Editing The Pen Addict 429/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 429
| title           = Name of the Pen on the Pen
| date            = September 23rd, 2020
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = 
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/429 Episode 429]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thepenaddict/The_Pen_Addict_429.mp3 Audio Episode 429]
| length          = 72
}}

'''Myke Hurley:''' From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 429. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Pen Chalet, and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hey Myke Hurley, how are you? I don't know why I'm laughing already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You're in a good mood today.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What is even happening?



== Welcome Back ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I mean, we're doing a podcast right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, cool. I'm glad to... Hey, welcome back, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it was a great episode last week. I always enjoy listening to The Pen Addict when I have a week off. Because, you know, as I've said many times, the show exists because it's a show that we would like to exist. So when I get to just appreciate it for what it is, it's a fun time. And Gina was an all-star guest, I'm gonna say. Right? Yeah, she was amazing. Yeah, it was a great episode. You were okay. Gina was fantastic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I'm not a natural behind the hosting Myke on this show. Like, it doesn't... I do it so infrequently. I'm so little in the driver's seat that... Like, for example, I had to go back to a previous episode and I typed up the entire intro that you say so I could read it because I couldn't do it off the cuff like you do off the cuff. Like, for RelayFM, this is the Pen Addict episode, you know. And then, like, as you and one other person caught, I gave out the wrong episode number. You did. You said it was 429, but it was actually 428. Right. So not only am I uncomfortable, I screwed it up on top of that when I tried not to. Like, I wrote that in my little text. I wrote the wrong number in, so how cool is that? But, hey, let's forget my skills and abilities. What we really appreciated were Gina's skills and abilities on the show. She was fantastic. We had a great conversation that we could have kept just talking and nerding out about nibs and grinds. And I got a lot of great feedback from that episode. So thank you, Gina, for taking some time to talk with me. And we should get right to Myke more often, I think, is what we discovered.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, there hasn't been a lot of that this year. I've been around the whole time.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yeah, well, that's what I was realizing. Like, I haven't taken, like, a weekend off from writing in well over a year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, you're doing that, though, right? I saw that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I am. Yeah, in, like, two, three weeks. I think I have the date now. So I'm like, I need a weekend off. So I'm going to take that here pretty soon. So, yeah. But it's just like when we're not traveling, we're stuck more.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. I've decided, well, I haven't decided. I have been told that I need to take a week off. But I can't decide when yet because of all of the iPhone stuff. Right. I could come at any time and I don't want to take a week off and then it's iPhone week and I've lost my week off. So it's probably going to be, I don't know, maybe sometime in October or November, I reckon. I'm going to actually take a real week off, which I've not done for the entire year, which is something that is not a normal thing. I mean, partly it is because it's kind of like you feel guilty a little bit, right? Because it's like, well, I'm not doing anything. I'm not going anywhere. Right, right. So why do I need a week off?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And like it's hard for me. I don't want to speak for you, but like I like my job. I like to work at it. And we've been doing a lot of work recently and it's all super cool. And it's hard to just take like a singular day off because I still like, you know, want to move this project forward or want to dabble in this. Even if it's only for a couple hours. So I'm going to take a few days for myself and just kind of, you know, reboot for a minute and it's long overdue. But hey, we've had a really good run as good as we can this summer, right? To, you know, for everything we got going on, we've had a really good run. And I love to see it keep going like this podcast, the Thon Myke, which is not over yet. What do we got going? What are we up to now?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. So the reason that I was away last week was partly iPhone event, partly podcast, Thon. Those two things. Well, sorry, Apple event, I should say. Those two things happening at the same time was just too much. So I ended up basically skipping anything I could. And one of those things I knew is I could leave the pen addict in Brad's safe hands and he would be able to deliver a fantastic episode as he always does. So the reason I was away is that last Friday we did the second annual podcast, Thon for St. Jude. And I will remind you that during September, which we are still in September, we've got a week to go. We are raising money in support of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital as it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 15. And children undergoing treatment for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, they often need transfusions, physical therapy, cognitive therapy, and so much more. It can be just incredibly expensive for families. But with St. Jude families, any family that's taken care of at St. Jude in the hospital, they do not pay a dime for their care. It's completely covered by St. Jude. And St. Jude gets that money to cover these bills from donors like you. Your gift can help St. Jude provide the best care and treatment for patients. If you go to stjude.org slash relay today, you can help save St. Jude kids. That is stjude.org slash relay. We had a goal of $315,000 that we wanted to raise this year, which was what we raised last year. We are currently, Brad, at over $345,000 raised for St. Jude. We hit the $315,000 goal during the podcast-a-thon. We actually extended the podcast-a-thon by about an hour because it looked like we were going to hit it, and we did. And we actually, with the help and support of all of our hosts, including you, Brad, you were there in the chat and moderating it for us, which is amazing, we were able to raise over $100,000 during the podcast-a-thon, which is just mind-blowing. It's twice what we raised last year during the event. So I want to thank everybody who tuned in, and especially, of course, for everybody that donated. If you want to watch the podcast-a-thon, you can. We put it on YouTube. I'll put a link in the show notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, nice. Yeah, it was awesome to be a part of. It was awesome to see the community rally for the kids at St. Jude's and supporting the hospital. I'm glad we're involved in this every year. It's a big deal for us at Relay FM. It's a big deal for a lot of us personally, and I'm just super glad to do it. One of the things that I did, and with the assistance of our wonderful friend Jonathan Brooks at Carolina Pen Company, was we did a raffle to help raise money for St. Jude for the extra Urushi Lami Safari that he made for us. That raffle alone, through the pen addict and the listeners who supported St. Jude to have a chance to win, this amazing pen raised $11,030.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Which is unbelievable.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's unbelievable. It's what that pen is worth.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'll say that. But no, seriously, unbelievable. Like, you know, so incredible that people, I mean, I know, obviously I know people wanted the pen, but they know why they're putting the money in. And I want to thank everybody who, in our audience, that has helped us raise, what is just an astronomical amount of money. So thank you so much. And the winner has been chosen and will be notified.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so we're not going to announce it on the podcast or anything. We'll let that, we'll handle that privately. We'll contact the winner and they can decide how they want to handle it from there. So yeah, it was amazing. So I purposefully, like I checked the first day we started the raffle to make sure like, hey, is this email account I set up working? So then I purposely didn't want to look at it, you know, and I just kept, you know, promoting it, you know, during the run. And then finally, when I went to wrap it up, I was like, that's a lot of emails. So I sat down for a couple hours and got everyone listed for the raffle, pulled the number. And yeah, it was awesome to see. Like I would just keep getting choked up at people's messages and people's generosity, you know, from every raffle ticket purchased. It was great. So thank you all again for supporting St. Jude. And yeah, it's awesome.



== BBC Radio 4 Contact ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' This past week, I was contacted by BBC Radio 4. They have a podcast radio hour program. So this is on the digital version of Radio 4. So it's available online, I think, in the BBC app and also on digital radio. It's called 4 Extra. And it's just like lots of talk show programming. And they contacted me because they wanted to talk about niche podcasting. So it's like it's that usual. I have like this theory. We've spoken about it before on the show that, you know, the pen addict has been written about enough and has been played enough games, right? That Conan O'Brien game. There was that YouTuber. NPR game. Mental Floss. Mental Floss. That kind of stuff, right? Where it's like, can you believe this podcast is real? Or like, this is the real podcast. And I assume somehow that helped us get caught up in this idea. The show that they put together is called Pens, Pipe Walk, and Some Portable Toilets, Niche Podcast. So I assume I'm not the only person on this thing. It's like a one-hour program. And they conducted an interview with me. It's Amanda Litherland, who is the host. And Becca Bryers was part of helping put it together. It was actually really nice because I was interviewed and I knew I'd be part of the program. And when I tuned in, it's kind of around 13 minutes is when my segment begins. They actually start by talking about the pen addict. Becca is talking about like she jumped into an episode and had no idea what we were talking about. And then found episode 400, the 101, and got a load of information. And then could listen on, which I thought was super cool. They played some clips from the show. And then I got to talk about Niche Podcasting. So I talk about the pen addict quite a bit in it, but it wasn't what the entire interview was about. It was really about what we do at Real AFM in general because all of our shows are Niche of some kind. So it was a great honor. It was one of those things that I got to show to my family and they can be proud of me because they can conceptualize what the BBC is.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So yeah, that was another thing added into my very, very, very busy week last week. But I was truly like it was quite an honor to be on BBC.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I have to go listen to it. I'll admit I haven't listened to it yet. You showed it to me and I think I was right in the middle of something that I forgot to go back and click it. But the main takeaway I have from this is we're leaving a lot of money on the table by not getting into the portable toilet game. Like I think we need to consider that, you know, have a brainstorming session.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think I'm going to leave you to handle that one. I feel like really, yeah, you're perfectly placed to go after a project like that. I think. Yeah. I'm not sure if it's for me, Brad. I'm going to say. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. What? I'll work on that. But yeah, this was awesome. I love seeing like about once a year we get this right. You know, where like, oh my gosh, this thing actually exists. Let's talk about it. And it's usually like a pretty big, pretty big platform. And we're always very, very happy because I mean, we, we really like what we do and we really believe in this and we do it regardless. But it's cool to see these things pop up and from time to time and say, hey, there's weird thing exists and it's actually pretty decent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So you completed the shipping, right? For the, for the.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, there's at least, there's at least one package I haven't sent now that you say that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was going to say, except for one. This was a, this was a conversation I had at dinner this morning. I think that she was, she saw my notes or something and it's like, oh, it's done. It's like, well, except for mine, I'm sure is the, is the issue here. So.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I keep adding more things to it. It's, I'm just making excuses at this point. Honestly, if I don't go in and do yours first, I get to working and get so in the zone, packing and shipping and yours is like the outlier. And then I end up like, okay, I am done and close everything down and like get in the car and I'm like, dang it. I didn't ship Myke's package. So yeah, it's going to happen soon. I really feel that I have hold, hold out faith, Myke. And a lot of you who haven't received your packages, you should hold faith too, because the USPS, it's not going well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I've had some super strange stuff. I mean, postal services all over the world are weird right now, but I keep having these things. I had it for a package a little while ago. I just had it for a package that I think is coming today. Well, like it just says it's in transit for like three and a half weeks. Like it's just like, it's departed. So it's like, well, where is it then? And there's just like no updates for weeks. Because I just think a lot of stuff is just getting left at sorting offices and it's just sitting there, right? Until they actually have the time to go through and deal with it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, we're getting a lot that are getting their initial scan from when I drop off and then pretty much showing up without ever scanning again. So it's just been very, very weird. Things are taking, you know, weeks when they should take days. So yeah, it's a mess. But yeah, we're done. I'm down to like, I don't know, 16, 17. People haven't given me their address and I'm hunting them down. So, but yeah, we're good. So in another month or so, I'll see what extras I have from, you know, I still have to account for loss and damage. I got to wait till pretty much everything's delivered because it's very tight on how many extras I'm going to have. So I'll be all that are asking for extras. I should have some. I just don't know when. So it's going to take a little time, especially with all this postal service.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All I'm going to say is it's not like it was a quick buy. You know, we made it very clear that this thing was happening. So you should have got in there, you know, don't sleep on this stuff.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. Did you sleep on the Retro 51 Marco polo pin? I guess it's just called Marco.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I did because this edition visually doesn't do it for me. Yeah, same. But they've gone ahead and done something funny again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They went and did the thing, Myke, and it took a while for it to creep out as it did with the lunkers from the Gone Fishing edition. Like the first person that got one of the first person that got the lunkers emailed me upset. And, you know, what should they do? I mean, they're obviously thrilled now, but they're like, this isn't the pen I ordered. What's happening here? So I had to email Retro 51 and find out, hey, what's the deal? And then they explained it. There were 10, you know, special fish. Well, Marco is basically a world map. And they did it a little more simple.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The finial has a compass on it. That's the way it actually is supposed to look. And really, I think it's just like a very basic-y design, I think. But there will be people like many Retro 51s. It's like, it's somebody's taste. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So one of my friends emailed me like a couple days ago. And it took me like a day to get to the email. I didn't know what they were talking about in the headline. Like, Retro 51 does it again. And I was like, yeah, they've been releasing a lot of pens. But she had pictures. And it's like this Where's Waldo finial on there. Like, white and red stripes on there. And it's just kind of cool. So they did 20 special finials for this. And she really wanted this pen. And she was, you know, telling me the story of how it was sold out everywhere. And she finally, like, got in touch with, like, some random shop. Like, that was a Retro 51 dealer. And she ordered it through them and opened it up. And she, again, thought, like, there's a mistake here. This isn't what it's supposed to look like. Then she actually saw the ticket on the inside that explained, like, hey, this is a 1 of 20.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Waldo, I think they're calling it. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. I like it. I like how they're doing this. And they shouldn't go away, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I know. But the, so, yeah, like, the Waldo is, is, where's Waldo? Which, by the way, I don't know if you know this, Brad, is where's Wally here? His name's Wally, not Waldo. Really? No, I did not know that. Yeah. And so, this is an interesting pairing to put these two things together. But I guess the thinking is, like, where's Waldo hides throughout the world, I guess? So, they. Right. It's very peculiar. I don't know why they've started to do this now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, they've had this opportunity for a long time. At least for the last decade with their growth.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Maybe they're just, like, this is part of the goodbye is to just get weird. I don't know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, speaking of the goodbye, you know, I'm getting a lot of questions. I don't know what they're doing. But people were thinking that, hey, they were wrapping it up in September. They did make a public comment, like, on a reply to a comment in an Instagram thread that someone sent me. And basically, they're saying they're at least going through the end of the year because COVID put them behind schedule on a lot of projects.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, they haven't actually been able to deliver all the things that they were supposed to have delivered. Ah, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, that's why we're not ramping down in September like we initially all assumed. But, you know, then we'll see. So, they're at least going to go. I expect plenty more through the rest of the year. I mean, there was, like, three or four, like, in the past two weeks launch. So, yeah, it's a lot.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right, let's take our first break. And then I want to talk to you about what you're doing with your Kickstarter campaign. Oh, nice. But we'll take our first break and thank our friends over at Squarespace for their support of this episode. You can make your next move with Squarespace and create the website that you want for your idea or project. With Squarespace, you can very, very easily register a unique domain name. You can customize award-winning templates to give your website the exact look and feel that you want. It is an all-in-one platform. Squarespace has all of the tools that you need to put your next project online. There's nothing to patch or install or upgrade. Everything can be done on the web and in their apps as well. I love Squarespace's iPad app that lets you configure and design and build your website. It's a super great app. It's really, really well done. Squarespace also have 24-7 customer support. So if you need any help with anything where you're getting your site set up, they're on hand to help you and to guide you through the process wherever you need. But I'll be honest, I've built many websites in Squarespace and it is super intuitive, very, very easy to put this stuff together. And it's why after a decade, I am still a very loyal and happy Squarespace customer. In fact, I just continue to set up new websites with them whenever I have a new project or idea and I want to get it online. Squarespace.com is where I go. So whether you want to create a store, portfolio or a blog or any other type of website you could think of, Squarespace has the tools to do it and it's so easy anyone could try. If you want to go to Squarespace.com slash penaddict right now, you can find out more information but also sign up for a trial. You don't need to give them your credit card and you can build your website on that trial. It's fully featured. And then when you're ready to launch your product to the world, you want to show off your website so you let people see what you've been working on. You just sign up for one of their plans to start at just $12 a month. But if you use the offer code penaddict, you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.



== Kickstarter Campaign Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Big fan of the Squarespace inventory management. Myke, as I go through all these projects that I'm working on and the ones that go through, which we'll talk in a minute about a different pen that I launched on the shop, I like managing the inventory through the Squarespace commerce app. So thank you, Squarespace.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So let's talk a little bit about the Knock Co Waxed Canvas Kickstarter campaign that you put up a couple of days ago. 25 days to go, you have a goal of $30,000. You just crossed 26, so you're pretty sure you're going to hit that one, Brad. Can we talk a little bit about what the product is and why it is a Kickstarter campaign?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So we did the penaddict campaign. Not this year. It was obviously the Retro 51. But last year, we experimented with a microweave wax canvas exterior material for a case called the Burton. It was basically an A5 notebook pouch and had some pen slots. It was really, really nice. It was received very well and a lot of people like the material. A few people don't like the wax canvas material, which I get. It's very different. It's very different. And people really, really dug on it and said, well, can we get some other cases in this material? And we had experimented years ago. I think the DC show that you were at, I don't know how many years ago that was. We made like 40 Sinclair cases in this material and they had like a burgundy interior. I don't even own one. They were just, you know, a little limited edition run that Jeff made to take with us to a pen show and they sold out, you know, like immediately. So ever since then, we wanted to try this fabric on a bigger scale. It worked well on the Burton. The feedback was great. So we wanted to use it in our most popular case products, which are the Brasstown and the aforementioned Sinclair. And when I got the samples made, you know, you never know, like you want to see how it's going to work out, how the shape's going to hold up. You know, is it going to, you know, keep the same style and features that everyone already likes, but have this different material? And it's awesome. Like it just came out so, so good. And I just been waiting to launch this product until, you know, things were a little bit calmer and smoother. And of course, months of delays lead me to launching this on a Friday afternoon because that's when it finally got approved and everything finally came together. And I hated it. It took every fiber of my being to not hold it until like Tuesday to launch it because you don't launch things on Friday afternoons Eastern time. That's where news goes to die, right? So, but it went well. The launch went great. The support has been amazing so far. I can't wait for people to get these cases. This is going to be the only time you'll get this colorway. We'll probably use this material in more cases and we'll try some different color wax materials, but we're not going to stock the black and aqua color regularly on the shop for later. So this will just be the Kickstarter color. Obviously, I'll have a few extras, you know, I'll probably sell, but it won't be an inventory item. Then we'll make some new colors if we're going to do wax canvas in the future because they are a little bit more expensive to make. And, you know, the price points a little bit higher on these, so it won't be an all the time type of deal. But it's good that we are getting this out there because so many people have been wanting it. I want it. I want it to exist. And I think it's a really cool material to have in our products. It really fits our aesthetic well. And you kind of can't go wrong with like black and aqua has been one of the most popular colorways we've ever done. Maybe the single most. So bringing it out in this material, I think, was a no-brainer. And this is going to help fund getting inventory on other products. So, you know, this is a campaign a while in the making. I'm glad it's active and up and running now. So 25 more days. I'm going to be pushing it hard, see if we can ramp up these goals. We'll hit our, you know, pledge level easily and then try to see what we can ramp it up to.

'''Myke Hurley:''' What are you stretch goals, Brad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm glad you had that voice. I don't think you did that voice on purpose. It sounded like you just had a frog in your throat. No, that was the purpose voice. That was the purpose voice.

'''Myke Hurley:''' The demand for stretch goals on Kickstarter campaigns.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so I don't. I'm only kidding, by the way. Yeah, I know. I know you are because you know my stance on stretch goals. And you know my stance on having a real pledge amount to hit, right? So I don't make my, you know, campaign is funded at $100. So I can say we 10,000%ed our goal. Look how amazing this is. Like, I just be real. You know, let's be real with people. And so, like, it's straightforward. Everything we do at Knock is straightforward. Like, we're going to tell you what it is. You know, I had a question about the cost on this. And I literally broke down the cost for someone that was questioning why were these more expensive. And I told them, like, black and white how much more it cost me to make it. Like, we're just not going to play around with that kind of stuff. We don't play games with our customers. So, you know, I haven't had a, hey, where's our stretch goal comment yet. But we'll see when we hit the goal. We'll see when we hit the goal.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't really know if this is a campaign that lends itself to that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I think it's funny. It hasn't kept the spammers away, though, Myke. I do forget about that. Every time I launch a campaign, they're always in my mentions to help me boost this campaign. You know.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I did notice. I think I got a thing from Kickstarter the other day. It was an app update. That they're adding add-ons into campaigns now, like, into their system, which I think is a good thing to do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I think, yeah, I think they're working more, like, on the fulfillment side.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't like using, as a customer, all of those, like, non-Kickstarter things, survey things. Right. So I want to see Kickstarter add more of that stuff into their system. Right. Like, when you get that email and it's like, hey, go to Backerkit. And I'm like, no, I don't. Like, I will do it because I have to. But I don't want to. Because it's like, I don't really know this company. And now they've got my address. And I'm not begrudging creators that do it. Because it's something that, for a lot of people, is needed. Especially if you have a complicated fulfillment process for your campaign. Like, if you've got colorways and stuff. Like, I know the studio in Eat Boys have done it. Where it's like, they created, like, the, say, like, the Mark I. And then it was like, people then wanted to have, to, like, mix and match the knock and body colors. And that's, you know, that's, the Kickstarter system just doesn't allow for that. So you have to use, like, third parties to help you do that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And they definitely work for certain situations. They've never worked for us because I want to handle the products before they go out. That's just one of my personal flaws. I can't let that go. As far as, like, the amount of work that I do. I put that on me because it's important to me. So I haven't ever used one of those services because I'd never get to see the products. And I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did that. I wouldn't like that at all. Plus, it's more percentage. Like, I'm already giving up 8% to 10% to Kickstarter. Yeah. Then that's a lot more percentage. Just, you start eating away at your percentages as it is. So that's something I'm willing to do the work for, right? So.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But, yeah, like, I think I want to underscore the point of, like, why this Kickstarter campaign exists. You know, because me and you were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. Like, there are Kickstarter campaigns that exist for no real reason. But there's a couple of things going on here. And, like, I think the main one is that Nock has a, you have, like, basically, like, a jam in your fulfillment, right? Because there's some bills to pay for some stock that was made. And it's halting you from being able to produce new products. So by doing a basic, like, a pre-order, a large-scale pre-order, it allows you to kind of get some of that taken care of, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And that's why I actually chose to do Kickstarter instead of a pre-order because I wanted to hit a certain level, right? Like, we could still, like, say this doesn't fund for whatever reason. It's going to fund. Like, it's that close. But say it didn't fund. I could still go and do a pre-order and we just do for the people who are interested in the case. I had faith in this product that it was going to do well enough on Kickstarter to hit the amount that I want to not just pay for these cases, but to pay for more inventory and new cases to come out because we're at that time where it's time to turn back on the firehose of products. And just need, you know, you need this little boost, this little influx that this Kickstarter is going to provide us to kind of turn that back on. So that's the biggest help.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This type of thing for, like, Kickstarter campaigns is, like, it can help when there is, you know, when you're beginning, like when your company's beginning because it gives you that influx of cash and you can use that to tool up or whatever it is you need to do. Like when you guys did the first Knock Kickstarter campaign. But this one is similar because Knock is undergoing a lot of changes, right? Right. You are now in, I believe that you have the full ownership of Knock and Jeff is working as a basic, a contracted designer for you instead. So this is basically like Knock's second beginning, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. In a way. Actually, I call it 3.0 in my own head. That's a good point, yeah. It's like we had the beginning, then we had, let's see how big we can get with retail. And that was two, and now we're back to kind of not square one by any stretch, but now it's like version 3.0. Let's try it this way. And, like, this will be, like, I want to make it the most sustainable way. Like, you know, we're different than we were a few years ago, so we'll make it more sustainable. And that's why, like, if we were just inventing a new product and we wanted to do a test run, we would probably just pre-sale it. Yeah. That's more viable for things like that. But this is with a purpose, and that's also why I wanted to use Kickstarter. There were several reasons why I wanted to use Kickstarter. I sweated it a lot, but in the end, I think it was the right decision.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And you chose the right products as well, like the configurations. I backed the Sinclair because I love the Sinclair, but I had the brown Sinclair, and it's not my favorite color. Oh, really? That's a good one. I like the brown. I love the purple, but, like, just brown is not necessarily one of my favorite colors. So I wanted the new wax Sinclair because I was meant to – I think you've done a wax Sinclair before. That's what I was saying. At one of the pen shows, right? Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep, that's what I said earlier, the DC one. But we only did – That was it. We did maybe 40 of those, and they had a burgundy interior. Yeah, I missed it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I meant to buy one, and I didn't. I don't have one. So there you go. Super limited. So, yeah, I backed that, and everybody else should go check it out as well. Like, these two products are just fantastic. The Brass Down and the Sinclair. They're the two that I love the most. So you've picked good options, good colors. People can go check it out. There's a link in the show notes, and it's also on Kickstarter on the NotCard page. It's not the only thing I did. No, it's not, is it? Because you're a busy boy these days. Caran d'Ache. You've got a Caran d'Ache. This wasn't even something I knew people could do.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It was just something I've been talking with their distributor here in the U.S. for a while. And I've long loved the 849 ballpoint pen and the Fix Pencil, which is a very similar shape. You know, they're smaller, classic hex barrel designs that are just really, really cool and really well made. And I just got to talk to them with them. I was like, hey, can we do any kind of custom, like 849 for the pen addict? And they were like, sure. Let me send you all over the details. We worked on it for months.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Getting it right. Sending it over to Switzerland to get it designed and approved and manufactured. And it exists now. And the timing is impeccable. So I'm launching all the things at all the time, Myke. This was delayed more so to get out of the Kickstarter Retro 51 shipping. I knew I'd have a lot of 849s to ship. I didn't want to double down on my shipping. So it just so happens that everything lined up to launch within a day of each other. And the feedback on these has been great. The first, I don't know, 120 pens or so are in flight en route to their new owners. It's a really great price, I think, for the pen. And it's a really cool pen addict-y orange. And you will eventually have one, Myke, whenever I ship your package of goods over your way. And yeah, y'all should check it out if you're an 849 fan and like an orange pen addict emblazoned 849. You should go check it out. It's a really fun pen. I use it all the time. I've used them for years and I'm glad to have my own now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks really great. I mean, obviously, as you do, right? Like if you're going to do a limited edition, like a first one, it's got to be orange. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' First round is orange. And then we can mess around from there, right? You do the basics. See how it goes. See if people like it. And if you choose to do another one, then you see. Then you go the let's get weird route.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I think that this, I can never remember the name. Is it faceted? Yeah. Like I think that that works well for your logo because you can get the text on one of the planes and then have the circular part of the logo stretch around it. I think it works really nicely, actually.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm dying laughing that you said that because that cost me extra to wrap the facets. Oh, I bet. Oh, I am absolutely confident of that fact. Yes. Karen Dash is very particular about like, so like working with retro is like working with your best friend at the kitchen table, right? You know, we just sit there and we hash it out and we can have these discussions. Working with Karen Dash through a distributor as an intermediary is like, you know, working with your like high school AP chemistry teacher, right? Distribute a part in the middle. It's like, just not going to go.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have no doubt is what makes it harder. Not that there's any, anybody's doing a bad job or whatever. It's just that you're playing the telephone game.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. So here's a, here's a prime example of how it went. So like when I found out that was extra, I was just like, fine, like, let's like, that's what I want. I'll pay the whatever price it is for the overlap of the edge of the logo. Okay, whatever. And then the pins show up and we'd already talked about packaging. Like I could get the 10, you know, the nice 10 packages. Like you see the small Paul Smith ones come in and things like that. That would have cost me like three to five extra dollars per pen. And I just wasn't going to do that for this one because I didn't want to end up charging like $40 or something for this pen. So they ship in this nice little, like when I've gotten other products, they ship in this, you know, little cardboard pen sleeve, right? So these pens show up and they're in boxes of 10, like all nicely, like in a, like into this Caran d'Ache, like shipping box and they're made for 10 pens each and they're all nicely slotted in there. And I'm looking through the package and there's no boxes, you know, no little pen sleeves for me to put these in to ship them out. They're just like raw pens in a box. And I was, I emailed them back. I was like, Hey, I didn't get any boxes. And they're like, Oh yeah, those are like 35 cents each. I'm like, son of a, I was like, all right, send me. 400 of them, please. Like we, it's like on and on and on. So like, that's the deal when you're working at it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This kind of explains because I feel like this had been going on for a, for a long time. Yeah. Like, cause I know I'd seen pictures of this. I know you'd been talking about it. Like it feels like this really went on for quite a while.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It was a process, but in the end it's a heckin' good pen. I love it. It came out great. So it was, it was worth it, but man, it's not. Without all these little, little ticky tack stuff getting you all every inch of the way. It was just, it, in the end, it just kind of became funny. The box thing was like the last, like the last straw. It's like, what do they think? I have like a retail storefront where I'm going to put these in a display and people are going to come by and handle these pens. How do they think I'm going to ship these pens to people? Just in the envelope, Brad. You just throw them in loose. You know? I mean, it's not, it's not far from that to be perfectly honest. I don't think people are going to, I don't think people are going to be, look at the packaging and go, oh, this was amazingly well packaged.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're not going to be keeping these boxes, huh? They're not, they're not keepsake worthy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, no. But it's just funny. So part of the process. Good times. I'd do it again.

'''Myke Hurley:''' A++. We'll see how they sell. Yeah. I was just on the website, on your website, on your store. And I just wanted to mention while we're here that it seems like you do still have some of the, the, the, is it called the Jelly Shiba?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Pastel Shiba.



== Retro 51 Stock Update ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Pastel Shiba. Yeah. Retro 51 stock. That thing should be sold out by now. It's the fantastic looking pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've been selling a pretty decent amount of them. I just still have, I think we did 500 of those. Right. So I still probably have like a hundred left, but I've been selling a bunch over the past month or so, you know, as retro's winding down. So people are discovering that one.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If anybody buys one of the Caran d'Ache 849s from you, they should, they should look at that one too. I think it's a wonderful little pen. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Great pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet sell authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, and ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. No matter what you're looking for, they will have the products you need from the brands that you love. They sell Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Caveco, Montefurde, many, many more. They're an authorized dealer of all of them, and they have just fantastic products. It will include all the new Estabook products as well that we were talking about recently. They've been really exciting, and Pen Chalet has those available to you as well. One of the things that I love about Pen Chalet, very fast and reliable customer service, great shipping. If you're in the US and you order over $50 of products, they'll send that to you for free, it's free shipping on those orders, and they have great shipping rates overseas as well. Pen Chalet has low prices and high quality products, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. But as well as the pens, they also help you with what you need for them to go inside and for what goes inside the pens. So if you need refills and inks, they've got them. If you want carrying cases, they've got them. If you want maybe a little, like, you know, you're looking for display stands and stuff like that, you know, you can find that kind of stuff over at Pen Chalet. Whatever you're looking for, they've got it. Go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com, and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password, Pen Addict, and you will get your hands on this week's special offer and the code that you need to go back and save 10% of penchalet on anything at any time. Now, Brad, what has caught your eye this week?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I always stumble for my words when I see, like, the really good deals at penchalet that Ron always sets up for us. The first one, it's a Pelican, and there's a big red 55% off tag on there, and it's this really cool edition that they did last year, maybe two years ago. I'll let y'all go check it out because the price is exceptional. It's way, way less than when it was initially launched, and that's something to consider if you are a Pelican fan.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Also, some good deals on some infamous Kawekos right here.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Famed Kawekos. The sport rollerballs are a really good price. The new collector's editions are a really good price. The coral ones. So, yeah, these are great. I've been digging my AL Sport. I have a gel refill one from the Ombre collaboration, which is kind of like this sport rollerball in here. I really like that format for a non-fountain pen. As much as I like it for a fountain pen, I like it with non-fountain pens as well because it's a good pocketable rollerball or gel pen. And we normally have ballpoints in that style, right? Like the shown designs or the spoke pens, the roadies. We're using ballpoint refills because they have that Parker style. But you can get some cool refills for these AL Sports that are in the... Like this particular one is gold. Do they have other colors? No, just the gold one. So, yeah, it's a really great deal for a shockingly, surprisingly good pen. Way down the list, there's a Montegrappa that I have never seen before that I want to check out a little bit after. It's called the Montegrappa Lo Spirito Di Stella. And it looks like the Elmo. It's like the Elmo shape, which is one I very, very much like. And this looks like it was in collaboration with a charity nonprofit called Wheels on Waves for a universally accessible yacht design that they sale. This looks cool. I'm going to look into that one after the show because it's a great price as well.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, that's a very particular charity.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, yeah. Like it's someone's very, very strong belief. Yeah. And that's what they want to do. And like it's pretty cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can find deals like these on many wonderful pens and some secret deals just for you by going to penchalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password penaddict to get your hands on these deals. And also, to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at penchalet. Our thanks to Penchalet for the continued support of this show and RelayFM.



== Kaweco Product Analysis ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. I want to talk about some products. We've been talking about ourselves long enough. There's some news. Since we've last spoken, a lot of interesting things have dropped. In particular, I want to talk about this Kaweco AL Sport Paladin Green. Have you had a chance to read up on this at all, Myke? Just so you know what the regionality is. I'll tell everyone.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I took a look at the pictures. I didn't think that there was something to read about it. That's not always a thing that there's a story. But okay. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's why it's in here. That's why it's in here. Because there is a story behind it. Number one, it's spectacular looking. I think the green silver trim. Yeah. It really is. Great color green. Mm-hmm. So it's, but Myke, this is made exclusively a special edition for retailers in Belgium and the Netherlands.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay. All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So very regionalized, 500 pins. And on the back of the cap, the name Paladin Evergreen is printed in the same color as the Kaweco logo. So it looks like the stamping's white. It's probably like the same white stamping. I don't have a picture of that. I don't see that in front, which I find, or as an option to check out, which I find a little bit odd.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because what does it look like?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Like, is it in the same script? You know? Yeah. Right. Is it in, is in like Comic Sans on the back? Paladin Evergreen. Lol. And so what do they do? But what's interesting about that, like, I don't find any of that like super weird or off or anything like that. But what made it interesting is I had a few people reach out to me with a different screenshot or at least some more information on this pin from the mail that Fanta Pluma, this is from Fanta Pluma, one of my favorite shops to work with in the world. I have to get over there and visit them one day. So like in their marketing emails, you know, they send out new products. They were in their descriptor of the Kaweco AL Sport Paladin Evergreen, which this isn't on their product page, they put this little note. As the Kaweco guidelines, I'm thinking that mean like as per the Kaweco guidelines, the back of the cap has the name of the color engraved on it. I don't know what that, what that means. Right. So I'm trying to explore this. So in my head. Inside? No. So with the collector's edition, the coral collector's edition, it was a little bit of a, not a snafu, it was a little bit of a questionable, you know, thing about the color of the coral edition versus the limited edition coral they made for Fanta Pluma, the coral guilloche model that they did, like came out similar colors. And I'm wondering if Kaweco is now going to start protecting itself on colors, you know, not locking in, okay, we did an orange, you know, orange Kaweco Classic Sport for Spain. Can we never use orange again? So now, like if I wanted to do an orange Kaweco Sport, do I have to call it Pen Addict Orange? And that has to get stamped on the barrel to save them from, you know, not being able to allow duplications because they're starting to really push their collaborations, right? They have a whole page up now for branding and collaborations.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, so Paladin Evergreen. That's what is the color's name? Yes. Oh, so it's going to look like the collector's edition stamping.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. That's my understanding. I haven't seen a picture. And this, and I'm just, I'm just guessing here and taking an educated guess.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I think when you put those two things together, I think that that explains what's going on there. I think you've made that one, especially because it says it is the same, in the same color, which is what we saw with the collector's edition Kaweco.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And I think that just confused people. So I think Kaweco is just setting themselves up to just like, you know, protect themselves from people yelling at the three purple editions coming next year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, they're all the same, Brad. Is that that coral one was the color's name is actually collector's edition. That's the name of the color. Nice. I don't think it's the color. I think that that's been, I think that that's the part that's wrong. I think they're stamping the name of the pen on it. Fair enough, yes. And that gets tied to the color on the model.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think that's wording. Right. But same, same difference. It's not going to, like, we're not going to do pen addict orange and it's not going to get stamped orange. It's going to be the name of the pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Or like whatever the name of the pen would be. Whatever the name of the pen is. If you just call it like fire on fire or whatever, it would say fire on fire on it. And so I don't, but I will personally say I don't like that approach.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's, yes, I will, in general, I will agree with you. I also understand it from Kaweco.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't need the name of the pen on the pen. Agreed. It's like, it's like the Mark Jacobs by Mark Jacobs by Mark by Jacobs by Mark. It's like that kind of thing. I don't need it on there. It doesn't need to, I don't need to also be reminded. Agreed. The model name.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. So as we go through 2021, I think we'll get a better picture of this. And then the consumers will be able to speak on what they feel about this. Right. So this is the first of several TBD discussions on this. Just kind of seeing, you know, how this goes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But continuing the trend of the last couple of months of that Kaweco cannot sit still.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Kaweco cannot sit still, yet they've already managed to dupe themselves in the span of months. They're really pumping them out over there big time. Yeah. And are now having to write new rules to grandfather in some of these changes. So, yeah, we'll see. I definitely think it's like a CYA protection. We'll just see what consumers think about it in the long run. So I'm willing to give it a chance and it could be fine. Like, you know, we'll see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Myke. Let's talk about the most Field Notes-y Field Notes that have ever been produced. So Field Notes have themes, right? That's the thing that they do.



== Field Notes Edition Review ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' That was the best introduction. I'm sorry to interrupt your flow, but that was beautiful.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It just hit me as I pulled the page up this time. So, like, every Field Notes edition has a theme of some kind, right? Yeah. You know, whether it's camping or whether it's trades work or whether it's beer. The most recent edition is called American Inc. It is actually a Field Notes notebook. Sorry, it's called United States Letterpress. They have two names on the page, right? Which is a little confusing. It's a little complex. Yeah, but this is a Field Notes edition dedicated to letterpress, right? Which is, like, the most Field Notes-y thing because they've effectively made covers about covers. But the way that they've gone about it, I think, is really great. There is nine singular books in three packs of three, which is abnormal for them. And the way that I basically worked with nine different letterpress companies across the United States. So, this is like a – this is – Field Notes very frequently celebrates Americana. Like, that's their thing. And America in general. So, this edition is celebrating the traditions of paper and paper processing and letterpress in America. So, I think it's a very nice concept. The books themselves are very eclectic but look really cool. You know, it's reminiscent for me of, like, say, like the Mondo ones or something, right? Or, like, the ones where they'll take random bits of poster and make stuff out of it. So, I think that's kind of cool. But, yeah, that's kind of where we are with this one. And then they have a really beautiful flyleaf page inside of them, like the first page, which kind of explains a little bit about the book and where it came from and that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's nice.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Do you know who printed that flyleaf? That would be our friends at Skylar.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, Skylar Letterpress in Kansas City. Look at that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Welcome to the show, Myke.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Welcome to the show. Hey, come on. I'm busy, man. I've had a wild week. And I'm not going to lie. I opened the page and I saw that there was a lot of information for this one. And I was like, I'll talk about it with Brad. I'm not going to read it now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is a massive edition. So, you've done a wonderful description here. This is very similar to the Two Rivers edition they did five years ago with the Hamilton Wood Type Imprinting Museum.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But that was just one place.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One place and then separate covers, like randomized covers, right? This is using essentially 10 different shops, you know, nine for exterior design and then one for the flyleafs, our favorite press in Skylab.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What do you – I want to know what you personally – where you put this in the pantheon of the field notes. Like not necessarily like the guessing game that we used to do. We've kind of done that bit for a while. But just like where would you put this if you were, you know, like active in the field notes?

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is a nice addition. It would definitely go above any of the ones that would either A, B, formats that I don't like. You know, like maybe pick a different shape. Say something like end papers, which wasn't my thing. It would go above, for example, any of the more plain ones. Say like the Orton Trilogy. That's not really for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, Shenandoah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, that kind of thing. And it would edge out Two Rivers. I think this is a nicer addition than Two Rivers. But I'm just – it's not – this is, you know, this is a very firmly middle of the pack for me personally for what I look for in editions. It's just like the designs are very nice. But what I tend to like about field notes and ones that really excite me is when there's like a cohesiveness to it. And the cohesiveness that exists for this one, which is just quote unquote letterpress, it's not really like a theme that sparks me. And again, it's got that like America, America, America going through it, which sometimes can lose me. But I think that this is a – what I do like about this, though, is that they are working with and supporting 10 different companies of this edition. I think that that is an admirable thing that I do really like about it. They've really stretched out their wings to give work to all of these letterpress and paper shops.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you said. For me personally, I think this is probably the best edition in years. And I'm more of the, you know, give me all the Americana stuff, right? Like I'm definitely down with the Americana vibe. I'm hugely down with the letterpress.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I would say it's very, very much their best edition maybe in the last year, year and a half. I'm scrolling back. Since Mile Marker. I loved Mile Marker. And that was spring 2019. National Parks is also really nice. But I would actually – I think I would – these are on pretty level footing. But it's definitely the best one they've done in 2020 without a doubt.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I was going to compare this to National Parks just in the quantity of the covers. And if my only two choices were letterpress or National Park side by side, I'd choose letterpress. This might be like top 10 edition of all time for me. That's how much I like this. I'm actually scrolling back to find one that I would put ahead of it. And it's probably – I stopped on Lunacy, which is fall 2016.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, that had the moon phase cutouts. Yeah, it's a really nice one. You know, that's like counting three missions, like the Space Race one and Coastal with the full stamping. Oh, Coastal. Come on. Coastal's great. That's one of my favorites. Yeah. But outside of those, over like the past couple years, I mean, this is it. This was – this one gave me like I really – like I should resubscribe for this edition. But I'm not. Like I could buy them if I wanted to, which I'm not because I'm just not using pocket notebooks right now. But this is to me – this will go down as like an all-timer edition in the Pantheon as like, you know, just a very, very cool edition. The way they spread the work around and had all these different artists do it. That's why I like the Wilco side edition. You know, they had six different cover artists for six books. It's very cool. I love it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I really appreciate that because, you know, at this point, Field Notes very much know what their business is. I'm sure that they have an element of stability in their company because of the subscriptions. So, you know, like it's more than just if they were creating a limited edition that they were just selling every time. You know, like there is a balance sheet that they can somewhat rely on maybe more than some other companies. Let's say, for example, more than you, right? Right. At Nock, right? Where like you have to come up with new products but you have no idea if they're going to sell. But with Field Notes, there is an amount that they know are already sold. So, like it's cool. So, what I'm getting at is I really appreciate that they are using their place in the market and their sense of stability to the benefit of companies that maybe need it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And also, yeah, I don't want to discount the fact that using Skylab Letterpress, like my friends are involved in this project. So, that's like an automatic plus one for me, right? Yeah. So, it's pretty cool to see. I'm very, very pleased with this edition and I think it's going to do extraordinarily well. So, yeah. Great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' We didn't check the amount. 40,000 packs. Okay. I'm so out of that loop now. I don't. I'm assuming, though, that there's more packs there because there's three packs.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Oh, and subscribers get all three packs. That's cool. Yeah. They do that for subscribers. So, it's a really good value. If you're into, like, the pocket notebooks and what Field Notes does, it's a huge value to get the annual subscription because, like, just this edition alone would cost you, what, $39?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. It's a great deal to get the quarterly subscription.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I think this would – if you liked this one, like, if you really liked this one, this might be a good reason to just subscribe.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Exactly. It's, like, two and a bit times the money and you get all of the books plus then you get the next year's worth of stuff. So, I think this one would be even more than most a good jumping on point for a subscription if you were really into it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Because you're going to get the – you know the benefit right out the gate. You're already to the plus side, you know, if you're looking at it that way from an annual payment perspective. So, yeah, this is a great one to jump in on. All right. We got one more sponsor I want to hit up, Myke. Before – I have a few little small product notes. A couple that we've talked about here on the show before. But let's talk about how good I'm looking right now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This episode of the Pan Addicts brought to you by Harry's. You know Harry's by now. But, well, I want to tell you something new that they've got. They just came out with their sharpest blades ever. And unlike some other razor companies, they're not going to charge you more for their product improvements. Harry's new sharper blades are still as low as $2 each. And new customers in the U.S. can redeem a trial offer of Harry's new sharper blades right now by going to harrys.com. Harry's blades are delivered directly to your door on your schedule with or without a subscription. These new blades are so sharp that in a study with people shaving four times a week, they reported that with Harry's new blades, their eighth shave was as smooth as their first shave with the same blade. Harry's owns their own factory in Germany that's been honing razor blades for over 100 years. They source their steel from Sweden and they own the entire manufacturing process from research and development to the factory floor, which allows them to keep their prices low whilst also making their products even better. And they confidently stand by their products of a 100% quality guarantee at harrys.com. Brad, can you tell me about how much you love Harry's?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, number one, Harry's, why wasn't I involved in the trial? I mean, have you seen, you know, what you're working with here? Have you seen this palette you can use to fine tune your products? I mean, like it's perfect. A real rich canvas, a tapestry. Um, yeah, yeah. And number two, I don't know how they can make their blades any better because that's the, that's why I use Harry's products is because it's the best blade I've found. And the amount of, you know, extra shaves you get, number one, they're already like a great value on the front end. But number two, you're saving even more because they last longer than any other blade I've used. And now you're telling me they're making them even better than that. So yeah, I'm in. Count me in, Harry's.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You can give their sharpest blades a try today. Harry's has an amazing offer for listeners of this show. New customers in the U.S. can redeem a Harry's trial set at harrys.com slash penaddict. You'll get a five blade razor featuring the new sharper blades, a weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and a travel cover to protect your blade if you're on the go. Just go to harrys.com slash penaddict and redeem your trial offer today. Our thanks to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have a question for you, Myke. Okay. Can you tell me why I'm so fascinated in this product that I will never, ever use? And it is what Mitsubishi has done in collaboration with Wacom, Wacom. What did we decide? I think it's Wacom. Wacom. And we've talked about this when other companies have done this. Like Lamy has a Wacom pencil. And now Mitsubishi has a Wacom pencil that looks like the HiYuni pencil. And I love these so much. And I'm trying to figure out why. Maybe it's just because I like the stationery so much. And if Uni Mitsubishi threw this pencil on a t-shirt, I'd want to buy the t-shirt, right? So this is like another tool or a little stationery item I could buy. Like Tombow has for a long time. You know, you've been able to buy like Tombow mono t-shirts and like gear and accessories. And this is just one of those things I want to own, but I'll never own because I don't use a Wacom. Like I have no desire to use one. I wouldn't use one correctly if I did. But I kind of want all the Wacom pencils just to have, is there a problem with me?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think, yeah. Yeah, fair. You have no use for it. I would actually quite like this product. I'm looking at the actual product page at the moment. But there's like a thing I can't work out. Well, one, if it's even possible if people would buy it. Two, if it actually has a button on the side. I can't work that out. It's quite important to me, my Wacom pen. Because I use a Wacom tablet all the time. Yeah, yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But you can't expand the pictures here. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's kind of like large size. It's like a jumbo pencil a little bit. I don't know. I just love everything about what Wacom is doing in these collaborations with like the real stationary companies. And would we ever see anything like this from Apple? No. That's why we have, you know, skin vendors. And I don't see the skin vendor market for the second round of Apple pencil being as popular, right? It was a little bit more challenging. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' No, I think you can do it. I think just maybe the shine wore off from that a little bit. Yeah. To be honest.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So anyway, I thought that was cool. I will always link these in the show notes because I think they're kind of fascinating. Kind of like I'm going to link this Pebble station.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You know, I don't know if the inductive charging would necessarily be as reliable if you put a skin on the new Apple pencil. I don't know the answer to that, but that could be why. Or maybe the magnets aren't as strong if it's not direct contact. So maybe it's not as advantageous to put a skin on the Apple pencil as it used to be. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, maybe. But that product goes into this product, which is maybe one of those things that only I'm interested in. And this is the Pebble stationery traveler size Tomoe River notebooks. And what you think is a reasonably basic notebook is, but the format of this is what made me want to put in the show notes because I have a soft spot for this is the one, Myke, where I go against my carrying the torch for international size standards. I don't think A5 Slim is a real standard, but Travelers Notebooks has made their size notebook that is so popular. Some people just call it traveler size. Some people refer to it as A5 Slim when they don't want to use the traveler's name.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, because Travelers is a brand. It's a brand. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So I'm actually surprised to see this on their page. But what's different about this is it is thicker and it's 200 pages. Right. So normally those Travelers notebooks in this size, in this format that I love are like your 48 page varieties. This is it's like a tall, skinny notebook, kind of like the Robiki note, but a little bit more depth in the page. And I just think this is kind of one of those all timer formats for me that you never see for sale right outside of what Travelers does with the refills for their system. So I thought this was a cool look. I wanted to share this because I love Pebble Stationery. I don't have one of these. They haven't sent me one of these. I haven't bought one of these yet. But everything I've tried from Pebble has always been really, really good. So I'm going to look at ordering some of these because I'm intrigued at the format. You usually don't get this number of pages in this format. So that's something that's super interesting to me. Last thing this week.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have a question for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which tomorrow paper is it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have no clue. That's the eternal question. So we're starting to see some comparison posts come up. I'll find the one from Maciano Man, Yagen, over in Australia, has a sample post. I've saved the link for, I'll put it in the show notes, and I know Anna's getting ready to do a sampler comparison as well because she was telling me she ordered some of each and told me where to go order it from. If I wanted to test them side by side, knowing that you for sure have the batch differential. Because that's the hard thing, right, is people don't know. There's no, like, defined markings. So, yeah, it's going to be a question for at least the next year or so, I imagine, which one you're getting. So, yeah, that'll be good. Oh, so Nanami put out some comparisons. Okay, cool. So, yeah, it's starting to come out now, and people are starting to understand what they're getting in. And it seems like the general consensus, like, okay, maybe it's not the thing, you know, like it was before, but it's still pretty good. Okay. So, I would still just go for it until, you know, you're proven to have something that you just don't like anymore. So, we'll see. Yeah. Last thing, Myke, follow-up. Krishna ink bottles. Remember that cool ink bottle that was the talk of the town a few weeks ago? Yeah. It had the real interesting display. Then it found out that, hey, the company they were buying them from was knocking them off from someone else who designed this. Good news, Myke. Krishna is collaborating with the original maker of the bottle to allow these to go into production.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, this is a very good end to this story.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is. It is. And I thought that was pretty cool to see because I thought Krishna handled it as best they could, right? Like, they got into something they thought was pretty cool. Turns out their vendor was either unaware or, yeah, or, you know, doing something they shouldn't be doing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Brad, let's be honest. No one accidentally creates something that looks like that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. True. True. True. True. I'll give you that. But they got with the Krishna, worked with the original Gecko, I think is their name, who made the bottle. And they're going to, this bottle is going to come out. And I think that's just kind of a win for all of us. So, I'm very happy about that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm happy I can finally see good pictures of this ink bottle. So, I never got to see them, right? Like, I never actually got to see them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. We had some back channel going on on the pictures because they took them down. But a lot of people, enough people had saved them. They were still out there. People were sending me links. But, yeah. What do you think about it?

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I would say, usually, right? So, like, the idea, I think people have this idea that, like, oh, I'll put the ink bottle on my desk and it will look really nice. You know? Like, you know, it's going to be, like, my desk aesthetic. I would put, I would genuinely put this on my desk. I think this is an absolutely stunning work of art. So, I'll ask you, Brad. Should I buy this ink? Oh, yeah. What do you think?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You should buy this ink. But I'm going to go on record that this bottle is not going to work as well as people think it does.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, I don't care about how it works. Right. I care about how it looks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But I will buy one to have on my desk. Like, I will absolutely own a bottle of this ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It looks like it would be a pain in the butt. But it's in the same way that, like, I find the Ackermann bottles to actually be a pain to deal with. They do what they're supposed to do. But you've got to, like, oh, I don't have enough ink in it. So, I've got to screw the cap back on and turn it upside down again. I get it. It is clever. It works. But it's not, like, that style still has drawbacks for me compared to just a bottle that's just, you know, I just stick the pen into. Like, it's.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if we'll have a new round of horror stories once the Christian ink bottles start coming out.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Can you imagine if, like, the neck isn't that strong?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I just think it might tip over once you stick a pen in there. Very possible. If you're not balancing everything correctly. Like, if you blink for one second and you move the pen, like, it's.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Woo. I'll still buy it. Well, are you getting it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, I don't have any on order yet. Our friend David over at Fig Boot on YouTube, he has a video of the ink bottle up. I just saw that. I haven't watched it yet. But we'll see. We'll see what he says. And, you know, in David I trust. So, we'll see. I'm totally ordering it one, though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I have ordered it right now. I think it's absolutely stunning.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I might wait for another color or see what other colors it comes in. I haven't totally explored this whole thing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. It's like a blue. It's like a blue of a red sheen. Yeah. Yeah. I like a good blue. I don't. And it looks like a vibrant blue. Yeah. I really, I just think that it is a just a really nice desk piece.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Honestly. It's awesome. So. Love it. I'm glad this came to a good conclusion.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yes. Great story. If you want to find the links to the stuff that we've been talking about today, you should go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 429. You'll get everything you need there, including information about our wonderful sponsors, Harry's Pen Chalet and Squarespace. Don't forget to check out Brad's Kickstarter campaign, which is available now and is live for the next 25 days. Pick yourself up a lovely wax canvas knock code case. If you don't have a knock code case, this is a great way to start. And if you do, well, this is a completely different one. So you get that as well. Why not? Just help give knock that kickstart that it that it needs and deserves right now. This is a great little institution we've got going on in our community. So there you go. That's what I say.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I would like to recommend that you go and check out Brad's work at penaddict.com. Knock.co, of course, at Dowdyism on Twitter. You can catch Brad streaming Tuesdays, Thursdays, 10 a.m. Eastern Time over at twitch.tv slash penaddict. Brad, I want to tell you, I'm starting to get the pieces into play here to join you in the streaming world. All right. We'll do it. It's a thing that I'm working on at the moment. Yeah. We need to do some stuff together. Yes. Now that the podcast-a-thon is over, this is like a little project that I want to start attacking. Nice. It's doing some streaming stuff, so I'll have more to say on that in the future. Keyboard-related, though, primarily.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, I saw your keyboard stream.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, I did one already. I had a great time with it, and it feels like a good activity to stream. Yes. I'm looking into that now, and that will be something I can do right here from Mega Studio. All right. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad.

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