The Pen Addict 441/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	441
Title:	Riptiiiiide
Release Date:	December 16th, 2020
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 441
Audio File:	Audio Episode 441
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 441
Length:	6666 min <br />1.1 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 441. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad Dowdy. You sound nervous already. I feel sick. I feel nauseous. Why is that, Myke? Why would you feel like that? We've known each other for a long time. This is episode 441. You just said it out loud. And for some reason, like today, you're a nervous wreck. Today we're going to be talking about the second edition of the Theme System Journal, which is something we've been talking about on and off. And so this is a product that myself and CGP Grey have made for our journaling system that we call the Theme System, which is based around having a yearly theme and then using that as a guide for you to progress throughout your year. And we've been doing the yearly themes thing since 2016. And then a couple of years ago, I started my own journal inside of a Hobonichi planner and ended up writing down these headings every day. And then over time, I thought, actually, I have a way I would like to have this thing laid out. So we created a journal product, which is pretty loose. There's like three main sections to the book. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to the Theme System website that actually explains what the Theme System is about as a kind of concept. I'll also put a link to the most recent episode of Cortex. I'll put links to two episodes this year and last year's yearly themes episode. So you can also get a bit more background. But this year, we've we've we've so we started our book in we started selling our book in twenty eighteen. Twenty. Is it? Yeah. What's it? It has to be twenty eighteen. It does it. Does it though? No, twenty nine. You've got me confused. Yeah. We started selling it in June of twenty nineteen, I think. And then that was kind of like our first version of it. And then I have been working since March of this year on the second edition of the Theme System journal. So the inside is mostly the same, but everything else has changed. And we're good. And Brad has one.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So the premise of today's show is we're going to we're going to break down this notebook. I'm going to ask Myke questions. Myke is going to tell us about building this. Myke may have covered all of this in his wonderful podcast Cortex with CGP Grey when they had their annual. Not really. Not really. OK, good.

Myke Hurley: So the worst is I've definitely covered on it. I've talked up. I've spoken about what's different, but not to the level that me and you were going to have this conversation.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I put in the show notes that I purposely did not listen to this week's Cortex. So apologies to anyone who listened to both. And I'm going to ask like a similar question, even though like Gray and I would not have the same questions at all. So but I purposely didn't listen to this week's Cortex so I could ask more about it. And I'm sure over there y'all will talk more about the actual theme idea, you know, the annual theme ideas than the actual physical goods, which we'll talk about here, even though I will mention to mention some of the theme stuff, too. Myke doesn't like when I have one of his new products and he doesn't have all of the information that I think about the product.

Myke Hurley: This one's worse. This is worse than last time, because last time you were kind of just judging like the system itself, because the notebook was a known quantity. So version one, I worked a studio neat and we adapted the tote book. Right. And made it thicker, made a couple of other changes, but it was by and large a product of their design. But the difference between version one, the clear difference between version one and version two is I made every decision from the ground up, completely changed every material. And so this is now the product itself is now some of decisions that I have made. And I am very happy with the decisions that I have made. But now you will have an opinion on the product that I've made. And that is much scarier to me this time than last time.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So we're going to we're going to break down version two. Are we calling it version two?

Version Two Introduction

Myke Hurley: I technically it's called the second edition, but I find myself like flipping between version two and second edition. OK, almost interchangeably. It says the same thing, you know.

Brad Dowdy: OK, OK. So just to lead into this conversation and settle you down a little bit before we break this thing down from from cover to cover, there's nothing I miss from version one and version two.

Myke Hurley: All right. I can take that.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So there's nothing that I go, oh, here's version two. This was different in version one and I wish it was that way.

Myke Hurley: OK.

Brad Dowdy: OK. There's nothing there. There's not one thing. Version one can just go away. I can file it and I am like completely content with what I have presented in front of me.

Myke Hurley: Would choose to present that as this is better in every single way. But you said it in a very specific way. So I don't know if I technically mean that.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I technically do. But I did say it specifically. Right. OK. So it's visually and physically different. You know, you know, in a shop window is a passerby going to go, oh, look at the vast changes between these two notebooks. No, clearly not. Right. But someone such as myself, like the moment you touch it and pick it up, you go, these are completely different notebooks. Yeah. Right. So the second edition is better physically in format, finish, style, accoutrement. Every way I would prefer this products be the way I use the product. Right. It doesn't necessarily travel with me, even though like that's kind of a misnomer this past year. Right. We none of us traveled anywhere. So, you know, it's it's mostly a desk book for me. So I'm good with like everything that this gives me for that. The cover material is different. What's the difference in the cover? Can you just break down the design differences a little real quick and tell me what we have here? So the.

Myke Hurley: It's about a five size. Nothing's truly a five size.

Brad Dowdy: Let's let's start. I'm going to just go ahead and stop you right there, because one of my questions is what is the measurements of this book? And you're just going with it's sort of your. No, the answer is it's a five ish.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think I actually I don't know them offhand, but I do believe that I have the measurements.

Myke Hurley: Somewhere.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that's the like if there's anything we're going to fight on. That would be that would be the one thing we fight on.

Myke Hurley: I believe one hundred and thirty five by one ninety five millimeters. So five point three by seven point six inches.

Brad Dowdy: OK, so you're a little bit short in the long from a traditional A5, which is fine. Like it looks like an A5 notebook. I put my Midori up against it that I'm using as my notebook and they they essentially match. Like it's not it's not that far off. It's I should say semantics, but it's personality.

Myke Hurley: You know, I went for personality. That's in the shape. So it's basically a five. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But, you know, my I just want to make sure my stance is crystal clear. Yep. On this. It should be for real. A five. But I understand.

Myke Hurley: That might be something that I change in the future, but probably not. Yeah. The cover is a polyurethane leather.

Cover Material Discussion

Myke Hurley: We have always had a polyurethane leather cover on the notebook. So on version one and version two. But the difference is on version two, it feels like suede. It doesn't feel like leather. I was given many swatches of materials to choose from. And I liked this one the most. And it just so happened to turn out to be the most expensive, which I guess makes sense. Right. Yeah. So I really like this cover because I can't recall a product like this that has a cover like this. It's a very different feel because I think even more than typical polyurethane leathers, this actually feels more like the real deal because it's peculiar. It's also heavily backed. Yes. This is the next thing. It is we have not turned this into a hardcover product, but it is still a kind of soft-ish cover, but it's now backed on card, which was not a thing that we'd done before. There were some production reasons for why this needed to occur with the way that the product was bound. But I was given a decision, basically. I could either go with this or go with something that was closer to the original polyurethane that we used in the first edition. But the original book did have a tendency to curl. Like the cover had a tendency to curl if you used it for long enough. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sitting here staring at mine. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I decided to go with a heavier cover, basically, which my hope would be that over time that will be reduced. I mean, if you have a soft cover book, it's basically incredibly difficult to stop that from ever happening, especially if you use lay flat binding like we do. Because over time, you're weakening the strength of the spine as you hold it open, right? But my belief is, and what I'm going for with this, is that it will reduce this over time. And also, I actually prefer this kind of semi-soft hardcover. It kind of sits in the middle, where it still bends, right? Which is something I've really wanted the book to still have flexibility. So it could be put into bags and stuff really easily, because that's how I use it myself. And I wanted it to have some flexibility that way. But I wanted it to have a little bit more structural rigidity. Partly as well, because the book is thicker and heavier than it was before. So I felt like it needed a little bit more in the strength department.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I was going to say, all things being equal, I would prefer the pliable type cover. But not completely soft. Like, I don't want a cardboard cover, right? I like some structure. But I like, just for the reason that you said, because I'm usually going to put this into something else. A bag or a case or something like that. And I need just a little bit of flexibility to put it in there. So why is this book thicker than the previous book? Are there more pages? Is the paper thicker? Is the page count different?

Myke Hurley: Paper's much thicker.

Brad Dowdy: Paper's different. Paper is definitely thicker.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're using 100 GSM. Paper.

Myke Hurley: The paper was the hardest part of all of this. If I was a less picky person, this product would have been done about four months ago.

Myke Hurley: And, you know, I originally started off with... Basically, I told the company that we work at... By the way, these are made in Europe now. They're made in Poland. Actually, it's kind of interesting because the... I was just looking at the tote book. That was also made of 100 GSM. So I don't know what the deal is. But this... We're not... I don't believe we are doing any more pages than the last time. But it is thicker. It doesn't feel the same. No, it doesn't. I don't know. Because it's not the same paper by any stretch. So we... So we... We... So I was sent a selection of...

Myke Hurley: You know what? Actually, I don't know if the... I don't think the paper was exactly the same in the theme system to the tote book. Now I'm saying it. So just disregard that. The paper's thicker, right? Is what's going on here. The... We were sent a selection of samples from the new supplier who's based in Poland. Which, just as a side note, has been an absolute joy. Because I have been able to communicate directly with the company. Because when we were working with the manufacturer in China, you very infrequently work with the company. You work with somebody in the middle who works with someone at the company who that... So like it's cut out one person, right? Right. So like I work with like a production manager at this printing firm.

Myke Hurley: And they... Also, being in Poland, they are able to... And they have been the whole time overnighting things to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's good.

Myke Hurley: This is never would have... I never would have been able to iterate the way that I did if I would have been working with somebody outside of Europe for the production of this. And astoundingly, I don't know how this is possible, but I'm very happy. They... The pricing came out pretty similar from one. So the book is more expensive to make because of the decisions that I've made, which I still not finished with. But it's similar as... If I would have made these decisions and made it in China, it would have been a similar price. I don't know how that's possible, but it is. Maybe it's because we're producing a larger scale now than we was before that it's helped that a little bit. But I don't know. So I had a selection of papers sent over to me based on the specifications. Like I told them what kind of thing I was looking for. And I did a bunch of testing. This was back in April. And selected the paper that I wanted, then had a prototype made, and I wasn't happy with it. Then I chose another paper, had another prototype made, and I wasn't happy with it. Then I chose another paper and had another prototype made, and I wasn't happy. I think I did this about four times. And the printer was astounded by this. They couldn't understand it. Because like... Also as well, in the prototyping, I was changing other things, right? So like I think on one or two of them, they made some slight errors, or I wanted to change the darkness of the printing. So I think for the first two prototypes, there were other things. But once we locked in the design, they were like, why do you need another prototype if you've decided on the paper? And I would just say to them, because I don't know how it feels. Like I need it, because I would... You know, I have been using some version of the second edition of the theme system since April. So since the first production, I've been using the samples, the production samples, the prototypes, as my journal. Right. So I could actually get a feel for what was going on. And it took a long time of going through the prototyping process. And then I also ended up coming across a discovery, which was... It made a lot of sense to me after a long time of trying to work out an anomaly. So like every prototype felt different to write on than the paper samples. And it was driving me mad. And I was talking with the supplier, and they couldn't work out why. And then I worked on a theory and presented the theory and ended up being correct, which is the production samples are made on different machinery to the final product. So I ended up being able to... It was mad, really. Like, basically, I wasn't comfortable printing them unless I knew the paper was good, right? Right. So we ended up doing this almost like triangulation. So I chose the paper that I wanted, which was Munkin Links 100 GSM, which, funnily enough, was the first paper I wanted and then went through four different papers and came back to that one. Happens. Because that, for me, especially at that gram edge, gave me a smooth experience that I wanted, but with some bite. Like, I wanted you to feel like you were writing on paper, not writing on glass or a banana skin. And it had very good compared to some of the other stuff that I was looking at. The bleed through, I was pretty happy with the bleed through. Nothing's perfect, but it does a more good enough job for my tastes. And it worked well with any nib that I threw at it. You know, I did most of my testing, obviously, with fountain pens, but I tested with everything. But to test with a rollerball or a gel pen, your testing is complete very quickly. Yeah. There isn't really a lot of variation. Right. But I was testing with lots of different inks, lots of different nib sizes as well. Because also as well, for me, and my kind of like reputation, if you would call it that, I needed to make sure that this worked good with fountain pens. Like, that was my number one thing. Plus, I also wanted a book that I enjoyed to use. Like, that was almost kind of like consideration number one is that I wanted to be able to use the book and it feel good for me and it did. Right. So like, because if I, because I felt like I could only be happy with the product if I was happy to use it every day. And so, through this triangulation process of taking the paper samples, the production notebook, and then another notebook that they have made in the past using this paper, I was able to be like, okay, with all of these data points, I feel that this paper will produce the feel that I want. Because basically, in the production sample made of the same paper, it was really scratchy feeling.

Myke Hurley: Interesting. So, something in the, and we ended up working this out together because like, Because it's not that at all

Brad Dowdy: in the final product.

Paper Quality Issues

Myke Hurley: No. Unsurprisingly to me, the printing company had never been asked these questions before.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's, it kind of blows your mind if you think about it enough, but we've had the, we've had identical experiences Yeah. with walking into a printer or working with a printer and having to answer the types of questions that you and I would have for a product. They've never been asked these things before. It blows their mind.

Myke Hurley: Because people typically don't care about fountain, like this was only an issue for fountain pens. It was not an issue for any other pen. And we ended up working out together with the printer and all our testing and they were going backwards and forwards with people on their teams. There is a chemical reaction that occurs with the machines that they use to do this type of printing that changes the composition of the paper when it's completed. That makes it rougher feeling. So basically, I ended up like crossed all my fingers and said, okay, make them. Right. Full well knowing that I would still say this isn't right. Like if I would have gotten them and they weren't right, we would have had to have gone right back to the drawing board again. But I was confident and they came out and it came out great. Munk and Links 100 GSM is the paper. We have 140 GSM end sheets. thread sewn binding. The binding allows for the book to be opened at any point. This is really important to me. And then the other kind of addition to the notebook is people were always asking for a bookmark so they could find their place really easily. and I kind of ended up finding out that adding threaded bookmarks to a notebook in this format, I would have to make changes that I didn't really like. And so I ended up looking into some other options and came up with a system. This isn't original. I've seen it in other places, right? But I haven't seen it done in a product like ours where the corners are perforated so you tear off the corner every day when you, or every day, every day, two days because it's like obviously double-sided paper, right? But you tear off the page when you're done with it. It makes it really easy to find your way back to it. And what I also like is when you look at the closed page edge as you're going through the year, it's like a progress bar because you can see physically by looking at the notebook how far you are through it. And I really like that. You know, especially as I was using this thing for like two, three months, I took a big chunk out of the notebook from like the original prototype and yeah, it might be my favorite addition to the book. So yeah, that's that. One last thing I just thought would be fun to mention. The produced amount of books weighed 1.5 tons. Yeah. Which was getting that on the shipping invoice was absolutely mad to me that it was that much. Three pallets, 1.5 tons. That was our original order. It's amazing. So that's the changes.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Well, I've definitely noticed and gone through some of the notebook and done some testing and have some commentary. Do you want that now or do you want to slow roll that and talk about one of our good friends? I think we should

Myke Hurley: probably take a break because I've been talking for a really long time.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, I'm going to make you talk more about our good friends at Pen Show.

Myke Hurley: I'm pleased to have this. Honestly, I'm so happy that we do this show because everything I've just said there, I would never say any of that on Cortex because it's so boring to a general audience but I know that our audience care about these little details. It was like I had wondered if I would put in a specs page. I'd always thought about doing that like a field notes style specs page. I ended up not doing it this time but I might do it for the next print. Like I was weighing it up like do people actually care about it? Is it worth printing on there? And I ended up not doing it in case like I needed to make some late changes, right? So I didn't want to print something that ended up being wrong but maybe when we do our next reprint I'll do it. But like honestly I think the thing that's worth stating is what we call it's like first edition second edition this is this my plan is this is it now like nothing else should change like the idea was always from first to second I would learn enough to make the product permanent and that's the goal now and I believe I've gotten there.

Brad Dowdy: So that's my big question so hold that thought. Okay. And we'll wrap that we'll wrap this segment on a question I have that relates to exactly what you're saying.

Myke Hurley: All right so you want me to take a break now?

Brad Dowdy: Let's take a break.

Myke Hurley: Okay this episode is brought to you by Pen Chalet. They sell authentic amazing roller balls fountain pens ballpoints mechanical pencils and so much more. They have all of their favorite brands from Pelican to Lamy to Pilot to Sailor to Goveco and many many more and they're an authorized dealer of all of them. They believe in fast and reliable customer service and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. As well as all the brands that I mentioned earlier, Pen Chalet sells limited edition pens and all the accessories you're ever going to need. Pen Chalet are adding new products to the site every single month and they're also doing discounts and specials all the time. They sell internationally with great shipping rates and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States. If you go to penchalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website and to the password penaddict you'll get your hands on some special offers and the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. At the moment Pen Chalet are doing a 12 deals of Christmas campaign with a new deal every single day. You can see them just by clicking on the banner at the website. It just says 12 deals of Christmas. You can go and check that out. Also Ron has set up several great deals just for the penaddict listeners as well. That's 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 offers. What is of interest to you Brad?

Product Sponsorship Mention

Brad Dowdy: He's got a couple of interesting things. He's leading off with the Monteverde Sequoia the Monteverde Giant Sequoia I want to get that right because it really is a big pen as by the name. If you have someone that is looking for this really large fountain pen pen that needs that type of size this is legit. The Sequoia is a really big pen. We've reviewed it on the blog before. It's passed through my hands. It's kind of funny how large it is in relation to say like a Sailor Pro Gear Slim which I find to be like a kind of a normal size pen. It's really big and it's a really good price. It's like more than 50% off right now. Then you scroll down as you always do. There is a really kind of funny gift pen on here which if you want to buy a gadget for someone and you don't know what to buy them and they're one of those people that lose their pens, they have the cross tracker ballpoint which I've also reviewed on the blog.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I remember this.

Brad Dowdy: It's a shockingly good pen.

Myke Hurley: It's a

Brad Dowdy: fun gift for someone and it's a good product. Yeah, and I was really impressed with the pen. Obviously, I don't need the technology. I would just be chasing it around my house all day, right? But it's kind of fun to have as a gift for someone who is into this kind of stuff and likes the gadget sides of things. It worked pretty well with the tracker app. That's a widespread piece of hardware and software and crosses integrated into these pens and it's kind of pretty good. I was shocked at how good that was. And if you scroll down, he snuck in a Pelican M101N gray blue that I'm going to have trouble sleeping at night. That's one of my favorite pen sizes. It's a small pocketable size Pelican. I think when it's capped, it's smaller than the 200 series pens. It's a piston filler. It's got a slightly

Myke Hurley: different design to the usual Pelican design.

Brad Dowdy: The 101N is my favorite design. The clip

Myke Hurley: starts further down the cap.

Brad Dowdy: It's a very old school traditional design. This is their 1930s, 1940s, heyday type of pen. I love it. I don't have this color. That's a really good price on that pen. Just check those out. There's a million other things on this page. I hadn't even gotten all the way to the bottom yet. Go check them out. There's still time to get your holiday gifts in.

Myke Hurley: Go to penchalet.com to find out more. Thanks to Penchalet for their continued support of this show and Relay FM.

Brad Dowdy: I started using my theme system version 2 just this week. I used the last theme system. I really enjoyed it. We're going to talk about that overall. I want to tell you before I get into my review of the product, I want to tell you a couple of little things that made me smile or that I felt were new and different. Things that I noticed that maybe not everyone noticed. Number one, there's probably a technical term for this and I don't know it in the printing industry, but you now have a brain logo page in the beginning of the book where the last book didn't have. I noticed that. There's a logo page. I was like, oh cool, there's a logo page. I don't remember that from the last book and I went and got the last book. There's a

Myke Hurley: funny story behind this. In one of the original prototypes, they printed it in error.

Myke Hurley: They took the artwork. You'll see it's the same on the back. Right? We have one on the back. They took the artwork for the cover and printed it inside as well. I really liked it so I kept it.

Brad Dowdy: That's funny. I noticed it. That logo works for that. It's the right size, shape, design, and feature.

Brad Dowdy: The second thing I noticed as I went to start filling out my first day of this, I was like, oh, the page numbers are pre-printed.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So that was a change. That was

Myke Hurley: something we were asked for a lot and we didn't do it the first time because page numbering complicates production in many ways. But I believed in it, so we did it and we got it

Brad Dowdy: to work. So that made me smile. And the third thing, which I knew was coming and you called it out technically, is that you reworked the habit tracker pages not only in scale of what's on the page, but is then scaled to match the number of pages. A number of days that you have theme system days now match the number of habits you have on the page, which is now balanced with the notes pages, which I thought that efficiency of balance between all of those sections was needed for version 2 and you did do that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is an interesting one to me. So we have the journal pages and then we have what we call daily theme pages. And this is either, you could be habit tracking, it could be some kind of to-do list of things you want to achieve every day. I have like a selection of areas that I feel like if I move the needle in some of these every single day, I have made, you know, I've had the kind of day I want to have and the kind of person I want to be. Now, in the original one, we made them quite, the boxes were like the rows, the columns and the circles were quite large. That was an easy one for me to shrink those down a bit and add more rows and columns. But in the original book, I just decided, like I thought, well, you can always have more, right? So I just filled up the tail end of the book of as many of these double page spreads as I could because my thinking was like, I have extra pages, I may as well just put these in because I don't know how people are going to use them, right? So I was kind of like, well, I'll just put more in because if people want to use this as a to-do list or whatever, you have them. And then people were like, oh, there's too many days, it doesn't match the 90 days. And I was like, okay, this was not a, I didn't foresee this as something that will bother people. And I thought that it was kind of like, well, you just have extras if you want them. But it bothered people and I got that feedback enough and I understand the feedback, it's just that I went a different direction. So I ended up doing two things because there was another complaint that we got that there was like, I think it was, I don't remember the exact amount that I felt on a page, I think it was like 12 and it was just like the physical size of it. we now have 15 columns per double page spread and I chose 15 because that meant we could split the 90 days equally to six pages, but it also meant you could track two weeks. I mean, you have one extra, but you track two weeks. Or if you track like I do, which is every work day, you can get three weeks and then also every double page spread is one quarter of a quarter. quarter. So it just felt like that was the logical amount for me to go on rather than doing like, like five, four, six fourteens and then one extra of like four.

Brad Dowdy: So, right. So everything about that decision is better. And then that gives you how many note pages in the back, like maybe 10 or so. Do you know what,

Myke Hurley: Fred? I actually don't know because it's a small amount. It doesn't matter to me at the top of my head. Like they're purely there. So the pages aren't blank.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. And like I will never use those pages, but they're correct in being there is the way I see it. It was super useful

Myke Hurley: for me when it was coming to testing the paper. Sure. Sure. Because it meant I didn't have to scribble over the pages I would use. So like as a testing thing, it's great. And I guess for other people, like if you want to try out a pen or whatever, or you're trying to get ink to flow, there are a bunch of just like blank pages in the book that you can throw that stuff in. And I kept the index page, which is a thing I literally never use. I've never used the index page, but it felt like an easy thing to keep in there in case people do. And now that we number the pages, I actually thought it would be more useful than ever to do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the notes pages, like it's not 30 pages, like which you don't need that. Right. It's the right amount of setup and stuff. I very much like that. One thing I learned about myself using version one is that I pushed back against the habit tracker just personally, and I actually get a lot of benefit out of the habit tracker. So that's just something I discovered about myself in using the product the first time. And so I will enjoy continuing to use it the second time. I'm already starting to fill it out with my colored pencils. pencils. I keep a box of colored pencils and use a different color every day for my for my habit tracking, which

Myke Hurley: one of the one of the big one of the things that we changed over time. Again, this was like often me using it was originally I used to score myself in that box. I used to write a number. And then I kind of decided that that scoring was was madness. So like I was giving myself a score out of five for each of those for each of the things that I wanted to track. And then I thought, well, why don't I just start coloring it? And then it's like it's more just like it's either 0.5 or one at that point. Right. Correct. You have a color at halfway. I've done a little bit or color in full. And so then we ended up. So what we've done is we've printed it with like a faint line in the middle. So it's just really easy to see where you color in half if that's the thing that you want to do.

Layout and Design Changes

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So that's how I was doing it before. And then this just makes it makes it easier. The perfs worried me in the corners. In theory, they're good. In practice, they don't always work. These work. They rip immediately out and they're clean. Yeah. So this was the flaw. That's the fatal flaw with the perf, right? Like that's a that's a monstrous risk. And if they don't work, it's just going to make people mad. And these actually work. And so they were very particular about that.

Myke Hurley: Three decisions for the three key decisions made here. One, I had to adapt the layout of the page so that you didn't tear off any of the box. Right. Right. Yep. Not really a big deal was a big deal to me. Two, it had to be circular because the corner circular. So I felt like it had to be circular in the other direction. I can't tell you why that was important to me, but it was important to me. Like again, like also the rounded edges on the book.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Not common apparently. Didn't know that. That's crazy to me. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's wild to me.

Myke Hurley: Was difficult and more expensive to do. Oh, I am. Just rounding the edges. So that was weird. Absolutely. So also what was super key to me was that you could pull the perforation without needing to do no preparation. Yes. No folding first. I tested it both ways. Right. Yeah. Like no, you don't have to be careful about it. You just pull it comes right off. And I, and it's very satisfying. I really love pulling them like every, you do it every two days, right? Because yeah, say when you turn up, but like, I just find that so satisfying and it works.

Brad Dowdy: And I still have my, my habit perf page. My first habit perf page is as well.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Also what I like is those, those, the perforations they end up meeting at the end, which is cute to me. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So good job on the execution there because that's, that's a mega dice roll. Like that's a tough one to, to get right. And right now, like I, it just, it just works. Um, I guess last thing to talk about is paper. Um, it's, it's really good. Like I don't know how to compare it to the previous. I'm looking at, so I've tested, I haven't tested too much with fountain pens just because I don't like writing fountain pens right now. And, but I picked out my, my widest, wettest nib to write in and I see much less like ghosting on the previous pages that I do with this one. So it works out better. There's still a little bit, but like when you're using like a, I purposefully use like a heavy inky pen and it just kind of barely, you can see it a little bit. So I found a paper

Myke Hurley: weight that would allow it, that would basically stop it, but it was 140 GSM. Um, and we're, we're approaching cardboard at that point. It was too much.

Brad Dowdy: You don't need that. And because it doesn't need to be a purely fountain pen product, right? That's not what this is supposed to be. So I've used pencil. The pencil feels great on it. Um, like you're saying you didn't want like a glossy type of page and you get good pencil, uh, feedback, uh, good tactical tactileness on the pencils. I'm using lots of pencils right now. I've used markers to write in my, my habit pages. Markers work great. Um, like I've been using Copics and things like that. It works great. So just overall, just general paper quality. Like I'm super happy with, uh, with how I'm using it. And, um, I don't know. I just think overall, it's a clear improvement. Like you can tell the differences, um, immediately. At least I can. Um, the paper's a little, uh, want to comment on the paper. The paper's a little brighter too, right? It was a little yellow in the previous version. This is a brighter page to me, at least. It is.

Myke Hurley: It's whiter. Yeah, it's whiter. It's not a pure white, but it's still off white. Um, yeah. And that was just a case of like, I wasn't sure, uh, really if I had that much of a preference between white, off white, or cream. And it was just this paper that I wanted came in this color. And I felt like it was more important to get the qualities that I wanted than to try and match the color of the previous one.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So, I mean, I think that's my overall take. I'm very happy with it. I do not, the best compliment I can give is that I want to use it and I don't miss a single thing from the previous version that I think this version should have. Like, I'm not going, oh, I wish it felt this way, or oh, I wish it looked this way, or oh, I wish it had this feature. There's nothing there. This is better in every way, top to bottom, front to back. And I think you did a really good job with it. So, let's end it on my main question, which you were kind of alluding to before the break. And I just kind of rambled it into the document. I said, is this your, is your idea for this notebook being executed to match your vision for it, right? Is what's in your head for what this notebook is, does it match the physical product?

Myke Hurley: As much as one could, yeah. I mean, can you ever achieve perfection? Right. Right? Like, there are things that I want this product to do that are outside the laws of physics. Right. Right. Like, I just can't do them. It's like, I want zero bleed through. It's like, I can do that, but then, right, the thing is like two times the thickness, you know? And like, yeah, but this is, I believe I have hit this thing literally as close as I can make it to perfect. Like, I, there is nothing about this book that I would change. Like, I genuinely believe we have hit, like, the prime example of what this product will be. There is, I, like, these have not started arriving, they're shipping now, right? They will probably start arriving with people within the next day or two. You can go to cortexmerch.com, you can get one. I will say, like, we've solved, I'm very pleased with how many we've sold. We ordered more than we've ever ordered, and we've sold quite a large, quite a large double-digit percentage of them so far, which I'm really pleased about.

Myke Hurley: We are going to be promoting these on Gray's YouTube channel for the first time. We don't know what that's going to do to sales. Yeah, that could be good. If you do want one of these, I would recommend buying one now.

Myke Hurley: We will be able to restock these faster than we used to be able to, for sure. So if we do go out of stock, it's not going to be three months until we can restock them again, because they don't take so long to ship anymore.

Myke Hurley: But, yeah, unless, like, people tell, unless I get, like, huge feedback about something like I did about the habit tracking pages, the daily themes pages, of, like, a thing that I've not foreseen, I don't imagine us changing this design now. Like, I feel like it's locked. Like, I don't see there being any need to change it. There might be, as I said, some things I might want to add for fun in a later print. But I don't think that it requires any adjustment now. There's, like, other little things that we've done as well, by the way. Like, we used to brand every daily page. That's gone. Like, the journal pages, there used to be a theme system logo on them. That's gone. And I've extended, there's, like, a long box along the top now, next to the date. I did see that. So I write what pens I use in there. And that was, again, born out of use. Like, I was writing what pens I used at the top of every page. So then was like, well, let's put a box in instead so I don't have to keep doing that. So it's little things like that. I'm so proud of this, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, you should be. You did really good. So the funny thing, and we can wrap it on this, is we just did this whole segment talking about it. I think we could continue to talk about it more. And we didn't even talk about why the book exists in the first place. That's why you have an entirely different podcast for that. Yeah. Right? Like, we didn't even get to that or talk about that. And that's like, you know, how much we, you know, Myke and I are into like the making things and like, what are the products about and how should a product be built? And then you can go listen to Myke and Gray talk about like, well, why does this product need to exist in the first place? You can get all that on

Myke Hurley: Cortex. Yeah. It's like, I would never have this. Yeah. We've spoken about elements of this on Cortex. Sure. But like, going into the GSM of paper is just like, it's just not a point.

Brad Dowdy: Well, and I've talked about how I've set my book up on the show before, but like, we don't need to, we don't need to do that today.

Myke Hurley: I do. I would like to hear that from you though, maybe. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: We can do that as we can do that at the beginning of the year. Like we'll talk about my theme. Let's do what, once we get into the new year, we'll do my theme. So like my theme has changed. And so that on that note, I implore everybody. If you're interested in this and you buy this, start it today. Don't wait till January 1st. The first date in my notebook is 1214. So like you just started today. Don't wait.

Myke Hurley: As soon, as soon as I'd settled on my theme for the year, I just started the new

Brad Dowdy: book. Just go guys. I'm just, I'm telling you there's no wait until January 1st. Just put down today's date and go. All right. All right. Theme system it is, Myke. We have a follow-up topic that I went a little overboard on.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Because apparently, like we kind of giggled last week, even though we knew it was a thing when the Maddow fans Twitter account has dropped some ass TPA for us concerning, you know, which pencil a certain television host should continue to use. And Maddow fans, the Twitter account has actually like has been a pen addict follower for a while and has asked questions before. And, you know, it's, it's cool. You know, there's lots of fan accounts out there for everything. And so Rachel Maddow, the, you know, has a, has a, has a fan account. Well, as I was goofing around on Twitter, I got forwarded a reply from Rachel Maddow to the Maddow, Maddow fans account about this pencil problem she's having. So apparently this is a whole thing with Rachel Maddow is her pencil and it being discontinued, which is why the question kind of came up generically last week, but I didn't spend the time to do the full research on it. So the pencil she used is something called the Statler Riptide.

Myke Hurley: Terrible.

Brad Dowdy: This might be the worst pencil I've ever seen in my entire life. I cannot believe what I am seeing with what, does she really use this pencil on air? Apparently she does. It is horrific. Rachel, I am so sorry. Whoever got you into this pencil and made you fall in love with it. They have not done you any favors whatsoever.

Myke Hurley: They did you a disservice. Oh my God.

Brad Dowdy: This is, but okay. So Rachel Maddow's.

Myke Hurley: It has traction though, Brad. So, you know. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So Rachel Maddow's tweet says, true, Statler's making Riptides hard to find. So I'm trying a new thing. 0.5 millimeter, not 0.7 for one thing. Nuts. I know. So she's, she's bemoaning the fact that her beloved Riptides are no longer being made. And I am like, oh my God. I, I, I, I cannot stand for this. Myke, I cannot stand for what she's putting herself through trying to find more of this absolutely. Yes. Pencil. I feel so bad saying that, but oh my God. So I thought about it and I was like, now that I have more details. So like I answered a very specific high end kind of drafting pencil, platinum pro use last week, not knowing the full details of the pencil she was using previously. So in an effort to fully research this and maybe find a better pencil for Rachel Maddow to use on the air to replace this awful thing that she's using. Um, I came up with a few answers, Myke. So the first one, I think she might like the best and it's the Rotring Tiki because it too is an ugly mechanical pencil that features red, black, and blue barrels. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: If like, maybe there's something about her style choices. No, this is no judgment that like, she just likes this garish style. So then go for something else.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Um, but this is a much better pencil in every way, shape, and form. Now the grip is not as rubberized as on, on whatever that, the riptide, I'm going to call it the shark pencil for some reason. Um, the riptide, but it's, it's a more plastic feeling grip. You know, it's may not be as grippy, but style wise, I think this would be a really good option if you're going for style. Now, if Rachel were willing to branch out a little bit, something like the Tombow Monograph Shaker would be good because it too has some wild colors. Like there's blue barrels, there's clear barrels, there's orange barrels, but this is a sturdy, heavy duty, can take a beading type pen pencil, which I think is maybe one of the features of the riptide as well. Like the riptide is not an expensive pencil. It's like a $3 pencil. So I'm not trying to pick out like $20 and $30 mechanical pencils here. Um, the Mono, the Rotring Tiki is like $5, the Tombow Mono $6, right? So these are not expensive pencils and it comes in just crazy colors. It comes in various, uh, graphite sizes, mostly 0.5, which it says that's what, that's what she's using anyway. And it's just a very, very high quality. So, um, that's a good choice. I think the best choice, but it's probably like the least comparable would be the Uni, uh, Uni Alpha Kurutoga. And not because it's a Kurutoga, you know, necessarily because of the lead mechanism, but because of the grippiness of the grip section, right? The Alpha Gel grips are the big soft squishy grips. Kurutoga is great though. Like Kurutoga is great on its own, but I would choose this one because of the grip more so than the mechanics of the pencil. Although I could see the Kurutoga being like something useful if you're using things live and don't have to worry about, you know, rotating the pencil, you pick it up, you know, it's always going to be giving you a good line because it's, it's, it's rotated. Um, and it's not as loud color wise, but it's cool looking and it's the most expensive one of the ones that I picked out. It's $11. But if you need that really soft, comfortable grip, you know, that is kind of a way to go. And then the last one, if you just want to go straight up like office supply cabinet type, like Riptide, um, is there the, the Pentel Quick Clicks are kind of like a good basic office style pencil. They're mostly clear barrels with color grip sections, you know, red, blues, greens, limes, purples, everything's like that. And they're like the $2. This is like, this is what you would stock in the office cabinet, which is kind of what the Riptide represents to me. So maybe the, the Pentel Quick Click would be a good option. It's, it wouldn't be my favorite choice, but if you're going for bulk, you know, for $2 a pencil, like this is probably kind of your, your best choice there. But, oh my gosh, I felt so bad when I saw that pencil, how much she loves it. Riptide. Riptide. Yeah, Riptide. And, uh, holy cow, and it's terrible looking. I'm, it's going away for good reason. You know, it's going to be one of

Myke Hurley: those things, like, someone gave it to her once, and then she just grew to love it, right? Yeah. Which is, I think we've all been in

Brad Dowdy: these kinds of situations.

Myke Hurley: We all have those things. In these kinds of situations. Yeah. But now it's like,

Brad Dowdy: man, that's just it. Life has moved on, right? Yeah. It needs to go. So, I will send, uh, the link to, to the Maddo fans account, uh, that we followed up a little bit more thoroughly from our first question once I saw the, the level of catastrophe that is currently taking place. So, there you go. Uh, it felt like I needed to spend some time on that.

Myke Hurley: All right. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. You can make your next move with Squarespace because they will let you easily create a website for your next idea or project. They will give you everything that you need because Squarespace is an all-in-one platform to help you take care of the work that you want to produce. You can very quickly register a unique domain name to give your website the brand that it requires. You can customize and take advantage of beautiful, stunning, award-winning templates that look fantastic but also allow you to go in and tweak to your heart's content. But you don't need to know any code to do this. It's all drag and drop. It's all on the website. It's all in their apps. It's fantastic. No matter what type of website you want to make, whether it's an online store, a portfolio, or a blog, or even a website for your journaling system. So I mentioned earlier the themesystem.com. I made that on Squarespace because when I want to produce something online, I don't want to go through all the hurdles of trying to build a website from scratch. I just want to go to Squarespace, get my ideas out there, and show it to the world. Super great. You can try it out today for yourself by going to squarespace.com slash penaddict. Their plans start at just $12 a month. But when you decide to sign up, 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. Once again, that is squarespace.com slash penaddict and the code penaddict for 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM, Squarespace. Make your next move. Make your next website.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's hit some Ask TPA this week. We got some good questions. You know what I just thought about,

Christmas Break Announcement

Myke Hurley: Brad? I just thought we should mention it. There's no show next week. We're taking a week off for Christmas.

Brad Dowdy: The timing is so weird this year.

Myke Hurley: It's wild to think that Christmas is next Friday, but it is. I've not even finished my Christmas shopping yet. I finished yesterday. So we'll be doing one more episode this year on the 30th, but there'll be no episode next week.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you. It does not feel right, but it is actually correct. So there you go.

Myke Hurley: This first question comes from Tyler. I've fallen in love with my Y Studio Brassing Portable Fountain Pen, but I haven't yet taken the plunge to scuffing it with the included sandpaper. How do you feel about weathering these brass products versus letting them patina naturally?

Brad Dowdy: I am so proud of what we've created at the Pen Addict that this is like the most perfect question for this show. Like this is the perfect question for what we've built here because I don't know how to answer this other than I think you will be unhappy if you take sandpaper to that pen ever.

Myke Hurley: Oh really? So this is not what I would have said.

Brad Dowdy: I think natural is the way to go. So I've done it both ways. So my Brassing Fountain Pen, I've let you know, just be natural, right? However it bangs around, hits around. And the whatever the black coating they use on these pens is really strong. Like it is not, it wears, but I have way more patina and wear in the grip section where I'm using it than where I'm like banging the barrel against it, right? Like there's some dings and things like that, but there's no real wear on the faceting, which is where the sandpaper comes in, which I did for the rollerball. So with the rollerball, I took the sandpaper around the grip section and just kind of, I said, I just told myself, well, I'm going to wear the area that I think would be the most worn anyway. And I'm just not happy with the result of it. It just doesn't feel like it came natural, which it obviously didn't. And therefore I'm less happy with the result. So if it were me, I would let it go natural, understanding that it's going to take a lot of beating to get anywhere near what that sandpaper is going to put on it because that coating is so thick.

Myke Hurley: See, I would say to do a bit of both, which is to scuff it a little bit and then let it naturally patina. That would be how I would do it. I would like take some of the shine, like take some of the edges where the facets are and then let the rest of it naturally patina over time through use.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'd be fine with that. I just wouldn't go, I wouldn't go strong arming the sandpaper on the barrel. I would just maybe take the edge off like Myke saying, but my vote would be to let it go natural.

Myke Hurley: All right. Lelani asks, is there an easy way to tell what brand a converter is if it's been taken out of the pen that it came with, or do you just have to learn by trial and error and which end fits in which pen?

Brad Dowdy: So another great question, because we all have this problem with international size converters. Now they should be universally compatible. If they're that international size connector, they should fit the other international size pens. Sometimes they don't because that's just, you know, the, the micro measurements that, you know, get varied in, in manufacturing. So most, I'm going to say larger companies, you know, your Schmitz, for example, will stamp the ring on the converter. So you can, you're able to know that, Hey, this is a Schmitz converter. It went with this pen. Most of them do not. So if it's going to be a big deal for you to keep the exact converter with the exact pen, you're going to have to mark them yourself when you get it. Um, and either with a sticker, like a little small sticker, you know that, okay, these ones with the pink dot on them fit in my Kawekos or whatever, you know what I'm saying? And, um, because there is no good way because there's so many generic converters. There's like the short international is, is meant to be a generic converter. So they don't come, you know, unless you're getting them like with your Faber-Castell, it might come with the Faber-Castell branding on it. And then you take that off and you can find that one again, but then there's 10 other ones that are just blank and they come like when you're buying, like if I'm buying an Edison pen or a Franklin Kristoff, those converters are just coming with the Yovo parts, right? They're not coming also with a converter brand of the pen brand that I bought from, if that makes sense. So yeah, there's no good way. Um, I think for me, I've kind of just

Myke Hurley: learned over time, you know, like with some of the more popular or my personal popular brands, right? Like I kind of, I know what a sailor converter looks like.

Brad Dowdy: Well, yeah, those are different. Those, because those are proprietary, I'm talking about universal converters in this case. So usually the only difference you see in universal converters is clarity or, um, you know, a material change on the, the, the knob. It might not be as, as, as many ridges, it might be smooth or the converter could be cloudy as opposed to clear, but they're without the branding on there. It's hard to tell, but like sailors, platinums, pilots, um, are all proprietary and you can, you can tell those apart real, real easy. And if you need help with that, I can definitely help you with that. Um, but I'm assuming this is, uh, the, the international styles, which, uh, are prone to get mixed and matched, but that should not matter. Like I keep all mine in a, in a pile, like in a, a little box, all my international converters are together. I'll just reach in and get one. And every once in a while, I'll get one that doesn't fit in the, in the coupling, but it's pretty much.

Myke Hurley: Length can be a thing, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Every now and then.

Myke Hurley: A bit of a factor.

Brad Dowdy: So if you do have a particular one, make sure you mark it. If you're not going to leave it in the pen after you clean it, I tend not to, not to leave mine in the pens. I tend to take them out of it so they can air dry a little bit better.

Myke Hurley: Are there any other companies other than Sater that use a proprietary format? Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Pilot and, uh, Platinum. Right. So all the Japanese brands, um, all the, the big three Japanese brands. Trying to think of any European brands.

Brad Dowdy: No, I think everything else is international or piston filler. I'm trying to think. Yeah. I think it's just the main. Oh yeah. Uh, like Schaefer. Lamy. Yeah. And Parker. Yeah. So that actually, there is more than that now that I'm thinking about it.

Brad Dowdy: Um, so yeah, all those are different Schaefer's different. Parker and Lamy. So yeah, you gotta, um, watch out for some of those. Keep them together if you want to be sure you're using the right one.

Myke Hurley: Uh, Jorvik Dave asks, any updates on your plans, Brad, to restart production on the fodder stack product. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I hope so. Um, had a call with the manufacturer yesterday, just to get an update on the Kickstarter, by the way. Um, we're going in production like the first or second week of January. I'd have to look at the date. So coming up soon. So those should only take a few weeks, um, after they start production. So once that gets rolled out, then we're open up to having the fodder stacks and the lookouts go into the queue, which those two items will be the first to roll out after the Kickstarter campaign cases. Those are going first. Uh, so like spring, maybe we can see some of that. So something like that.

Myke Hurley: Ben 304 asks, I love the line variation I can get with my stub and oblique nibs. And I've been curious about architect nibs and few day nibs for the opposite sort of effect. Are these similar in function and other specific reasons to choose one over the other?

Brad Dowdy: They are not. They are not at all.

Myke Hurley: And a few day nib. Now this is the one where it's kind of bent, right? That is a very specific type of pen that you cannot use every day.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like that's the way I was going to put it is if you have normal handwriting, normal grip, standard writing styles, where you're enjoying the stub and obliques that that's a good fit for your hand. You're now telling your hand, hey, we're going to do exactly the opposite. And you're going to enjoy it all the time. And you're just not like, it's good to have those nibs to play with and to write some things with. I think in general, my advice for people looking for architect or food aid nibs is to not put them on the pen you want to use all the time. The 24 seven, three 65 pen. Those are your special usage pens that you can, you know, pick up and write a letter, you know, for 20 or 30 minutes with your architect nib or journal with your food aid nib. But like if you're going to have like a work pen or something like that, I would never get an architect or food aid nib just because you have, there's a little more overhead in using those types of pens compared to your, your more standard nibs. So as much as I love them, as much as I want to have them, as much as I want to use them, they are not in my workhorse pens. So if you think about it that way and you still have room to add an architect and a food aid nib into your collection, go for it. You're going to love them. Yeah. But to think that you're going to be able to use them all day, you'll be misleading yourself.

Myke Hurley: See, because the thing is that you've got to think about is like, I understand what you're saying, right? You've taken like two types of pen. They're very different from each other. But the next two types of pen, you are going to the very extreme opposites. There's like, there's stuff in the middle, right? Like that is more interesting. There's even things like, you know, maybe you've only used a 1.1 stub and the 1.5 stub would be more interesting to you. You've got music nibs that you could still go to. Zoom nibs that you could still go to. Yeah, I'd be looking at a Zoom nib. Yeah. Zoom is definitely still usable daily. Music starts to get on the edges and a few days, like you're off now. Like you're basically painting. It's like, it's like a totally different experience. So it's, it's, I would say, Ben, explore things like, explore a Zoom nib next. That would be my recommendation. I adore Zoom nibs. They're fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I adore architect nibs. I just can't use it all day. No. It's too specific. It's special use. Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: All right. If you want to send in a question for the show, you can send out a tweet with the hashtag AskTPA or use the command question mark AskTPA in the RelayFM members discord. You can send them in if they're longer form to hello at penaddict.com. If you want to find Brad online, you can go to penaddict.com, not.co. You can go to spokedesign.com. Did I get all of them?

Brad Dowdy: I think so. And twitch.tv. We're back. Oh, I hadn't gotten there yet. We streamed yesterday.

Myke Hurley: Twitch.tv slash penaddict. 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Eastern time. Myke.live. Myke.live. I'm going to be streaming again on Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern. Not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, but I have some little projects. I'm not building anything, but I have some little projects that I want to take care of. And I have Brad today just fired up a custom alert, which I like because when people subscribe, I've been working with my wonderful designer, David, on some custom alerts for Twitch. Yeah. And they're looking real cool. We've just got the subscribe one first because it's quite complicated to get them to work properly. Yeah. So we're just starting with one and then if they work, we're going to go across the rest of them. But I am having a very, very, very fun time kind of like learning how all this stuff works. It's there's a lot going on. It's complicated. It's like a whole different world and it's very complicated. And like there's so many things to learn because it's quite interesting that Twitch is its own little ecosystem. And as monetization has expanded through the platform, all these little things have popped up and you can see that they've been building on stuff over time, but never got rid of any of the old stuff. So there's just so many little things to think about, but it's kind of fascinating to learn.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. It's very cool.

Myke Hurley: Thank you to Squarespace and Pen Chalet for the support of the show. And thank you for listening. If you're celebrating, have a very Merry Christmas. Have a very happy holidays. Yeah. Happy holidays. Until next time. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.