The Pen Addict 297/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	297
Title:	Who's the Fool Now Steve?
Release Date:	February 28th, 2018
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 297
Audio File:	Audio Episode 297
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 297
Length:	7575 min <br />1.25 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 297. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Pen Chalet, and Curfcase. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Hey, Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm very good. I'm very, very good indeed. We're closing in on 300, aren't we? Three weeks away.

Brad Dowdy: God, that doesn't even register with me. Like, I see episode 297, it should click, that, man, 300's pretty soon, and, you know, we should do something cool, and...

Myke Hurley: No, no, I think we're just gonna let it go, bye.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it'll be the random show.

Myke Hurley: Well, it's just because we're so close to a big live show anyway, you know, that you kind of just let it go, is my thinking. You know, like, it used to be, back in the day, back in the old, the old 200s, or whenever it was, that we would... The arts. Yeah, that we would try and match these up with live shows, but that just became trickier to do as time went along. So, you know, you can kind of imagine that whatever it would be like, episode 305 or something, that would be the Atlanta show, and that's kind of the celebration of our continued...

Annual Celebration

Brad Dowdy: It's our annual celebration of the show, yeah, our annual recapping of all things Panadict Awesomeness.

Myke Hurley: Speaking of which...

Brad Dowdy: Speaking of which... One week to go, one week to go. From today, from today, if you're listening today, you have seven days to get in on the Panadict Live 2018 RelayCon Atlanta and Toronto Kickstarter project.

Myke Hurley: The project ends on March the 7th, 2018. So you have to back before then. I do not know. It says, like, midnight... 8.12 a.m. Eastern. Okay. Okay, yeah. I see, like, 1.12 p.m. UTC. So, like, basically, you want to make sure you have your pledge in on the 7th, because it ends at, like, crazy times for everyone. So you've got seven days to go. As I'm looking at this page, we just got our 599th backer, so thank you to whoever it was that just did that. Yeah, it just clicked. And we are at $27,309, which is amazing. Yeah, it's perfect. And, you know, as Brad mentioned last week, this is going to enable Anna to join us. And I'll just mention this again, because I don't think Brad has put this in an update yet, that if you're looking for extra pins, you just need to add $10 to your pledge, and you can get extra pins. Yes, if you want that.

Brad Dowdy: I'll send out a reminder. I meant to do that, because I do get emails and messages on that. So I'll send out a reminder. I'll send out one, like, Monday or so.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's good for the last couple of days. Give it a last little bump. And as we said, you know, we don't, any extra money from kind of this point onwards, we don't have any plans for. But be rest assured that we will find a way to use it to benefit the campaign. So, yeah. So, thank you. At this moment, we are just getting extra, which is fantastic. And, you know, we haven't, in a couple of years, we haven't been able to do giveaways, because the budget hasn't allowed for it. But you never know. Maybe this year will. But as we found with last year as well, once you add a new environment in, the costs can start going up quite a bit. So we're not sure what the effect Toronto is going to have on the campaign, on the funds of the campaign. But we have enough to cover it all. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Pretty amazing. And I'm just looking at this ending date now. It's not going to end by the time we record next week. That kind of stinks. Who set this thing up? Some slacker, probably. Yeah. So, yeah. It ends the day after we record. So we'll have to wait a whole other week to talk about it.

Myke Hurley: On a statistic thing, we've already raised now the most money we've ever made. We've kind of, as of today, actually beat out the total money of 2017, I believe. So, no, no, sorry. We're a little bit away. We're a little bit away. My apologies. So it's likely that we probably will do that, I reckon, that we will be our most funded. But I'm just going to say, you know, we had 720 backers last year. We have 599 so far. So if you're still hiding in the woodwork out there, coming back to the Kickstarter campaign, I'm expecting, as is usual, you kind of get a bump right around the end anyway, because people hit that, like, remind me button to make sure that it's going to fund. So, yeah. If you're out there and you still have yet to do this, this is basically the last warning we can give you, because by next week there'll be so little time left on the campaign, there won't be enough time. So get in and back it. Wow. I like that. Very direct. Talking about Kickstarter campaigns,

Wancho Pen

Myke Hurley: the belief came true, and the Wancho pen, which will be ending in 24 hours when we're recording, so the dream pen that we spent some time talking about, they announced a delay, right? Mm-hmm. So what's the situation?

Brad Dowdy: If I was a betting man, and I am a betting man, I would have bet my house that this would happen.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, we were talking about it, and I'm just going to state, like, for the continued record, I do not believe that the pens will be shipped out in full by the new date that they've given either.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this was a motor lock that this was going to happen. We knew it from essentially day one when we saw how many they sold the first day, and it's a time-intensive process. This, I mean, but it doesn't even register with me, the delay, because I expected it from the jump. And they're doing what you have to do is they're answering your questions before you have them. This is how you run a good Kickstarter project. Yep. You know, you might be unhappy that now there's a delay, and you had plans for this pen in August, and now it's October, maybe, right? But that's part of Kickstarter. You don't know how your project's going to go until you actually go live and push that button. And so you try to, you know, take into account all these things and all these things that could happen or not happen, and, you know, best-case scenarios for, in this case, which I, instead of a worst-case scenario, best-case scenarios, you sell a lot, right? But then that puts you in a production bind, and you see it every time a Kickstarter goes beyond kind of its initial scope. And it was a lock that this was going to happen. It phases me 0%. If there was a negative, it would probably be a negative percent. The only thing that does suck is we'll all get hit on our credit cards for, like, 400 bucks, you know, tomorrow, and we're not going to get that product for until late in the year. But some people are used to that. Like, your Newton pen took 12 months. You buy into that fact, right? Some people might not be used to that with this type of project. I think most of the people that listen to this show would be. But, yeah, I mean, I have no issue with it. It's fine. They communicate. As soon as you know information, let your backers know, and it seems like they did that, right? I mean, this is before the project even ended. They said, hey, this went big. This is a time-consuming process, and it's going to take us longer. Here's our new estimate, and that very well might change, too. So, I mean, it's a commendable job. Some people will hate it, and that's a fair point, too. But it's kind of an is-what-it-is thing on Kickstarter, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I mean, I agree with basically everything you said, right? Like, that this is something that seemed like it was inevitable, and they communicated it far in advance before the campaign even ended, which I like because now, if you want to, you can choose to cancel before the money's taken from you, which I think is a really nice way to do it, right? And also, it's an interesting thing to do. Oh, that's a good point. Because they could have easily just announced this in three weeks' time, and they'd still have your money. So I say hats off to them that they've done it now because it gives people the ability to back out if they want to. But yeah, I have decided not to back this campaign purely based upon the fact that it is an expensive purchase that could take an infinite amount of time to arrive for a questionable result, right? Like, this is more money than I would want to spend on a pen without any idea of what this company is able to do at this kind of scale. Like, I would want to wait until, like, you and, like, Ed Jelly and Anna and, you know, and Joe, all these people get the pens in their hands, and our listeners as well, and can confirm that, like, yes, they are able to produce this pen before I was to go down that route. Absolutely fair. Absolutely fair. Yeah. I just, this is just, you know, I'm just being a little bit cautious on this one purely because of the price, it's very expensive, and that would be, like, two-thirds of the value of a pen that I really desperately want. So I'm not willing to part with that cash right now. But, I mean, I do genuinely believe, my feeling is, people are going to be very happy with their purchases because all of the signs point, like, that ever, you know, that you've had a production, or, like, a pre-production model, right, and so I have a couple of other people, and everyone's saying, yeah, this is a really great pen. Like, great enough that you have gone ahead and put your own money down on one. So, like, that looks, the signs are definitely there, but the proof will be in the pudding, and I would wait, I want to wait until that pudding is served.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, totally fair. It's a big ask, and it's a big project, and a difficult manufacturing process. So, we'll see. Like, I mean, I'm still fully confident they'll deliver excellence. It's just going to be later than initially thought, and I think any reasonable person knew that it was going to be later than reasonably thought from the jump, so, because the timelines just didn't add up to us from the beginning, right? So, speaking of timelines, Myke, I cannot wait to talk about this next topic. Would you like to fill us in on your fascination with the Sailor Bungu Box Pink Love fountain pen?

Myke Hurley: So, I think the last time that anybody heard this story, right, I had provided to Bungu Box my pre-order wish, right? Or I'd emailed them. I can't remember how it was, but I know that listeners will know that I emailed them.

Brad Dowdy: I think you did like a pre-order form. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, I filled in like a, I sent them an email, and then they sent me back some like options, some like pre-order options in an email, right? So, it was like, okay, I filled that information in because you were like, oh, I should have name-dropped you, right? And I said that I didn't want to do that. And I was waiting for them to get back to me. So, I kind of waited a little bit and was kind of, kind of, I don't know, going along and seeing how it was going to go, seeing what would happen. Then in the pen addicts, like some people started getting information coming through, like that they were getting their orders fulfilled, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, successful orders started showing up.

Myke Hurley: And I had, I had said that I wanted a medium or a bold.

Myke Hurley: I kind of misread the email a little bit.

Myke Hurley: The email, it was, I think, I don't know how to say this. Like, it was, it was emailed, I think the email was created by somebody where English was their second language, right? So, it was relatively simple. And I misread it. So, it was like, the way that it was laid out was not the way that I expected. And what they were saying was, they didn't have a lot of the mediums and bolds and they have more of the other nib sizes. But I thought it meant the way that they'd written it, that they did have a lot of mediums and bolds, which is why I kind of, I made that choice. So, people started getting their kind of emails back from Bung Box, telling them, oh, you've got your pen, please, like, you know, we're going to, what's your PayPal email address? So, we're going to send you an invoice. And then, so I emailed them and then like, maybe later that day or the next day, because it was kind of all of these, all of these emails were going around about midnight my time because of all the time different stuff. And they were like, oh, sorry, we don't, we run out. We don't have any more in any of those. And I was like, oh man, I lost it. So, I kind of was just like, oh, well, that didn't, that didn't work out for me. And then there was, somebody else in the Slack was like, oh, why don't you just tell them you'll take anything? Because like, some other people had done that. When they gave their initial orders, they were like, I'll take a medium, but I'll have anything you've got. Right? So, I was like, oh, I should have done that. And the reason I didn't say anything like that in the initial email was, I was trying to keep it simple because like, I thought that I was, again, like I, my belief was I was working with somebody where English was their second language. So, I didn't want to like, make the emails overly complicated, like unnecessarily complicated. Like, I just wanted to communicate what I wanted. And so, it was easy for everyone and there'd be less questions. Right? That was my thinking. Just keep it short and sweet. Like, thank you. I would like a medium. Here is my information. You know, like just to kind of just keep it so there couldn't be any communication errors was my thinking. Right? That didn't work out because by keeping it simple like that, I wasn't able to do it. So, I sent them an email again and I was like, I'll take anything that you have. And I didn't, obviously, I didn't hear back from them immediately. So, then I signed up for White Rabbit Express, which, for what I can understand, White Rabbit Express is a intermediary who will buy things for you in Japan and ship them anywhere in the world for a fee because they can read the websites, they can place the orders, they can do whatever it has to be done. It's quite, it's a clever service. Like, I think it's... Yeah,

Brad Dowdy: and it has been used quite regularly in our community, you know.

Myke Hurley: And I'd always been a little bit apprehensive of these services. Like, I just didn't know, I just didn't know what it was going to be like. Like, I was a little bit like, I'm not sure. Like, are these like a little bit shady? I wasn't sure. So, I checked it out and I was like, okay, so I signed up but they just didn't do anything fast enough. with, like, after like four days they hadn't even posted, they hadn't even looked at my order, right? Like, it was just in their system was like waiting to be looked at. So, I cancelled that anyway. But, so I figured time's up. I got my email back from them after I said I'll take literally anything and they were like, we're sorry but we're all sold out. We have nothing. So, I'm, I missed out, lost out, no pink love for me and then, like a knight in shining armor, Brad Dowdy appears in my DMs. He slid into my DMs and he said to me, you can have mine. Which I thought was very generous of Brad and I said to him, I think I said to you something along the lines of but it's yours though and then you were like, I don't need it, you need it. Which I thought was quite funny because it's true. I really do need it. So, we had arranged that I would buy Brad's and then like a couple of hours later Bungbox emailed me and they're like, we have a medium, do you want it? I was like, yeah, I'll take it. So then they sent me the invoice through and I've ordered it and it's, this morning I've got tracking information, I have a medium on the way. Which is great because the one that I would have bought from you was like a fine, which would have been nice but it wouldn't have been what I wanted, you know. And then the problem is like the nib, the nib for this one is special. Like the nib has some writing on it and I would have wanted that nib so I probably wouldn't have been able to ever get it worked on which may have meant, so the nib says ink tells more and it's just like a plain nib and it just says that it doesn't have the usual anchor, the sailor anchor and it would have been a shame if I then wouldn't have used the pen as much because of the nib thing, right? So, yeah. So yeah, it was a real rollercoaster. I've learned some valuable lessons to read emails more carefully because I was kind of just like speed reading everything because I wanted to not waste time and also to find ways to be more communicative but keeping it simple. But it was, and also to name drop Brad wherever, wherever. that's what I've learned. So yeah, I was a real rollercoaster. Let me know how that works out for you. But I'm really, really, really excited because I haven't seen this pen in person yet, right? But just the pictures of it, I like it more than the original because it has like that cool, like the finials got that little, like. Yeah,

Brad Dowdy: like little additional jewel. I don't know if it's rotten or what's in there. It looks like rotten,

Myke Hurley: right? And it's got like a bow and then the ink, the nib's got that like ink tells more, which is kind of like, I don't know, it's funny. I like it. So yeah, I'm excited. And also, I'm also excited because like this is the one that I bought, like I didn't have to buy it off someone and also the fact that like this pen came to me at the exact time that I wanted it, which I'll never understand the serendipity of that, right? Just, just as I decided that I want this pen, they release a new edition of it, which is kind of funny. So yeah, I've got one on the way. I'm hoping, I don't know how long it takes for something to come from Japan

Brad Dowdy: to England. They're pretty quick. They're pretty quick for coming this direction. So I'm hoping

Myke Hurley: that I'll have it, I'll have it next week, right? Like that's my hope. Awesome. It is, it's on the way, like it's already moved from one hub to another hub and I'm expecting that now it's just getting ready to be put on a plane would be my expectation.

Myke Hurley: So yeah, I'm, I'm very excited.

Brad Dowdy: This whole thing was way funnier than this story indicates. I was dying the whole time because Myke was, Myke was like totally despondent. Like he was like, well, that's it. No pink love for me and everyone was commiserating with him. I was sad about it. Yeah, it's like no pink love. I was like, no, I got you. And you're like, wait, what? And I was like, well, it's a fine, but you know, like you told, you said all that and you're like, yeah, I'll take it. And I'm like, okay. And then maybe an hour after that first ride on the roller coaster, you took the next loop when you got the email from Bung Box. I was like, are you kidding me? That's hilarious. So it was a trip. It was a funny couple hours watching Myke go through the machinations of getting a pen. This happened over multiple days. Yeah. Right? Like all of this stuff. It was hilarious. So I thoroughly enjoyed this process.

Myke Hurley: At least somebody enjoyed it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about something else we can enjoy, Myke.

Kerfcase Studio Case

Myke Hurley: I have a new sponsor to tell you about. Oh yeah? I'm excited. They're called Kerfcase. That's K-E-R-F-C-A-S-E. Kerfcase are the genii behind the handcrafted studio case. So these are carved from single pieces of reclaimed Pensylvania hardwood. The studio case is a magnetic modular portable studio for creators on the go. It is a fully customizable modular design that you can stack when traveling using high powered magnets. It's securely attached but easy to separate. I'm going to give you an example. They sent me one. It's a nice piece of wood. All right. Listen to this.

Myke Hurley: That is this beautiful wooden case being separated in magnets. And let me explain to you how this works. The studio case expands into specialized individual trays. So they have a bunch of different trays that can then be stacked up on top of each other magnetically to form a pencil case. So you have one that's a lid, right? And then you have multiple trays that you can customize. You can buy whatever trays you want from the options that they have and you can stack it almost infinitely. So they have a pen tray which holds up to six pencils, pens, and including an Apple pencil. They have a marker tray which can hold up to five Sharpies or thicker pens plus an eraser sized compartment and they have the utility tray which is completely empty. It has no kind of ridges in there so it can hold stuff like post-it notes and small notebooks and that kind of stuff and it has a securely fitting lid as well. Now, I want to mention I have been talking with the folk behind Curve Case because my typical fountain pens don't fit in the trays that they have. so the trays that they have currently they call it the studio case because it's meant for like you can see it on their site they've got like Sakura Pigma Microns they have Sharpies and stuff like that but some of the fountain pens that I own you know even some of my sailors and you kind of going into the acrylic pens I need more space so I've given them this feedback and they are currently working on like a fountain pen compartment too. Oh nice. So like I've given them some ideas like just you know I've just said to them like basically if you take the Sharpie tray and just remove one of the compartments to take it down from like five to four you'll probably fit basically every fountain pen but you'll be good like you're good at that. Right. So they're working on that they're working on seeing how they can maybe add something else onto this but honestly if this interests you as a product as it currently is holding what it can hold you may as well go for it because the fountain pen tray is just an extra tray that you add on anyway right? So like you buy whatever trays you want and you just stack them all up so the studio case comes with one of each type of tray currently but you can order whatever configuration fits your workflow and then stack them in any way that you like it starts at just $99 but you can get 15% off with the code ADDICT so you get 15% off with the code ADDICT KERF also makes a variety of other products including all wood cases for the iPhone and the Pixel phones as well this is what they originally got in touch with about so they contacted us about sponsorship and they wanted to talk about their phone cases on one of like maybe connected or something and I was like no no what is this pencil case you have come to the wrong place my friend and then I told them all about the pen addict and they were really really excited so we decided to

Brad Dowdy: do this yeah I had no idea what to expect when I saw this name and I told you before the show that I'm gonna wait and look at it when you talk about it I was shocked at what I saw like it's really cool

Myke Hurley: it's beautiful and smells fantastic so yeah I'm very excited to see what they can do and like you can go to their site and you can see the types of pens that they're using so you can know what you're gonna get yourself into right initially but then later on later down the line it's gonna have some great options for maybe some other fountain pens and what I really like so you've got the trays and it's in this case but they show it on the website you're kind of setting yourself up and you separate all the different trays and then you've got all of your pens just neatly kept together and then when you're done you just stack it back up again and put it in your bag really really awesome so go to kerfcase.com slash studio that is k-e-r-f case c-a-s-e dot com slash studio and get your 15% off when you use the code addict thanks to kerfcase for their support this show

Brad Dowdy: yeah very cool I'm gonna have to look in more than this and I like how you could go and just build like if you want a multiple tiered case you could just add the sections you want like you said you could just add one later you know like if they do a fountain pen with case that'd be very cool I like it a lot

Kaveco Apple Pencil Sleeve

Myke Hurley: alright so what's up next the kaveco apple pencil sleeve that's what so we had who runs by stuff is it Matthew Matias Matias that's it also run stationary

Brad Dowdy: wiki

Myke Hurley: of course yes I knew the name was triggered something in my brain so yes Matias was the first one to notice is that the kaveco apple pencil sleeve is now available for purchase I don't know all of the places that you can buy it from right now like I was kind of digging around to see if I could find any UK based distributors but I couldn't so I bought it from what Matias recommended which is most wanted pens which is a site based in Germany I believe

Brad Dowdy: so let me tell you I've told you this before but I don't expect you to remember this site once I saw it in here this site is run by Sebastian Gubberle which is the son of the kaveco founder and Sebastian is the Gubberle PR

Myke Hurley: no I remember it yes so that's why they got it before anybody else okay yeah as soon as you told me that I was like oh yeah I get it I remember now because I love that name

Brad Dowdy: I mean yeah nothing wrong with that because he gets some really wild kavecos that you can't get anywhere else because he obviously has an in so he got some pretty cool stuff on here from time to

Myke Hurley: who knows like if and when this is going to break out of here but the product is called the kaveco pen sleeve grip and it comes in four colors right now they have black anthracite which is space gray gold and rose gold I don't know why they went black gold rose gold and anthracite it feels a bit much right like oh they also have a silver they also have just a standard silver it's five colors oh okay it's just like a I don't know dark gray would have been fine or just gray anyway so that's the best looking one I think that's the the gray one the anthracite one yeah that's what I went for because it matches my eye yeah so they also we also know a little bit more about how it works so it is octagonal right most of the body and it's made of aluminium and you it presses it presses against the case with a screw mechanism so like there's some kind of tension this is what we believed was the case but we wanted to see it so and they also say in the description it sits securely and firmly and doesn't wobble what I really like about this is there's a detail that they included which I think is kind of genius between the octagonal section and the grip section there is like a just a like a silver piece of metal right and I assume it's just really polished aluminium which matches Apple's design of the top of the pencil so it makes it look the ring that they put around right so it makes it look like it's more intended to be together right this is done because lots of people send me these this isn't the first company to do this type of thing right but this looks like the most natural of any of these types of things I've seen and it's honestly purely because they put that little piece of like polished aluminium right there because it adds a consistency to the design which I really really like so I have one of these on the way I'm also hoping that it will arrive by next week but I'm not sure about that yet because I expect they're pretty backed up but it has it's on its way again it's like the pink love has moved from one place to another and it's only in Germany so who knows how long it's going to take but yeah they are 34 euro right now I expect that will probably translate to like 35 40 dollars or something like that which is within the realm of what I would expect this product to cost I'm I remain open-minded and very intrigued about this product

Brad Dowdy: yeah I think that's right where I'm at it actually now that we have like the you know the light boxed edited pictures it actually looks better than I thought before it does look very good just you know instead of just a very steel you know octagonal tube kind of thing it's a little bit more detailed a little bit more refined the price is right where I would hope it would be it's actually maybe a little less than I thought effectively

Myke Hurley: like it is just a tube of aluminium right like it's right right most of what you're usually paying for for cafeco is not included in this right like any of the inner right

Brad Dowdy: the guts any of the guts but I still thought that it could be like a 50 or 60 dollar accessory without question right for the market yep so the price seems good color seems good now we'll just we'll see it in action I'll wait for you to see see what you think about it but I think it looks fantastic and I hope that these go into like regular production not just uh cafeco family production which some of the models do so we have no idea right now certainly certainly it has to like it's not like a special color like you know Sebastian will get like the purple lily put you know where the lily put still exists in all types of materials and colors everywhere else in the world I could see something like that but I think this is a big enough product where it'll start going into regular retail soon enough

Myke Hurley: this has to go into mainstream because it's a mainstream product like right because this isn't for fountain pen people right yeah because they use fountain pens like this is this needs to break out into the technology world and it's funny because you know I have obviously a lot of friends who work in this area and I've been sending this to them because obviously they have no idea about it so like sure cafeco if anybody is into cafeco your PR needs to be not sent to fountain pen blogs it needs to be sent to technology websites

Brad Dowdy: oh I'm sure it's going straight to the spaceship to the mothership in cupertino I don't think they would like that well it's going to end up in their store this is the perfect apple store item I don't

Myke Hurley: know about that I don't know about that it does

Brad Dowdy: have their branding on it

Myke Hurley: yeah well it's more that I don't know if this is something that apple wants to exist gotcha because like I don't know why but well because the apple pencil is this perfectly designed little

Brad Dowdy: thing right sure I mean your your ipad's a perfectly designed little thing and you have a cover on it that apple make I mean right that's the difference they would make this I'll fight you on this one

Myke Hurley: I mean we can fight about it all day if you want I'd be very but I'd be very very very surprised if apple stuck this in their stores

Fountain Pens

Brad Dowdy: okay okay yeah maybe so we'll see we'll see so you mentioned that it wasn't really for fountain pen users this next product I want to talk about it's absolutely not for fountain pen users but it's absolutely for me and that's the coaxes coaxes rail pen and full disclosure they are a blog sponsor this week so they have a paid advertisement on pen addict.com this week but that influences me in no way in what I think about the products but I seeing this went holy cow this is awesome I was all over this so what were your we'll talk about this a little bit more but I want to know your initial thoughts when you click this link for the coaxes rail pen because it's it will it's reactionary

Myke Hurley: it's like my personal hell

Brad Dowdy: I can totally

Myke Hurley: see that there is more power to you right like congratulations on hitting your goal coaxes like you go for it this is basically everything I don't want in a pen like it is over engineered to the point of like just being mind boggling and I can't imagine writing with a ruler with a pen on the end right which is like effectively what this is in form factor yeah it is like one of the most edc pens I have ever come across in my entire life which means that it should sell well and I hope that it finds the audience that will want it but like this is not this this just is not my bag yeah

Brad Dowdy: this is a no middle ground pen here yeah they have made some very very

Myke Hurley: particular statements

Myke Hurley: type of person who will want it there is no like maybe no you just know right like it is very particular yeah

Brad Dowdy: so on kickstarter I don't back any of the super tactical edc pens you know the big the big beastly you know stabby you know totally over engineered large size pens this one's not in that category even though it's an edc pen and it's over engineered to the hilt but it's my kind of pen because it's small slim line and I actually work well with rectangular shaped barrels like I've always loved the Moleskine pens that were rectangular and you know other pens that have a rectangular shaped barrel I mean if this aesthetic doesn't appeal to you like I totally get it it's a super weird pen but this kind of reminds me of some pens I had when I was a kid right when you would see some of these weird novelty pens but this makes it into a real legit thing takes a D1 refill it's got this sliding retractable mechanism like I've watched the video a couple times I still don't know how this thing works yeah it

Myke Hurley: built but it looks like basically they started with the mechanism and built a pen around it because I can't imagine how you could come up with this design in any other way it's the rail pen is the right way to describe it if you can't see it right because they've effectively got like three metal rods that are encased in aluminium and the way that you retract the pen is by pulling like a sleeve that goes around the three metal rods which the pen is attached to so to make it retract and what's the opposite of retract protrude

Brad Dowdy: I call it I call it always call it eject or extend there

Myke Hurley: you go to extend and

Brad Dowdy: retract

Myke Hurley: there there's a

Brad Dowdy: word for it that sound there's an official word for it but I've never liked it they use extend

Myke Hurley: they use extend in their page right but to extend and retract the pen the ink the mechanism in which you're going to write with you pull forward and back on this little sleeve which goes up and down on the rails and allows you to do this it's like a slider yeah a slider is a good way of saying it but there's a part that I just wanted to mention I couldn't help myself because I just don't get it right so like the video like one of the first thing they say is unparalleled comfort

Brad Dowdy: yeah I can't imagine that man I can't just like just like I caught the the watcher's most funded fountain pen I didn't catch that there's no way there's no way you can say that

Myke Hurley: the full sentence is unparalleled comfort for a more natural writing experience no maybe to some people like this format like this thin and long wide format might be nice but there's just no way like it's only natural if you're used to sellotaping a pen onto a ruler like that's just how you've written in your life right like natural is like when you put those triangular grips around a pencil right like that's like the most natural you can get because they're built the way that your hand wants to form but yeah look again the design of this is kind of cool like you could put it on a desk and it would be kind of wicked looking they have some amazing treatments including they have like a rendering of a Damascus titanium which looks like an acid trip like it looks cool but this just is not it's not for me I can't it's not my thing

Brad Dowdy: yeah so I backed blue raspberry titanium yep I figure if I'm going in I'm getting the coolest looking one for me I

Brad Dowdy: least if not longer they did the Pico pen which is a keychain pen that's super popular pen so they're always making kind of like off the wall stuff and I certainly this is about as off the wall as you can get it cracks me up still just looking at it and looking at some of the gifs of just the sliding mechanism moving it just makes me giggle it's kind of a wild pen but there was no way I wasn't going to back this right I mean it's like I have to back this I'm getting one of these pens I just am

Myke Hurley: yeah it's this isn't the type of thing that you use but it fits in a weird way right like I can see

Brad Dowdy: that you would want this pen I might disagree with you like if this works

Brad Dowdy: I I'm interested in the size of it and the feel of it because I think I can use it as it's set up my grip is pretty normal I have lots of experience with rectangular shape pens I have no issue using them so we'll see I'm excited so if it actually works as I hope it does I think I will carry it quite frequently I can put some D1

Brad Dowdy: it was pretty funny but pretty awesome at the same time at least for me the next one I want to talk about is a review I did on Monday and it's for the Pentel Inner Gel Cleaner I'm going with and it's a the one I have is 0.3 millimeter gel ink pen so Pentel and Inner Gel and gel ink pens this is all pretty normal stuff they added back into their product lineup a 0.3 millimeter refill which is really what I wanted to talk about so in the past Pentel made a pen called the Sleechy which they still make and they went all the way down to 0.25 millimeters in line width and they were always excellent like the 0.25 0.3 0.4 of the Sleechy were always wonderful writers the barrel was just really bad it was a thin skinny barrel and it was super cheap plastic and it was just not comfortable to write with but people who enjoyed the refills kind of swore by the refills fast forward to more recent times they tweaked up they made they made like a completely different product line that really didn't stick at least as far as I could tell in the market called the Euro I never saw them anywhere but like on jet pins or maybe you know cult pins anywhere else that sells micro tip gel ink pins and they went down to a 0.35 millimeter and it had a more standard barrel with a cap and a nice grip but you had almost no options really and the 0.35 was almost kind of like a throw away they went all the way up to 1.0 millimeter

Inner Gel

Brad Dowdy: which just recently I'd say in the past year has gone through a design change and a color ink color change and really expanded and made that lineup really awesome like that's my wife's favorite pin right now they do really cool non-standard colors you know like blue blacks and teals and turquoises and brown she was just using a brown inner gel to make a grocery list this morning so then

Brad Dowdy: and it's the exact same shape and diameter barrel as the inner gel and if you've ever used the inner gel before it's a wide diameter barrel wider than the signo 307 wider than the pilot G2 wider than the zebra sarasa clip to have a wide barrel with a fine tip doesn't really work as good as it could like it's fine it works it's a really good pin I love the refill but the barrel is too wide so my hope like Pentel has an opportunity to compete with Uniball the Signo line especially the DX the Pilot Hitec C line and the Zebra Sarasa Clip line but they choose not to really like they did it with the Sleechy and it kind of fell flat and got passed up by all these other brands the inner gel itself is a beloved pen people who love the inner gel swear by them that's mostly in 0.7 millimeters if they can make something with a standard barrel size like the Euro give me all the micro tip choices and then all the colors that all these other three brands do I think they could be one of the best gel ink pens on the market but really to me they're fourth behind uniball pilot and zebra so you know this isn't a commentary other than for me to say I can see pentel competing with these other brands if they choose to do a little bit differently but based on their past inner gel history they just want to stick with the big old store shelf inner gels that I guess seem to sell so well they're all in the big box stores

Brad Dowdy: I love all three of those more than the inner gel just because the options are there so you know I just I just had that little bit of commentary I wanted to throw out there Myke I I'm passionate about my micro tip gel ink pens I could do a whole hour on micro tip gel ink pens easily but it's like when you see a company do something really good but at the same time it can't compete with other really good competitors but they have the skills and technology to do it you want them to do it like I want them to do something more and better and instead of like the same old big fat inner gel barrels even if they're throwing a 0.3 refill in there which is so good the refill is so ! Myke all right that's my gel ink pen diatribe I like

Myke Hurley: the way that the cleaner is it cleaner

Brad Dowdy: sure

Myke Hurley: I like the way it looks it has an unnecessarily cool design yeah right like you actually don't need to bother making it look like this it's got like a kind of retro 50s vibe going on that I dig I think it looks real sweet but it's not for me as we all know yeah

Brad Dowdy: this is my realm I totally own it and I love my micro gel ink pens and it's just I want it to be a little bit more than it is because it's so good it's like I don't want to talk bad about it because it's really good but it's not I'm not going to use it more than a high tech C or a DX or a Saracic

Pen Addict Website

Myke Hurley: see that's uh that's my gel ink diatribe for the week um there is a review of that over on pen addict.com which is a squarespace website which is a great way to transition into our next sponsor of this week's show and that is squarespace use the offer code ink at checkout i n k and you'll get 10 of your first purchase make your next move with squarespace because they'll make it very easy for you because they have everything you're going to need whether you want a unique domain name or building templates 24 7 customer support or just an all-in-one platform that you don't have to worry about any of the tricky stuff it doesn't matter what you're looking for squarespace have got it they will let you easily create the website that you need for your next idea or project if you want to create a store a portfolio a blog it doesn't matter what you want to make squarespace has all of the tools that will let you do it there's nothing to install there are no patches to worry about or upgrades that you need to take care of it's all just on the web it's very easy and it's all drag and drop and there's buttons and drop downs and it's super super simple for you to be able to go in and make the website that you have in your mind it's one of my favorite things about squarespace i can imagine a thing and be like that's how i would want it to look and i can go and make it and i can't personally i can't do that any other way because i don't i don't know how to code a website i don't know how to put a website together from scratch but i can do it on squarespace you can go in and you just drag stuff around and you keep kind of playing with it and hacking on it until you get to it it's awesome their plans start at just 12 a month you can start a free trial today with no credit card required just by going to squarespace.com and when you sign up use the offer code inc you'll get 10 off your first purchase and show your support for this show our thanks to squarespace for the continued support of the pen addict and relay fm squarespace make your next move make your next

Brad Dowdy: website so one more bit of follow-up on the notebook preservation question we got a couple of weeks ago on how to essentially archive your notebooks and we got a link sent to us this week from c strawber on twitter straight from the library of congress for care handling and storage of works on paper so i think if anyone knows how to uh to manage this i think the library of congress is probably a pretty good space for you know keeping historic documents uh intact and not deteriorating so there is a uh a good set of links we will we'll put in the show notes show notes we'll put a link to this page and it has a bunch of other links and ideas on how you can protect and and archive your notebooks so if i had to ask you mike and you have to pick one are you going i'm going to archive all my notebooks route or i'm going to bonfire all my notebooks route which path is for you i would take bonfire you think not that i just want to say that

Myke Hurley: like i don't want to uh damage the environment no no let's save recycle right but sure let's save cycle but yeah i just i've never i think i'm the same i've never written anything down in a notebook that needs to be kept yeah i mean this may change throughout my life but like i mean i have one notebook that that i'm holding on to in my life like purposefully which is a notebook of like my very first podcast i have the first like 90 episodes of show notes written onto paper it's like i'm keeping that one notebook and every other notebook that i keep i keep because they've been too lazy to to like to recycle to throw away right and like at some point i will get rid of them and i go through it in batches but like this pano book here like it doesn't need to be kept i'm just doodling on it or i'm going to talk about a book in notebook in a while that i'm in a minute that i'm doing something a bit more purposeful with but once i'm full once it's full i'll just get rid of it like i'm i i'm cool right like for me what i put in notebooks if it's really important it will live somewhere else eventually because i will have done something with it and i don't necessarily need every notebook that i've ever used and like if that's your thing like more power to you but that's not my route and it's just not what i'm interested in in doing is like finding space to keep these infinite amount of notebooks secure for the rest of my life feels like too much work yeah so i'm actually with you

Brad Dowdy: i i i think i want to be an archivist but i am too practical and want to be a recycler but then at the same time i get a text from a friend saying you know here's a letter my grandfather wrote to my grandmother and from you know the 1940s and it says a few things in here that are like really meaningful to my family you know she's pretty excited she has that too so it's you know it's it's not a you know it's not you know a total black and white type of situation but i just think for like what we're referring to like our daily use stuff not necessarily diaries or you know personal you know courtship letters or things like that that you're writing to adina i'm sure she has all those saved right the many courtship letters that i wrote you know they're all they're all digitized um yeah i think i'm in the recycle the recycle it phase like i have a stack of notebooks that i've kept but i have never once referred back to them um and if i do it's usually for a drawing i've made you know not for something you know very knowledgeable that i've written or things like that so and i've actually learned to save off the drawings and sketches so i can refer to them later you know no digitally so yeah but regardless this is a good article to you know take protections if you do want to keep all those things um and uh i i appreciate the follow-up on the follow-up so it's very cool i'm going on a trip mike tomorrow yeah this is my my three shows in six weeks stretch so it's pen show weekend off weekend pen show weekend off weekend pen show so i guess that's five three shows and five weekends so this one i'm the most excited about like la was good la i had work you know i was there to work and it was good to have the first show of the year under the belt two weeks from now is little rock which i've been there before and i'm super pumped about because i get to go hang out with the van s crew and hang out at the van s shop and i get to not work the show for the most part you know i'll do the social media hype man thing which worked out well last time it was fun but this show baltimore this weekend from friday to sunday we'll have the link to the site in the show notes they have a actually real working website that's updated frequently which is you know makes them a unicorn in our world um i'm the most excited about this show for several reasons one from what i heard last year it was an exceptional show from all my friends that went to the promoter knows what he's doing and has done so it's bert ozer of bertram zinc well you if you've been to a pen show you've seen bert he's the bald-headed guy with glasses with the wall of refills that's how everyone knows bert um how he travels around with that thing i'll never know but he does he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet he understands the need for an updated website and a social media presence he takes care of anything that the vendors need like i've gotten a bunch of emails from them with like all the details mike would you believe i know the entire show schedule before i even arrive at the show like you would think you would think this would be normal but for me to bring it up shows how abnormal it is and bert gets it right this show you know i hope my my what i'm envisioning of it comes true and i see no reason that it won't i think this show could take over as one of the top shows in the country if everything i'm hearing and everything i'm seeing so far comes comes to pass i think this is going to be like a must attend show in the future so we'll see when i get back next week but i have every intention that that's going to be the case you're going to get to see vendors you don't normally see like right notepads chris is going to be there and our buddy veto from story supply is going to be there and kind of lay a pen is going to be there and you know you go through the vendor list and like it's exciting it's exciting to see who's going to be there we have a pen mixer going on friday night that me and lisa vaness will be putting on like we did in san francisco that was such a hit bert wanted to do that and has gotten us the space to do that carrie from ken rose putting on a pen show after dark saturday night so there'll be events at the hotel the whole time because the weather is going to be awful so we'll all be in the hotel the whole time i i haven't been this excited for a pen show since you know i i get i get hyped for atlanta every year i'm at like that level of hype for this show and if it can deliver anything like an atlanta experience i think this show could man i'd love it if it could take over dc as like as the regional pen show for that area it would be amazing so i am maybe overly hyped for it you know setting myself up but i don't see any way i'll be let down i i just think it's going to be that good and the amount of attendees that are already saying they're going to be there um it i think it's going to be a good show i'm getting hyped mike i leave tomorrow i get there i'm very keen to see how this one plays out yeah i think well you know part of it's different right i haven't done it before um i'll get to see some people that i don't normally get to see or don't get to see them as frequently um it's the first knock show of the year so i'll be working for myself at this show we'll have a knock table there i'll have all of our goodies i'm even dropping a few a5 seeds into the mix because the steel and silver dust have arrived i'm sorry it's not a ton but they will be on the website shortly after but you know i have a dozen or two to bring to the show you know i hope to you know people have been clamoring for those you know they've just started to trickle in so i'm gonna have those and i'm just looking for a good time you know i think it's gonna be a fun show and that's what you can ask for right you know successful dollar wise would be nice but it's more to just be in that vibe for the three days of the show right more than you know what you make or you know how your sales are if you can just really get into the vibe of a good show like there's nothing like it that's how i feel in atlanta every year it just zooms by because it's just constant you know fun and talking to you know friends and people and meeting things meeting other people and seeing new things i i'm pumped and uh i think you know all the people going to baltimore i think they're pumped too so we'll see i i think it's gonna be i think it's gonna deliver no pressure bert

Myke Hurley: well i look forward to a full report next week then you will you will have a full report all right i have a uh thing i want to talk about i'm gonna tease it i'm gonna take a break i think i lost break of the show i want to tease it i am using a notebook a new notebook now on a daily basis for a unique task than the the what i've ever used a notebook for in the past all right this interests me very much yeah i figured it would but first let's thank pen chalet for their support of this show we love pen chalet because they sell all the stuff you're looking for at great prices they have amazing roller balls fountain pens ballpoints mechanical pencils they have carrying cases and refills and ink and converters and they're an authorized dealer of all of your favorite brands they're always running great discounts they have closeout specials pen chalet are trying to get you great stuff at great prices at all times they believe in 100 satisfaction for every purchase and that's why they give that as a guarantee because they want you to have your high quality pens with the satisfaction that it's going to work for you and you're going to be happy they do free shipping on orders of over 50 in the u.s and they sell internationally with very reasonable shipping rates and i found them to be super quick the way that they come over to me and they get those things out packaged up real nice and they get sent over to me so i love it whenever i buy from pen chalet but you should too go to p-e-n-c-h-a l-e-t dot com that is pen chalet dot com and click the podcast link at the top of the website you'll be asked to enter a password what you just say pen addict you type pen addict in there and you will get your hands on this week's special offer and the code that you need to save 10 percent on absolutely anything at pen chalet at any time so you can get that code there this week's special offer there's a great selection of items this week i'm going to call out one of them so last year's lami al star special edition pacific blue you can get that at a great price of pen chalet right now

Brad Dowdy: yeah that's still available in a few places it was such a good color they sold a ton of them and this is a really good price the lami tipo is a personal favorite i know it's not a pen for everybody like the coaxus mic but it's a pen for me and let me give you a pro tip on the lami tipo and why i own multiple of them they fit the pilot g2 ink cartridge which means they fit the pilot juice ink cartridge which means i can use all kinds of cool stuff in my lami tipos and it has this cool yellow color that i haven't seen before that's very cool and then the piece de resistance mic pilot iroshizuku ink at a price that i've never seen before if you are interested in iroshizuku ink which you should be because it's the best because it's the best he's got i don't know maybe a dozen colors on this really really pen addict special price you should go check out and one more shout out which as i scroll down the page he's got the conklin word gauge pen which i have never used but sarah who writes for the pen addict sarah reed she is also a novelist and writer in her spare time and when she did her nano rhimo recap post she used this word gauge pen uh for most of her writing last november and did her 50 000 words or whatever it was and the the word gauge has little gauges as your ink goes down it says how many words you've written i thought it was kind of cool it's a really neat pen so anyway this is a chock full like i could talk about two or three other things on this page it's really good really good deals this week from pen chalet so go check it out penchalet.com

Myke Hurley: hit the podcast link at the top of the website and use the password pen addict to get those offers our thanks to pen chalet for their support of this show and relay fm so brad i have started a daily

Brad Dowdy: journal yeah i couldn't believe this when i saw this in the show doc today i've been doing it for a

Hippo Noto Notebook

Myke Hurley: week now uh seven days and i'm using my hippo noto which is a a notebook that i've mostly kept for a special occasion i've written in it every now and then uh i committed the cardinal sin of tearing pages out of the notebook um because i didn't want i'm okay with that and a bit it can mess things up luckily this this notebook's made in such a way that it's not gonna it hasn't had a huge effect but i've torn some pages out so i just have my daily journal stuff in there um i use two pens every day for this and uh i vary up the pens that i use like i mix my my kind of inner guide for myself is to never use two pens in two days in a row right so every day i have to use two pens that were different to the day before um which is now the the knock-on effect of this is i now want more ink because i have too many pens that have the same ink in them yeah you've uh you've been a good boy

Brad Dowdy: and avoided the ink problems that many of us have well that's about i think that might be starting to

Myke Hurley: change so i did this for a couple of reasons uh one of them is a handful of reasons actually one of them is um i want to use my pens more i have lots of lovely pens and i want to use them more than i currently do um and kind of have it be more of a focal point in my life uh i'm very busy i'm a busy man i have a lot of things going on and i have a task system but i want to be able to spend some time every day to just focus on some of the things that i've got going on and also to just reflect on a few things so would you like to know what my system includes absolutely all right so this is a double page every day so new two pages every day um i have i write down the pens that i'm using and the ink that i'm using um i have my priorities which is an unfixed amount of things just it can be whatever things are going on in that day that like they're the most important things of the day so it can differ from it actually does differ from my task list quite significantly so i never have as many priorities as i have tasks right um i write down one good thing that happened in the day uh i write down one bad thing that happened in the day if there is a bad thing there isn't always a bad thing every day but there are bad things most days and i when i was thinking about this i didn't want this to just be just this thing where i'm supposed to pretend that everything's amazing and happy all the time because sure that's not life um i write down just a heading what did i learn today and that can be anything and this comes from a question that adina asks me most days and has done this for a very long time she says what do you what did you learn and i never know what to say so i decided to start writing it down um then i write down something that i'm looking forward to and i also have a rule which is i can never write the same thing in this box two days in a row either and that's my system

Brad Dowdy: i love it i think that's fantastic like i really really like that system my question and you may have said it and i may have missed it do you have a scheduled writing time to fill this or do you just kind of as you go through your day is it or is it like a fixed morning thing fixed night thing fixed afternoon thing what what do you have for as far as the time set aside to answer these questions i

Myke Hurley: have a daily returning recurring task in todoist for me to complete this and i'm currently just completing it at any point in the day whenever i want to but what what usually happens is i start

Brad Dowdy: at some point and finish it later on in the day okay right so like because you are combining tasks

Myke Hurley: with also reflections so like there is in theory a morning part and an evening part and it happens at two different times in a day sometimes it's afternoon and evening sometimes it's morning and afternoon right but like there will be at least two times in a day where i'll sit down to to put something into the

Brad Dowdy: notebook right man that's awesome i i really like it i like the setup that you have you know and it's also like one of the challenges for someone who's never done this or never written a journal or diary it can be intimidating right the you don't have to write a lot to get value out of putting a few words down on the page every day right and i think that's kind of what you're doing with your essentially different boxes that you're filling in um you know you know you have guidelines for that it helps you get over the hurdle of putting the pen to the paper and actually becomes an enjoyable experience because you're not only getting that thoughtfulness and reflecting on your day hey you're also getting to use cool pens and cool paper right yeah so it's kind of a winning all the way around i also just

Myke Hurley: realized that like you know i've looked at existing systems and stuff like that and they just don't work for me right like i the only reason that i'm that this is sticking so far is because i came up with the system that works for me so you know you know what i mean i'm not saying that that's like a thing that everyone needs to think about but that was my problem i think is that the rigidity or even the defined flexibility of systems that exist currently just don't work with my mind i guess in the long term so i decided that if i wanted to do this which i did maybe the best thing to do was to create a system of my own that makes sense for what i want to accomplish out of a task like this so that's what i went ahead and did and it's not a complex system by any means and like i've added a couple of things to it so like the what i'm looking forward to and the what pens am i using didn't exist for the first couple of days and i expect that to also change and adapt uh as time goes on that like i will think like oh maybe i should add this or maybe i should add that because it adapts to my changing uh needs right so yeah or like there might be a period of time where i have something that comes in that isn't here for the rest of the time because there's like something specific going on so i want to focus on it it with a new little heading but yeah and and but so i'm leaving i'm leaving it like flexible to meet whatever my needs are at the time yeah and i mentioned a little bit in

Brad Dowdy: our the pen addict members newsletter this weekend that i haven't been doing daily writing in my cousin and i'm okay with that like in the past i would not be okay with that like if i had a hobonichi techo um that's date based like your hippo noto is not date based like if i missed a day i would it would like freak me out like i don't know why yeah i really did for some reason a dated book either yeah but for that for some reason the cousin works for me i think because the size i have no problem going back and using previous days pages to do things that i want to do on them so i've i've thoroughly enjoyed it i'm actually using it for show notes today so um yeah i think that's great i want to hear more from this down the line and uh you know maybe in a few months we'll check in on both of our both of our systems and setups see how things have changed you know as we use them because it as we use them because it's always open to you know change and modification and tweaking and and get it down but the the best thing you said and which is why we get along so well is the you know the best system is the one that works for you you know if no system works for you make your own and if you don't need a system that's even better like you just do some some of us need some guidelines uh but and some of us need like fierce you know gtd level structure and then some of us can uh you know just brain dump into things and uh you know go from there so i think it's wonderful yeah i really i know this is kind of a

Myke Hurley: dumb thing to say i guess but like i really hope that i keep doing this which i know that seems that's kind of a stupid thing to say because it's like well if that's what i want then i'll just do it but i think we all understand that i think that there is a certain strand of people that completely understand what i'm getting at when i say it like i have question mike today hopes that mike in the future will continue mike in the future's life may change may change in a way that he doesn't feel like he needs this anymore but i hope that i do it's it's kind of a weird thing to wish that upon myself

Brad Dowdy: in the future but that's kind of how i feel about it all right well i think we've we've prattled on long enough mike but i do want to get one reader mail okay and if you will and i'm going to hold so february the last day is today has been inco rimo the international correspondence writing month and i've gotten a ton of letters to the po box here and keep those coming year round send them all the time anytime but you know i get a lot more during february so i have a bunch of ask tpa i've collected from the letters so we'll cover those i don't know maybe next week maybe the week after something like that um so we'll hold on ask tpa but i do want to get one reader mail in and this is from steve and i think it's because we can all relate and i've actually been getting a lot more of these recently so i don't know if we've had a uh an uptick of of new listeners or what but i want to i want to start this off with what steve writes dear brad and mike this is a true story at the end of november 2017 i was having trouble getting to sleep this so this is like three months ago i mean this is recent i found myself looking for some audio to listen to that would help me get to bed yeah not sure what's happening here steve i couldn't find any suitable music but i heard about the pen addict and thought if there's anything that can bore me to unconsciousness it's a podcast about pens thanks so much for listening to this week's episode it can bore you to death so it worked like a charm oh come on until where's the upswing on this until mike about episode nine when instead of drifting off to sleep i started listening to the episodes in their entirety instead of this pen podcast getting me dreaming i found myself dreaming about pens i was hooked and now i'm a fledgling pen addict i purchased my first pen from jet pens a twisbee eco in december nice choice two more at the philly pen show he's already been to a show like a twisbee diamond mini in the caveco al sport and a pilot prera also in january as if that weren't bad enough i have also completed the insane task of listening to every episode of the podcast we got you you are screwed who's the fool now steve i started in early december by re-listening to episodes one through nine and just finishing finished listening to episode 296 a few minutes ago it's been quite the obsession and it's been driving my family nuts my wife is relieved that she'll only hear you guys talking about pens every two weeks now i no longer have trouble sleeping that past but now i have an exciting new hobby thanks for this wonderful podcast in the case of pen addiction regards steve wow well that was awesome who's the winner who's the real winner of this i think it's me and you that's right i think it's us steve we always win in the end so i'm glad you made it all the way to episode 296 and now 297 you know we will uh we will talk about you and you will be surprised and i bet your white wife won't have to wait long to listen to this episode so tell her we say hi i'm sorry apologize a child apologize for your bank account status and tell her there's no end in

Myke Hurley: sight so this is what she's stuck with i like the idea of binging a show like a multi-year 100 episode show and by the time you've finished it your name gets read out on the show

Brad Dowdy: there's something kind of funny about that that is funny but you can get on the show anybody out there

Myke Hurley: there's a great way to do it you can email brad brad how do they email you uh hello at penaddict.com or you can send in your questions uh over twitter with the hashtag ask tpa um and that you can even as we mentioned like during certain times of the year we we accept mail-in versions and brad has a stack of those uh that we're going to get to over the next few weeks um so we've got some there too uh if you want to go and find out more about this episode find our links if you don't see them in a podcast app that you use the easy way to do that is to go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 297 um i want to thank again squarespace pen chalet and curvecase for their support of this week's show please go support our sponsors because it helps us be able to do this show for you every single week um if you want to find brad online he's at knock.co and penaddict.com he's dowdyism on instagram d-o-w-d-y-i-s-m and he is penaddict on instagram i am imike i-m-y-k-e uh this show is a part of relay fm we have a lot of shows at relay.fm slash shows there may be something else uh in our roster that would appeal to you we cover a wide range of topics including pens but you already knew that um thanks so much for listening thank you again if you've backed the kickstarter campaign as well remember one more week one more week uh we are up to 600 now so congratulations to that person who got the 600 thing during the show uh and we'll be back next week until then say goodbye brad and oh oh by the way uh go say hi to brad if you're at the baltimore pen show so goodbye brad hi brad oh no that's the wrong one you don't say hi goodbye brad goodbye brad