The Pen Addict 147/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	147
Title:	I Can't Get it Out of My Head
Release Date:	March 25th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 147
Audio File:	Audio Episode 147
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 147
Length:	5555 min <br />0.917 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 147. Today's show is brought to you by Massdrop, Bushell, and Dudek Modern Goods. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always, by the one and only, Mr. Brad Dowdy. What's up, mate? Hey, man. How you doing? Good. How are you? I am very well, sir. I am very, very well indeed.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I saw some fancy pictures of you earlier this week. Had a RelayFM upgrade podcast meetup in your fine town of London with Mr. Snell. It looked like y'all had a great time.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was an awful lot of fun. That's why we're recording a little bit late this week.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So, Myke is now so famous that I can't get him onto a regular podcasting schedule. So, this week's episode is two days behind, and next week's episode's going to record, what, four days early?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but we won't be releasing that until Monday as normal. Yeah, you won't get it until Monday. I met a couple of pen addicts at the meetup. That's hilarious. Yeah, there are a couple of pen addicts there.

Brad Dowdy: We're everywhere, man. Yep. You can't shake us. I know the rest of the Relay crew really has no concept of what happens on this podcast, but we're everywhere. Fear us. That's the way I like to keep it. Yeah, fear the pen addicts.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is our show.

Brad Dowdy: All right, so let's get into it. We've got a lot of good topics to discuss today, and the very first thing I want to start out with is something that I think is very important to the community as a whole. And when I say that, you know, I'm talking about all the pen and paper fans, the people that read the pen addict, the people, you know, that are, you know, listening to the Erasable podcast, all of the bloggers, everyone who's made stuff on Kickstarter. We're one big happy family, and I like it that way. That's the best part about this community. We all are aware of each other. We all help each other out. And there was a bit of a tragedy in the family, if you will, this past weekend. The house and workshop of Mr. Huckleberry Woodchuck, who y'all have all probably heard us mention before. I've certainly mentioned on the podcast. And I know he's big in, like, the Field Nuts group and, you know, in different other—and on the Erasable group because he makes bullet pencils. He also was part of the Bullet Pencil Kickstarter with Metal Shop CT. So that was part of that whole Kickstarter. Jay's house burned down. And what his partner, John, at Metal Shop, they were the partners in the Kickstarter for the Bullet Pencil. They're putting together a—basically a raffle to help raise funds to help Jay out in this time. And, you know, being in this community and just seeing the reach that, you know, we have, I wanted to point that out and point everyone to what John is trying to do for Jay. So we'll have a link in the show notes. You can hit it. He's got most of the information on Facebook right now. But if you don't have a Facebook account, just ping me and I can get you all the information. But they're just asking for $5 raffle entries. You can PayPal them to John. The information will be in there. And there's lots of cool stuff in there, like some of the Bullet Pencils that they made for Kickstarter. Our friend Dan at Karis Customs is in on it. Dudek Modern Goods is in on it. A bunch of the Field Nuts are donating the rare. Field Notes Editions. I've just talked to John. Nock's going to be donating some stuff. So I just want to point this out because this is the best part about this community is you can have these conversations. And we all know, you know, we may not have had, you know, this tragedy strike us. But we all understand how great the people are in this community. And to be able to at least shine a little light on someone, you know, in a time of need like this, you know, I'm more than happy to do. And, you know, I definitely want to be part of this and helping Jay get back on his feet. So I just wanted to point that out. And we'll have all that information in the show notes, which you can get at relay.fm forward slash penaddict forward slash 147.

Myke Hurley: All right. I'm donating right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, and I will be as well. I just finished talking with John right before we got online. And he's got some pictures up of the Nock stuff now on the page. So that's a very, very good cause and I'm very happy to help out.

Myke Hurley: Although I just donated and I wasn't paying attention to the currency. So now they're not going to be able to work out how many entries I want.

Brad Dowdy: Way to go. Way to go. But that's fine. So as awesome and as great feeling as, you know, hopefully trying to help out someone in our community, we're going to go to the opposite extreme right out the gate, Myke, in one of the most egregious, gaudy, Stallone-ish pen products I've ever seen introduced. And this is the Montegrappa Multi Fountain Pen. So this bad boy was launched last week. I got the link. I did a bunch of other bloggers. Got the link to what Montegrappa is doing. Montegrappa is the home of the Stallone fountain pen that we've made fun of many times. And I wanted to mention this because it's really cool in that it holds four separate ink cartridges in a chamber. It looks like a revolver chamber on a gun, like a six shooter. And these cartridges pop in there and you can flip through the cartridges. It gives you a special cleaning syringe to clean out the ink in the nib before you swap to a different color. Or like in the blog post they say, you know, or you can just let the ink run through and you get these nice shadings and whatever. Do whatever. And you scroll down and you scroll down. You're looking. You're like, you know, I mean, it's kind of ugly. It does look like a lightsaber hilt, I guess, if you will. Is that the right term? The handle?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It really does look like a lightsaber handle. So it's kind of fancy looking. It's really interesting with the four cartridges. And then you scroll and you scroll and you scroll. And it's $10,000. Oh, what? They're only making a hundred of them. It looks huge. It does look huge. I don't know how you could like really use this. I mean, I guess they'll sell them. I guess they know they have this market. Montegrappa does for this high end stuff, right? That's why they make that Stallone. That Stallone pin that I think one of the versions is like 60 something thousand. One of them is like 30 to something thousand. Um, so yeah, this thing looks huge and I don't know. It doesn't, it's interesting. And there's obviously some design work that went into the switching of the cartridges. I'll be interested to see if anyone ever can get a hold of one of these and break down that switch, right? When you're going from ink cartridge to another ink cartridge. I'm more concerned about the ink cartridge. I'm just moving to the unused spot. How does that get sealed? So ink doesn't leak. I mean, obviously they have this, you know, engineered appropriately, I would assume. Oh my gosh. Does this thing come with silk gloves in the, uh, in the box it ships in? I think it does. Really? I'm like, hang on. I'm looking at this picture.

Myke Hurley: Oh my God, it does.

Brad Dowdy: It comes with silk gloves. That's amazing. I have no idea, but it's in the presentation box, isn't it? I'm not crazy, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that looks like it. Unless that's like, I don't know. They sent it to this person because they're reviewing?

Brad Dowdy: No, it's like, it's like in this whole presentation box. It's, it's like in this nice cherry wood finished line box with the pen and a cleaning cloth that looks like, and a set of gloves. That's, that's amazing. If I ever need to purchase a pen that requires a set of gloves, that's probably not the pen for me, or you can shoot me. One of the two. So, yeah. I want to see this in action. Um, uh, Dan Bishop is saying that Dan Smith, who, uh, was with Fountain Pen Geeks and now actually works for Ken Rose, putting this pen out, said he's going to do a video on it. So I want to see how this thing works. So it's, it's real and it's alive, but it's also $10,000. So, you know, I think that's, uh, that will never be on the wishlist or the grail pen, just because I don't know how functional it will truly be. But, um, it's more of a specialty item. So I guess, I guess for, uh, people who are really into this kind of thing and, and, uh, in that really, really high end market, but not for me, not ever. I certainly can't buy a pen that costs as much as a car. I don't, I don't think.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. No, I'm not interested in this.

Brad Dowdy: Really? I mean, with the, uh, your relay Fifedom, um, it's not going to afford you the opportunity to purchase this pen or you're saving for the Stallone pen. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I forget. It's Stallone pen or nothing for me.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay.

Myke Hurley: Gotcha.

Brad Dowdy: Well, let's, let's talk about a guy that, um,

Myke Hurley: I would like something like that though. You know, that like something that I could change the ink with.

Brad Dowdy: I think we might see some attempts. Yeah. I mean, these things always happen, right? Eventually there'll be some, uh, certainly someone's thought of this in the past and has come up with some kind of mock-up to try to attempt this, but it's just never been successful. A, you know, we've seen the double, um, the double barrel pens, the double nibbed pens, right? Where you can get an ink, um, compartment on one, on one side and an ink compartment on the opposite side. So there's two separate ink compartments. So you have two nibs. You just flip the nib over and you, there you have a two ink multi pens, but I've never seen one with a switcher mechanism. And, you know, someone will probably test it out and see, it would be nice to just have like a two ink one. That would be good. I don't need four, um, ink cartridges in a, in a pen. I don't think that would be pretty crazy.

Myke Hurley: So it's not right now.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, not on the right.

Myke Hurley: In theory, it would be easier to do this if it was just ink, not cartridges.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: You know, I feel like that would, that would be an easier thing to do.

Brad Dowdy: Like if you could syringe fill four separate compartments. Yeah. In a pen. Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: That definitely feels like a more simple thing. Yeah, it kind of does.

Brad Dowdy: So it'll be interesting to see if there's, if someone else tries to push this envelope as well with a different design that's, you know, at least only a several hundred dollars instead of several thousand dollars. But you never know. I don't, there's obviously not a huge need, need for this and, um, or else, you know, people would be, people would be making them and selling them, you know?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Dudek Modern Goods

Brad Dowdy: So, but we, we have a buddy that makes and sells stuff. That's a new sponsor of our podcast today that I'm pretty excited about.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this is, this is the best. Um, this week's episode of The Pen Addict is proudly brought to you by Dudek Modern Goods. You know these guys because it's this guy, the dude, Myke Dudek of the Clicky Post. He started Dudek Modern Goods because he wanted somewhere elegant and lovely to put his pens. As the dude started listening to this show more and more, I think, I think we can, we can take blame for him. Uh, he started to collect more and more stuff and he started looking around to find some good solutions and was just totally stuck. So, out of this need for nice places to put nice pens, products like the cube, the block, and the groove were born. Myke is passionate about crafting beautiful yet functional products that will last you a lifetime. All of the Dudek Modern Goods products are handmade in Arizona from solid walnuts and have a distinct modern and minimal design. Mixed with the rich grain and colour of the walnut, these pieces will earn their place on your desk today and in 30 years from now they're going to look just as good, if not even better. There are six designs in total to choose from with several options to help fit your need, whether you have larger pens in your collection or you just need a space to hold your pocket notebooks or your journal in addition to some fine writing instruments. I remember, I wish I knew off the top of my head how long ago it was into this show where me and you received those mystery packages.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, it's a good, it's a good while ago. Yeah, it was a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago? Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Something like that? I think like in the very first run of the show. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I was just blown away by this little block that I got with these holes in it. And it's been funny to watch the dude as he's gotten more and more into this stuff and like, as then the pen holes got wider on all of his stuff, right? Because he started buying more fancy pens and they weren't, you know, it weren't like pencils or whatever anymore. Now he was having to think about like really big chunky fountain pens and stuff like that. That's right. But the quality of his products are unparalleled. Like I have, I think, four different Dudek Modern Goods products, including one of the aluminium cubes now. But like we're talking about the wooden stuff that just Myke makes is just incredible. I love the groove, which is the one where you can also throw a couple of field notes in, you know, or a notebook in, which is, that's my favorite of his, I think.

Brad Dowdy: I think so too. I think that's my favorite. I have one of those on my desk. I think that's my favorite single design.

Myke Hurley: Like all of my favorite pens, they only live in these products. Like if there is a pen in one of these, it's a favorite. If I have a favorite pen, it will be in a Dudek. That's just simple. It's plain fact for me.

Myke Hurley: The support by like from our community of Dudek Modern Goods has just been amazing. Like, and I've seen it. And Myke, when we were talking about this, was just saying like he feels that it is a super privilege. Every time he gets to deliver one of these things to someone, he feels like privileged that he gets to do it because he's like a real person that he had an idea. He enjoyed this stuff and he's now made like a little business out of it. And it's just fantastic. Dudek Modern Goods, they ship internationally. They have reasonable rates. You have to remember that Walnut is heavy, but he has shipped to over 20 countries. He shipped stuff to me in the past as well. Like it will get its way to you. As a special promotion for listeners of the Pan Addict Podcast, you can get yourself 10% off anything at Dudek Modern Goods. You just need to go to, they have a brand new website as well, which is all part of this. So you just go to dudekmoderngoods.com. It's .com, isn't it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Dudekmoderngoods.com. That's D-U-D-E-K-M-O-D-E-R-N-G-O-O-D-S. Of course, we'll have that in the show notes. Go to dudekmoderngoods.com and use the lovely code that Mr. Dudek's prepared for us, which is PENADDICT, all one word, and you will get yourself 10% off. This is a good-looking website we have right here. I'm pleased that he did this, like to split it out into its own little store now.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think it was time. And, you know, I consider Myke a friend and, you know, but I don't think we promote his products just because he's our friend. We promote his products because they're good products. I mean, I wouldn't put my money where my mouth is in the case of a product if I didn't like it. And, you know, I think, you know, I've earned that trust over the years and I really, really love these products. You look at pictures of my desk and if I pop them up on Instagram, I think I have four, like you said, four different products that live on my desk as well. And, you know, to get to have Myke put up this discount code and, you know, for all the PENADDICT listeners and get 10% off, that's a big deal. And, you know, just understand that Myke's making these, you know, he's not shipping these off somewhere and having someone manufacture these. You know, Myke's hands have been on these and, you know, he puts, you know, a lot of work and a lot of attention and detail in these products and I just love them. So, big fan. Big fan.

Myke Hurley: Huge. Huge. Thanks, man. All right. Thank you for sponsoring.

Pen Enthusiast

Brad Dowdy: Thank you, Mr. Dudek. All right. So, the header of the next link, Myke, is this guy loves pens more than you love anything in the world. Is it about you? You tell me. You click it.

Artwork

Myke Hurley: I'm clicking it. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Bdcwire.com loading. Still seeing the headline. This guy loves pens more than you love anything in the world.

Myke Hurley: Oh.

Myke Hurley: That's a weird picture.

Brad Dowdy: I wanted to, I was wondering what you would say. So, yes, it's about me. But the, we'll go with fun part of it is the image that they created for this. That's terrifying. Bdcwire, which is a Boston.com property.

Brad Dowdy: The author, Jamie Loftus, I've been talking to her on Twitter. She's super nice. She's really funny. I enjoyed talking with her. And she wanted to do just a little tidbit on the pen addict and the community thing. Again, this whole community thing we've got going today. Didn't really, didn't really plan on that. But it's working out that way. And, you know, she just kind of wanted to get a little behind the scenes and how it started. So, I just answered some basic questions. You know, if you've listened to this podcast or read my blog a long time, you've heard a lot of these answers. But she wanted to do this for her, for her day job. And, yeah, they do this artwork for a lot of the articles. And I was like, hey, look at that. It's terrifying.

Myke Hurley: It's terrifying me looking at it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, yeah, it's the Sino DX. I'm like, that's not what I see. That's not my takeaway from the picture.

Myke Hurley: Why are your eyes so small? Why are your gums like that? I don't like it. I'm happy this looks like a really nice thing that's happened.

Brad Dowdy: It is. And it's a really nice article. And she's super nice. And I don't think she has anything to do with the artwork. But the first time I saw that, I was like, whoa, what just happened here?

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. I can see it. It's a thing for them. They do lots of this weird artwork.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So, whoever is doing this has this style, if you will.

Myke Hurley: It feels like it's being done by somebody in Microsoft Paint.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, skip the artwork and head to the article. But, like I said, it's just about, you know, my background and starting the blog and how I got into pins and things like that. Stuff will be discussed.

Myke Hurley: I might get this printed on a t-shirt and arrive in Atlanta with it.

Brad Dowdy: That would be sweet.

Myke Hurley: Oh, then I have to look at it. I love you. You're a good-looking guy. This is not doing you justice.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't expect it to go there, but I appreciate that, Michael.

Myke Hurley: I'm scared. I'm scared by it. I am a little bit. I have to close the tab.

Brad Dowdy: So, you're going to have nightmares now.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I can't get it out of my mind. I would be, I mean, you know, again, I'm sure you were very, very happy that it did this. But I would be really upset, I think, to see that.

Brad Dowdy: I'd be like, oh, why? Yeah. I didn't know any of that. And to be honest, and Jamie didn't say anything. I'm pretty sure she didn't know. You know how there's different groups, you know, like in the publishing. You know, someone's going to write the title. Someone's going to do the image. Someone's going to put together the article. So, I don't know if she had anything to do with it, but I don't care. It's so bad. It's good. Not really, but it's definitely something to talk about. But anyway, I appreciate Jamie. She was super great to work with. And the artwork was, yes, a huge surprise.

Myke Hurley: Anything that gets you in front of more people makes me happy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And it was a nice conversation we had.

Brad Dowdy: I wanted your reaction on that. And that's about what I expected.

Myke Hurley: I'm really pleased that I didn't see this until now, though.

Brad Dowdy: I can't stop looking at it.

Myke Hurley: I've had to close it because I would have just looked into that for hours,

Retro 51

Brad Dowdy: trying to understand it a little bit more. My retinas are burning. All right, let's move on. Let's get some sweet eye candy going. You got a sweet pen last week. I'm actually kind of jealous of this one. I will never own this pen, but it's a pretty sexy pen. Tell me about it.

Myke Hurley: Why will you never own it?

Brad Dowdy: Just because I'm not a basketball fan that much. If they came out with a baseball version, I would buy it immediately. Oh, yeah, I remember now. Yeah, yeah. It's just not something I'm going to use or want in my collection just because it doesn't fit me. But, yeah, talk about what you got.

Myke Hurley: I got a new Retro 51. It's called the Swoosh.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Swish. No, it's called... I thought they called it Swoosh.

Brad Dowdy: You could be right. I don't know. On your Instagram page, it says Swish. I might have written that wrong. Okay. I'm now Googling. Googling.

Myke Hurley: Lots of Googling happening.

Brad Dowdy: But regardless, it's a sweet basketball-themed Retro 51. Yeah. Their limited edition designs are generally really, really well done, and this one's no exception.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't know if it's Swish or Swoosh, but whatever one it is, it's fantastic. I love it. It's the basketball one, yeah. Yeah. And it's got like this... It's not rubbery. It's like acrylic-y plastic. It's plastic, but it's got like a bubble texture, like a basketball.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's got like the grip texture for the basketballs, except not like leather. It's, you know, like you said, plastic acrylic. It just looks so sharp the way they did the lines, and of course, it's, you know, definitely kind of orangish-brown, so that's always good looking.

Myke Hurley: So, but this is a big one. Oh, like large-sized one? It is called the Swish, yeah. So, yeah, it's... Well, like the height of the pen is the same, but it's like... Did you ever have the bamboo one? No. So the bamboo one is slightly bigger, but I don't think it's the XL.

Brad Dowdy: It's the big shot that they call it?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, big shot. I don't know if it's big shot-sized, but it is just physically bigger, this one.

Brad Dowdy: Than compared to the Tornado. Yeah. Okay.

Myke Hurley: And I think it's because they're using like a different material and like a different kind of like a process to make it all bubbly, I suppose.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So they need a little extra room. Yep. There's a room to deliver the sweet design. It looks awesome.

Myke Hurley: And it has... The top of it is a basketball. Ah, nice. Like under the acrylic.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. I like those little extra touches. Yeah. On the top of the caps that they do. So it always looks good. So oddly enough, you and I took very similar photos of some of the new stuff that we got. I threw it on my laptop just right before we started. I got two new pins in. Before you do. Since we spoke. Before you do. Yeah. Before you do.

Field Notes

Myke Hurley: I got my field notes.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, good. Let's hear about that. I didn't hear about... I didn't realize that. So tell me. This is the Two Rivers version.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The Two Rivers. I've only gotten my subscription package so far. Not the extras that I bought. So I have more craft. Like I just have like a box full of them now. Because I renewed my subscription so they sent the craft. I wish there was a way. I might suggest this to them. To ask to not receive those. Yeah. We've talked about this before. When you resubscribe. Because I'm never going to use them. I already have. I have more field notes than I could ever use. And then I have the craft ones as well.

Myke Hurley: Maybe they do it. Because then I'll give them away. I don't know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's what I do. I have a... I keep a stash that I give away. Like if I know if I'm going to meet somebody. To talk about something. Doesn't have to be pen stuff or whatever. Someone that's not really into this type of stuff. I'll always bring some extras. To give away. And those are perfect for that.

Myke Hurley: You're like the Candyman or something. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Definitely. First taste is free.

Myke Hurley: So yeah. I wish I didn't get as well. I really... These are just stunningly beautiful. Aren't they? They're just really, really, really beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think it's pretty much a knockout. This one. One of my favorites. One of my favorites in a while. For sure. I haven't put it to use yet. I've still got... I got about half of a day game. And then I'm going to go into one of these. Um...

Myke Hurley: I think what I love most about them is you don't know what they say on them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. You have to like...

Myke Hurley: It's so hard to work it out. Like what they could possibly say on them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You can figure out like what's on physically letter pressed onto yours. But it's only partial of the whole print. Right?

Myke Hurley: I do have one here which has a beautiful Hamilton Wood type printing museum logo right on it.

Brad Dowdy: I've seen a picture of one of those. Yeah. And I thought that looked really good. I don't have one of those. No. Not that I'm aware of. I hadn't opened them all. But... So the real question that Field Nuts want to know is how many yellow notebooks did you get?

Myke Hurley: I haven't got any yellow. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. That seems to be the thing, Michael. The yellow are rare, right? See? Hey, you said it, not me. I'm not getting involved. But the Field Nuts always have to make something about it. Which color is more rare? So this is the conspiracy.

Myke Hurley: I'm hoping that...

Brad Dowdy: The conspiracy is the yellows are hard to find.

Myke Hurley: I'm hoping that in my net... You know that like the second package that I have, because I've got like three three-packs, I hope that I have nine yellow ones just so I can like lay them all down on a bed and lay on them and take a picture for the Field Nuts group, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That'd be great. Well, good. I was interested in what your thoughts were going to be on that, because a lot of times we differ. I mean, we will... You know, me more strongly anti than you on some of the releases, but we definitely have different opinions on a lot of the releases. But this was an easy one. This was a really, really good release by them. So good job, Jim and Aaron and Brian.

Myke Hurley: So I can't remember now when it was, but it came with my subscription came with a little card. And I think it said that the next is the most ambitious they've ever done.

Brad Dowdy: They've been saying that for like a year now. Yeah, okay. But it could be true.

Myke Hurley: But they did say like this is a long time in the making.

Brad Dowdy: Well, so we'll see.

Myke Hurley: I guess they're all more and more ambitious than the last, right?

Brad Dowdy: Well, just like this one was a long time in the making. Like that video with Aaron and the gentleman from Hamilton was shot in July 2014. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a big project that they've got and they do a good job.

Myke Hurley: Oh, did you see those Loot Crate ones?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I was going to put that in the show notes. I thought that was pretty cool. The confidential thing, you know, that throws it back to like when I was a kid. You know, when you were a kid, you always wanted that private notebook, right? That's what I think of when I see those. Like either like a spy thing or like a super personal thing. You know, you would either you'd get your notebook when you're a kid and you just write confidential and private and all these things on there. So I thought it was cool that they did that for Loot Crate. And then they had like the what do you call it? Like the tape, the yellow police tape kind of looking thing on there. They have good designers. They do a good job. I'm assuming Aaron is involved in that. But their design work is really good.

Myke Hurley: Right. Should we take a second break? Yeah, let's do that. Talk about the new stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Let's do that. This week's episode is also brought to you by MassDrop, an online community for enthusiasts of all kinds. From audio and electronics to quilting and cooking, it's a place for you to connect with people like you to discuss your favorite products and activities and buy them together. MassDrop represents a new type of online experience that combines community, content and commerce. MassDrop offers its users a place where they can meet and connect over the products that they love. A forum where you can vote on and discuss the products you're passionate about. And a platform to connect directly with manufacturers and buy products together to get bulk pricing. They're not a flash deals website. They're not a flash sale website. They're not like a site like Groupon. The thing that is most important to the people over at MassDrop is that they want to build communities around things that people love because that is what they are passionate about. Ultimately, they're here to help you by making the products you care about affordable and accessible and provide you with a platform to connect with other like-minded enthusiasts. I know that GroupBuy is something that's super important to people in the Pen community. Some of the stuff that we want to spend our money on can be a bit expensive and buying in bulk can help make that a bit easier. And this is where a service like MassDrop that can help facilitate these types of things is actually something that's really cool for all of us. I've checked it out myself over time. Brad's going to, in a minute, mention some stuff that he's seen recently. But they have brands like Pelican, Franklin Kristoff. They have like 20-30% of brands like that. We spoke about Lamy last week. Brad, what have you seen when poking around on MassDrop?

Brad Dowdy: So they surprised me at the depth they get into some of the brands, like things I wouldn't expect to appear on the site show up. And I saw a note that they had the County Comm Embassy pin pop up on the site. And I was like, really? That surprises me just because it's not a very big brand. I mean, I talk about it. I've talked about it a lot in the past. I think it's an awesome pin. I really, really love mine. And they have it up there right now. And it's 43 bucks. And, I mean, I think they regular retail for like $55 or $59. It's a really good pin. I mean, it fits the Parker-style refills. I use it when I travel. I usually throw it in my backpack and put the Fisher Space pin in it. And I use it all the time for that type of thing. It'd be good to keep in the car. But I was just surprised to see not like just a tier one brand, you know, like Pilot or, you know, Uniball or whatever. Those types of products on there. They're really getting down into the products that the community is interested in. Like they say on their product page, they say drops chosen by the writing community. So between the different polls that they have and people suggesting products they should carry, you know, the County Comm Embassy pin ended up trickling to the top. And they worked it out to where they could get it in. Then they also have great stuff like the Retract from our friends at Karis Customs. I mean, for $35 for the Retract. I mean, that's kind of a no-brainer. And they carry things like that. So it's really interesting to see. And I'm just kind of getting into the whole Mass Drop thing. And it's interesting to see the products that pop up from time to time. And it's really good stuff. It's just not the regular stuff you see every day. And they've done a really good job at finding the right products for the community. And I think that's a good thing.

Myke Hurley: This is something, as Braz mentioned, it's totally worth checking out. This is the right type of thing for people like us. If you want to find out more, go to dro.ps slash thepenaddict and sign up right now. Thank you so much to Mass Drop for once again supporting this show and RelayFM. Awesome.

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: So I got a couple of new pins in this week. One of them, which we've been waiting for and you're still waiting for, is the Nexus fountain pen. Please don't even.

Brad Dowdy: So you ordered the titanium and the titanium barrel. The titanium barrel backers are super, super delayed. I think y'all are looking at the fall. Before you get the, before those ship. Really? I thought you said the end of March. Oh, did it? Then they moved it. Or I've read it wrong.

Myke Hurley: Man, if it's the fall, I'm going to go crazy.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no. Don't hold me to that. Okay. I would definitely double check.

Myke Hurley: So I just want to clarify something on this one quickly. Sure, sure. Because I understand that things get late. Like in Kickstarter. I have many friends that have had Kickstarters and things go wrong in them. And I understand that. My problem with this project is that every time they have an update, they have a shipping date. Yeah. And then they have another update and the shipping date changes. Yeah. Like it just continues to change. Like time and time again, they're pushing it later and later and later. And I'm just at this point wondering, like, do you have any idea about the control over your product here?

Brad Dowdy: Right. And we've actually, you and I, we've actually discussed that specific thing on this. And that's not, yeah, that's not a good business practice. No. You know, people are already agitated and anxious that it's late. And then to continue to back yourself into a corner every time, you know, you put an actual date on something and then have to keep changing it. Just does not breed goodwill. And so, yeah. But, you know, hopefully they get it shipped soon because I think you're really going to like the pen. I think in the end, hopefully the wait will be worth it because I'm finding that I do really enjoy mine. I have the black model. I guess it's aluminum, but it's kind of got this satiny black finish on it. It's really nice. They actually, they did a good job on the manufacturing. I was worried. They shipped the ink cartridges. They shipped a short international ink cartridge, which is every pen. And they put it inside the barrel. So a lot of them blew up during shipping. I guess, you know, probably different pressure and who knows how they actually shipped. And I was like, I was dreading opening my box that there's going to be like an explosion in the middle of the barrel. But mine arrived safe and sound. And the difference in mine is I ordered the titanium nib. And I've never owned a titanium nib before. And these titanium nibs are made by Bach, which is a German manufacturer. They are excellent. I am super, super happy with this nib. The difference between it and a steel nib is it's actually a little bit softer. It's a little bit more flex in it. Like I like a very firm nib. And that's why I use a lot of steel nibs. This titanium is kind of somewhere in between like the steel and the gold. Like gold feels very soft when you're writing with it. And steel feels very hard. And this is kind of in between. It's a really unique thing. You can tell a difference in how this pen writes. It's super smooth.

Brad Dowdy: I think this is a medium nib. These mediums are fine. Medium. But it's not an overly broad, wide medium. It's a very kind of straight up medium like you would get out of a Twisby. Twisby used to use Bach nibs one time in the past. So I'm real happy with this pen. And when you get it, I think you will enjoy yours, Myke. This looks like a pen that's right up your alley. So hopefully the nasty taste in your mouth will go away once it arrives and you get to start using it.

Myke Hurley: So it says about the 31st of March, but that's for batch one. I mean, I have no idea what that means. Like, am I in batch one? I have no idea. Like, yeah. God, this stuff. I packed this in September, man. I'm like, I...

Brad Dowdy: Well, if we're being honest about Kickstarter projects, I'm pretty disappointed in the writer's bullet journal at this point. You know? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it kind of hadn't shown up, has it? No, it hasn't. Not to totally hijack the show, but I was hoping we'd get those, like, towards the beginning of the year, because that was late last fall. And, you know, just like every other Kickstarter project or majority of them, you know, manufacturing problems. So I keep checking in every now and then, seeing where it's at, but we're not close to shipping yet.

Myke Hurley: So... Man, Kickstarter. Man... I'm really worried. I'm really worried about our video, you know.

Brad Dowdy: We could do a whole show on Kickstarter, couldn't we?

Myke Hurley: I'm just like, I'm terrified we're going to do something wrong.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I know. Yeah, it's a little bit nerve-wracking. But, yeah.

Myke Hurley: I hope you're building... I hope you're making those cases.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Not yet. Not yet. Working on... We're busy making babies at the knock shop.

Myke Hurley: Oh, yeah. Congratulations, Mr. Brookwicky. That's right. What was his name again? Brookwicky. Yeah. Congratulations, Brookwicky.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Proud Papa. The baby popped out full beard. So, yeah. We're good.

Myke Hurley: Good. Exactly as you'd want.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Yeah. But, no. Everything is well with mama and baby. So, congratulations to Jeff. And I can't wait to get up and see the little guy. So, he looks like a cutie. All right. So, I got one more pen. And I want to talk about it. Because the purchase... The purchaseee... The person I purchased it from is in the chat room today. His name is Punky. I bought it from him in the Pen Addict Slack channel. Which anyone can request an invite to. And I need to talk to you about getting that... Finding how to automatically set that up. So, people can just register themselves. But, I got the orange Sailor 1911 that I've been looking at for years. Just one of those pens that's always been on my list. Because it's beautiful. It's a bright, bright orange resin barrel. In the larger size. I like the Pro Gear size of the Sailor 1911 series. Instead of the Pro Gear Slims. Which is the smaller. Often referred to as the Sapporo. So, this is pretty much a normal size pen. It's just really, really beautiful. The orange and black highlights. And rhodium trim. And Punky sold it to me. Saying it's a fine nib. Which is really, really fine for Japanese. Japanese fine nibs are very fine. And he sold it to me saying it's a dry writer. And I've had experience with Sailor pens. And they can be a little bit dry. And I actually prefer that. So, it was good to have that conversation with him. This pen wouldn't be for everybody. Some others would not like it. So, when I got it. I wanted to see how dry it really wrote. So, I put in a really dry ink. To just kind of compound it. And just see what it's all about. And it writes very dry. But it's very smooth. And the ink is. The ink flows very nicely. But it's pretty much like a Japanese extra fine nib. Which is definitely not for everybody. I mean, that's an extraordinarily fine nib. When I say Japanese extra fine. It's almost nothing that you've ever experienced. But I've used several of them. I enjoy that type of feel in my pen. So, you're going to see a lot of this Sailor Pro Gear Orange. I'm very happy with it. So, thank you, Punky, for selling me that. Well, I think. I thank you for selling me that. Because, you know, that whole New Year's resolution. About not buying many pens before the Atlanta Pen Show. Didn't really happen this year.

Myke Hurley: Not for you, anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I've kind of gone off the deep end. But there's still more pens to come. It's only like three, three and a half weeks away. Right, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Oh, boy.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. It's coming soon. So, we're going to talk about that for next week's podcast. We'll have the Atlanta Pen Show pregame with Anna next week. So, all right. So, I want to get to one more big topic today, Myke. That I want to get into. But you want to talk about our last sponsor of the show?

Myke Hurley: I will indeed. I will indeed. This episode is brought to you by Bushel. Bushel is a cloud-based mobile device management solution for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It allows you to take control of the devices that you have for people that work in your business or your team. But what makes Bushel different is that you don't have to read a bunch of IT books to understand how to use it. What Bushel does is it allows you to take Apple devices, iPhones, iPads, and Macs. And say you run a team or you own a small company and, you know, everybody in your company is using those devices. Whether you supply them or they have them themselves. And you want to be able to install apps on their devices that they need for work. You want to be able to set them up with email accounts and stuff that they're going to need for work. Maybe you have security settings that you need to put on there, like passcodes and stuff like that. Or maybe if, you know, if somebody loses their device, you want to be able to wipe it for them remotely so they don't lose company data and stuff. This is what Bushel allows you to do. They have a really simple, really clean, easy-to-understand user interface. It puts great power at your fingertips. It's a super powerful tool that doesn't need a dedicated IT manager like many of these types of services do. You can, when you install apps remotely onto people's devices, you don't even need to plug them in. You can even ring fence them. So if you have, like, secure customer data in an app and you don't want it to leave an app, like let's say, for example, you use Dropbox or Google Drive or Box or something in your business. And you want just the documents that are within that app to remain within that app. You're actually able to ring fence them so they can't be put elsewhere. It's really, really powerful stuff. Bushel is great for if you provide devices. It's great for if people bring their own devices to work. Because you can set up all of these cool features and you can set up their devices with all the security profiles and email accounts and calendars and all that sort of stuff without touching any of their personal data. You don't override anything. You don't delete anything. And if these people leave your company, you can wipe all of just the business-specific data off their device remotely. You never touch their phone. You never touch their personal stuff either. It's really, really incredible stuff. What Bushel does is it allows for simple, automatic setup of Apple devices in your workplace. It allows you to simply configure and manage them without having to devote all of the needs of an IT manager. With Bushel, you get all of the control that you need for your business without having to lose all of your time. You can sign up for Bushel right now at Bushel.com slash ThePenAddict. You want to say the full name for this one? Bushel.com slash ThePenAddict. The first three devices you register will be free for life. And for any more, it's just $2 per device per month. It's a super awesome deal. Thank you so much to Bushel for supporting this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: I love hearing about companies like this because it wasn't that long ago where tools like this were not available to the small business guy, at least not affordably and easily. So thank you, Bushel, for sponsoring this show. And I think it's just a really, really interesting product. And I love hearing about that type of stuff. So awesome.

Myke Hurley: It's like the people that have built it, they have experience building this stuff on a way, way larger scale than this. So they boiled it down to make it super accessible for people that just don't want to spend the time learning a really, really complicated tool. This is perfect for small business owners. Perfect.

Top Five Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's great. All right. So I updated my top five pens list this week. And we talked about some of the changes I was going to make. And I implemented them this week. So what the change was is I kind of moved the list away from my favorites and the pens I'm using the most frequently over the past time period between the last update and the current update of the top five pens list into a straight recommendation page for different categories of pens, papers, inks, things like that. And the reason I did that is because I was causing more confusion than I had intended with kind of cross pollinating. What's my recommendation? What's a Brad favorite? And how are these different? And how does this apply to me, the reader, reading it? So I wanted to add some clarity in it. So it's been really well received as far as the new format. The feedback has been, I love the new format. I understand why you did it. I don't like not having your personal touch on it. And I knew that was going to happen. I was actually kind of hoping that would be the feedback. I like what you did. I see why you did it. I missed this other part where it had like the personal touch to it. And I explained that in the post that going forward, I'm going to take those personal items and those are going to be more regular blog posts. So there'll be some different types of posts coming up where I talk about, you know, my top three or five blue black inks. I took that list completely off. You know, I, some of the high end fountain pen stuff like the Nakaya or like the list of pens, my current pens. That I'm using, my favorite pens that I'm using right now. That list is off. Because I can talk about that on the blog separately. Because that's more of a constant changing type of thing. Like there's change in the top five recommendations list. But there's usually not wide sweeping changes. The pens I use for month to month, there's often wide sweeping changes. There'll be a pen I'll live for for a month or two. I can't get it out of my hands. And then I won't use it for six months. So there's an opportunity there for regular blog posts to have that stuff specific to me. The personal stuff that people really actually do come to this list for and want to see some more of that. And then the top five pens page will be more of a pure recommendation. These are the best pens in these categories for a wide range of people, if you will. So that's kind of the way it went. And a lot of the list, you know, one of the biggest changes is I ripped the fountain pen stuff out and started that from scratch. And now I have a top five fountain pens under 50. Top five fountain pens between 50 and 100. And a top five fountain pens between 100 and 200. That seems to be like more than enough of a range for anyone looking at a top five list. Where before, I kind of did, you know, the kind of the, what did I say? The no-brainer fountain pens. Just like something that's getting into fountain pens. Someone that's getting into fountain pens can just look at this list and purchase something. And know they're going to get something that's good quality. And then the some-brainer fountain pens, which were like, that was more of a personal favorites list. Like it listed in a Kaia or a Mirror X or things like that. Things that you had to put a lot of thought into it. That didn't really serve its purpose in the top five list. These types of lists, I think, serve better what people are looking for. I also, in fountain pen inks and paper, instead of saying, what's my favorite, what's the most highly recommended fountain pen ink or most recommended paper, I did it by brand. Because I didn't think it was really right to sort it by color, if that makes sense, for what this list is trying to accomplish. You should know that if you're going to buy Pilot Orochizuku ink, you're going to get a great ink that performs well, behaves well, is easy to clean. You can just pick whichever color speaks to you. There's no reason for me to put a Pilot Orochizuku Konpeki on there. That doesn't serve the meaning of this list. Same thing with paper. You know, I put Rodia down there. Rodia makes awesome paper no matter which style you buy. So you find the style that speaks to you the most. Is it the graph paper, blank, line, dot grid, you know, top bound, staple bound? There's a million different things. I don't need to narrow it down that much. Just know that if you're going to buy Rodia, it's going to be really good paper. So those were kind of the biggest changes. And like I said, I think the feedback was super positive. People want to see more of my personal stuff. So I'm going to start, I'll either start it this week or I might wait until April 1st. I'm going to start logging what I use every day into a notebook so I can have at least a monthly post of, here's the stuff I used the most over the past month. Because I think people want to see that too. So what are your thoughts on these changes?

Myke Hurley: I'm happy that you've gone down this route.

Myke Hurley: Because I think it makes sense for people, as we were talking about last week, for people that are coming to your website, right?

Myke Hurley: Because they're not necessarily there with you. I like that it's kind of like a notes from the editor. Yeah. That's kind of how I look at it. Like, it's like editor's note.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah. Under each little section, I have a little note if I feel I have something additional to add. And that's more from a personal perspective.

Myke Hurley: I'm very, very happy you have buy links. Although there doesn't appear to be any affiliates on them.

Brad Dowdy: Well, that's a conversation we can have offline. But there's not direct affiliates to the places that I link to.

Myke Hurley: Okay. I understand that. That makes sense. Because you've got specialized places. It's not Amazon, all of this stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I could go in and find anything that's on Amazon. But that's just... Don't do that. You've... No need for that.

Myke Hurley: Servicing people, I think. But yeah, having buy buttons is a good thing.

Brad Dowdy: Actually, I've gotten some good comment on that. Which I was surprised. I'm not... You know, I shouldn't be surprised. But I was like, oh, thanks for doing that. I was like, oh, okay, good. I'm glad someone finds that useful.

Myke Hurley: I guess one of the things is one of your sponsors is someone that you're sending it to a lot, right? So it kind of just... I'm sure it all ties in for JetPens, right? Because that's where most of this stuff is.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So probably out of the buy links, I don't have a count. It's got to be greater than 75% go to JetPens. Just because that's where you can get a lot of this stuff. And I'm happy to support them. They support me. And so, yeah. I mean, it certainly helps out the pen addict as a whole. And allows me to do things like hire additional writers when I need to.

Myke Hurley: You have a missing close bracket on Field Notes for the buy. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: All right. I will fix that. I keep... There's definitely a few things I've had to go and fix. I see another one now. I see a second one, too. Right above... In the section above that, there's another one. So, yes. I will go back and get those. But good. I'm glad you feel that it's generally...

Myke Hurley: I think the list is great.

Myke Hurley: Because I think it's clear. You've made some changes here that I think are great just in general. I like the new descriptions for the lists and stuff. I think, yeah. I think this is all around a really, really great addition. And I think it's a nice evolution for a page that I assume will grow even bigger and bigger over time. Yeah.

List Clarity

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, that was the goal in this update was clarity. Because it had kind of lost its way in the past year and was kind of, you know, didn't have a real definition on why this page existed. And I think this helped added clarity to that. And, you know, I'm definitely looking for feedback. And, you know, there's always more changes to be made. So, if you have any feedback, you know, definitely let me know. And I'm happy to talk about it and see when I can get implemented. But I'm happy with how it turned out. And we'll keep moving forward with it. And I'm happy to now be able to do some additional stuff on the regular blog post with my personal stuff, which I enjoy writing about that instead of just, like, blurbing.

Myke Hurley: One thing I'd like to see. More work for you. For there to be a header image for each category, which has, like, just one photo with all five items in it. That's not a bad idea. And, like, a little number under each item. Okay. Just so you can see them. I mean, again, it's not necessary. But I think it would be nice. I think it will help. I think it will help the visual flow of the page as well. True. Because I think some people might not know what they're looking for by the names that you give them or the names that they are called. But, you know, they might look at it and be like, oh, I know what that means. You know, maybe even, like, on a piece of paper, it's got a little squiggly line of demonstration of the line of whatever or something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think that's a great idea. And, yeah, so I'm going to need everyone to click on those buy links so I can now afford a photographer for all the extra work that Myke has just handed me. Cool, man. Cool, man.

Brad Dowdy: But it's actually a wonderful idea. It's a crap ton of work. Just an ideas guy.

Myke Hurley: I basically just like to give you more work every time I look at this list.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Anytime you say photography, I cringe because that's just a crap ton of work. It's a lot of work. And I am so jealous of people who are, like, really good photographers, like the two people that write for the Pen Act, Jeff Abbott and Susan Pickett. They put me to shame and I love having them because I just drool over their photography. Your writing staff. Your team. My writing staff.

Myke Hurley: Editorial. Please, please never let them do illustrations.

Myke Hurley: Why? Because then we end up with crazy things.

Brad Dowdy: We end up with crazy... Terrifying Brad eyes. Crazy rabies Brad. Rabies Brad. Oh, no. Oh, Brad. All right, man. Before I get in trouble, we should wrap this thing up.

Myke Hurley: If you want to find the show notes for this week's episode, head on over to relay.fm slash the Pen Addicts. Relay.fm slash Pen Addicts slash 147. Thanks again to our sponsors this week. Thanks again to our sponsors this week. Doodek Modern Goods, Bushel, and Mash Drop. My name is Myke Curley. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, on Twitter and Instagram. And I am joined, as always, by the Editor-in-Chief of PenAddict.com, Mr. Brad Dowdy. He is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, on Twitter. And he is PenAddict on Instagram. We'll both be back next week and we'll be joined by our good friend, Anna, to talk all about the upcoming Pen Show. We're doing that next week because then I'm away for a week. And then I'm in Atlanta, baby. We're nearly there. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad.