Editing The Pen Addict 425/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 425
| title           = The 1911 of Pen
| date            = August 26th, 2020
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/425 Episode 425]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_425.mp3 Audio Episode 425]
| length          = 64
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 425. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, big birthday boy, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was about to say this episode 425, it's almost as old as I am. I had a birthday between recordings. Thank you for your warm birthday wishes. And yeah, I admitted to everyone that I'm old now. So there you have it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can we say the age? Because I think people need to know. Do they? Do they really? I do. I think people need to understand just how well you do in life, you know? Is that what it is? Yeah. Okay. That you've somehow tapped into some age serum that we're not all aware of.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yeah, go for it.



== Age Discussion ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad is 49 years old now. Let that sink in. Listen to his voice, his attitude, look at the pictures of him. Somehow this man is 49 years old. Unbelievable, Brad Dowdy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, yep, yep. So, I mean, that cat's been out the bag for a while now, for a few years. People don't know. People don't know. People still know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is something I like to do. I like to, I don't know why, I don't know if Brad hates me for this, but there's like two things that I like to do with other people when in Brad's presence is to one, say, how old is this man? Because people give you 10 years easy every time, which is kind of incredible and deserve. And the other is what was Brad's previous profession or like a final way to phrase it to reference the fact that you were a golf pro one time in your life. Right. Right. Right. What a wild life you've led back in the 70s, Brad was a golf pro.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I've been around, Myke. Like I've had a lot of years to do a lot of things. So it's not that weird for me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've had a couple of lives here. What do you want from me?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's like the golf thing. Like when I say like I was like a golf pro, that was over 25 years ago. Like we have listeners that aren't even that old. So it's super weird when you talk about it that way. But as long as I don't act my age, Myke will be good. So just keep me on that track. And that's it. That's my tip to as you get older and you worry about being the old fart. And, you know, losing touch with the youths. Just never act your age and you'll be all right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a conversation I have with mostly Federico and Steven quite a lot because we're all in our 30s, fast approaching our mid 30s. Right. And whilst I don't consider that an old age, I'm aware of the fact that to many of my listeners now I'm old, you know? Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So like you've been in their head for a decade. Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. And, you know, there are people that listen to my shows now that were like eight or nine when I started. Right. Like, you know, it's just nothing, you know, this is it. So I am very conscious of this idea of not allowing myself to quote unquote get old in my opinions.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Right. And so like, and that's definitely something that I have learned from you as well. So whilst I know I'm not old now, I'm going to get old and I'm going to get old faster than I'm young. If that makes sense. Right. Like that's coming for me. So I think it's important for me now if I want to continue doing what I'm doing to take the Brad Downey mentality of things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, and like what I do for a living now and what I'm passionate about, it helps keep me that way. Yeah. I thoroughly enjoy what I do. I work hard at it, but I enjoy it. And it allows me to keep my attitude and my outlook on life in a certain place and have a certain perspective. And it's, it's, it's good. Like I'm, I'm very content right now just in life. You know, there's obviously huge problems out there that I get overwrought about, but just, you know, the general, the turning, you know, the, the, another calendar year turning and adding another year to my age. It doesn't really mean anything to me as long as I am, you know, acting, not like some, some old dude on the internet, which will never happen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Pen man shouts at pencils.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But you are something that probably is aging. You is. Oh my God. Shipping. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We have a little bit of catching up to do like on the first part of this show on, on a lot of things. So before we get into the pen stuff, we just need to continue to have some front matter as a friend of mine would say. Yes. Front matter. We have some, some things up front. We need to handle first and foremost is the retro 51 celebration packing, uh, packaging. It's going well. It's just taking much longer than I, than I mathed for, right? This is not sticking a pen in an envelope and sealing it up. So I've packed in these tubes that I'm sending the poster and the pen and I've packed 300 of them. As of yesterday. And I did the math. It takes me almost exactly three hours per 100.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.



== Personal Life Updates ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that doesn't sound bad, except that's on top of the rest of my life. Yeah. Right. So those are extra. So this is totally fine. If it's all you do. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, that's no big three hour, you know, three hours per 100. Cool. You can get that done in a couple of days. Well, that's not how life is set up right now. So like I did six hours on Saturday and then did like three hours last night. And then when I got done last night, it was like, I was so busy yesterday. I started at like three o'clock and finished about six or, and I came back in the house and we're like getting ready for dinner and doing things. And I just went, oh no, I haven't written the podcast for tomorrow yet. Like that's how, that's how yesterday went. That's what, you know, doing the extra shipping is. And this is not a complaint. This is just like trying to set, paint the picture, right? This is, you know, work I signed up for, but it's also work I have to fit into life. And so I really only think it's going to take me, I'm banking on three weeks maximum to get everything done. The goal is to pack 400 orders this week and have all of those in the mail by the weekend. And then next week I'll do it again. And, uh, you know, we'll see how it goes. So we're, we're about to have packages at the post office for celebration and I will have my own celebration once everything is shipped. Um, so yeah, no big deal, but it's, it is taking an effort like, and like I'm doing it solo. Like I can't even rope the kids into this work. They, they look at all the boxes and they just like, nope the heck out of there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're like, like I was wondering if you could put them to work, but yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, they'll do like some small stuff. Like if I need refills done or a little packaging done, but they see they're, they're just intimidated by the scope of it. Even though it's technically not difficult work, they're just like, nope.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's cool. It's going fine. Um, it's just, it's, it's taken a lot of time. Um, and I will be happy to get this first half out of my house and then we'll move on to the second half next week. And I think we're going to be in pretty good shape. So not to, not overly concerned, but yeah, it's, it's definitely a lot. So it's cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' From now on throughout September, you can join Relay FM in support of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in honor of childhood cancer awareness month. Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 15. Children undergoing treatment for cancer and other life threatening diseases often need transfusions, physical and cognitive therapy, and so much more. Uh, the treatments, the costs, they really mount up, but your gift can help St. Jude provide the best care and treatment for patients. If you visit stjude.org slash relay right now, you can donate to help save St. Jude kids. That is stjude.org slash relay to donate now. No St. Jude family pays a penny for their world-class treatment that they receive. You help make this possible. We're doing great so far. I'm super excited. We're about to cross $24,000 raised, uh, in the last week. So please, please go and donate. We have a ton of great stuff coming. Um, we, if you go to our page now at stjude.org slash relay, we're adding in some milestones and goals. So when we hit certain amounts of money, we're going to be doing special, uh, streams. We're going to be releasing videos and content like that. We're going to be adding in a bunch more of these over time. Uh, but of course, don't forget that we have the podcast-a-thon as well, but we're also putting in a schedule. So we're doing streams, uh, over the course of the month and we're going to be putting in all that stuff. It's all over at stjude.org slash relay, which is just a great place to go. Um, the first stream is going to be August 28th at 11 a.m. Eastern. Me and Steve are going to be playing the untitled goose game, which is a really weird and fun game. If you don't know what that is, um, and that's all at twitch.tv slash relay FM and everything's going to be there. So you can grab it. If you've donated, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. If you haven't, please do. If you have, do it again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Have you gotten to play the goose game at all?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh, yeah, I have a little bit. Yeah. That's why I think it will be fun. Uh, especially cause Stephen doesn't really know much about it. So I think that makes it a little bit more fun.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, him playing it will be worth the price of admission.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think so. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that's great. That's great. Good. Well, I can't wait to, uh, for, uh, this to come back. It's one of the favorite events of the year for all of us at relay. And, uh, thank you and Stephen for putting so much, uh, work behind this to, to help out the kids. That's what it's for. That's what it's for.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The first, uh, part of our member special is out. So the first three and a bit hours of the Lego building is out. Uh, part two was recorded. I think we did it last week and we'll be out, uh, tomorrow, August 27th and have a three and a bit hours. Um, I won't actually, you know what? I'm not going to tell you that we finished it. You'll have to wait and find out for yourself. It's available to all RelayFM members in the crossover feed, uh, which I'll put a link in the show notes. If you want to go and grab that, if you're a member. If you're not a member, go to relay.fm slash membership, check out the options, or you can tap the link at the top of the show notes to support this show and you'll be able to get your hands on this wonderful content.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we had several of our listeners reach out. They acquired the set. Some of them actually couldn't acquire the set right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The set is backlighted.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. But, um, I know, uh, friend of the show, longtime friend of the show, Kim Bat, uh, she's, she was ready. She was gung ho, Myke. She got her set. She cranked up the podcast and she quit after 20 minutes. Yeah. And I, I get it. Like, I appreciate the attempt. It is not for, it is, it is difficult to do.



== Building Legos Together ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' We've also developed our own kind of understanding of each other when doing these things now, which I think makes it trickier for other people. Yes. Well, like, I know what words you mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There are a few assumptions built in that we have between each other right now that don't translate to, Hey, let's make a YouTube where I built, I'll walk you through this, like I said. Mm-hmm. Right. So, yeah. No one won't.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's good. It's good though. So, maybe one of these years, Myke, we'll have to, like, do a stream Lego build. I don't know how that would work. Like.

'''Myke Hurley:''' People have asked and, like, suggested if we could do it for the podcast I've done this year, but I can't work out how.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Exactly. But at least now I have availability to do that now that I have real internet in my house. I don't know if you can tell, Myke, or listeners. So crisp. You know, I have real internet. I'm not even on, like, the fastest speed network I now have in my house because it's just like this whole spider web of things going on that I have to really, really sit down and make work to the best of their ability, but I'm very happy with that. So, I did my first at-home stream, Myke, yesterday. It was a relief to get that done, get that in. And so, Myke always mentions that I'm on twitch.tv slash penaddict at the end of our episodes, but I wanted to bring this one up forward because I'm going to be doing more streaming. And we're going to do more stationary stuff. We're going to do some handwriting. We're going to do ink swatches. We're going to do some busy work. We're going to do all kinds of cool, boring pen nerdery, plus some games. And, you know, I'll be able to have, you know, friends on to play games and just do other fun stuff. So, the opportunity for me to do more on Twitch has now arrived. And, you know, it's not going to be immediate, like, cut over to, hey, we're going to have this whole, like, Hollywood production thing. But this will be slowly growing over time, you know, in the, you know, the next month, I'm pretty, pretty jam-packed busy-wise. But after that, through the rest of the year, I think we're going to start seeing a lot of fun stuff. So, definitely follow me over there. And I appreciate y'all, everyone who does already. It's a really, really good group we have going. Anytime I pop on stream, we talk about pens. And then we get, we drag in some new people that find the channel naturally. And it's always fun to integrate them into the pen addict community. It's been really, really great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, you brought this up, and I was meaning to have this conversation with you offline, but I'll just have it with you now. I've been watching some keyboard streamers now. All right, look, leave me alone, okay?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do a stream about pens. I can't complain.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Exactly. But it's like, it's a really interesting, like, sub-genre of the hobby, the mechanical keyboard hobby. And it's a lot of time people building stuff, or they're, like, looping switches, or, like, whatever. Whatever. I feel like I just said a phrase there that people aren't going to understand. So, underneath each key on a mechanical keyboard is a switch, right? Like, it's the thing that clicks. People actually lube them so they move more smoothly. This is a thing that I've been finding out. And that takes a long time. So, people tend to stream, and they're talking, and stuff like that. But the production values of these streamers look really good, but I can see it's done relatively, kind of, like, not easily, but the production values are great, and it makes things, like, infinitely more watchable and interesting and professional. And I wanted to recommend one channel to you to watch for some tips. There's a guy called Alex Otos who have been watching his stuff for the last couple of weeks and really been enjoying it. But there's a couple of parts of it that I wanted to note. All of the keyboard streamers play, like, lo-fi hip-hop in the background. Mm-hmm. You should totally do this. Yep. Because it's, like, set in that chill vibe. And it kind of sets the idea of, like, I'm going to be here for, like, a couple of hours. Just put me on in the background. Yep. Right? And that really works for them. Plus, they obviously have multiple cameras. You need to have multiple cameras. Like, I know you know this. Yep. But it's definitely a thing that you need, like a top-down shot or whatever to show your hands. Like, that kind of stuff is, like, imperative for your stream. But now that you're able to put more time into it, this is the kind of stuff that I think you should be thinking about. Exactly. But the background music is, like, that's, like, blew my mind how much of a different vibe that provides. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So... Yeah. I'll find the, what do they call it? The open-to-use streams that a lot of people, music streams that a lot of people use for background music. The non-DCMA streams. So, yeah. No, this is great. This is exactly what I want to be working on now, which I wasn't going to invest in that time and money to do that on, in a location I knew that wasn't mine and not permanent. But then over here, we will be able to do that. So, yeah. Like, my stream is, like, super boring and plain right now, but we're going to keep going.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I'm thinking about it again because I'm investing in so much gear here for the podcast-a-thon. It's just like, oh, I've got it now. So, yeah. Might as well do it. I've got lights and all kinds of nonsense. So, I don't know. I've dabbled in it before, like, playing games and stuff, but there might be some, like, actual person-to-person stuff I could do, like me. Right. But I've got to find the time for it first. Right. All right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. They'll let you easily create a website for your next idea or project and give you all of the tools that you're going to need to make it at home online. You can get a unique domain name registered and set up so easily so your website has the brand that you're looking for. And then when people come to that domain, they're going to see something that looks fantastic because all of Squarespace's templates are professionally designed to make your content, to make your business stand out and sing. It is an all-in-one platform, Squarespace, so it's perfect for that, for, like, getting your website set up because there's nothing to install or patch or upgrade. They take care of all of that stuff so you don't have to. They've got you covered and then they back everything up with award-winning 24-7 customer support. If you want to create a blog or a portfolio, super easy. So, if your business is a breeze. What about an online store? That seems complicated, right? Not for Squarespace. You can just add this functionality into your Squarespace website. Super, super simple. This is one of the reasons I love Squarespace is it's super adaptable and lets you change what you need to when you need to. You can sign up for a trial today by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict and that will get you set up immediately so you can try out Squarespace for yourself right now. And then when you sign up for a plan, they start at just $12 a month, but you can use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. So, once again, that's squarespace.com slash penaddict. Go right now and use the code penaddict as well and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of RelayFM Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. We got a lot of businessing out of the way. Let's talk about pens now on this show called The Pen Addict Podcast. What do you think?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Eh, why not?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Eh, let's go for it. A little bit of a rehash of the Sailor 1911 Compass that we've mentioned recently. I guess it was last week where we talked about it. It's Sailor's new entry-level steel nib fountain pen, right? It's a rainbow of colors. It's about $40. $40. $40. $40. And the questions just keep on coming from, you know, readers and listeners and followers. You know, tell us about this pen. Tell us about this pen. I finally have one. Theoretically, it's in a box sitting at my desk right now. But I'm holding that box because I like to do my unboxings when I get lots of things on live on stream. Again, another reason to follow me. Like, I did a JetPens unboxing on Tuesday. On Thursday, I will do a Gold Spot Pen unboxing. And there's supposedly a compass in that box. So I will be checking that out. I will review that. I will move that to the front of the review queue and see if I can get some feedback on that for people who were asking about how this compass is going to work. And the compass is an interesting product in light of recent sailor news on the Tokyo Inklings emergency podcast number two, Myke, which you and I have both listened to appropriately called Sailor Minus. It's a beautiful play on words. I'm a very, very big fan of the title. You'll have to go listen. And if you're not familiar with what's going on with Sailor, they've been bought out by a company. Or is bought out the right term? I don't think bought out's the right term.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Taken over might actually be a... They had a significant investment from that company plus. Now we've given away the joke. We spoke about that multiple weeks ago. And it was basically the idea of they owned a large stake in the company now and basically had the ability to convert this stake into effectively owning the company, which is something that they'll be able to do in a nutshell. But basically, this company plus, which is a stationary and office supplies and everything else kind of company. We've seen a lot of these types of companies in Japan. We've come across this quite a bit. These very large conglomerates owning these even niche stationary brands. But it seems to happen quite frequently there now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Basically, they own enough of the Sailor brand now that they effectively run the show or can make significant requests of Sailor.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that went into effect in the beginning of August. So the emergency podcast, which I'll let you all... I don't want to talk about this too much. I don't want to... I want you all to go listen to what CY and Jacob discuss. But the reason that they chose to record this podcast is kind of the first news came down the pipe after the ownership change. And there was about six product lines that just got completely whacked out of Sailor's catalog.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But apparently, they're going about it in a weird way. Like, they're not going via the traditional means of talking about reducing a product line. And they're kind of... It seems like Sailor are being a little bit cagey about exactly what's been removed. But like, spoiler, you don't care about any of the pens that are getting rid of. You cannot name one... Which is the reason to get rid of them, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. This is... I am 100% for all of this. I'm so on board of this. Focus. Focus. If I asked you, you couldn't have named one of those products that was getting killed.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There was only one of them that I knew, but I didn't know the name of it before. But I knew what it looked like.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There was only one of them that I knew that I can recall. Well, I knew all of them once I read them. But the one that I knew that we have actually discussed is actually a terrible product. And it should be killed. And it's like the... It's the ProGear version 2. I think they call it Sigma. Where they redesigned the clip. And ruined it. And tried to make this really modern pen. And they just did a terrible job with it. And it needed to go.



== Sailor Pen Changes ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' It's where the clip looks like a duck's bill. Yeah. But it's meant to look like an anchor. It's very bad. It's very bad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So anyway, go listen to the rest of that show to see what other products are getting moved out. And honestly, most of these are in the Asian market products. You don't get very many of these product lines in the U.S. market for good reason. They're just... They're never going to be top sellers. And this is kind of what I want to see, right? There's some refinement that needs to happen before they start making the change. Sailor Compass was obviously in place before this buyout. And we'll see. We'll see how it continues to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That product's not going to live. I can tell you that for sure. The fact that they got rid of stuff like the Young ProFit and stuff like... It doesn't make me think that the Compass is long for this world. Unless it performs very well, which I don't think it will.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They are traditionally poor, sailor that is, in the $20 to $50 category. They just traditionally cannot succeed there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And this is one of those weird things to me where there are companies that think they need to be... Just leave that area alone. You don't have to be at every price point. Focus and be good at the price points that you're good at. Be the best, which they are in my opinion. So double down on that. That segment of your market, the $200 to $500 or whatever, everybody loves you in that area. So focus on that area. You don't also need to compete with Lamy. You can just let Lamy do their thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and Pilot and Platinum just kind of have a stranglehold on those price points too. Especially Platinum. So yeah, I think this is good. I enjoyed that podcast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good insight. Good insight, as always. So yeah, go listen to that and you'll hear about all the other products that they're talking about. I caught an image on Instagram just before the show this morning, Myke. And it's of the Visconti Homo Sapiens, which a lot of people are familiar with this pen. And there's no real name for this one yet, but it's a Homo Sapiens. And I got this off the Applebaum Pen Instagram feed. And they're just saying, you know, Visconti Homo Sapiens in colors. So there's like a natural brown, almost clay looking one. There's a dark red kind of brick looking one. And there's a white one with like little black speckles in it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They've all got speckles on them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They all... Okay, yeah. I do see that now. So they all have speckles in them. They all have kind of the black plated trim. You know, the cap bands, the barrel bands, the clip, the finials, things like that. And I'm intrigued. Like, I've always wanted a Homo Sapiens, right? We've talked about this for years. It's just one of those pens that when I've used them and they've been tuned right, they've had nib problems, which are in their past, right? I'm not considering that an issue anymore, but that was my hesitancy originally. They're past the nib issues. These look good. Like, and I didn't think I would see something like this from the Homo Sapiens lineup because it's always traditionally...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can we just mention how weird that name is, that it's called the Homo Sapiens? Like, that's the name of the pen? It's not called Homo Sapien. It's the Visconti Homo Sapiens, one of them. A Homo Sapiens. Very weird.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Very weird product name. Right. Right. So, yeah, it is. And it's a volcanic rock-based material that they're making these barrels of, including these new color editions, right? They're doing something still with the original base, which was the original idea of the black ones that have been around for probably a decade now, I would guess. And they're just wildly popular. And I've never owned one. And this white one's calling to me. The red one looks good. Even the brown one looks good. Like, I'm intrigued. Like, the other thing Visconti has done, well, two things. One, back to the nib talk, they're making 14-karat gold nibs now. They're not having the palladium weird nib that they had before that was, you know, questionable QC. They've gotten all this stuff past them now for the most part. But in line with that, the increase in MSRP has been rampant through their product lineup. So, I don't know. There's no cost on these. Yeah, you used to get a Homo Sapiens for, like, around $500, $450, $550. I don't know what these would be. Like, I remember some of the limited editions coming out were a little bit more, like $600 or $700. Now, they're getting $800, $1,000. No, no, no. Like, there's definitely been some big, big inflation in the product lineup. So, I want to see what the price is on these. The news is just coming out, you know, as an upcoming release. And we'll be talking about this one again once the price comes out because I'm intrigued. But then, you know, I have to stand it up against, like, some of the other pens I've bought recently. You know, like the Leonardo Primary Manipulation and a couple of these other expensive pens that I've bought. And, you know, do I need another expensive pen? But anyway, I wanted to bring this up because it was kind of new and it's very different.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm looking at the Appleman page right now, like, just at Visconti in general. And they have, like, €970 versions of Homo Sapiens at the moment. Like, they seem to be special edition. But, like, my word, that's... So, what's the basic black one? The one that I'm looking at is the Blue Lagoon, which is a beautiful pen. Yeah, those are limited. But, like, €1,000? Woo!

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's expensive. What's the basic black one without the ink window? It's, like, black and kind of copper looking. Solid.

'''Myke Hurley:''' €4,95. Okay. So, that was about right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that was about right there. So, that's the baseline one. And then, it goes up from there. I bet these are going to be in the middle of those two prices you just mentioned, would be my guess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There's also one for €395, which is called the MIDI. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, the Homo Sapiens is a large pen. So, I think they shortened and shrunk the barrel down a little bit on that. Because that's another reason why I didn't jump into it. Because it's always been a very big pen. And they've had a couple... They might have had three different links on that. Or maybe it's just two. But, yeah. They've had... It's a large, large size pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Blimey. They do rollable versions, right? And they have one of the swirl ones. A rollable. It's almost €800 for a rollable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, that's a different classification of a pen user buying that one than we normally see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That... Yeah. I don't know who that's for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, I see the limited edition fountain pens all the time. They're fantastic looking.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's... Right. The swirl ones, the swirl models, they're mostly clear, right? Yes. They demonstrate. And they've got swirls around them. Why would you pay €800 to look at a refill? I don't know. I buy a lot of translucent pens. No, but, like, at a refill?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, for the rollerball, you mean?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Okay. I'm tracking you. Yes. Right? That is a more interesting question.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it doesn't... Like, they've got pictures of it on their website. And it doesn't look good. Because there's, like, a little... Just, like, a little piece of metal in the middle of it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's nothing compelling about what refills look like. Exactly. It takes the fun away. As opposed to fountain pen ink. You know, throw your pink ink in there, sloshing around in your ocean swirl. Like, it's a pin party.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, the Blue Lagoon is probably my favorite looking homo sapien that I've seen. That's funny. Visconti homo sapiens that I've seen. It's beautiful. But it's a very peculiar thing to just look at a refill. Like, I know a converter is not that different. But at least you can put some color in there. You know? Or, I mean, you could even try an eyedropper if you want to. I don't know if I would want to eyedropper or 1,000 euro pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, here you go. The chat has a great idea. Okay. The chat is, we just need to send a set of refills over to Bocamundo and get Rodden on the refill.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is, that's like a next level of luxury, right? I think that's, yeah. To, like, spend $700 or $800 to have a refill change, knowing that, like, it's gonna run out, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think that's bringing your A game there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. That's more than an A game. So my thing about these homo sapiens, we'll call them the bricks, because that's kind of what they all look like. They all just look like a kind of brick, which is, I mean, and they photographed them on rocks, right? Yeah. Fair enough. I think that's fair. These are, I think, meant to look like, if the pens are made out of lava rock, I think they're intending to evoke the natural kind of elements of the pen. The aesthetic, yeah. Honestly, for me, if they, if they up charge these from, like, the 500 euro point, it's too much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.



== Visconti Homo Sapiens Review ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' These look nice, but, like, they're not that great, right? Like, if, I think you would struggle to do more than, say, like, a 500 euro for this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, but they're gonna, like, the black one, the OG, is that price point. I don't think you mix three new pens in at that price point. They're gonna be more. They just are. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And that's one, it's kind of what I'm getting at. Like, I think if you charge more than that, I don't, I don't know necessarily why somebody would, would be really going for more than, than that. But it's up to them. I mean, and honestly, like, I'll say this forever. Can't, can't handle that clip.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's not a pen for you, right? Can't handle that clip. Can't. But this is a pen that's probably been on my shopping list for, like, five years now. Yeah. But it's never been compelling enough to, to pull the trigger on. I've tried a couple of friends, homo sapiens, that have had them, you know, modified and tweaked and perfected. And, like, I would buy one of theirs, like, out of their personal collection. But I've never been able to just, like, go out and buy my own yet. I just haven't been, you know, hasn't been enough. But this, this, this white and black one might, might be the ticket. We'll see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, if I was going to be in that mindset of wanting a pen like this, I would get on one block.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Like, in my mind, these two brands kind of sit side by side.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right, you're going to, you're going to get me down a whole different conversation just by saying that. Because I don't even think there's an interesting Mont Blanc in that price point. The interesting Mont Blancs are, like, $1,500 to $2,000. Your standard Mont Blancs are, you know, $500 to $800. You know, your $146s and $149s. I don't, I would rather have the homo sapiens, to be perfectly honest.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, you see, I would, I would move, I would not. Like, you know, I could, I could find, like, a Mont Blanc for around a similar level. I mean, it's not, it might not be the most interesting for sure. But even just, like, a regular-ish, like, I'm looking at the Mont Blanc website right now. And there are pens in that same price range, which I think look nicer than any of the homo sapiens. I mean, that's fair. I really, like, you know, it's just, like, fundamentally, I don't like the shape of the pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. You can't get past the clip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. But, like, when I bring that up, I kind of, like, I think of these two brands in a very similar way, right? Of that, like, probably overpriced executive pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Eh, yeah. I mean, sure. Like, I'll buy that. I just, it's funny, I don't count Mont Blanc in any category that I normally look at in other pens. They're their own category to me. Oh, for sure. Because there's so much in the public consciousness where Visconti and Aurora and even Pelican are not, right? So, I just treat Mont Blanc, I almost, I don't want to say dismiss them out of hand because I think they make fantastic pens.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But they are in a different world because people that don't understand fountain pens will want a Mont Blanc and will be given Mont Blanc. Like, it's like a different, they play in a different business for sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. But, then again, on the Mont Blancs, I always love their specialty stuff. Like, when they did the remake one, like, the skinny pen, I'll forget which one it was called, just, you know, like a year or two ago where they did the black and coral, the very skinny pen with the snake clip. That was a killer pen. Love that pen. Right? And, like, that's what I love to see. That's what gets me excited about Mont Blanc, but why I don't think about them normally is because those are the very, very, you know, few and far between. So, anywho, let's change our price points by a lot here on this next topic. I have an interesting story. And it's about a pen called the Gravitas Pens. And this is an active Kickstarter project. We'll put the link in the show notes. You can go check it out. I'll say up front that I've backed this, and I'll tell you what I backed momentarily because there's multiple pens. There's a fountain pen, a rollerball, and a ballpoint.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I find this interesting because I had to go back on my email yesterday when I was putting this in the show notes because I kept getting other people mentioning this pen to me. Hey, did you see this? Hey, did you see this? Which I love. You know, people keep sending me this. And then it finally hit me. The creator of this project actually emailed me about two or three weeks ago not to say, hey, I have a campaign coming up. Will you talk about my pen? But he's like, hey, my name's Ben. You know, I'm in Ireland, and I make pens. And I would love to just send you a couple of my pens and have you tell me what you think about them. And I always love that. Like, I just want to help people, like, say, you know, give them feedback, constructive criticism without necessarily doing a review on the product, right? Hey, let me send you some stuff. What do you think? And then I'll just, you know, use it, test it, and kind of give my, you know, overview of them. So I talked with Ben, and he agreed to send me a couple of pens, which I haven't received yet. Like, this is, you know, only a couple weeks ago. It's coming from overseas, so they haven't shown up yet. Fine. And I go to look at his Gravitas, and I was like, why does that name sound familiar? People keep sending me this. And I'll say right up front, it's kind of your basic first Kickstarter fountain pen style that you make when you're just kind of launching your Kickstarter, right? So Ben's been making pens for years, but now he wants to go wider. And you use metal, you know, different metals, you know, aluminum. In this case, I believe these pens are. I'll have to double check. But, you know, you generally make some basically cylindrical pens because you want people to just kind of see your work for what it is, look at the craftsmanship, even though you've seen a pen in this design lots of times before, right? Like, that's okay. Like, I get that. So there's always going to be these kind of first round of pens. And the reason I supported this campaign is to, like, support these new makers. I don't do it across the board. I, like, don't go support everyone. But I just read and read and read this campaign. And I saw the twist mechanism that he's using for the ballpoint. I actually backed the ballpoint on this because it's got this unique torpedo shape. It's got this flat design.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think the ballpoint is the most interesting looking of the pens in this campaign because it does actually look not just different, but, like, different with purpose. So I think it looks very attractive.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's what I want to see from, you know, younger designers like this and people getting into this, even though he's been doing this for a while. And, like, the pens look very refined. But I think the twist is what the pen is called was an easy choice for me to back, even though it's the non-fountain pen, right? And so I'm pretty anxious to get this pen. It looks cool. It's fairly priced. And, like, this isn't a plug or an ad or anything. But I just wanted to, like, talk about, like, these things kind of just happen in the background. Like, I hear about all these things, and sometimes I don't put two and two together. Then all of a sudden I've backed a project for a guy who I'd already emailed who was sending me pens who never once mentioned the Kickstarter project. Didn't even mention, like, the name of the company or anything like that. He's basically like, hey, I'm Ben. I live in Ireland. I make pens. Can I send you some for some feedback? While this campaign is running. That's a classy move. Yeah. I was like, is that the most genius email marketing ever to me or the dumbest, right? Because he didn't ask for anything, but that made me more compelled to help him out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was going to say, but, Brad, here we are.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So I'm sitting here. It's like, is this genius or is this stupid? Because he didn't even link the Kickstarter. I didn't even know there was one going on. But then I started seeing other people sending me this. So anyway, I just thought it was an interesting story. And I thought it was an interesting campaign because I actually think the ballpoint or the, I guess it's a rollerball refill, but it's just a twist mechanism is the most compelling pen in a campaign with fountain pen choices. So there you go. I thought it was interesting. So it's got a ways to go to be backed. You know, it's got 22 days left. It's got 4,000 out of his 21,000 goal. So he'll probably hit it, but I think it'll go down to the wire kind of thing. So we'll see how it tracks. But I would like to get this twist regardless. I think even if it doesn't, hopefully he's just going to make them and I'll just buy one. Because I don't necessarily need another cylindrical metal barrel fountain pen, even though these look good and refined and nice. I want the twist. It looks good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I like that he also has like, if this is your first fountain pen, put together like a kit of just like a rodeo pad and some diamond ink. I think that's quite cute, right? It's a thing to do.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Rodeo pad, diamond ink. Yeah, perfect.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I'm also of the designs. I like the twist more. The fountain pen doesn't really do it for me. Right. And it's also interesting, like if you are looking at the campaign, there is a note that there's threading on the back of the fountain pen that won't be in the production model. Because it upsets the balance, which I can understand. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So yeah, it's worth noting. I totally agree with that choice. And Ben should consider replacing those pictures.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I wasn't going to say it. I'm pleased you did. So like this is a bit of feedback I guess we'll give. And I don't know if he's able to do it now. You are. But you should change those photos because just putting it in the copy is not enough.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You can't change the video. The video's there. And that's too much re-editing. You can change the pictures. And my suggestion would be that you would change... That you... Definitely. Make that change.

'''Myke Hurley:''' 100%. It's very, very important that you change. Because I bet the pen looks better without the threading on the back as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So... Yeah, I didn't mind the unposted design. But I could tell it was going to be a problem. Like there's no way anyone would ever post that pen. Yeah, it'd fall out of your hand. A baton. Yeah, it'd be a baton. So there you go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But yeah, go check it out. It's a cool little campaign. All right. This episode is also brought to you by Harry's. Harry's is a return to the essential. Quality, durable blades at a fair price. It's just $2 per blade. Harry's have cut out the middle people manufacturing blades in their German blade factory. That's been honing precision blades for a century. Their blades are a fraction of the price of the leading brands. And it saves you hundreds of dollars over time. Harry's can help you save so much money. That if you switch, you could save enough each year to buy 26 cups of coffee if you're in New York, three deep dish pizzas if you're in Chicago, or you could even pay for six months of a Netflix subscription. Harry's is so convenient. Their blade refills are delivered directly to your door on your schedule with or without a subscription. And Harry's has all of your grooming needs covered in just one place. You can get blades, hair care, and shower products all over at harrys.com. And just like their blades, they're committed to providing premium products without breaking the bank. Isn't that right, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm going to need Harry's to consider one-gallon pump bottles of their shave cream. Where would you put that? On my counter, I guess. A gallon? Just, why not? Okay. It would just be, you know, an additional bathroom feature, right? You know, like if you're, you know, putting your house in the architecture magazine. Yeah, yeah. It would just put the thing. Because I cannot, I think I'm just so far in that I am, it's such a good product that I don't see myself ever going to anything else. And I just ordered like two large tubes and two medium-sized tubes. There's all kinds of different like sizes you get.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I just, you're looking for that like lifetime supply, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like not lifetime, but I'd be fine with annual, you know, yearly supply. Like just go ahead and hit me with yearly supply. Put it on the counter. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And just go to town. It'd be like, it'd be awesome. I would be in. I would be lathered up all the time, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thanks for that image. You can feel better about your purchase because 1% of proceeds are set aside for nonprofit organizations that help provide access to better mental health care for men and veterans. And to support those who need it the most, Harry's is donating a million dollars worth of shaving supplies to hospitals across the U.S. Listeners of this show can redeem their Harry's trial set at harrys.com slash penaddict. And you'll get a weighted ergonomic handle for a firm grip, five blade razor with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel with aloe to keep your skin hydrated, and a travel blade cover to keep your razor dry and easy to grab on the go. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict to start shaving and saving today. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. So when I had a panic attack last night, Myke, about seven o'clock going, oh, my gosh, I have not even started on the podcast to write up the notes. I got on Twitter, which is what one does when they have panic attacks. Yeah, it's the best place for it. Yeah, absolutely. Clearly, that's where you should go. Make sure you read everything. But I said, look, I need some help real quick. Not necessarily tell me what to talk about tomorrow, but start asking me questions to get my brain in the proper place to actually write the show for today. So people started just hammering me with questions and topics. And I was like, then I could get into the writing mode right at that time. So, you know, last night, it's just one of those weird things. I was like, I was freaking out. I didn't know where I wanted to start. And then once people started just talking about certain pens and things like that or certain topics or even jokes, like people were just joking around. It cleared my head. It got me in the right space. So I appreciate that. And we got a couple of interesting questions that I wanted to go ahead and pull into the show before we get to the Ask TPA. We need to hit all these Ask TPAs today. But I want to hit these first two questions that came out of just this little helpful therapy session I had on Twitter last night. The first one from Rob Thornton, which I thought was great. And I don't think we've ever listed this out before. And I'm not sure we will today. But I think it's a great question. What are your key criteria for jumping in on a special edition pen?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You want me to go first?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, no. I think I got it. I was putting my thoughts together there. I think one, if it's a special edition, means it's probably going to be more expensive. Right? I think you can assume that's the case.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, that's probably because it's going to be my number one on the list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's budget.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Budget. Budget is important. I think it's got to be for that reason, assuming it's more expensive. A brand that I am familiar with is important to me. I want to know that I'm cool with that company's products and that I understand usually that it's fine. You know what I mean? Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And then obviously you start getting into what are the aesthetics like and that kind of stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, I want to make this more complex than it is. And I think I could probably put out like a long post with a numbered list and do all these or all these points. But it's number one. Can you afford it? Do you have the money available to spend? Yeah. Because we talk about this all the time and we can never talk about budgeting enough like when we talk about products. Right? So, you know, budget's number one. Don't overextend yourself. Number two is really the overarching question of will I use this pen on the regular. Right? I will never buy a special edition pen to have it sit. So, how do you answer that question even further?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Don't buy to keep that to use. If you're not going to use it, if you just want it for an art piece, consider if it's worth spending that money.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So, then you start, then you answer the sub questions. Well, I need to use this pen every day. How is it going to fit my hand? Like you're talking about, you know, we're very familiar with a Sailor Pro Gear Special Edition. I know that that's a perfect fit for my hand. I know what the nib's going to be like. Therefore, I know that I'm going to use this pen if I do choose to buy it. So, there has to be a solid grasp of your budget. And then there has to be a solid grasp of will I use this pen regularly and, you know, all the things that go along with, you know, allowing me to use it regularly. Fit, style, performance, quality, all of those things. So, you know, I think this, I could explore this in more detail. But I think that's kind of the two buckets are can you afford it and what's going to make you use it. Because I don't buy pens to put in the museum.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Second one, Myke, came from our friend Sarah Bijuel. Pairing keyboards with pens and inks. Audrey Madison, a.k.a. the Nib Doctor at Frank and Christoph, is doing a nail polish collab inspired by the rotten ends of one of her sailors. So, Audrey's always had like a nail polish Instagram feed. And she would do a lot of matching stuff. And it's really, really great. And actually, she was the impetus for getting a nail polish channel on the Slack. Because a lot of that goes into our personal aesthetic, right? If we're having a pen, what other things is it going to match that we enjoy, right? So, whether it's, you know, nail polish or backpacks or your phone case or, in my case, sometimes sneakers, you know. What are the things, you know, you think about? Like, do you ever think about, okay. I guess we all have our personal styles. But do you ever think about doing something very specific? For example, would you consider, now that you're going to be a keyboard guy, you know. Do you have a pen that matches that keyboard for the day?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Not yet. But there is a subreddit called Mechanical Headpens. And this subreddit was one of the reasons that I am now diving into this hobby. Somebody recommended this to me as part of Feedback for Cortex. And it is basically, as you can imagine, just pictures of mechanical keyboards with headphones and pens. Yep. That's the entire thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's it. And it's wonderful. Like, I've subscribed to that for probably not even a year now. Someone told me about it a while back. I don't forget what I was talking about. And, like, I subscribe to that and it comes up high in my feeds now. Because I don't subscribe to too many things on Reddit. And, like, just looking at the pictures, I was like, yep, look at all this. You know, and to Reddit's credit or to Mechanical Headpens' credit or Demise, however you think about it, it's usually all black, right? So it's not necessarily our thing or my thing specifically. But, you know, it's fun to see all the setups that everyone has. And I definitely would venture in there if I was doing something with keyboards. But I'd brighten up the scene a little bit.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So the short answer is I'm thinking about it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I've always thought about doing it with sneakers, right? Like I did my little sneaker shot. I just had the perfect sneakers for the bump in the night pin with the purples and greens and stuff. I didn't necessarily love the picture. I'm not really great at photography. Like I'm good enough at photography to be passable but not good enough to make myself, boy, I'm really happy with how I executed that shot. But, like, I could see something with that the way I show off my style in pens and sneakers would be my gig. So, yeah, it would be – I could totally see a continuation of this theme.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I liked it. If you have, like – if you can match them, you should take more photos of them because it's a fun pairing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is fun. It is fun. All right. You ready to hit some Ask TPA? We just got a few, then we'll get out of here today. How does that sound?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, sounds good to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.



== Paper and Writing Instruments Comparison ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Ree Thornton asks, listening to the episode where you were talking about paper recently, it was an Ask TPA question. I got upset. And Ree Thornton, I'll go back to their question. They're saying, wondering how weight, if the same paper, changes absorbency. I use Nanami, which is 52 GSM Tomoe, I think. If I switch to Endless Recorder, which is 68 GSM, what would I expect? Difference in dry time, feathering, sheen? What I will say is I don't have an answer to this question. Like, this is the problem that I have been dealing with, is, like, how weight changes can affect how fountain pens react. So, I don't know why the differences are there, and I, at the moment, can say for you, with a certainty, that the weight isn't the only factor. It's, like, the weight of that paper. So, there isn't, like, a universal thing that I have been able to put my finger on. But different weights will affect fountain pen properties.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so that's correct in the fact that, in the general sense, it's an impossible question to answer. You just, you cannot. But you can take the Tomoe River in the two different weights and kind of get a good grasp for what their differences are. In this case, they're very, very minor. Now, unfortunately, we're going to have to asterisk and caveat all these conversations about Tomoe River for the foreseeable future and saying, I don't know if we're talking about old, original Tomoe or the new Tomoe. You know, like, it's the great unknown right now. But if we're talking about original, the 68 works almost exactly the same as the 52 in the way the inks perform on that page, to be honest. Like, in what I've seen. Like, I don't look at the 52 and the 68 different in performance from the few things that I've used, other than you just have a little bit thicker page, it's the page isn't going to buckle quite as much, right? That thin, thin 52 GSM Tomoe, once you get it wet with the ink, it tends to buckle a little bit more and pucker. And you don't get that as much with the 68, but the 68 is still pretty thin for Tomoe River. So, no difference in dry time, feathering, or sheen in what I've experienced. So, to me, that and this very highly specific question, you shouldn't expect much difference. But that's where the question ends right there. If you try to extrapolate that into other products, we start getting into running into issues like Myke's mentioning.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And Todd Crane asks, I recently acquired my second Pelican M805 at a significantly discounted but still pricey cost. It's great. What pen or other stationary product is, in your opinion, possibly overpriced but still worth it? One caveat, you may not say the word sailor or king in your answer. I would like to recommend the 1911 of pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, you cheated. You cheated appropriately. Good job by you. But this is a great question of like, and I think that this can actually apply to a lot of niche hobbies, that you get to a point where things are overpriced but they're still worth it to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I completely agree and I say that a lot. I don't know how great of an answer I have for this, but I will say the basic answer I kind of come up with for this is Aurora. I'm generally pleased with the high-end Auroras. They're a little bit expensive, but they work really, really well and, you know, they fit my style.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd hesitate to call them overpriced though. I think they're kind of correctly priced. They're just having to be expensive, right? I think, and I'll probably get hate mail for this or some kind of nasty gram. I think with what we're seeing around Sailor King of Pen, like Myke just mentioned in the Visconti Homo Sapiens talk above, I think we're getting to a point where Nakayas are getting to almost be underpriced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Comparatively.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Comparatively. Yeah. So I don't want to say that they're overpriced, but they're expensive and, in my mind, extremely worth it. Right. So I don't know that I would call them overpriced.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The market is moving further and further up, which makes them seem like more of a deal, which is weird now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Which actually scares me because Nakaya does not hesitate to raise their prices, nor should they. And that's mostly on the high-end artwork. I'm talking about your basic Nakayas, which, you know, start at like $500, $600. I'm not talking about, you know, the $2,000 Nakayas. I'm not saying those are overpriced and worth it because that's not in the classification, I think, of what the answer we're looking for here. But those are my thoughts on that type of this question. It's a great question, and I think the Pelican is obviously like a really, really good answer because you can get some great deals on fabulous Pelicans for the price.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that's why I kind of land Aurora in the same category a little bit. But this question just makes me think about, you know, when I've paid a very, very expensive amount of money, you know, $500 or $550 on a Nakaya, the more I look back at that and what I've paid for other pens, I'm like, I'm really happy with what I got the Nakaya for. That makes sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. Last question today comes from KJ Miller. And KJ asks, what's the last document you physically signed, nor the receipt, and what pen did you use?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this question came in like a week or two ago. And we get this question a lot. And I think about this question a lot. If I'm going to do this, what pen am I going to take? Like if I'm going to sign for a house or a car or whatever paperwork, you're going to go into a doctor's office, you're going to fill out your forms, what are you going to use? So I knew I had a home refinance coming up and my wife asked me, she's like, well, what pen are you going to take? And I thought about it and thought about it. And I was like, well, I'll just probably take a retro 51. And, you know, one of my favorite ones, you know, celebration or pink robots or whatever, you know, just something on the desk, something, you know, non fountain pen. And, you know, just trying to, you know, do something cool. Then I thought about it. I was like, huh, I know exactly what I'm going to take. And I put it out there on Instagram. I took the Bic loaner pen for that. It seemed kind of like the perfect signing pen, right? So when we got to the attorney's office to sign the paperwork, they had Bic crystals lined up for us. Blue Bic crystals. Because you cannot sign this paperwork in black ink. They only accept blue ink. So luckily I picked a blue ink pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that answers your question, Jay, because that is what I used. I'm not sure that's the answer you wanted for this. But that's the answer I arrived on. And I'm happy with that choice. Because it's not going to be for this situation for signing an important document. It was never going to be a fountain pen. And it was either going to be my roadie, one of my roadies, or one of my retro 51s. And both of those are black ink. And I didn't think about it beforehand. I was just like, nah, let me take the Bic. Seems like the best choice. And it's the loaner pen. I don't know. I'm very happy with myself on that, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, because this is the problem, right? This is when I've always tried to find cool pens that mean something to me to sign a document. Usually when you're signing documents, there are restrictions around the pen you can use. Right. You know? And so it gets less easy to pick your favorite fountain pen. But this is perfect. Everyone is going to accept a Bic. And it just says the word loaner on the side.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And I am at least proud of this office that they had the legit blue Bic crystals, right? Not the generic corporate supply brand, you know, dozen pen boxes, right? They had the real things, which is one of the great pens of all time. And then a really perfect signing pen for a blue requirement in paperwork. And by gosh. A lot of paperwork, man. My signature is horrible. So, yeah. It was rough going with the signatures, but very, very happy with the pen choice. No one noticed. No one cared. They only cared. Was it blue ink? Yeah. It's blue ink. So I was happy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. That's it for this week's episode of The Pen Addict. You can find links and information about this episode at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 425. Don't forget to go to stjude.org slash relay where you can donate to help support St. Jude's Child Research Hospital. We're in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, which is going on throughout September. And if you do go to stjude.org slash relay, you can find information about lots of the great things and fun things that we're going to be doing over the next month and a little bit. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com and knock.co. You've got something new coming this week?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' For who? I can't even keep up. I doubt I'm going to launch it this week. But I'll tell you this. We're going to do a launch of Black Wax Canvas, Brasstowns, and Sinclair's. Black exterior, aqua interior. And I'm just trying to finalize how I'm going to do it. Is it going to be a Kickstarter? Is it going to be direct? What are those things I'm going to consider as a product?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've changed your mind a little bit on... I have. I have. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have reasoning. And the products are sitting on my desk waiting to be photographed. So it's just a matter of having the time to push forward a project. Okay. But it's not that bad because it just needs to be a launch, right? I just need to launch the product. So, you know, but I also have to do it correctly. So it just takes me time to think about that. So, and I've been swamped recently. Shipping. Shipping. Shipping.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Twitch.tv slash penaddict. 10 a.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays. Go check out Brad. He's penaddict on Instagram. The ideas on Twitter. I'm imike. I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.

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