Editing The Pen Addict 323/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 323
| title           = Mother Cover
| date            = August 29th, 2018
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/323 Episode 323]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_323.mp3 Audio Episode 323]
| length          = 59
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 323. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Blue Apron. My name is Myke Hurley. I am joined by the wonderful, the man of the hour, the one and only, Mr. Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello, Myke Hurley. Thank you for the introduction. I appreciate it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If this episode lasts more than one hour, I become the man of the hour. I'm the man of the hour into the second hour, but the first hour is all you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, I think that's a deal I can get behind. We should put that in writing, probably. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know, based on our pre-show conversations.



== Kickstarter Update ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' We were talking business offline, and I want to talk business online here real quick, if you will allow me. Michael, we have a Kickstarter update for The Pen Addict. I feel like we should have, like, music for that, like, Kickstarter update. Pew, pew, pew.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can rest yourself assured that I've taken care of that for you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, thank you. So, we'll check that in the final, final version of this show. So, we started to ship, Myke. We've started to ship some pin cases and pin heads. So, they are on the move. I have a backer's email sent out to everyone, let them know that the process has begun. The cases look fan-freaking-tastic. They look so good, Myke. I went through all of them, inspect them. We inspect every single case that goes through our hands. So, it's always a process for us. So, knocked those out, got them packed up, got a bunch of orders shipped out yesterday. I just want everyone to know that this is going to be a slow process. In the past, we've been able to do the entirety of the order of the backer's rewards in the span of, like, a few days, maybe a week total. So, that's when we've had all the products in, since y'all have heard me talking about this case quite frequently, that it's been delayed just by random manufacturing issues. And they're trickling in as opposed to coming all in at one time. So, instead of holding them for who knows how long to get every case in, we're going to ship them as we get them. So, that's the plan. That's what we're working on now. We also have the magic of postal tracking this year, which we've never set up before. And I don't know why. It was always kind of broken in the past, but we got it going this year. And so, you'll get a notification if your product is shipped. I kind of implore you not to say, has mine shipped yet? If you haven't gotten the notification, it hasn't. Is mine?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure.

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

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know. Did you get an email? I didn't back it, because it's illegal. Oh, yeah. I just need you to send me some pins. Okay, yeah. I can do that. I actually have some other stuff to send you to, so we'll make it up.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't want to get in trouble with the Kickstarter police.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, we should be good. Right, yeah, we don't back our own projects. So, stay tuned. I'll be posting updates as we ship out. I put a lot more specifics in the backer notification. If you're a backer of this project, check your email. And it's looking good, Myke. We're not too far behind, just a little bit. And I'm happy about that.



== Pen Aesthetics ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Talking about looking good.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, aside from you. The next item in our notes here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good grief. I purposefully tried not to put this in here when the Bung Box Mandarin Orange Jet came out. Like, I did, on purpose, I did not put that in the show notes, because I didn't want to talk about it. We talked about it on Twitter. It made its rounds around Twitter, what, three, four weeks ago? Maybe three weeks ago. A beautiful, stunning new Bungu Box collaboration with Sailor, with the chocolate-dipped section, if you will, and the orange, the little jeweled finials that they do so well, and the translucent orange cap. Myke, it's stunning, isn't it? I mean, we talked about it online. And I, seriously, I, on purpose, did not put this in the show notes when it came out. I did not want to talk about it, because it happened so frequently. What made me put it in the show notes this week is the existence of the San Cotto pen shop Tequila Sunrise, which just sent me over the edge. Like, in the best way possible, and the worst way possible. Right? Because I sit there and look at the Bungu Box orange jet. And I don't even know if that's the real name. That was the Google translation. So, I'm going, this is the perfect pen for me. Right? I love it. It's beautiful. It's stunning. There's nothing about this pen that I disagree with at all. And I'm not going to buy it. Right? I don't need another pen. Perfectly content with that decision. I'll look at the pictures if someone gets one and, you know, has it at a pen show. I will enjoy trying it out, and I'll hand it right back to them. Wonderful. I don't need to spend the money. Well, then this freaking Tequila Sunrise comes out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's even better looking to me. And it's not even close. This might be, like, the singular best one that I've seen, at least in the orange colorways. The way it has a gradient in the barrel. It's stunning. And plus, it has not a fully gold nib, but, like, it's got the two-tone nib. And it's got a clear finial on the cap. It's amazing. And I'm not going to say I'm not going to buy this one. But I'm not planning on buying this one. But if something happens, I might buy this one. But this brings back. This was, like, the perfect FOMO setup. Right? The fear of missing out the Bungu Box one. Like, as soon as that pin launched, I said, this is awesome, and I'm not going to buy it. I didn't have the FOMO. The reason why you don't, you know, live your purchasing life with FOMO in place is, number one, it'll cost you too much money. And number two, there's always something tomorrow. Well, the something tomorrow was an even better pin. And now I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm just confused. And I'm not going to buy either of them. But I actually, I want the Tequila Sunrise. But I'm probably not going to buy it just because I don't, I mean, if I'm not going to buy the Orange Ed, why would I commit to the Tequila Sunrise? Even though I think it's a better looking pin, they're both, like, 10 out of 10. So, I don't know. It's just the FOMO talking. I'm going to skip both. I've had opportunities to buy pins over the past few weeks that I've turned down. I just don't want to spend the money right now. So, which one did you buy me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, okay. So, I will say I prefer the look of the Orange Ed, which is funny because Orange Ed is a word that we've given it. But my Google Translate says Orange Jet, as in, like, a jet plane. Right. But let's go with Orange Ed as one word because it's nicer. I don't know. We're just going to call it that. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We just need to look up and see what the candy is called in France. So, Anna, what is that candy called in France? She'll let us know in the chat room where they dip the oranges in chocolate. So, anyway, go ahead. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, even in the description, it says Orange Ed is a French-born candy wrapped in candy citrus peel and chocolate. So, I have... Okay. So, I had it right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I had it right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This one is surprisingly not sold out. You know, like... Orange Ed? Yeah. Yeah. At least according to their website. You know, the little key that they do with the circles and triangles to say, like, if what nibs are sold out and what isn't. So, I sent an email to Bung Box this morning to ask them if I can buy one of these. Mm-hmm. Because that's how I did it last time and it worked great. I have no idea if that is, like, an official channel of purchasing from them, but they seem to allow it, right? Generally, yeah. I just emailed them because their checkout page you can't ship internationally with. So, I guess they kind of do those on a case-by-case basis. So, I'm going with... I'm going to see and if they'll let me go for that, then I will. Then I kind of fell down a little bit of a rabbit hole because I got excited about Sailor Pens. So, I went to Pensace again. Now, you may remember Pensace is the company that was selling pens. Our good friends. Our good friends. And then they had to cancel my order because they didn't actually have it in stock because what it seems like that they're doing is basically acting as a middle person for shipping from Japan.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, yeah, and they totally listened to the show because they emailed us a bunch after that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So, I've given them another shot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have purchased three Sailor Pens. Hang on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've got to move away from the mic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I kind of got a little bit excited because the prices are good. Like, they're really good prices. Like, typically about 50% of what I would pay in the US or in the UK for some of them. So, I have ordered, whether they come or not, I don't know, the limited edition 130th anniversary port of Kobe, which is white and blue. Yeah. And has, like, what are they called when you steer the ship? What is it called? Oh, my God. What's the word? On the finial. What is it called? The thing that steers the ship. I'm not looking at it. The steering wheel. We'll just call it that for now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The spinny thing that you go, wee!

'''Myke Hurley:''' Spinny steering wheel. I have tried again to order the purple demonstrator 21 karat gold one. This is what I tried to order last time and they said they hadn't stuck again. But, again, like, I made an order and now it's all sold out again. So, I don't know what's going on. We'll find out. And then also, Brad, the Progear Apricot. Which, I don't know where this has come from. This looks to be some kind of limited edition. And the finial looks like Bung Box.



== Sailor Ink Pot Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, it's the Sailor Ink Pot. So, but, yeah. Oh. It looks like something Bung Box would do. That's the traditional Sailor Ink Pot. But, no, I haven't seen this pin either.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, it looks like it's got some kind of engraving on it that I can't work out. Like, maybe it says Pensaci on it. I don't know. So, but, yeah. I've ordered all three of those today.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And we'll see what ships. I went a bit. I've got a bit overexcited. Because then potentially Bung Box are going to say, oh, hey, yeah. And then I end up with, like, four new Progears. But the thing is, though, I will not be upset about that. Right. I'll be very excited if I can get all four of these.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What has this show become? The Progear Addict? I don't know. Well, no, we've totally flipped. You've become me and I've become you. We're like, I normally buy all the things. And you're like, wow, that's cool. I'm not buying that. And now I'm like, man, these are the perfect pins for me. And I'm not buying it. And you're like, hold my beer. I got four of them coming.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a real Sailor problem. Like, it's very bad. I'm looking, like, I have two, four. I have six Sailor pins right now. I may end up going up to ten soon. And then probably within the next year, I will buy a King of Pen. Probably. That's probably a good move. What have you done to me? Sorry.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You've done really bad things. At least you picked a good one. You picked a good brand to have a problem with.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I guess so, right? I mean, if you're going to go for something, you know, it's expensive. The problem is they make too many. It reminds me of Field Notes, right? Right. Where there are all these really exciting regular ones. And then all these, like, other ones, right? So, like, if you end up deciding you want to start collecting them, it is almost infinite, the amount of trouble that you can get yourself into.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right. Well, let's be glad that neither of us were at the San Francisco Pen Show this weekend. Not because we didn't want to be there, but because we would have been in a lot of trouble buying things, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I have my own Pen Show up in here, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. No problem. You've handled that. The Myke Hurley Pen Show. Myke Hurley Pen Show is in full effect today over in the UK. But San Francisco was a massive success based on everything that everyone was emailing me, sending pictures of, texting me, tweeting me all weekend long. I'm so jealous I wasn't there. It sounds like it went off without a hitch. It sounds like the crowds were good. The vendors had a good show. The attendees bought all kinds of amazing stuff. And I super wish I was there. So, I'm going to have to figure out a way next year to make that happen. Maybe we'll have to figure out how we can make that happen for both of us, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. San Francisco, I think, is number one on my list of new shows to go to.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, they're also the easiest to work with, right? Yeah. Like, if we wanted to do a thing there, we could have a conversation with someone that would help us do that thing, right?

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



== Sponsor Transition ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. We'll work on that. We'll see. Soon. Soon. Yeah. I wanted to make one specific note from my good friend, our good friend in front of the podcast, Franz Dimson of the Hand Over That Pen blog. He texted me. So, I wake up at 6 o'clock every weekday. And Franz, as many of you know, is a West Coaster. So, about 6.20, my phone goes off. I was like, that can't be a real text at this hour. And sure enough, it was Franz. So, Franz said, hey, I know you probably won't talk a lot about San Francisco since you weren't there and won't do like a recap, but I did this quick post. I wanted to make sure to give a bunch of people thanks. And if you will read this, you know, on the podcast, I'd super appreciate it. So, he wrote a quick post, not his review of the show, which he said he's got coming later, but we'll have a link in the show notes to his post on the Pay It Forward table and the Pen Dash Mixer. And he wanted to make sure that everyone saw that and everyone that was involved in those things got thanked and got credit for doing such great work at the show. You know, the Pay It Forward table with the helping new people get into the hobby and all the volunteers that helped run it. And then the Pen Dash, which it's not a Pen Dash unless there's a picture of Lisa Van Es standing on a chair because she barely cracks the height of a sitting human being. So, she has to stand on a chair to be seen. And he has a wonderful picture of her in there and a video of all the people that were involved. They had like 120 people this year. And I think last year was the first year we did it. We had about 90 people in two rooms. They expanded all the way out to three rooms. This year, huge, huge success. So, he wanted to make sure everyone that was involved gets a shout out. And I'm not going to read all the names, but he has all the links in the show notes. And I couldn't agree with Franz more that these are the people, and not just the people that are named here, but these are the type of events that makes these Pen Shows worth going to and worth continuing to support, you know, all the extra after-hour stuff and all the volunteer work that goes into it. So, I thought this was a wonderful post. So, go check it out. And, you know, we would, hopefully we can be involved in this in the near future ourselves, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would love that. Yep. Yep. All right. Our first sponsor today is our friends over at Blue Apron. Skip meal planning and get straight to cooking with Blue Apron. Experience the joy of summer with mouth-watering grilling options like chicken with barbecue sauce and juicy cheeseburgers with spicy slaw. With chef-designed recipes and ingredients delivered right to your door, Blue Apron makes dinner quick, easy, and insanely tasty. Blue Apron will deliver to you fresh, pre-portioned ingredients with step-by-step recipes, and they will arrive right to your door. Every single meal can be cooked in under 45 minutes, and they offer 12 new recipes every single week. And you can choose two, three, or four recipes based on what fits your schedule. And you can count on Blue Apron for the very best ingredients and meat with no added hormones. The Blue Apron menu changes every week based on what's in season. You can check out their menu for chef-designed recipes with exciting partnerships like with Bob's Burgers and MasterChef. Now just imagine what kind of incredible food you can get there. You can cook recipes like MasterChef seared steak over goat's cheese polenta with jalapenos peach salsa, or crispy cheese quesadillas with poblano pepper and queso blanco. Oh my god. Blue Apron. Man, this is... Look, this food sounds incredible, right? And it's gonna be. It's gonna taste amazing because they only send the best. But the very most valuable thing that you will get out of this is learning to cook. By practice, you learn better knife skills and stuff like that, but you also start to just, over time, with osmosis, learn how long it takes to cook a sweet potato, right? You learn how long you want to be boiling water for pasta. Like, you get all of this stuff that you can then apply to whenever you're standing in the kitchen. Check out this week's menu and get three meals for free at blueapron.com slash penaddict. That's blueapron.com slash penaddict to get your first three meals free. Blue Apron, a better way to cook.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's funny you said that about the sweet potatoes because that's legitimately something I learned from the Blue Apron meals that I've cooked because we eat them a lot and that is a difficult thing to cook.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You gotta get just the right time, right? Because otherwise they're too smushy and that's not nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The way they had it with the sweet potato fries, I literally said, there's no way this is gonna work. What they were having me do and it came out perfectly. So yeah, I learned something about sweet potatoes from there. I also learned something, Myke, about elemental paper. So I got these notebooks in a few weeks ago. This is from a Kickstarter project we covered earlier in the year that we were kind of fascinated with. I thought from the jump they did a good job. They got a lot of good hype from the crowd, good hype from Kickstarter just because it was a really neat idea. And you always...

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was interestingly executed. We were... I remember at the time that we were wondering about price and stuff like that because it was a brand new thing and the prices were premium priced for a lot of their stuff. So it was just a really interesting project overall from a marketing perspective and a product idea perspective. And so it was pretty fascinating to see how it unfolded. And like you, I'm really happy that it has become a thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So one of the things I wanted to point out was that the execution and fulfillment of the product was perfect. It was flawless. Like it's not without... Like these projects aren't without mistakes and errors and things falling through the cracks. But the way you handle it and then the delivery on the end of the project was just... And the communication throughout the project, it was just exceptional.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That speaks volumes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. That speaks volumes for how their company is going to be set up going forward because that's what this was about. Now you can go to elementalpaper.com, pick up some notebooks there if you like what they're doing. Um, I have not reviewed mine yet. I don't know if I will, but Kelly at Mountain of Ink did. And she found that they're not really fountain pen friendly. Um, this first batch of paper that they use, I don't know if they're going to take this feedback and try to adjust that or not. I don't know what their thing is for that, but looking at her posts, you can definitely kind of see they're not fountain pen friendly.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I mean, kind of in every imaginable way, right? Like it's right. The bleed is there. Feathering is there. Like, yeah, this is not, this is like ballpoint and pencil pretty much. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I didn't even consider, I, but I started using mine before even reading her post, but I wasn't going to use it for fountain pens. Anyway, I've started to make like a creative journal. Like I used to do like years and years ago, I'd cut out pictures and do drawings. And those I use, mostly use pencils and markers.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll just pause for a second on this because I read about this in refill. What is a creative journal? I've, I'd never heard of this before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I don't know if that's the name of it. That's just the name I give it. It's like, I don't keep a traditional journal in the way that you think of it. Like most people would think of it as, let me write what my day was like, or, you know, let me put down tasks that I need to do, or let me, you know, work on part of a story, or just a lot of writing stuff. I use it as like a visual inspiration book. Like when I do this and I don't do this all the time and I actually got out of the habit of doing it, but looking at how pretty these notebooks were, I wanted to do something that kind of justified using it. Cause I knew I would, if I broke out one of these notebooks to use, I was not going to use it on a daily basis because most of my notebooks, I don't that are that size. I use them for quick notes, jotting, jotting down lists, you know, maybe a quick sketch here and there, but I wanted a place to put more like visual inspiration. And that's how I get, that's how I'm the most motivated to be creative is seeing other people doing creative things. So like I get a magazine, I'll cut out pictures, I'll mimic the drawing and the picture with like a pencil. I'll tape them up using like washi tape. And sometimes I'll manipulate the pictures to how I want.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It feels like a little collage-y. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Like that kind of idea.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, you know, that's, that's how I use it. But I thought this was kind of the perfect journal for that since I'm using pencils and drawing pens anyway. So, yeah. So hopefully they'll, they'll fix some of the paper issues if that's something they want to focus on. But what they did with the brand and the execution of it, I thought it was great. So, you know, hopefully they'll can continue on and be successful with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One pen, Myke, that I would like to use in it that I might have to break down and get because this one set something off in me that I haven't seen in a long time. The Pentel B100 is like this 1970s looking Pentel that I remember from when I was a kid and in school, not in the colors that were seen them from President Incorrect. That's where I put this link from. They always have the coolest stuff. And, you know, they, I don't know where this set came from. I've looked for it in other places. I've looked to see if I can get the standard pen because honestly, back in the day, it wasn't that good a pen. It has this weird tip that's not like a fiber. It's a roller pen. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But it's like hard plastic.



== Plastic Pen Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And they would generally not last very long and they would be inconsistent. They were super weird. But man, I saw these. I was like, I need these. Like, I need these more than I need the orange sailor pens. Right. Just because it's got that nostalgia thing going for it. I don't know. I almost didn't put this in the show notes because I really don't have a lot to say about them, except it just brought back memories from me. Do you want me to order it for you? Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. All right. I'll do that. I'd like a set of these.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, you know, it reminded me of when the Pentel Precise line first came out. They had like this really weird ivory barrel that I remember being one of the first pens I ever bought. I'd like to see those come back. They came back several years ago just for a minute, but you can't hardly find them anymore. But yeah, Pentel made some really interesting stuff like back in the 70s and in the 80s that were kind of office staples back then and they weren't that great. So they went away. But now they're kind of coming back and you have that little bit of a nostalgia thing going. So I don't know. I thought those were cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I will give these to you when I see you next because I'm going to load them for you right now. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Thank you. Brad, I want to give a massive thank you to everybody who signed up to be a RelayFM member. Our Lego adventure has been published and people have been checking it out. I am surprised that like we have had universal feedback that has been positive. People think that what we have done is a wild thing, which is true. And we knew that. But everyone seems to really have enjoyed it. Let's listen to it. I know a bunch of people that have checked it out. So many people have said to me like, this was just nice to have on in the background for a few hours. And there have even been a few wild people who have actually built the set to your instructions. Yeah. And there have been a couple that also got as confused as I did with certain parts. Right. So I wasn't completely wild. You really out there. If you've not heard this, you really want to get on board. So you can go to our show notes. There's a link in the show notes, which you can find in your podcast app or relay.fm slash penaddict slash 323, which is just a link that you can tap to become a RelayFM member. We'll send you an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. And you have access to our bonus special along with the many other bonus specials that we've been doing over the last couple of weeks. And there's still more amazing stuff to come. So thank you so much if you're a RelayFM member. Thank you for everyone who's checked out our special. And if you haven't done it already, stop sleeping on it because there's a lot of incredible stuff in that feed, including all of the stuff that we've done for member specials over the last three years. So there's a lot of really great content there for honestly a small amount of money. You can start your membership at $5 a month.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I re-listened to the entirety of the podcast. And so let me tell you the feelings I had about it. So I kicked it off and we know we get right into it from the beginning. About 10 or 15 minutes into it, I wanted to punch both of us. I was like raging. I was all tensed up. I was like, what are they doing? Oh, this is ridiculous. And they can't get anything right and they can't figure it out. And then, you know, like I got sucked into it. I was like, okay, this is how it's going to go. And then, I don't know, two hours into it, two and a half hours into it, we hit this wall where we have a serious problem. Yeah. And I'm like, oh no, are they going to finish? Like I was bought into like this story. I was like, wait a minute. You were there, you dummy. But it was like this serious point where it's like, it was like this total cliffhanger like of randomness where it's like, is this it? Is this the end? And then just, and then by the end, it was just like an elation type thing. And I was like, oh my God, that was pretty cool. We did it. So yeah, it was, it's a wild ride that you wouldn't even think. So I appreciate all the feedback on that. I think I counted four people building their own sets. I think that's what I've came up with so far, which is four more than I ever thought would happen. And people were yelling at me, then people would say, oh, I get it. I see what you're saying now. And it was fun. It's fun to get that feedback. So it was really cool. All right. So flipping that script, I wanted to give a shout out to our friend Joshua at the Pelican's Perch. He does some of the best work in the pen blogosphere. He's hyper-focused on the Pelican brand. And what he put out this past week with the infographic on the Pelican Classic and Suveron fountain pens was amazing. It's a monster work. That's like, amazing is underselling it. Yeah. What this is. I know a lot about fountain pens. And I learn a lot more every time I read Joshua's blog posts. And I'm always seeking that knowledge that, you know, real experts in their subject areas have. And Joshua is. And just looking at this post, I was fascinated. Like, I knew the numbering system, like the zeros, the numbers that end in zeros are the gold-plated trim and the ones with 05 or, you know, the chrome or palladium-plated. But I didn't know the M stood for the piston filling. Like, the M400 is the example that he uses, you know, primarily in this discussion. And that number in front determined the filling system or the type of refill that it took. Like, I never knew that. Because I always, like, everything that I've ever had from Pelican's an M, right? Because it's piston filler. Like, they came out with a cartridge fountain pen. I didn't even remember the name of it. Like, I've got one, but I don't even know what the name of it is. I figured it was probably just some M random number. I thought, you know, maybe M was fountain pen. But it's more specific than that. The information that he goes through in the individual breakdowns, just from the classic, like the classic versus the Suveron style, you can tell how the cap tops are done. You can tell how the band rings are done to differentiate them. You can see the fit and finish of each pen, how they're differentiated between each other. I can't tell you how useful this infographic is. And I don't know. I'm just astonished. And I just wanted to give him a shout out. I got to say hey to him at the DC pen show. I usually see him in DC every year and Baltimore. So it was cool seeing him. And he's always into something new from Pelican. So be sure you're following the Pelican's Perch. And we'll have a link in the show notes so you can make sure you are. And even if you're not interested in fountain pens or Pelican's as a brand, you should read this just from a knowledge perspective. It's fantastic.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, really incredible work.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So bravo. Yep. Yep. Are you ready for this next topic, Myke? I don't know. Because I'm not sure I am. I definitely know you're not. No. Probably.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because this was on last week's episode, you just made an offhand reference to the Hobonichi Techo Festival beginning. And I was like, I have no idea what's going on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I wanted to hold off talking about it last week to dig into it a little bit more. And I think I broke it down into at least the basics to help our listeners understand. But first of all, my first comment I put in here, don't you think this comes earlier every year? It feels like planner season for the following year gets earlier and earlier. It used to be seemed like October. Then it was September. And now I know these aren't launching until September, but there's such a buildup in August to get the 2019 stuff. It's like, didn't we just do this? It feels crazy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's like all of the holidays, right? Like Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. They all seem to just become earlier and earlier every year.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And the way Hobonichi's grown, the brand, it definitely seems like it's just getting earlier. Because this year they've done it even differently. And they're doing, like you said, the festival, but it's based around like special release dates for special goods. So let's look at this from the top down. And if anyone's interested in the Hobonichi as a planner for next year, know that it's not as overwhelming as it looks. The majority, if you go look at their product page, the majority of items on their page is accessories. So if you're interested in this and want to get one of their journals, you have about three basic choices, right? You have the A6 Techo. Then you have the A5 sized Cousin. And the other things that go a lot. There's subsets of these things. And then you have the Weekly, which is the very thin, basic one. They've done a good job. And we'll put some of the links in here. They have a Hobonichi Techo book buying guide. So they call what is commonly referred to as the Techo, which seems to be the most popular notebook, is the A6 size. They call it the planner. So this is the A6 size, one page per day. Then you go to the original, which you never hear about, because it's basically the Techo, but in Japanese. So some people will buy the original to have the Japanese.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Is that you? Sometimes you buy it accidentally.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Did you buy that one?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I have the Japanese version.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I bought the Cousin because I like the A5 size, and it only comes in Japanese, which I have no issue with. It's such a good planner.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, actually, no, it's in English, sorry. But I bought the wrong size. That's what happened. Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. But I love mine.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And then the Weeks is like the skinny, almost pocket-sized, like a shirt pocket-type, tall, skinny, vertical format. So it's really the A6 planner, the A5 Cousin, and then the thin Weeks, which is kind of like not even in consideration for what most people are going for here. What really gets Hobonichi's stuff confusing is the covers for their cases. There's like a thousand different colors of covers. And that's what the festival is doing, Myke. That's where these release dates, day one, day two, and day three, which are September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, they're basically cover releases. So as I was going through this, it looks like day one releases are most of your basic type of covers. You know, your solid colors, plastic or simple canvas covers, not a lot of designs other than basic simple designs. Day two gets into some of the character-specific or theme-specific covers with lots more patterns and colors and features and, you know, different types of things. And then day three gets into like specialty cases like leather or snap cases or weird materials and things like that. So don't let those, this release date thing really get you thrown for a loop. Figure out which case you want. I mean, figure out which notebook you want. And then if you want a case, figure out what day you should buy it. You kind of need to buy it in a reasonable time frame. Every year they've gotten better about having more products to not sell out so quickly. Like two years ago, they sold out some covers on the first day. I don't think that was really the case last year. So if there's a specific cover you want, you should buy it pretty early on in the process because it will sell out. They are limited. Right. Yeah.



== Hobonichi Covers Transition ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' The notebooks you can get always, always, but the super fancy covers, especially some of the like licensed ones, you know, like they have a license, which I will never understand for the Super Nintendo game, Mother or Earthbound as it's known in English. Yeah. Did you buy that one last year? I have the, I have last year's Mother cover.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Mother cover. But they have a few of them. I mean, there's a couple in this, this year's looks really good too. Yeah. I mean, I have a couple, but I have one of them from last year, but this is one of this year's called Memories. It's really sweet looking. I love it. So if you want something that looks particularly fancy, it means it's probably going to go pretty quickly. So you may as well get it. And the great thing about the covers, I guess, is if you're already using one, well, you can just use the cover now. Yep. For this year's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yeah. So the covers, you know, you don't have to get a cover every year. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's likely for me that I'm not going to buy a new cover for next year. I'm just going to buy a book. Yeah. Because I like, I really, really, really love my cover. They have some great new ones, but like none that I'm like dying for. So I'm probably just going to buy a new, a new planner to put in my existence. Just in cover.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So the one thing I haven't totally figured out is on the book buying guide page. If you scroll towards the bottom, it looks like if you buy the notebook, it says included with this product, Hobonichi Techo official store exclusives. There's a multi pin. It looks like a jet stream multi pin and a bear paperweight that come with the product. I can't, you can't click on the product to embiggen the pictures. So, um, I don't know. We'll have to, that's one I couldn't totally figure out, but I guess all of this is to say is if you're interested in Hobonichi, the planners will be on sale very soon. You do not have to rush out and buy them. They will be available mostly through the rest of this year, this calendar year. If you want a cover, you're probably going to need to jump on that early. And, you know, if you want to just wait and get the book with the cover, they sell them as a package set. So, you know, the, the carnival and the festival is basically cover release dates, nothing having to do with the calendars themselves. If you already have a cover you want to use or don't, or don't use one, um, or don't use a cover on your, your book. The last thing I wanted to point out, Myke is actually the thing that blows my mind the most. They have a guide to shipping holds and order merging. Good. That's good news. So this is for people who want to buy one thing on one day. Another thing on, like if you want something from release day one and release day three, you can put a, there's a whole guide to how to put the thing from release day one on hold, order your thing from release date three, merge those things together into a single order. This is like an entire page telling you how to do this. And it makes my inner shipping person cringe so hard that I, I can't even wrap my brain around this, nor do I want to,

'''Myke Hurley:''' but it's a thing. It is a really annoying thing, like a bad, I deck, it's just bad that you have to put that on your customer, right? Like as a thing that they have to do, but it is also really good that they offer this as well. All right. At the same time. So yeah, it's a super complicated thing that you should never have to burden your customer with, but it's also a really good customer like feature to have. If you're going to, if you're going to run it this way, if you're going to do the multiple days.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So if you make it through the shipment, hold and merge order page down to the bottom, you then click into the three minute lesson in shopping on the Hobonichi Techo official store.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh my God.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' it's, it's an ordeal. Like a few, and it was, it was even harder. A few years ago, we had to go through intermediaries, I think two or three years ago, but now they've actually made it easier to ship worldwide. So anyway,

'''Myke Hurley:''' everything's in English and you know, it's all really, I have a very nice website. It's all designed really nice. It's wonderful. But it is, I'm looking at this. It is hilarious that they have a guide on how to buy things from their website.



== Pen Chalet Sponsor ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Tell us about a website where we don't need a guide, Myke, we can find awesome pins stationary, click them in our cart and get them sent anywhere around the world.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pen Chalet, Pen Chalet, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Pen Chalet have low prices on high quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. They have what you're looking for. Roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils. They have carrying cases and pen holders and refills and fountain pen converters and so much more from all of your favorite brands. They have fast and reliable customer service. They're always adding new styles of pens every single month. Pen Chalet cannot stop discounting prices on their stuff. They love to give you the very best deal that they can. Pen Chalet ship internationally. They have great shipping rates. And if you order in the U.S., if you're shipping within the U.S., they have free shipping on orders of over $50. So, go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password penaddict. This is where you'll get your special offer this week and the code that you want to save 10% on anything at their site. Ron told me, I email Ron every week and I say, Hey, Ron, what do you want us to talk about? Right, so I can make sure that I get it ready. And he said to me, Myke, there's going to be a lot of stuff. I was like, Okay, Ron. And then I've just figured, There's going to be a lot of stuff. And oh boy, there's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of things over here for penaddict listeners right now with some really, really great deals going on too.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, let me say, I'm not going to say the brands, but you should scroll down. That's what Ron means by a lot of stuff. Because as I was going through this, I'm like, Okay, okay, okay. Whoa, wait a minute. Wait, it keeps going. And that's not supposed to be that price. And this is wrong. So, yeah. There's some secrets up in there. There's some secrets in there. I could probably say the names, but you know what? I'm not going to because I might want to go back and shop myself. You got to dig in. Through this page. Go take a look. There's some things in there that are not normal in a good way. So, yeah. Really good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Some really good prices in there. So, make sure you go and dig in yourself. Penchalet.com. Hit the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password penaddict to get availability of those special offers. Our thanks to Penchalet for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.



== Ask TPA Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' We got some really excellent Ask TPA this week, Myke. Great. And it's always excellent. Let's be clear. It's always excellent. But since it's this week, it's the most excellent. So, next week will be the most excellent, too. But this first one's from Lisa. And I thought it was a very timely question. I want to ask an Ask TPA about pen rotation systems. Do you or Myke use any system to rotate pens in and out of use? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. But I think it's a good topic anyway. You are correct, Lisa. On both accounts. I've been thinking about this because now I've got about 30 or 35 pens that I want to use often. But I really don't like to have more than 6 or 7 pens inked. I'm thinking that every month I should clean 3 pens and ink 3 pens while leaving 3 pens inked. So that 6 pens are inked at a time and pens rotate in for 2 months and then out. Do listeners have any good ideas on this? What you're saying you want to set up is actually, I think, very, very perfect. It's simple. It's straightforward. It's the right amount of quantity. It's the right amount of use case. I don't use this system. If I did, I would do exactly what you're talking about. Because I like to have about 6 pens inked up. And if I can rotate through like 3 of them, you know, every couple weeks. I don't even know that I would wait a month depending on how much I use them. And just always kind of have that movement in and out of 3 fresh pens. It keeps me from, number 1, getting too many pens inked up. Because, number 2, I have too many pens inked that I'm not using. So I'll end up with just, you know, 12 pens inked up because I wanted to try something new. So if I had some type of system, I would stick with that 6-pin rotation. There's a couple of links you can check. Number 1, on the pen addict. If you want to get really intense and see how people do it, there's a product called Aeon Timeline that one of our lovely listeners shared her setup, if you will, with this basically a database app that you can get for iOS and Windows and Mac and all those things. We'll put that on the show notes called Aeon Timeline, and there's a good reference on the blog. Also, you should listen to, you should link and go read a site called Too Many Pelicans, which is David Brennan's site. And he talks specifically about how he rotates through his pens and inks on a regular basis. And it's also database-driven that he has. He knows which pen is next up in the rotation and which random ink hasn't been used in a while to be able to pull the pen, match it with the ink of things that haven't been used. So they do really, really good work in trying to figure out, you know, these types of systems. So a lot of people do this. And if you have other systems, we'd love to, you know, hear what you say. Feel free to reach out. But I like the simplicity of a six-pin rotation where three are moving in and out constantly. Just kind of keeps it fresh without getting overwhelmed. That's kind of how I would do it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I keep something like 20 to 25 pens in use, right? Like they're on my desk, then they're in use. And I use them frequently. Like I said, like I will make sure that every day I use something different to the day before. And in my journal, it's two pens. Two pens every day that weren't used the day before. So I try and get through them a lot and I use them a lot. And then when I want to, I try and not keep more than that. So because I have these two wooden blocks, I keep them all in, right? And then I have like a pen stand or two for some other extra things. But once I get something that I want to put into use, then something or some things have to be relegated into the long-term storage.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So Anna in the chat room reminded me of the Fountain Pen Companion, which she's involved in. And that's a podcast of the same name. We'll put a link in the show notes where you can track your collection online and see what you have and things like that. So that might be something you should also check out. We'll put that in the show notes. All right. Liz H.R.S. Is looking for a pen or maybe a fountain pen ink resistant to solvents like ethanol. I'm a supply buyer at a college bookstore and was talking to a chem major who hasn't had any luck finding something. Any suggestions? So this topic actually comes up from time to time. And I haven't done a post recently. But I knew I had a post on the blog and it's from my friend Brian, who is one of my main Japanese contacts. He's kept in touch even since this post in 2009. He did a pen solubility test of different markers because he worked in a lab situation and was trying to answer this exact question. And, you know, there's not much in this post, but he did find that some of the gel ink pens really handled all of the different types of chemicals you run into in a lab type of situation. He's like one of the quotes is even the cheapest gel pens resisted alcohol attack, whereas the oil and liquid based inks leave a nice long smear. So some of the good gel ink pens like the Signo DX, it looked like it, you know, was barely even touched by anything that he put on the page. So you can find a few things like that. If you search online, you will find specific lab markers. I haven't tested any of these out, so I don't know. So, you know, I'm sure they're made specifically for this, but they're more in the marking category as opposed to the writing category. Although some of them have fine tips and I'm sure would write fairly well. So I don't know totally what those specifics are behind those. So if anyone has any more suggestions or any links to any reviews, I did a little bit of browsing around, couldn't really find anything, but some of the popular gel ink pens are actually quite resistant to various solvents in a lab situation. So take a look at that link in the show notes, Liz. And, you know, if we have any more suggestions, I will let you know. Fountain pen inks, I didn't even consider. I don't, is there even a thing, you know, maybe some of the crazy noodler stuff might do pretty well, but we'll see. We'll see what kind of feedback we get on that and I'll let you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Next one is something I've actually been thinking about recently and haven't moved on it yet, but this might be the impetus I need.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' V2JPT Unlocked says, I use a Write in the Rain notepad daily and write in it with a Sharpie retractable pen. I'm looking to improve my experience writing in the notepad. Any recommendation for a smooth writing felt pen or any that writes smoothly on this kind of paper? So, Myke, this is the water resistant paper. I don't know that it's the Yupo paper like in Field Notes Expedition, but generally pencils,

'''Brad Dowdy:''' ballpoint pens, and then alcohol based markers are what work on these types of pads. That's why the Sharpie has been working for him. The other things I would try that I don't have tested out specifically myself is there some multi-surface pens that might work for this. One of them in particular that seems to get a lot of play and it's not a felt tip, but the Pilot multi-ball seems to write on a lot of surfaces. And the type of ink I think should work on that paper. It's not something I tested out. And then for more of the felt tip, the oil-based drawing pens that Uni makes and Pilot makes, like, they don't work on regular paper at all, but they might work on that type of waterproof paper. I'll have to test this out myself because I haven't done it, but that's kind of where I'm leaning for. And JetPens has a really good, like, multi-surface pen page. We're going to link into the show notes. And some of the non-marker pens, you know, just like the look like traditional writing pens, those are the ones I'd test out first and see if they work out for what you need.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So... What about a Fisher Space Pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, that's a ballpoint. So... Yep. Any ballpoint is going to work just fine. Okay. And Right in the Rain's pens use Fisher Space Pen, but he was looking for something more like a Sharpie marker style. So that felt tip pen. So I think some of those oil-based Uniball and Pentel pens may work, or Pilot pens. So I'd be interested to see that myself. And I've been thinking about testing this out myself. Right in the Rain's made some really neat-looking notebooks here recently. I want to get one to try out. So we'll see. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Around Square says, I've been a listener for years, but never heard any mention of pen spinning. Brad and Myke, do either of you dabble in this art? I do not, but I find it fascinating. And the way pen spinning has always been, you know, in my mindset is these huge modification pens that aren't really pens. So like traditional basic pen spinning, you know, you can use any pen, but like the real pen spinners who are into this have all this like weighted system modification. It's more of a spinning baton, hand baton than a traditional pen that you'd want to write with. But I think it would be cool. Like ever since the beginning of the pen, I've had people reaching out for pen spinning.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They do tricks with a pen in their hands, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. It's super cool. Yeah. But I've never gotten into it. But I think it's fun to watch and I'll go, wow, that's crazy. But it's weird seeing all these highly modified pens and stuff. But like I said, ever since the day one of the pen addict, I've always been asked about pen spinning and I've just never gotten into it. But I think it's very cool. So maybe one of these days we'll have a pen spin off, Myke, you and me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think it will go for a real long.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm. Yeah. Two seconds. F Nordstrom. Online ink samples will look very different depending on the screen you're viewing on due to manufacturer, color settings, etc. This is almost never discussed in the pen community. Is it a non-issue? What's your thoughts? I think it's an absolute issue with no solution.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's absolutely an issue that cannot be solved because you cannot dictate everyone's monitor settings. You cannot dictate everyone's photography settings. So you just have to look at a lot of samples and do the best you can. So it's 100% an issue that has a 0% chance of being fixed. You know, I understand the premise of the question. And is there a universal, perfect setting to view ink samples in? And you just can't. There's nothing that's going to beat seeing it in person. A computer screen, the photography, the editing. There's so many variables that you only hope you can see someone's take what someone has as the most consistent, perfect setup that you think is the most real. And that's going to be as probably as close as you're going to get to your eyes and your computer settings. I don't see any way this can ever be fixed. Do you have any thoughts on this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, because like this is even a problem with like jewelry. So I when I bought my watch, right, I'd seen the pictures online and felt like I knew how it looked. And then I went into the store and the face of my watch is like a creamy white. But in the store, the lighting made it look silver. So we had to go outside for me to check that it was the one that I wanted. Right. So like this is the problem, right? Like there's no such thing as like a consistent lighting environment. And that is a huge thing. Let alone the fact that like most of the colors that you see in ink samples on websites are done with like getting like a cotton swab or something and spreading the ink on a piece of paper. But that's not how you use the ink either. So like you might see a bunch of like color variation and shading and stuff, but that might not come out in your fine tipped Sailor Pro gear. So like, but this isn't a fact that nobody's doing anything wrong, but it is an example of how it is almost impossible to fix this situation. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is why we never bring it up because there's no, there's no solution that we can provide. I don't think.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And we all see things differently and we all have different settings on everything from, you know, the type of pen we use to the lighting and the photography to the computer. So I agree with the premise of the question that it's never discussed as being, okay, what's the universal setting for ink? Because it's an unsolvable problem. I mean, and no one's going to put that much time and effort. Into solving it for others. People, I've seen people put time and effort to solving it for themselves in their setup and to provide you with the best picture that they think is correct. But that's just one data point. So, you know, I, I would love it to be, you know, some perfect way to, to do this, but there's just never going to be anything's going to be using the ink with your own eyes and the own use case that you use in it on your own paper and the, in the specific room lighting. So it's tough. I mean, I'd like to be there to be the answer, but there never will be for this. Nope. Last one. Jenny from Alt Haven. What do you do with all the handwritten reviews you have done over the years? Did you keep them or trash them? I keep them. Every single one of them. Huh. Or most, every single one of them. I have countless notebooks that have been filled that just sit on the shelves filled with reviews, like a bunch of, when I use the, like the Done paper idea journal, which is one of my favorites. I, you know, just keep those up on the shelf, you know, filled. I have what amounts to a mill, a manila folder that looks like a giant bear is laying in because it, it closes at like a pretty much 45 degree angle, if not greater of just individual sheets that I stuff the loose sheets in. So I don't have like a perfect archive of everything that I've done, but I do keep the things, the sheets of paper that I've reviewed and just kind of stack them up. I don't know why, you know, I thought this would be funny one day if I just went in there and got people's addresses and just sent them a random review sheet of paper in the mail. I thought that would be a fun, fun thing just to, you know, clear some of this stuff out, but that seems like a big project too. It's a little intimidating, but yeah, I keep them all. So, and, but I don't have any like really, you know, like archive storage system. They're just stacked in a closet and some of the notebooks or who knows where and, you know, but I, it felt, it always felt weird to me to throw those away, even though there's no real reason to keep them either. So that's what I do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. This is like, you won't get rid of those until you have to move.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. When you move one day and you're like, I'm not taking this with me. Yeah. I'll keep them. I'll keep them. That's what I did with a lot of my used notebooks, right? When we were getting ready to move, it was like, I am not, I am not taking a box of used paper with me. So then we just recycled them all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. I would probably, I would probably keep these to my, my shagrin. I'm not even more fundamental than me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We'll see. If you would like to submit a question to be answered on a future episode of the Pen Addict, just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or you can hit Brad up by email, which is... Hello at PenAddict.com. And you could also hit them up in the Slack too, right? But, but tweets are the best because they go into a sheet that we can collect for later on. So that, that's the, the definitely the best way to send in your feedback is over to tweet with the hashtag AskTPA. Once again, thank you if you've become a RelayFM member and you can find links in our show notes today to join if you would like to. And our show notes are at relay.fm slash PenAddict slash 323 or in your podcast app of choice. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to PenAddict.com, Noc.co, Twitch.tv slash PenAddict. Brad is PenAddict on Instagram and Dowdy is on Twitter, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. I want to thank again our friends at Blue Apron and Pen Chalet for the support of this show. And would you doggone believe it, I'm going to miss out on my hour just. Maybe next time I'll become man of the hour. But for this entire episode, it's been Brad Dowdy. So until next time, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad, man of the hour champion. Even planned. Even planned. .

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