The Pen Addict 274/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	274
Title:	Treasures of the Earth
Release Date:	September 14th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 274
Audio File:	Audio Episode 274
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 274
Length:	6262 min <br />1.033 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 274. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, Blue Apron, and Harry's. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. How are you?

Myke Hurley: I'm good, Brad Dowdy. How are you?

Brad Dowdy: I'm good. I'm glad to be able to talk to you this week. It was a close call with Hurricane Irma hitting the south. I know a lot of people in Florida had it really bad, so our thoughts are out to them. A lot of people here in Georgia, where I'm at, had it bad, and we didn't have power for, I don't know, 36 hours or so. It was super annoying, but overall, we were pretty unscathed. Thank you for pushing this show back to allow us to get back into shape to record. Thank you.

Myke Hurley: I'll do anything for you. You know that.

Brad Dowdy: Sweet. I appreciate that.

Myke Hurley: I'm sorry that you had some issues. I'm sorry that other people obviously have had bigger issues.

Brad Dowdy: We were lucky. It could have been a lot worse, so we will take what we can get. Yep. And certainly no complaints here.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, loss of power and internet for a few days is fine, right?

iOS 11 Features

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We will deal with that. So, in a hard transition. It's like an almost whiplash-like, but yeah. Yeah. I want to talk about one, maybe the most frivolous thing compared to a hurricane, is the Apple event. And the reason why I want to talk about it is because I didn't watch any of it. That's not really my thing. You know, I love my Apple products and my phone and my laptop and everything, but I don't get into the keynote launch-y type stuff like you do and a lot of our friends do. But my question came up after it was all done, was anything announced that analog lovers would appreciate, say, about new iOS or the new phones or anything like that?

Myke Hurley: Well, there wasn't anything announced yesterday that I think really has an impact in any way. But there are some features in iOS 11, which comes out next week, which I did just want to mention because there are quite a few Apple Pencil improvements. So, one of them, there's no new hardware, by the way. Like, that's just a thing. No new Apple Pencil stuff. Gotcha. But it's better pencil functionality in many places throughout the system. So, in the Notes app now, you can now draw on a note in line. You don't have to enter a drawing mode and, like, add the drawing in. You can just draw in the note as soon as you put the pencil on the screen. You can also, if you tap an Apple Pencil on the lock screen, so, like, if you wake your device and tap a pencil on it, it opens a new note or the previously used note without you needing to enter a password or anything. So, it becomes really easy to start taking notes with the device. You don't have to even unlock it. You can just start drawing. There's also a system-wide markup feature. So, a lot more apps are implementing the markup toolkit. But even better than that is with screenshots now, you take a screenshot and you can immediately go into an editing mode. So, you take a screenshot, especially on iPad, and it just, the screenshot kind of shrinks down to the bottom left of the screen. It doesn't save it in your camera roll. And you can open it and you can draw on it and you can mark it up and you can send it off and then you can just delete the screenshot all in the same view, which is really awesome. The screenshot feature is awesome. And Apple Pencil is making all of that stuff better.

Brad Dowdy: You know, I was learning. Yeah. So, that's actually something I will use. It's something I do use now. So, the markup toolkit is a big thing for me.

Myke Hurley: Then you're going to love it because it's going to be in a lot of other places. But the best thing is that you can just take a screenshot of anything and use it.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Cool. Very cool. So, you're going to be a fan of it. Yes. So, like, I was totally out of that loop with the week I've had. So, yeah, I wanted to catch and see if there was anything like that coming down the pipe that I should be looking forward to. So, I appreciate that. And I appreciate all of our listeners letting me do that because I was curious.

Myke Hurley: This week, like, this week, iPhone week, is the week where every show I do, no matter what it is, it sneaks in. Every single show. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. All of them. Exactly. Exactly. There's always something that we can cross-pollinate and something I'm curious about and things like that. Something our listeners are curious about and especially our Kickstarter backers are curious about is the Field Notes event we're having coming up on October the 13th. In October. Uh-huh. Yeah. I noticed this morning we're on the Field Notes calendar, Myke. They sent out a tweet this morning, upcoming events. So, we threw that in the show notes if you want to see that. So, here's what we're going to do. The recording is going to be at 12 o'clock noon on Friday, October 13th. And we are limiting it. Well, we're not limiting it. The space is limiting it to 25 people. That means there's a lot of us already headcounted into that. Yep. So, we're going to open up 15 spots for Kickstarter backers. And I'm going to email a note to Kickstarter backers today who are going to be in Chicago or live in Chicago or can get there for noon on Friday for the live recording. Mm-hmm. And if we have more than 15 people that can guarantee me they're going to be there, we'll have to do a lottery. And I'll randomly select the people that can come to the live recording. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: And this is a thing that you will have to have a ticket for. We need to be really strict about this because of limitations on the space that we're going to be recording in. And so, there will be tickets assigned and or proof of ticket required. Yeah. There will be a list. But this isn't the only thing that we're doing. So, we're recording the show. And then, you know, that will be done. But then at 4 o'clock, Field Notes are opening their doors because they're amazing. And we're doing an open house with them. So, like an open house slash meetup. And we'll be there. A bunch of RelayFM hosts are going to be there because loads of us are in town. For the Release Notes event, like conference. So, there's going to be a bunch of people. I think, I assume that it will be at least me and you, Federico Vatici, Stephen Hackett, and Jason Snell, I think. At least we'll be there. Nice. So, we'll all be hanging out and you can come along. But, yeah, that will be an open to anyone. Anyone can come by at 4 o'clock. But for the live show, there's going to be a very small audience that we're going to be able to have in there. We are going to attempt to be live streaming, of course. So, we're going to do our best to try and live stream the event. Will that be our show this week?

Brad Dowdy: That will be our show for that week, yes. Okay. And then the backers will get the video of the event. The backers will get a video, yeah. Okay. Cool. So, just quick recap. October the 13th at noon, we're recording the live podcast shooting the video for the Pen Addict backers from our Kickstarter campaign. We're going to have 15 tickets open. And I'm going to send out the information on how to apply for that this afternoon. Starting at 4 o'clock, and from 4 to 7, I think, was the time frame. It's wide open. Anyone who would like to come hang out with us at Field Notes, see Jim, Brian, check out the new Field Notes HQ, which I haven't seen. I just saw it under construction. So, I'm anxious to see it. Buy stuff. They're going to have food and drink there. I'm trying to work out something a little special. I'm not sure if I can pull it off, so I'm not ready to say it yet. But if I can pull that off, it's going to be pretty awesome. I hope to be able to do that. So, from 4 to 7 is the open house time. If you can't make it to the 12 o'clock event or didn't get a ticket assigned to you for the 12 o'clock event. So, we good? We good on that?

Myke Hurley: I think so. So, yeah, if you're a Kickstarter backer, keep an eye on your email inbox because there's going to be an update going out which has more information about how you can come by.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. All right. Cool. Well, I'm excited. It's one of those things that we knew it was coming down the line, then all of a sudden it's close, and now we're all panicking. So, yeah. It's good. It's good. So, this probably should have gone next to the Apple event, but I wanted to talk about Moleskine's new planner technology that they've released, I guess, about a week ago. And we missed talking about it last week. But I saw it this past weekend. And, again, it's just one of those things that seems really good for, like, the two people that will use it. Right? It is hyper-specific use case, I think. So, it's essentially you get the Moleskine, you get their PIN, which is, you know, like the LiveScribe system, and then you get a proprietary planner that will sync with your Google Calendar. I think, in theory, that's pretty awesome. Like, I like to be able to write stuff down, and it ends up in my calendar. But this is so specific. Like, how could I justify, you know, another 200 bucks to write things in my calendar? Myke, am I missing something here?

Myke Hurley: These products, to me now, I see them as part product, part marketing, on Moleskine's part. I think what they are trying to do is position themselves as bridging the gap between technology and paper. Which, honestly, I think is the correct move for them as a company right now. Sure. Because they are furthering their attempt at becoming the default business notebook. And a way that they can do that is to bridge technology and paper. Because this is the dream, right? That, like, you can take notes and have the notes with you wherever you go. Like, it's great. And this is a cool piece of technology. Like, if it works, we haven't used it. The ability to be able to, whilst you're taking notes, write down things. Like, so you're taking notes in a meeting and, like, oh, we need to meet at this time. We need to go over another thing. And you can just write it down and it appears in your calendar. Like, that's kind of wonderful. I mean, this stuff isn't cheap, but it's getting cheaper. And also, if you're already in the system, right? Like, if you're already using these Moleskine smart stuff, you can just buy this new planner and it apparently will work with the existing stuff that you've got. Which we have played with and is really good. Do you remember? We played with it a year ago. I don't think it was... Yeah. ...device I've used related to this type of work. It was wonderful. Like, wonderfully good working piece of equipment. So, the fact that this stuff is getting better quite quick, they may as well just keep pushing down this line, even if they're just inching their way towards, like, honestly, like, just an incredible product. Right? I figured this is the right thing to do, even though I assume not many people are using it, but it's expensive enough that you're going to get a bunch of people that will buy it for the fun of it.

Brad Dowdy: You know? Yeah. So, when I found this article, I found a different article relating to Moleskine wanting to partner and incubate a group of technology companies that want to work on this analog plus digital pairing. So, it's clearly this is the path they're going down. Like, they're going to push this hard. They're looking for companies that can help them evolve these things. So, you know, maybe one day we will actually use these types of devices. But it's always... It's just so... You're just so locked in for, like, our audience. Right? We like all kinds of different things. We don't stick to one pen and one paper. So, it's hard to justify the cost to be completely tied into something like this. But I get it. Like, I certainly get it. And, you know, maybe that'll never be our audience, if you will. But maybe we'll get close. Maybe we'll be able to use other things. You know? The dream scenario is to be able to use any pen, any paper, anytime and have it transferred digitally somehow. Yeah. But that's never going to happen, is it? We're not done.

Myke Hurley: Right? Like, how could you use any pen and any paper? Like, there has to be something. Right? There has to be a thing. Even if it's, you know, you clip something to something or whatever.

Wacom Bamboo Slate

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, let's talk about the Wacom, Wacom, bamboo slate.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Wacom, bamboo slate. So, what if you had a slate, essentially, a tablet, but you don't write on the tablet. You place the paper on top of the tablet, and then your pen, like you said, is not a proprietary pen. It's an attachment to your existing pen, and then you can transfer. So, that's not what the bamboo slate pretends to be. But I'm testing one of these out, because they have a cool partnership now with Rodia. And Execlare, the U.S. distributor for Rodia, sent me one of these. Now that they're partnering with them, they're providing the pads to Wacom. What did you say? Wacom?

Myke Hurley: No, it's Wacom. You can say Wacom if you like, which I know is what Marco likes to say, but it's Wacom.

Brad Dowdy: Wacom. So, technically, the pen detail transfer to the digital device is killer. Like, it works exceptionally well, but there's 8,000 hangups.

Myke Hurley: So, you put the notebook on top of a piece of plastic, right? And then when you write on the notebook, it transfers digitally to an app.

Brad Dowdy: But it's all the pen. It doesn't have to be on the slate itself. So, why does the slate exist? It is your sync. It's part of the sync platform. I haven't totally gone through the details, because if you think about it, I'm writing on a Rodia pad that's 80 pages thick, and I'm writing on the top page that does not come through to the slate itself, because I'm writing on the topmost page.

Myke Hurley: It's super clunky, because it's like this huge piece of plastic, like a clipboard, but it doesn't actually add functionality. It just syncs it.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, it's the sync piece. So, yeah, I'll have plenty to say about this, because it's really not that great for what they're asking for it. I think it's $149. And while my output is super clean and neat, it's kind of pointless. But we'll go into that as I review it more. But I wanted to talk about this, because mentally, I can see a time where I actually have a slate, and I throw my Tomoe River paper on there, and I have my fine cursive italic fountain pen nib, and somehow what I write gets transferred digitally, and in color. That's another thing. These are just black and white, which is freaking annoying.

Myke Hurley: You see, the slate thing is like as clunky and awkward to me as needing to use a proprietary pen or paper. It is.

Brad Dowdy: It totally is.

Brad Dowdy: Because that's what you do. You're using the same pen technology with the same D1 refill.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, which is fine. But I just don't really have that wide acceptance use case that I can picture in my head. Yeah. And that's what I want. I want that widely accepted use case for all of these things. Because I see the value in the technology, but I don't see it as a widely accepted thing yet. No, because there's no elegant, truly elegant solution.

Brad Dowdy: And there's no fiddly solution for all of us, right? We want to be fiddly with this kind of stuff.

Myke Hurley: I consider the fiddliness elegance. Right. Yeah. Because it's like, I don't want there to... I want this thing to happen, but I don't want to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. Right. Like, that's the problem.

Pen Chalet

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Well, tell us about someone that is elegant, Myke.

Myke Hurley: I want to talk about Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet are helping to support this week's show. Pen Chalet have all of your favorite brands and all of the writing utensils that you're looking for. Whether you're looking for Pelican, Lamy, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, Kaweco, maybe looking for rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, carrying cases, pen holders, refills, fountain pen converters. Everything you want, Pen Chalet have got it. They do great prices and great shipping. They're always doing discounts and sales. They have very fast and reliable customer service, and they do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the US, with great rates internationally for shipping too. Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Got a killer offer this week. Go to penchalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password penaddict. You will then find the code that you need to save 10% on anything at Pen Chalet, no matter whatever you want to buy, whenever you want to buy it. Just by going to penchalet.com and hitting the link at the top, entering the password penaddict, you'll get a code to save 10% on anything. But as always, also there you will find a special offer. This is one of those offers where I can tell you what the product is, but I can't tell you the prices. Pen Chalet are discounting all Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks. Thanks. Brad, is the discount good?

Brad Dowdy: So this is where I say this is dumb. And by dumb, I mean amazing.

Myke Hurley: Like... How are they doing this kind of thing, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I use that phrase a lot when I see these deals that Ron comes up with. I mean, it's in the no-brainer category, right? I mean, the A5 hardcover memo book is kind of the standard Leuchtturm. And softcovers.

Myke Hurley: They have softcovers too, which I love.

Brad Dowdy: The softcovers are probably my favorite. Yeah. But the A5 hardcover is kind of the standard. I've never seen them. I've never seen them for that price. So... Actually... Yeah. Let me refine that. I've never seen them for close to that price.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So you've got to do it. You've just got to do it. If you like good paper, this is a deal that you need to get on. So penshalet.com. Hit the password link at the top. Enter Pen Addict and you will get access to these fantastic deals, which are exclusive for Pen Addict listeners. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for their continued support. Their excellent support of this show and RelayFM. They really are just such a great company to work with. And they do one of the most fun sponsored deals that we have, which is an ever-rotating deal of incredibly useful and practical things. It's kind of amazing. So thanks. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It really is. They do a great job. And before we continue, while my power was out, I started working on my top five pens update that I suddenly published this month. And I noticed Leutstrom wasn't in my top five paper brands. It was in the also-rands. So look for that to carry on off the charts, if you will. Because it has become a very, very fountain pen friendly paper and one I enjoy very much. So... All right. Last week, we talked about a Kickstarter project. Not the Slice Notebook. We're not going to talk about that one again. But we talked about the Rollgut. And I don't know if I'm still saying that right, but I know it's German. And you looked it up while we were talking and figured out the origination of the name. And it made really sense. Made a lot of sense, I should say. And we got an email from the creator. He heard us on the show. So Thomas is the creator of the Rollgut. And I want to read his email because it's short and sweet. He says, hey guys, heard your podcast before bedtime yesterday. And I like how you've reminded me on the name finding process. Here's an insight. We've struggled with the misleading name in the beginning, but finally thought, ah, come on. Our product is rollable and great. Gut means just great in German without stuff. So let's teach the world some positive German words. There's also the wisdom. I got it in my guts that felt good in the context of analog stuff. At least the domain Rollgut.com was short and free. Have fun. I have Thomas. Oh, that was awesome. This was really, really good. So I love hearing that. I love hearing from creators. And I really love this project. Again, I'm not putting my money behind it because I just think I don't think I would use it, but I love it. It's really cool. So if you're looking for a really interesting carry type item, definitely check out the Rollgut. And Thomas is clearly, clearly a good guy for reaching out to us. Good spool. When you see that type of person behind the project, you know you're in good hands. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, it will ever be Rollgut. It will always be Rollgut for me.

Brad Dowdy: It will always be Rollgut. Yeah. Yeah. But that's, yeah, I always feel bad because that's always unfair. Always unfair to these creators who really mean it. But I like it. He's just like- No, I think we were fair.

Myke Hurley: We gave them a good shake.

Brad Dowdy: No, we weren't. No, we did. We did. And he's, and I really like, he's like, oh, come on, let's just go with it. It's rollable and it's great. And that's what it means. So we're going with it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've been in many of those types of naming situations in my life.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I'm in one right now. So we're having a lot of fun with the seed notebooks and all kinds of ways you can imagine. And we knew that going into it, but we're like, you know, come on, let's be real about it. So yeah, I know. I feel you, Thomas. You're preaching to the choir here. So another good group of guys that I wanted to talk about are our friends, Ryan Krusak and Kerry Yeager, better known as Fountain Pen Day, Mr. Kerry and Ryan, the maker of wonderful fountain pens who I have become good friends with. And he's a Georgia, Georgia guy himself. So he's not too far away from me. One of these days I'll do a live in person at his studio. I was only a couple hours away from me. So I need to get up there. I have the, I have the open invitation. Haven't made it there yet. So Kerry let me in on a collaboration that they are doing for basically Sean Newton scholarship fund. And if you're not familiar with this, this is something that Sean has done with his Newton pens for as long as I've known Sean. And Sean sent me the details just on the scholarship itself. He says, we've given away $26,000 in the last five years to high school kids going to college, any kid, any school, any college, anywhere in the country. And we'll have a link. You can go learn about it. And in the past, they've done it by selling notebooks and postcards. Well, Kerry and Ryan got together to do a pen project. That's going to support Sean's foundation as well. And Sean's going to start an endowment. So all the money raised can go towards that. And the fund will, you know, kind of sustain itself and he won't have to do as much notebooks and postcard selling as he's done before to raise money. So what this pen is, is Sean, excuse me, Ryan has come out with a new pen model about, I think it's about a year ago. I think it was San Francisco last year called the Legend. And he makes it in two different sizes, the L14 and the L16. L14, I think it means 14 millimeter diameter barrel, 16 larger, 16 millimeter diameter barrel. And it's this great cigar wood shaped model, different types of wood. He makes the standard edition. This one's in what I think is probably the best. And it's, it's this ebony wood that Ryan has. And it's going to have like smashed turquoise fountain pen day logo into it. And I've got a picture of it. We'll put the picture in the show notes. And, and I'm sure y'all have seen it on my Instagram. If you're a pen addict member, I actually bought the first one of these in San Francisco. They haven't really officially launched this yet, but they allowed me to buy one. And I actually watched as I paid them for it.

Brad Dowdy: Ryan walked over to Sean and handed him his cut of the money from the proceeds. And it was a pretty big cut. It was, it was pretty nice to see the amount of money he brought over to him. And then I gave it away to pen addict members last week. So this is cool. It's a big deal that these great people in the community are getting together to create something wonderful. And as of right now, there's not a link to go to Ryan's page, but it's coming soon to where you can order these. And the final details aren't out, but I will tell you this, they are not going to be widely available. They're going to be, I think with Ryan's regular workflow, he was thinking about the he could make like five of these a month. So like 60 a year and they're beautiful. They're well worth every penny.

Brad Dowdy: I just don't know what to say anymore about this because I'm just in love with everything that he did here. The output, the cause. Yep. Everything's pretty much perfect. So go check it out. We'll have more news on this when you can actually officially go get in the queue.

L14 Pens

Myke Hurley: We will follow up with it, but just for the time being, there's stuff that you can go and find out in the show notes. Like if you want to see more examples of what Ryan Krusek is available, like is able to make, there's links to the current standard L14 and L16 lines that he sells, as well as Brad's picture. I've got to say, man, I'm looking at these. The ebony with tiger eye is one of my, I'm dying. Yep. Tiger eyes. I love that so much.

Brad Dowdy: When I bought my L14 a year ago, he wasn't making them an ebony yet. And then I've almost bought an ebony one. And then he did them with the jewels in the end. So that's going to be one of my next pens is an ebony with the jewel in the end.

Myke Hurley: So he does a photo for jewels in the end. This could be a purchase for me. Like I want to take a look at it and I want to see it because with the jewels, you can, you know, I don't know. I feel like there could be some variants in the way that they look. Yes. And maybe you'd have more than one and I would want to check them out. But I've always loved tiger's eye. Like it's one of my favorite stones since I was a kid. Because when I was a kid, I used to have a little collection of these types of things. It was one of my very early nerdy pursuits. I used to subscribe to this magazine that was called like Treasures of the Earth or something. Nice.

Brad Dowdy: We all did that kind of stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh my God. That was it. Treasures of the Earth magazine. And I had this like, this box of stones. It was, yeah, it was kind of, kind of a weird and wonderful thing that I used to do as a kid. Yeah. Treasures of the Earth magazine was like a real big thing. And there isn't really anything for it on Google. Just like base references to it and images of the magazine. So I'll just put a Google image search in there. But this is exactly what I had. And tiger's eye was my favorite. And yeah. So I have a lot of affinity for that. So yeah. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. But more importantly, a great course.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So we will share when we have more. It's essentially going to be a queue type of thing. You'll get in the queue to get your pen made and ordered and support this great course. So and get an awesome pen.

Myke Hurley: Speaking of which, every now and then a thought pops into my head about the fact that I still have a Newton pen on the way. Oh, you still do. Yeah. I don't know when I'm supposed to be getting this pen. Which I'm almost kind of leaving for it to be a surprise for me now.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I just took my email. Eight to 12 months was my time frame. Yeah. And I ordered it in January. So I'm still, I'm only three quarters of the way through my weight. One day I will get my primary manipulation pen from Sean Newton. And it's going to be a great present to myself.

Brad Dowdy: I ordered mine two or three years ago. And even then the wait time was like six months. So yeah. It's worth it. Well worth it.

Myke Hurley: Oh yeah. There's a reason it's so busy. I mean, the amount that I paid for that pen, I know I'm going to feel like it's worth more. Like, so I'm cool with the weight. Like, I'm cool with it. It will come to me one day.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the next thing I wanted to talk about is something we've mentioned on the show before. But I forgot to pull in the link and talk about it on the show now that the review is out of it. And it's the Lamy Ion. So this is one of new, one of the new pens that Lamy is releasing. And Pete Dennison, whose blog I love, had an early edition of it. They were out in Europe, I believe. So some of the European people got them. And I got to hold one in San Francisco. And number one, you should go read Pete's review because it's extraordinarily good. Very thorough. Lots of details. Lots of pictures. But the first thing I noticed when someone handed me this Ion in San Francisco is, wow, this is heavy. And it's large. So we were thinking it's going to be somewhere along the lines. Like, I had Lamy 2000 in my head, right? When I saw the shape of this pen. So you kind of had this mental thing. And I've held lots of Lamy pens. I own lots of Lamy pens. I know what to expect from a Lamy pen. This is a big and heavy Lamy pen. And it doesn't look like it should be. It's much bigger than the 2000, both in length, width, and in weight. That said, it feels pretty good. Like, you'd expect Lamy to, you know, deliver a pretty well-balanced pen. The nib is a little bit different shape. And I think it's going to do well. Because the price point, I think, is going to be like around $75. But it's not exciting. It's like, it's one of those pens like, okay, I have to buy it. Because I kind of need to review it and try it. Or, you know, I just need to play around with it. I have to have one for research purposes, Myke. You know, you got to do the research. Oh, of course. But it's not exciting, again, where Lamy has an opportunity to do something exciting. You know, maybe, you know, I understand the introduction of a new product. You want to temper your expectations, see how the feedback is. I'm well aware of that. So they have black and silver, which is decidedly a Lamy thing to do. But now's a chance to, maybe, if this Ion does well, add in these crazy colors that they like to do in their lower-end models. And I wish they would just branch out a little bit more in the upper-end models. You know, I'm not asking for the purple Lamy 2000. They should have done that in the, you know, the 50th anniversary. But I am asking for the purple or turquoise Lamy Ion. Because it's kind of made for that. And it's kind of the right price point. So, anyway, I just wanted to point that out that Pete has this review up. You know, I've shared this link and a couple of these other links that we're going to talk about in the Panatic Members newsletter. So you should subscribe to that. I'm going to pimp that here real quick. You should definitely subscribe to the newsletter. You get a lot of these things early. You get my full opinions on them. But there were some that were cool enough I wanted to elaborate on in a vocal manner instead of a written manner. And the Ion was one. And the one thing that bugs me about this pen is the name of the pen is not capitalized. And I don't know why. And that's going to bug the stew out of me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I don't know. I don't get that. I don't know what they're expecting to get out of the fact that it's all lowercase. I don't know. It's probably some visual thing that they like for the way they write it, you know. But, I mean, for me, I mean, I haven't got any experience with this pen. But a bigger, heavier Lamy pen, great.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: Like, it's great. Because they don't do that. All their pens are light. And so maybe they should have something that's a bit more substantial to offer a little bit more diversity to the line. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The studio is right in the middle, weight-wise. But this is much heavier than the studio. So, yeah. I think this pen is going to do well. I just don't know. What's it made of? It's got to be brass. It's certainly metal, most of it. Wow. So it's probably brass. So what is the price point? It's 75 in the U.S., I believe, is what it's going to be. That's pretty good. Totally. Completely fair. And that's a weird price range, right? We always talk about the...

Myke Hurley: It feels like a kind of trainee 2000. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The Lamy 2000 trainer.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Because it's like in that range, price, you know, like it's getting up to it, right? Like it's taking the steps up price point-wise. It's a super good price point. And it looks... I think it looks great. I think it looks real nice. Like if you like Lamy pens, but like feel that maybe they're not too professional looking for your work, right? You know, like you're using them at work and you don't want to have a safari or whatever. And I mean, I've never been that keen of the studio and stuff like that. They don't really do it for me. Um, this one is a much more professional looking Lamy pen without needing to spend $200 on a 2000, which may or may not come to you in a good condition because the nibs can be weird. Do you know what I mean? Like... Sure, sure. This is... I think this is a good entry to their product line. Even though I stand by the fact that if you get a good Lamy 2000, it will be one of the best pens you will ever own. But...

Brad Dowdy: I completely agree with that. Yeah. That's a pen I don't use enough because it is really, really good.

Myke Hurley: Mine actually came out of my Dudek dock and went into the drawer for a bit. It's been demoted for a little bit.

Brad Dowdy: Banished.

Myke Hurley: Hey, Brad, do you want to know something? Do you want to hear about this? This gives you a little insight into my life. So, came home from the pen show, kind of getting my things back in order. There's a couple of pens I need to ink up or whatever, and I've moved some other stuff into storage. One of the pens that I've moved into storage is the M90 that I bought from you. Clean that sucker out before I put it away. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Followed away for safekeeping.

Myke Hurley: Yep. Very thoroughly cleaned out and put in the drawer for safekeeping. Nice. But I just wanted to let you know that I cleaned it before I stored it. Very good. Good on you, mate. There's no way I'm going to let anything bad happen to that pen. Oh, I nearly dropped it, though. Like, not yours, but the one that I bought from Thomas. Well, this is why you have a second one. Yeah. I mean, it had the cap on, luckily enough. But I did think to myself, like, imagine dropping that pen. It would be done. It would be game over. Oh, I felt really bad about it. But I'm using it today, and it's wonderful because the Pilot M90 is the best. We were talking about this at the pen show. Is it this year or next year is 100 years? Next year. Next year. If they don't do a version of this pen for their 100th, we need to boycott them.

Brad Dowdy: I'm going to go on the record, no chance. Because they just did the M90. They haven't done a Murex. There's so many things they have not done that they're not going to do another Murex. Your just is 10 years ago, though, right? Yeah, as opposed to never, like some of the other models.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I know, but 100 years, it feels like you should do something special.

Brad Dowdy: All the pens. All the pens get special editions for 100 years. Ever.

Lamy Prera

Myke Hurley: Maybe they'll just pull a Lamy on us and just, like, they'll just do a Prera in blue.

Brad Dowdy: You think I was mad about the Lamy? I might just end the show if they do something stupid like that. Yeah. I'll be, and because I'm saying that because I know they won't. I have all my faith in Pilot. Just don't be, just don't be a black and gold, one black and gold or Rushi pen. Yeah. Like, which they have a tendency to do. So, I don't know what they're going to do. I wish I knew, but it's going to be, it's going to be, the hype train cometh on that one.

Myke Hurley: This episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Harry's. Harry's are all about giving you a great shave at a fair price, and that is exactly why over 3 million people use Harry's, probably every day. Harry's founders, Jeff and Andy, decided to create Harry's because they were fed up of overpriced razors and everything about them. The way that you have to buy them, the way that you kind of have to get them taken out of the cabinets, and how expensive they are. So, they bought a German factory with over 100 years of blade making experience, which is an extreme way to react to something that you're upset about, to buy a factory. And they set about to ensure that they could produce the highest quality blades that they could, and sell them at half the price of the leading 5 blade razor, directly to you over the internet. And all of Harry's products are backed by a 100% quality guarantee. Harry's is so confident that you're going to love their blades, they want to give you their trial set for free, you just need to cover the cost of shipping. This free trial set includes a weighted ergonomic razor handle, 5 precision engineered blades of a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, their rich lathering shave gel, and a travel blade cover. This is $13 of value for you to try out. Now, Mr. Brad Dowdy, I know that you are a devout Harry's fan.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so let me tell you something I learned this week. I learned something new all the time with Harry's. You think with a simple razor and a simple blade, you know, there wouldn't be much to talk about. But I learned, Myke, that these blades are so good, you can even shave via flashlight light with them. You don't have to worry about your neck getting cut up. So, I had to shave in the dark this week. Because you were without power. Because I was without power, and my Harry's blade came to the rescue. You know, these other crappy blades I was using before, I'd be worried about nicking up my skin, not being able to see what I'm doing. But Harry's, didn't even have to think about it. Smooth, clean shave for no one to see me in the darkness. But thank you, Harry's, for providing that for me.

Myke Hurley: That's kind of amazing. All right, you want to get Harry's yourself, you should. Come on, stop messing around. Go to harrys.com slash penaddict right now, and you can get started and claim your free trial offer. You can get started shaving with Harry's today. All you need to do is cover shipping. It's harrys.com slash penaddict. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of this show and RelayFM. I'm very excited about this next link, Myke. I opened this up today, I scrolled through the images, and I closed it, because I have no idea what's going on here.

Brad Dowdy: So, good friend of the show, Drees, from the Pencil Case blog, did a review a week or so ago.

Brad Dowdy: Peter Spica Virginis 3D printed fountain pen review. So, I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, oh, sweet, 3D printed fountain pens. I'm starting to hear things, starting to see some manufacturers make some things. And then I click this link. And unlike you, Myke, I didn't close it and run away. I was fascinated. This is the most unreal fountain pen. This is way more than the Stallone Chaos pen. This is way more wild than that. And it's machine printed. Like, the level of detail. Like, you wouldn't catch me dead with this pen. Number one. I mean, it's crazy. It's so not me. It's really expensive. But I see the possibilities here, Myke. If you can do something this insane with a pen, imagine what kind of cool pen you can make out of this. I mean, not that this isn't a cool pen. This is just a different type of cool. This is a cool pen for a museum. But imagine what everyday type of pens you can make with what Peter did here. This thing blows my mind. I want to say this thing is like $1,600 or something. Crazy, crazy priced. It's not even worth looking at the price. It's so outrageous, I'm pretty sure. Oh, never mind. 2,500 euros. So, even more than that. So, closer to probably $4,000. Yeah. But it looks like that, right? Even the nib is 3D printed. Because it does look like one of those Stallone pens to me. Yeah. So, I see the possibilities here is what I'm looking at. Like, okay, obviously, the pen is made to show what 3D printing can do. I just imagine, like, what something normal and basic could look like. It could be pretty awesome. And you could add these features on the fly. And you could change around things in a kind of a, you know, quicker turnaround when you're doing your own 3D printing. And I don't know. I just, this was really, it was an eye-opening post for me. And I wanted to share it with everyone. And I wanted to get your feedback on it. Because, yeah, I get it. When you look at this, and you look at the first picture, you're like, no way. And you know where. And I just look at the possibilities. Like, the level of detail fascinates me. I think there's something here, Myke. I think this is something to pay attention to. I've always thought 3D printed pens could be a thing. And now we're starting to see the technology get there. Just like with the analog plus digital technology we talked about before with Moleskine. You're getting closer. This is beyond close. This is extreme. Like, this is done. Like, and, yeah. I don't know what else to say about this other than I'm completely fascinated with the opportunity that this presents to this community. Okay.

Myke Hurley: It's kind of wild, right? So, get me one of these.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, I haven't gone and looked at Peter's other designs. You know, I imagine this is like, this is the show design, right? This is what you want to blow people's mind with. And you say, here, I have this regular thing, too. I want to see what those regular things are going to look like in the future. So, that's what I'm in. That's what I'm interested in. So, because, yeah, we've seen some attempts. It's just like, yeah, technology's really not there. This is a different level.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Yamamoto Paper

Brad Dowdy: Flipping the script, I want to talk about some paper. The Yamamoto paper. We didn't get to talk enough about it. We did it some in our San Francisco Pen Show recap. But since then, they put the links out for the paper tasting, which I talk about. You recall me talking about that a couple weeks ago? Yep, I did. And we did this whole grouping of paper. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that those links were out now. You could go read more about the paper tasting. That was something that I was happy to be involved in out in San Francisco. They have the details now on what type, what, they don't list all the papers, but they have a lot of them listed here on the site. And it tells you what you get in each. Actually, they do have all the papers listed. This is fascinating. As I scroll down. So go read this because I think it's a really neat product. And it's something a lot of our listeners are going to enjoy and want to try out in the future. They're not quite available yet, but this gives you an idea of what's contained. And I could go through some of these. I'll do this another day and tell you which ones I have tested and which ones were really, really kind of mind-blowing and differently performing than I thought they were going to be. So would you ever have anything interesting to this? I know you can just go down to what, WH Smiths? Is that what they're called? And get whatever paper you want. But would you be interested in a random sampling of interesting paper?

Myke Hurley: Maybe.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It doesn't totally seem like your thing. I wasn't setting you up or anything. Yeah. It just doesn't seem totally like your thing.

Myke Hurley: I see why it's a great thing. I don't want this much paper in my life.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because all it's going to do is end up with me having tons of paper and then buying more paper, which I may never use, right? Like, I'm trying to do less of that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But I like that it exists as a thing that people can, like, try around. Like, it's the same as, like, why an ArtSnacks exists or something like that. You know? Right. You get exposed to things that you maybe wouldn't try otherwise.

Brad Dowdy: So ArtSnacks is a perfect example of why I like this type of product. When someone puts this much work into something, I'm happy to give them money to at least try it out to see if I like it. Like, you can tell the time and effort was put in to deliver a top-notch product. And then it's up to you to decide, okay, does it work for you? But that's exactly what I see with ArtSnacks. You know, how do they curate so well? And then the same thing here with Yamamoto paper. This is a very, very highly detailed and organized system that they've come up with. So the last thing I want to talk about before we get into some Ask TPA is I got to give a shout-out to Troy from Brute Force Design. And I've shared this on Instagram. He doesn't have this model up on his page. But I remember about a year ago, well, it was longer than a year ago, I started seeing his pens pop up on Instagram. And I always loved them. I always thought they were in really good shape. And then he was at the San Francisco Pen Show last year. And I went over to him when he was setting up. And he didn't quite have everything out yet. And I said, I'm going to come back. And then it was one of those things, well, by the time I came back, like Sunday, everything that I wanted was gone. So I didn't get, you know, one of his metal machine pens at that time. Well, in the year between the 2016 show and the 2017 show, he's added some acrylics into his manufacturing rotation. And he gave me one in San Francisco that I'm really, really enjoying. And I don't know the model name, but it's one of the acrylic cigar-shaped models. They're not on the site yet. But y'all should definitely look at Troy's work because he does some really, really cool stuff. And mine, Myke, it is hot pink fire. It is awesome. I love this pen. It fits like a standard Bach nib, which I enjoy. So a standard steel Bach nib. And, yeah, it's just killer. So I wanted to give him a special shout-out for sending that pen my way because it is lovely. It is lovely to use and inked up with some hot Califolia and Dernopel because that's what you do with pink pens.

Myke Hurley: There's no other ink for it.

Brad Dowdy: You would like this pen. You would love what he's doing with some of his acrylics. And he's starting to put them on Instagram. It's beautiful. I don't know when he's going to start selling them. He does really good work. The quality is good. The price is good. So, yeah, definitely check out what Troy's doing at Brute Force Design. So I wanted to give him a shout-out.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take one final break?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's almost lunchtime. So you need to feed me.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Well, it's approaching dinner time for me. So this is both the best and worst place to talk about Blue Apron. They are the number one recipe delivery service with the freshest ingredients. They have a mission. Blue Apron's mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone while supporting a more sustainable food system. They tackle this in a few different ways. To make it accessible to everyone, they ship you just the right amount of every ingredient that you need for a recipe, along with step-by-step easy-to-follow recipe cards. And every meal can be cooked at home in 40 minutes or less. No matter what your skill level is, they make it available and possible to everyone. And you'll learn along the way. To support a more sustainable food system, they set high standards for their ingredients. And they work with a bunch of different bodies to make sure that they have great food coming from great places. They reduce food waste by just shipping you the amount that you need. And all of their ingredients are seasonal. They have seasonal ingredients. They're all with fantastic recipes. And every single ingredient that arrives from a Blue Apron meal is covered by their freshness guarantee. So if it doesn't arrive ready to cook, they're going to make it right. Blue Apron meals cost less than $10 per meal. And you will get a fantastic choice available to you. You can choose from a huge variety of recipes. Every single week, they have fantastic stuff available to you. Or you can let Blue Apron's culinary team surprise you. Right now, this is the painful part. Right now, you can cook meals like garlic butter, shrimp, and corn with green bean salad and roasted purple tomatoes. Skillet vegetable chili with cornmeal and cheddar drop biscuits. Or maybe even summer vegetable and egg paninis with Calabrian chili mayonnaise and caprese salad. Dang. I am so hungry. There's no weekly commitment. You can get deliveries when you want them. You can check out this week's menu and get three meals for free with your first purchase. Just by going to blueapron.com slash penaddict. And that includes free shipping as well. You're going to love how good it feels and tastes to create incredible home-cooked meals with Blue Apron. So go to blueapron.com slash penaddict to get started today. Thank you so much to Blue Apron for their support of this show. Blue Apron, a better way to cook.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Thank you, Blue Apron. All right. We got a good batch of Ask TPA. And a lot of it relates to some of the things we've already talked about this show. This first one does not, but I think it's a great question. I want to throw it out to the listeners because I have a thought. But let's see. Lerlini on Twitter asks, what is the best way to fill multiple sample vials with multiple inks? For example, 10 people with 10 inks each. So 100 sample vials you need to fill, Myke. There's no great way to do this, but I would just go the simple route and go with the pipettes. They're so cheap. A lot of people give them away for free at pen shows. You can buy them in bulk. They're easier to clean than a syringe. And you can go faster in filling. I don't know another way to fill 100 ink vials more quickly than with the pipettes. What do you think? Build something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we could. I mean, that's a different answer. Like, we could build some, you know, like cow milking system. Yeah, that's exactly what I imagine. You take a block of wood.

Myke Hurley: You drill like 20 holes in it. You fill 20 things at a time. You put some little straws in it, like some tubes with a funnel at the top of it. And you just pour some ink in it, and it fills them all in one go. Or like, you know those water balloon things that you can get, where like you fill up 100 water balloons at a time? Yeah. One of those.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, so like, okay, so now you've got me really going off the trails here. How about a turkey baster?

Brad Dowdy: Do you know what a turkey baster is? Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to imagine. You can suck up the entire bottle of ink into the turkey baster, and then just go to all the sample bottles.

Myke Hurley: That's a quick way of doing it without building anything. But I think if this is something that you're doing on a semi-regular basis, you should build something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The chat room does have a great idea, Rez says. Just go over the hotel sink and pour the bottle over your vial.

Brad Dowdy: That's... No. Not a good idea? That's not a good idea. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So this one's right up your alley, Myke. D McKechnie wants to know, do you think it's safe to put the High Sierra beta on my Lamy 2000, or should I wait for the version one release? What do you think?

Myke Hurley: I don't even know how to answer that question. It's not even a question.

Brad Dowdy: I thought it was a perfect question for the topics that we discussed today, but I would not put beta on any of my devices that I use to do work with every day. So there's your answer.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Ben Margolis. You know Ben from the DC Pen Show. He gave us all those pens and stationery from Tokyo. He says, which do you pick? Mew or Murex? This is an easy question for both of us.

Brad Dowdy: I go Mew. Yeah. I mean, that's your M90. Yeah. That's what the M90 is based off of. And I go Murex. I mean, there's just no doubt in my mind, Murex every time. So if you're trying to pick one, Ben, and you want our recommendations, you're not going to get a clear answer from either of us. Because we both have a favorite that's opposite from each other. And we both stand behind those things very, very much. As much as I love the Mew and the M90, the Murex is for me.

Myke Hurley: No, I like the small, completely smooth style. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. All right. KJ Miller, who has a tech podcast. And I forgot to put the link in there. We'll put the link in the show notes. And I'm going to be on it soon. Productivity in Tech, I believe it is called. So tell me if I got that wrong, KJ, when you listen. But I'm going to be a guest on his show. No, you didn't.

Myke Hurley: I've got it right now. It's Productivity in Tech. Yes. It'll be in the show notes.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So really, really fun podcast. And he's looking for desk pad notebook options. He's been using the Baron Fig Mastermind, which is kind of the large plot pad for your desk. And then he says, I know Studio Neat's coming, which is the Pano book, which you said you were using. What else is out there? So before both of these products existed, my favorite is the Mormon Nemo sign. I don't even, I never learned how to say that. It comes in a large, like 11 by 8. I guess it comes in an A4 size and it's spiral bound and it can be in horizontal or vertical orientation. It's really made for a horizontal orientation, like a desk pad. So it does have a spiral bound, like the Studio Neat does, where the Mastermind does not. It's completely flat. So depending on if you want the spiral or not. My favorite is still the Morimon, because I think it has better paper than the Studio Neat one, even though I love the profile of the Studio Neat one.

Myke Hurley: The hardest Google-able product of all time. Jeez. The Mormon.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, sorry. I should have put the link in there. I found it.

Myke Hurley: Sometimes I'm good at putting the links. M-A-R-U-A-M-A-N. M-A-R-U-M-A-N. I can spell it for you. M-N-E-M-O-S-Y-N-E. Like, literally every ability, every way to spell this, it's none of them. It's none of them.

Brad Dowdy: Like, I can spell that all day long. Someone needs to sit down with this company and help them. Yeah, like Robo Jim reminds you, and it's what they say inside the cover, it's the Greek goddess of memory, Myke. I don't care.

Myke Hurley: I don't care. It's a terrible thing to base. I don't care that it's Greek. It's a terrible thing to base it on. Like, whatever.

Brad Dowdy: So, anyway, that's always been my number one desk pad, by far. I say it's the worst. The worst ever, because of the name. You shush. You shush.

Myke Hurley: That's my opinion on this. The worst. The paper's amazing. I don't care. I don't care.

Brad Dowdy: The paper. It's all about the paper. I don't care. I don't care.

Myke Hurley: Don't support them, KJ. Terrible name.

Brad Dowdy: They make some of the best paper in the world. I will fight on anyone on that. Mormon. It's just a shame no one can find it. It's good stuff. It's the same no one can pronounce it. So, if you know where to look, you can find anything, Myke. So, here's one I don't know how to find, and I'm asking the audience, because I don't think such a thing exists unless it's some whack job Noodler's ink. So, Nick Piddick wants to know, is there any permanent water-resistant ink with crazy sheen out there? Does that exist? I am literally asking. I have no clue. Any of the permanent inks I use are your basic carbon blacks or nano blues from Sailor, carbon blacks from platinum. You know, I use iron gall inks, but they have color variation, but not sheen. So, I don't know if that's not a possibility. Because I use a lot of iron gall inks, which are permanent, none of them have sheen. They'll have some really good shading, and they'll look very pretty. They do not sheen. So, if anyone has an answer, let me know. I'd be interested for myself, and I will let Nick know.

Top Secret Project

Brad Dowdy: So, Michael, Michael J., who I want to give a shout-out. This is top secret, Myke. Not even you know about it. See, I don't tell you all the things. Oh, man, me and Michael. I'm working on a project, Myke.

Brad Dowdy: It's almost in the release stage. Almost in the release stage. So, I'll leave it at that.

Myke Hurley: Is this another one of those secret podcasts that you're doing about me?

Brad Dowdy: No, no. Okay. Top secret project, though. So, he asks, and this is a question near and dear to my heart. It says, at curriculum night for my daughter last night, her teacher mentioned that they will be teaching kids proper pencil grip this year because she said that if they don't learn it by the end of the first grade, it's near impossible to correct in the future. I am now wondering, is there only one correct pen or pencil grip, and if so, what is it? So, I'm going to go with no. There's not only one correct grip. But what they're probably teaching, and which everyone answered Michael in the Slack room last night, was the tripod grip. That's a very traditional grip that is taught. Now, neither of my kids, so I have a sixth grader and a fourth grader. So, neither of my kids were taught how to grip. They never had any type of homework on how to grip a pencil or a pen. But they were definitely taught, you know, letters and how to write and all that type of stuff. My daughter does not use the tripod grip. My son does use the tripod grip. My son's handwriting is awful. My daughter's handwriting is beautiful. So, I don't think there's one correct grip. And being in this, you know, world where we see everyone write, you see the most beautiful handwriting no matter the grip, Sal. So, I don't think it's important. I don't think, I do think they can learn later in life how to change their grip. I don't think it's that difficult. It's like learning. Like when I sat down to learn an architectural style handwriting, it requires a little bit of a different grip. And you can learn that stuff even in your old age like me. So, they're going to get taught the tripod grip, which is actually, that's great. But if your child doesn't like it and it makes their handwriting worse, they'll figure it out eventually. That's kind of what my daughter did. She always had a weird grip. I don't even know how I can explain it. But her handwriting is beautiful. My son has the perfect traditional grip. His handwriting is garbage. We have to work on it all the time. Poor buddy. But he's got a perfect grip. And it's nothing to do with the grip. It's just, he just doesn't have those motions. So, let them teach away. They're going to figure out what makes their letters look the best as they go. And if they don't learn traditional tripod grip, that's no problem.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't matter if you have bad handwriting. You can get along in this world.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. No. You know what, Myke? Like, I was never anti-bad handwriting, but I am totally come around. I'm pro-bad handwriting.

Myke Hurley: You hate handwriting in schools, right? That's right. You hate that? You think it should be bad? Didn't you write that book? Oh, am I getting my wires bursting on?

Brad Dowdy: I was about to kill you for a second. I know you were. Because the silence is like, you were trying to work out what I was doing to you. Yeah. I was a little confused there. Yeah. But please keep teaching handwriting in schools, even if it's not cursive. Curse of Teach Our Kids How to Write with Pens and Pencils, please. All right. Tony wants to know, are you buying a Hobonichi this year? I'm assuming this is directed at me because I have and I haven't bought, and I am still not buying a Hobonichi. It's probably the hardest thing I don't buy every year.

Myke Hurley: I think about it every time.

Brad Dowdy: I know it's a mistake, and it's not an expensive mistake to make, which is why I sometimes end up buying it, and then I still don't use it. But I didn't buy one last year, and I held out. So I'm going again, Tony. No Hobonichi for me this year.

Brad Dowdy: The Cousin's really tempting, but it's even bigger. I would use it even less.

Brad Dowdy: It's a ridiculous thing to say, but it's the hardest thing I don't buy every year because I want to love it so much because it is such an amazing product. But I will stick with my Midori calendars that I use and can fill in my own dates as I go and have a much smaller writing areas. So, all right. Last one, Myke, from future show host, I believe, Joey Feldman, right? Is that what it's going to be? He's going to be hosting the show?

Myke Hurley: Definitely past.

Brad Dowdy: Definitely in the past. Okay. All right. So Joey wants to know. Possibly in the future.

Pen Editions

Brad Dowdy: If you totally love a pen and nib size, is it okay to buy every color edition of it? Maybe ink it all up with different colors. I don't know if this has ever been asked ever. So what do you think, Myke?

Myke Hurley: I think that is a perfectly fine thing to do. I have a collection of Retro 51s.

Brad Dowdy: I love the pen. I mean, the answer is clearly yes.

Myke Hurley: Right? I love the pen and I buy all the editions that I want of it. You know? Like, I now have two Canalea pens. They're, in essence, the same pen, just in a different design. Right? Like, I want more Sailor Pro Gears.

Myke Hurley: Just in different colors. Like, I think this is a perfectly valid thing to do. If you find something you like, buy a few of them and buy some different ones and ink them up in different ways. I think this is a really, really great thing to do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And there's never anyone who's embraced that philosophy more than Joey himself. I've never seen a man make so many purchases in such a short amount of time. Once he finds he likes something and then within five minutes have at least half of them sold. So, good job, Joey. Keep up the good work. But buy all the pens, fill them all up with ink, and enjoy them. And enjoy the Pen Addict Podcast, Myke. Why don't you get us out of here on this great day?

Myke Hurley: You can find our show notes for this week's episode over at relay.fm slash penaddict slash 274. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors, Pen Chalet, Blue Apron, and Harry's. If you would like to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com and knock.co. He is at dowdyism on Twitter and penaddict on Instagram. I am ilike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you want to participate in a few different ways with the show, you can do that. Send in your questions with hashtag AskTPA. There's a wiki, stationary.wiki, which you can contribute to. And there's a subreddit at reddit.com slash r slash penaddict. Thanks so much for listening, as always. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Bye-bye. Bat- supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors supervisors !