait to get it. Like I mentioned recently that I've never gone from what is this? Why does this exist to I have to have it in such a quick time frame as this Twisby Go? And that's kind of like the design thing that I was talking about with Bear and Fig, how they must have been like excited to actually put that thing together. Twisby must have been doing the same thing with this. I can almost guarantee that this was like a happy accident that they turned into something just fun, right? They're not sitting there trying to make, you know, this exclusive $200 beautiful material gold nib fountain pen. They sat there and goofed around and said, dang, this is fun. I bet other people would think it's fun too. And it's going to turn out to be that way. It's so photogenic in the weirdest way possible. It's just going to get a lot of people talking. And it's pretty much, I think, a stroke of genius at this point for them to deliver this product. It's fascinating. I just find this pen entirely fascinating.

'''Myke Hurley:''' People were excited about the Eco, right? Because it was like, oh man, Twisby have made like an affordable, like a good affordable fountain pen. It's like, yeah, they did. But then they went and went up themselves because this is a more affordable and in some ways more fun fountain pen. That its downsides provide other upsides and the downsides are not really that important. Like, right. I don't know what the capacity is of this thing, but like the ink reservoir is small, but the pen body is wide. So I bet it holds as much ink as some of my other cartridges do. It's just, it looks hilarious when you see it, right? Like just how small the reservoir is. But like, I really bet that it holds just about as much as many cartridges or many converters that I own, but you just can't really see it as much. So I really, you know, I really love this thing. People are joking in the chat room, like Myke will go and buy a new one each time he wants to change the ink. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's $19. Like I know that's not nothing, but let's just put this into perspective for like the type of like money that we're throwing away on stuff all the time, right? $20 is, is not a lot of money. And obviously I'm not going to do that, but like, I also kind of, whilst I like this pen a lot, a lot, it, it kind of, it's unimportant. It doesn't matter. I'll throw this thing around. I'll throw it in a bag. Like I'll junk it up with any weird ink I've got. And then I'll just replace it. If I break it, like it's, it's not an issue for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. This pen's going to be fun. I think it's going to be a good pen. And we'll, we'll be seeing a lot of posts of it. It's, it's, it's, it cracks me up. It's genius.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 100% become my rec, my recommendation for a first time fan pen user. 100%, 100%. Because if you're saying to someone, buy this pen and you have to fill it up with ink yourself, this is the easiest way for somebody to do that. That's true. It is so simple. Just jam the spring down. Right? Like it, I think the fact that it is so in your face removes some of the daunting task of like how you fill this pen up. You don't need to describe to someone how to use this pen. It's abundantly clear. Because they have built the whole thing around the way it looks. They, they, they made the body of the pen see through plastic because they want to show you the spring. It's genius. I love it. I really, I cannot believe how much I like this pen because we both thought it was a bit of a joke the first time we saw it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I, it's going to be a thing. Like that. I think there's no doubt. It's, it's awesome. So I can't wait to get mine.

'''Myke Hurley:''' According to Chewbacca in the chat room, apparently Goulet pen says it is a 1.61 milliliter ink capacity.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That's large.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a lot of ink. So there you go. It's, it's, it looks like it's no ink, right? Because I've never seen a pen that is this size that has that, like it's just that, it's this tiny area, but it, it, man, I love it. It's really good. Really good pen. I can't wait to see what you think of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I'm excited to get it. What name did you get in yours? I got a broad because my plan was always to put like shimmer inks in it and stuff. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. Does it come in a stub nib? I'll have to see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I didn't, I didn't look, but if it did, I didn't buy it because, um, I already have so many stub nibs. Yeah. Yeah. At this point. It comes in extra fine, fine, medium, bold, and 1.1 stub.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. That works. All right. That's what I'm going to get then. I'll get the stub one. I'll actually, I'll probably get a stub and a, an extra fine nib. So, speaking of fun, Myke, we had some fun at the Washington DC Pen Show. We had a lot of fun, but, uh, one of the highlights of that trip for me was meeting Anna Incantadora here in the chat room and online and everywhere. And I have to say, she is one of the most persistent people I have ever met, and I mean that in a very positive way. Once you've met her and talked to her for any amount of time, you will never tell her no in anything that she wants. She's so nice, but she's so, she's very persistent. She's like, I want this in this. And by this and this, she meant, I want the A5 seed case in the Sapelo pen colors, which are, the external is the peacock green and the internal is the amethyst purple. And she's like, will you do this? And we're, of course, like, no, we will not do this because we don't do custom cases. Or we could do, you know, whenever we pick out our next color run of cases, you know, maybe that'll be the color we choose. Like, we don't commit to any of that thing that far ahead of time. And that was probably, like, Friday. And then she'd keep coming back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've had a new idea for you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' She's like, how about this case and this? And it'd be like, we'd have the same conversation. And I was like, we finally got to thinking, I was like, well, what if, you know, you love this so much, you're very committed to it. She's like, what if I, she even brought this up. She's like, well, what if I can sell a bunch of them? She was, like, adamant on getting this done. And she's like, well, what if we, you know, I can get people to commit to buying them? Can we do that? I was like, well, we need a lot. You know, like, I'm certain, you know, we can, we can, we can do anything, you know, if there's the right amount of, of resources to do it. And so, you know, that, that conversation happened. Then she'd come back later. She's like, well, can I start telling people? It was just like, she had this whole plan of getting this case made. So we, we finally said, yeah, let's try this. Let's try something new and from a, a not perspective in that we do like a special order case where you would get like one shot at a pre-order. You know, we'd open pre-order for like a week or two and let, you know, the, our customers and fans, you know, come and purchase this case if they're interested in it. And you have pretty much just one shot at buying it. It would be a pre-order special thing. And, uh, Anna was like, yeah, let's do this. So she's put together a form where you can go, um, you know, put down if you're interested in this case, if we get enough interest in this case, we'll open up pre-orders on, on not to make it. And it's called, uh, the Ooh La La edition. And we have a mock-up on Instagram that Anna shared. And she has a signup sheet on Google docs if you're interested in it. And it's such a cool looking case. It's like, I want this case like really badly. So I hope we can do it, but you know, I, and as I told her, this doesn't come without, it does come without risks, but it doesn't come without delay. Right? Like we hesitate to do these types of things because we will require you to pay up front and then wait like six months to get your product. Right? That's not always the best business decision, I believe. But it's also better than doing a Kickstarter for just a new color of a product we already have. Like we don't want to do that either. So maybe this becomes like a once a year type thing where we pick out the color of the A5 seed. You go in and order it. And then we, we get them made and we ship them out to you. So I don't know. We'll, we'll see if this becomes a thing. We'll see if there's enough interest in it. The color is certainly awesome enough to hopefully people want it. And, but I just wanted to share this because meeting Ana was just one of the highlights of not just like my year, but of my lifetime. I'm glad I can call her a friend now that we've met in person. And she's just lovely. And I want to do this. And so let's make the ooh la la happen. Just, I mean, just for the name. I mean, just imagine, you know, you can have your ooh la la seed case. It doesn't get much better than that, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think that this is a fun project. I'm very keen to see how it will go. I will audibly commit to buying one just out of solidarity and support. I will stay in advance for Brad Dowdy's personal, mental health and sanity. This isn't going to work every time out there, every listener. If you want a specific color or product, please don't badger Brad until he makes it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, yeah, let's just say this is just a matter of like a really good color way and really good timing. Right? It's a good color way that we only have in one color. And on top of that, it's time for us to pick out the next color of the A5 seed case. So just it was stars aligned. Yes. Like I would, I believe me, I would, I tell people no all the time and I would have told Anna no. If I, if I had, you know, a huge stockpile of A5 cases to sell still. Right. And, you know, from a business perspective, not every, you know, decision, you can't say yes to everything. This one is just kind of like the perfect match of timing and color and, you know, what that product adds to the lineup and things like that. So that's, that's what it boiled down to. I do, I will say we do have something else in the works for, from a community perspective that we want to do. I'm not ready to say anything yet, but I, this has gotten me thinking that I want to do more customer involvement in picking out colors. So we might work on something on a bigger scale in the near future that someone also here in this chat room is, is working with me behind the scenes, but that's not ready for release yet. But this is fun. This is also, this is like, this is like the pilot project, you know, can we do this? Can people be content paying upfront with a long lead time to get a product that's unique? So it should be fun to be interested to see how this goes. So we will, we'll be sharing this more over the next few weeks. And like I told Anna, and I think, I think she put it in the information. I'm not sure, but we need at least 200. Uh, we need to make 200 units to like even make this, you know, doable at all. So, you know, hopefully we'll have, and I know these commitments aren't saying you're going to guarantee you're going to buy one, but if we know kind of ballpark what we think we're going to get, you know, we'll decide whether we can go forward with it or not. So very cool. Thanks for putting this together, Anna and Ink and Distilled Rodrigo here in the chat room. He's also helping with this. So I appreciate y'all very much putting this together because it's, it's fun. It's something fun we want to do for the community and, uh, to have in the, have the, the backing of someone so amazing as, uh, Anna. I, uh, I think it's cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Today's show is also brought to you by our friends at Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. They let you easily create a website for your next idea, project, event. No matter what it is, they give you all of the tools that you need to make it. You can create any type of website that you want with Squarespace. An online store, a portfolio, a blog, a site for your business, your band, your restaurant. No matter what, they give you all the tools that you need. You can grab a unique domain name. You can take advantage and customize beautiful award-winning templates and have access to 24-7 customer support in case you need any help. There's nothing to install, patch, or worry about, or upgrade, or anything with Squarespace because they're in only one platform that takes care of everything for you. This is why I use Squarespace for my projects. It's why Brad uses Squarespace for his projects too because they are the best in the business. So many awards. All the great awards. Customer support, templates. They've all won awards. They win the award of my heart too at Squarespace. Their plans start at just $12 a month, but you can start a trial with no credit card required just by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict. And this trial is amazing. It's completely full. You have all of the stuff available to you so you can build your entire website. And then when you want to put it out to the world, you just have to sign up for a plan. Use the code penaddict to check out and you will get 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. Once again, that is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And the code penaddict to get 10% of your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show. Squarespace, make your next move. Make your next website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Quick Squarespace anecdote. I know we're running a little bit long, but we just have a few. So I had a friend that reached out, knows I use Squarespace for all my sites. And he said he wanted to open up his own online shop and wanted to know if I would help him do that. And I said, I'd be glad to help you and answer any questions you have. But let me tell you this. Squarespace makes it so easy, you won't even have any questions for me. He's like, but what about inventory and how do I do this? I was like, set up the store. And as you're going through it, if you have any questions, let me know. The next response was, okay, I'm done. I got it. Thanks. Never had any questions. So that was good. That worked out well for him. So that's kind of how it is to set up Squarespace. Very good. Very easy. All right. So let's hit a few of these questions. First from Andrew Ardern. Any recommendations for an 18-month day planner that works well with fountain pens? 18-month is such a, it's common-ish. It's obviously never the primary thing for most planner manufacturers. But you can find them out there. And I would just say, I don't have a very specific recommendation. But any of the big planner manufacturers like Rodia, Claire Fontaine, all the people we were talking about before, Quo Vadis, anyone that you know makes good paper already, they're going to have the best quality journals. And then if you go to the Japanese market, you know, you're looking at Kokuyo, Jiban, and Hobonichi, which, Myke, it's already Hobonichi season here in a few weeks. We're going to wait and talk about that. We need a big segment about Hobonichi and how this year was and things like that.



== Hobonichi Festival Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' You need to explain to me what this Hobonichi festival is.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we'll do that. We'll save that for next week. Okay. Because it's a whole thing. Okay. Hobonichi, every year they step it up. And this year they've like gone, gone crazy with like all kinds of release dates and fun and madness about to happen. So, you know, look at Hobonichi. If you are okay with writing in your own dates, I love the Traveler's Weekly Planner. You know, it has their seven days per page, but you can start it whenever you want to start it. Like you could buy it, start it tomorrow and be, you know, the first day of the first week that you want to capture. And you will run out of that individual journal before 18 months. I think it lasts about six months. But that's something if you actually find a paper you like, there's a lot of companies that will just make a fill in your own date type of planner. So I wish I had like something super specific to tell you, but the 18 month is kind of hard to nail down. So the inky side says, I've been using my field notes more and more in my EDC. What covers have you found to be your favorite for field notes? Preferably one that keeps the dimensions within back pocket size. So just a little bit bigger, just enough to hold the notebook itself with not too much extraneous stuff going on is kind of how I read that. And the everyday inspiration has still been one of the best ones. That's field notes collaboration with Bellroy. Bellroy makes amazing quality goods.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's a killer collab, right? Like, well, they just kind of nailed it. I hate myself that I just said that word, but it's the it's it's the two fantastic companies that know how to make their thing. And then they work together to make a thing. It's just like, right. They nailed it. It's wonderful. I've seen a few of those and they're really nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they're both kind of have that philosophy of not extraneous stuff anyway. Right. So putting them together, you're going to get a nice slim line notebook cover that works well. I also like anything that Keegan does at one star leather. The park sloper was, I think, maybe his first thing that he made. And it's still been one of the most popular items he's made over the years. So it's slim line with a pin loop, which you'll see it when you look at the picture. We'll have this in the show notes. You can take a look at that. So it's just as slim and sized as the notebook is. But it also has a pin slot for many pins like Fisher Space pins, things like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Side Rose wants to know, are there alternative refill options for the Zebra 301A? I love the body, but find the ballpoint refill it comes with to be too dry and scratchy. This is a tough one because it's a really popular pin. The 301A is the more recent counterpart to the historically extremely popular Zebra F301. If you see the F301, you'll know exactly what they're talking about. They're one of the most popular pins you can get at the store, like at the office supply store. You can walk into a store and buy these pins or a grocery store shelf. They look cool. They can take a beating. But they don't write amazingly well. The bad news is I don't think there's a compatible refill. Not that I've seen. Like I looked on JetPens compatibility thing and they only sell the refill that's made to fit it. And it looks kind of not like any other refill that I've seen. There might be something. So we'll put a call out to the listeners if they have any 301 refills that they use. I caveat that with saying let's not hack too many things up at first. Like I appreciate a good hack, but that's generally not the answer people want. They want to just pop a refill in and go or maybe, you know, trim the end of the refill a little bit. But once we start getting to like tape and glue and huge modifications, that's generally not going to fly for most people. So if you have anything that fits in the Zebra F301, let me know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'd love to hear it. All right. So I'm going to read this next one. This wasn't really an ask TPA, but it was sent to us. So I wanted to see if we could provide any help to our good friend at HeyMatthew. I lost a Lamy 2000 Rollerball today that I had a pretty sentimental attachment to. The saddest part is that someone will probably find it and not know what they have and it will end up in a drunk drawer when it runs out of ink. I will just sleep over this thought. Brad, do you have any advice? Is there anything we can do to make Matthew feel better?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, he should keep his pens in an area where he shouldn't lose them. Shame on you, Matthew. Rip. Oh my God.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Was that not what you were expecting? No.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So let me see. I just wanted to offer my apologies to Matthew for losing this pen, which has sentimental attachment to Brad, which means it's probably pretty important to him. All I can say is there will be more pens in your life that will have other sentimental value to them. Maybe you could buy a pen in honor of that pen and try and transfer some of the sentimentality over to it. I don't know. Yeah. I'm very sorry for Brad. Just in general and especially in this instance.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I will say the sentimental value is obviously not replaceable. If I was in Matthew's shoes, I would replace the pen with the same pen. Like if I have a very sentimental value to a pen, even though I'm not going to get the pure sentimentality that the original was, I would probably go ahead and get a replacement. So I continued to have that pen and could, you know, project and import those wonderful sentimental thoughts onto the new pen and, you know, hopefully not lose as much sleep. So I would be in the replacement camp, but that stinks. I hate that for Matthew.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There you go. You did a better job on the second try.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I love Matthew. I got to give him hell.



== Muffin Nomenclature ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I'm sure. Our last question is from at everyday comment. What are English muffins called in England? This is something that their eight-year-old has asked and can't find any answer to. I have been through this before with Jason Snell on Upgrade. Here's the thing. Yeah, here's the thing. They're muffins, right? That is what they're called. They're called muffins.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's an issue.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But now, a lot of people call them English muffins because LOL America.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I'm not going to argue with you on that point. Your big sweet muffins full of chocolate and blueberries, and they became muffins. But, depending on where you shop, what we call, both things are called muffins. Some places call them English muffins, but they are muffins. Sometimes they're called oven top muffins or something like that, or oven stick muffins, something like that. It shows it's got the kind of bottom on them. But yeah, they're muffins. They're muffins. It's all called muffins.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, the blueberry variety with the paper is a muffin.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a muffin.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And then the English muffins are a muffin as well. Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Wow.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very interesting.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, this is even more complicated than the cookie problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right? Because cookies for us, we call chocolate chip cookies are what we call cookies. Everything else is a biscuit. Gotcha. Right? But the muffins one is way more complicated because the names, they've not changed. Like, it's called a muffin.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you're going to break poor, this is Tony, by the way, everyday commentary. Yep. Tony Scull and Breen. You're going to break his poor eight-year-old child's head. Yep. Muffins are muffins.

'''Myke Hurley:''' These things are called muffins. They're called muffins. It's all a muffin. Everything's a muffin around here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I have a feeling we're going to have a follow-up question from Tony's eight-year-old next week. Well, thank you for...

'''Myke Hurley:''' The answer to all of these questions is America took our language, did whatever they wanted to it, and then tried to put it back on us. And there's some things that we don't accept.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm not going to, you know, apologize for that. That's, yeah. I'm on your page with that one. Like, that's, yeah. That's just, like you said, LOL America.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it is just how it is. This is the problem of the world that we live in today, that, you know, the internet and everything has changed and everyone can talk to each other. And now there's mass confusion across everything, including the names of breakfast trees. The problem is they're both breakfast things as well. Yeah. Right? It makes it even worse. If you'd like to find our show notes for this week's episode, go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 322. You can find Brown online, twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's at Dowdyism on Twitter, penaddict on Instagram. Penaddict.com. Not got code. Jeez. Anything else?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is that it for you? Did I get it all?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The entire internet.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Everywhere. But different names, different URLs for all of that stuff. I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. You on Mastodon or something? No. That's good. Don't plan on it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't plan on it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Good man. All right. Thanks so much to our sponsors this week, the fine folk over at Harry's Squarespace and Simple Contacts. And to you, the listener, for one, tuning in, and two, if you became a member, we appreciate your support no matter how you choose to give it. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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