The Pen Addict 551/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	551
Title:	The Traditional Ball Knock
Release Date:	February 15th, 2023
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 551
Audio File:	Audio Episode 551
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 551
Length:	5151 min <br />0.85 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 551. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and ExpressVPN. My name is Myke Hurley. I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi, Brad. Hi, Myke. What was that? What was that?

Brad Dowdy: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm just excited to be here, I guess. I don't know.

Myke Hurley: That's good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I mean, it's only been 551 times and I'm still excited to be here. Woo!

Brad Dowdy: Maybe it's just that I'm excited to finally be fully into the ball knock zone.

Myke Hurley: Who isn't? You know what I mean?

Brad Dowdy: That's what it is, yeah.

Myke Hurley: Let's get into the ball knock zone.

Pilot Friction pen review

Brad Dowdy: Let's do it. The newest Pilot Friction, we've been talking about this for a little bit, but I finally got my review up on Monday. I love everything that Pilot has done with the Pilot Friction lineup. And that's kind of what I wrote in this little review. It wasn't... I don't tend to do just like straight up technical reviews, right? Like I just kind of chit chat, tell a little bit of story, tell what I think about my, you know, my life of experience with the Friction. Like the Pen Addict blog has been around longer than, you know, almost as long as the Friction has existed, which it came out in 2006. The Pen Addict has been around since 2007. So we've spent a lot of time with the Friction over the years. And it's always been a fascinating product to me because as I let off this review, the theory of an erasable pen should be immediately written off by everybody, right? Just the idea of an erasable ink pen is like, oh, that's got to be terrible, right? There's no way that it works. Or if it does, it's just kind of half-baked and just kind of terrible experience. And the Friction changed that, right? They came in and they made a thing that was really good. It wasn't great at the time when they launched it. And now they've just continued to work on it over the years. They like actually figured something out that their customer base, mainly in Japan, like really latched onto. And now it's like a tentpole item in their product lineup, which I never would have guessed in the beginning. And now it's just this core piece of their product lineup. So much so that other companies are like designing products, which I talk about in this, the Hobonichi, is making decisions in their planner paper lineup because of how much usage the Friction has in the Japanese market. And that just blows my mind thinking about just the Friction in general. Like what are your thoughts before I get into the ball knock zone completely? Just on the idea of the Friction. Have you ever used one? I'm sure I've asked you this like 10 times. And I can't remember your answer. Yeah, you don't like it. And I get that. Like this is not a pin for everyone, right?

Myke Hurley: I mean, for me, the Pilot Friction fails in every department. Like for me, like I'm not a big fan of the way it works anyway. Like I don't think that the gel ink is as comfortable or as smooth as others. The colors aren't as good. Like even in your article, like you praise the work that they've done. But the comparison image of the black Pilot Friction to just the black G2, I mean, it almost looks like brown, like gray brown. Like it doesn't look black to me at all. Yeah, it's really not close when you put them side to side. And it doesn't erase well enough. So it's like for me, like it just doesn't work. Like for me, I understand that people love it. And under certain circumstances, you can get this thing to work for you. But like, and it mostly does the job. But I'm like, why do you even need an erasable pen? Just like that's how, that's where I come from. Like this to me doesn't do a good enough job of a thing that I don't want anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And I think what interests me so much, and I don't disagree with any of your statements. Like I don't often choose to use the friction over anything else because of all the reasons you said. But it's such an interesting case study that no one has been able to compete with this pen. Where all of these companies try to jump on the bandwagon of whatever's popular. Like take the Uniball Jetstream and hybrid ballpointing technology, right? Well, now Pilot and Zebra and Pentel all have to come out with their, oh, you know, Uni did this great thing. Here's our version of it. And some of these companies have tried with the erasable item. And they're like, nah, this ain't it, chief. We can't compete with the friction. It's just like they've kind of let Pilot, you know, dominate this market because they can't make a good enough product. And that's, I think that's what fascinates me the most. Along with just how purely popular the friction is, which is still kind of mind boggling for like all the reasons you mentioned. There is no point where a Pilot gel ink, a Pilot friction gel ink is going to be better than like a Pilot G2 gel ink as far as color goes, right? Color and smoothness. It just, it doesn't work that way because of the ink formulation. But I got to admit, it's pretty darn good. Like it's good for what it is. And people seem to love the friction. And I'm here for it. You know, I love the stuff. So to get to the ball knock zone, particularly, the end conclusion of this review, which y'all could go read the review on the blog. We'll have the link in the show notes. I'm sure a lot of you have seen it already. Is there's no way you should ever choose this pen if you're a friction fan, right? Because it is ridiculously expensive for not much added value. So the added value that they want to bring to the table with the ball knock zone over, Myke, the ball knock, right? There's, we have the ball knock and we have the ball knock zone. So the zone is the upgraded barrel where you have a more silent clicking mechanism and a, quote, clutch mechanism on the tip of the pen to prevent tip rattling. Neither which I find to be game changing in any way, shape, or form, especially not for a 100% price upgrade. You know, there's $7 for just the base pen for the ball knock zone and the regular ball knock, which is my preferred model. That's what I'm actually using here today in a blue black ink, which is really, really good. It's $350, right? It's half the price and you're not losing any ink technology or erasing technology, which is what the friction is built around. So do you need the twice as much ball knock zone for a quieter click? It's slightly quieter. No one really notices. And for a clutch mechanism, that is fake. Like, it does the job of, like, keeping the tip rattle down. But tip rattle wasn't a problem in the other pens because they had it designed, they had the front end of the pen designed correctly. Like, I've never had a, you know, tip rattle issue with the regular ball knock. So it's an interesting concept. And then they even, like, doubled and tripled down on the ball knock zone by having these ultra premium barrels with a wooden grip, which Pilot is very popular for. You know, you've seen, a lot of people have seen these kind of dark cherry woods that they use for. They've used it in the Vanishing Point fountain pen before. They've used it in the S-series mechanical pencils. They've used it in all kinds of popular product lines as a different style and a different upgrade barrel. So you can buy that model for $28, something like that. Or you can go to the highest price one, which I also purchased for review, has the marbled acrylic barrel, which we talked about, you know, a few weeks ago when I first got them in. And that one's like $41. And I was like, you have to be, really be, like, a friction lover to spend $7 on a friction, much less, you know, $40 on a friction just to have the premium barrel. Like, is the eraser, I mean, is the erasability that, like, that important to you where you would buy that? Clearly it is, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Well, you know there's going to be friction super fans, right?

Brad Dowdy: There, yeah, there are.

Myke Hurley: And so, like, giving those people more options, why would you not?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Hobonichi sealed that deal for me, making me realize that if a brand like Hobonichi is calling out the friction specifically in their paper change articles, right? They're having to change paper, right? This whole Tomoe River thing, switching over to the sands in Tomoe River. And for Hobonichi to actually call out the friction as a consideration, that tells me everything I need to know. They didn't mention any other. They didn't mention the Jetstream, right? They didn't mention pencils. They didn't mention regular gel pens. But they said the friction is so popular that they had to consider it when choosing a new paper for their planners. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Did it work for? Does it work well with Tomoe, like, specifically? Yeah, it's fine. Okay. So they wanted to make sure they could retain those qualities when switching to their new paper options?

Tomoe River paper and its compatibility

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I've always said that Tomoe River paper is actually pretty underrated for things like ballpoint pen and pencil, right? I actually really enjoy using ballpoints and pencil on there. When most of us think of it as a fountain pen specific paper, I've actually found it to be quite enjoyable for pretty much anything.

Myke Hurley: But I'm assuming rather than just the enjoyability, I am assuming it erases very well, right? Yeah. Otherwise, there'd be no point in having to focus specifically on the friction, right? Exactly. As a thing. Exactly. Can you remind me again what ball knock means?

Brad Dowdy: No. Okay. Because I don't think there's really any... The only thing I could have thought before is on the regular ball knock, the friction eraser is actually rounded. You know, it looks like a ball on the end of the pen. Mm-hmm. The new ball knock zone does not. It's kind of squared off. But that's not where the knock is. The knock is in the clip on the ball knock and the ball knock zone. So I think that's just the way they're describing the retractable nature of the pen. And we always talk about a knock being the terminology for the retractable pen in Japan. But as far as the ball knock or the ball knock zone, there's nothing directly that would match up that name.

Myke Hurley: Do you think it could be some kind of translation thing we're missing?

Brad Dowdy: Maybe. Maybe. But I mean, I'm here for it. I don't care. I mean, that's a great thing.

Myke Hurley: I just wonder. Because it sounds just like it's very specific. The name is very specific, right? It is. And like, so I feel like it means something that I'm not getting. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think so. I really, like, I'm looking at my, the one that I use is the, I got to keep saying it's the traditional ball knock. And just on the side of the barrel, it says friction ball. And like, that doesn't mean anything. Are you telling me like, this is a ballpoint tip? I'm like, yeah. Like all of these pens are ballpoint tips. So is it a friction, it says friction ball 05 on it. And I, I don't, you know, totally get it.

Myke Hurley: So like, I'm assuming ball, like ballpoint, right? Yeah. But instead of point, they're saying knock. And like, I'm wondering if there is some kind of translation thing with knock. Like maybe it's a pun or something. But when you translate it to English, it doesn't carry.

Brad Dowdy: No, I think it's just the, the knock is just the differentiation in a capped pen versus a retractable pen is all it means to me. So they've just, they've just like strung together a bunch of words that this is a retractable ballpoint pen. And now you're in the zone because we're going to charge you more for it.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: That's the only thing I know that speaking of charging you more for it, the refills for the ball, the ball knock zone costs as much as like the, the, the, the regular standard ball knock. It's like, it's outrageously priced. So that was, that was my conclusion on this, this thing. If you like the friction, buy a cheaper one. These are ridiculous. Ball knock zone.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I just don't get the whole friction thing. I recover. They don't get it. Like to me, I feel like part of the appeal in the product is the, is the idea of what it does rather than what it's actually doing. And I have no complaint about that. It's just like, that's how I reconcile it in my mind. Like people are like, my pen is erasable. It's just like a thing that is fun to think about or like, oh, this could be useful rather than it actually being useful.

Brad Dowdy: Think about Hobonichi leaning into this though, like from a planner perspective, like if you're having to move around appointments and adjust things on your calendar and you're not using a pencil, they're, they're probably happy that the friction is so popular.

Myke Hurley: You know what I'll say for planners, I'm thinking of notebooks, right? Or like taking notes. Right. Right. I don't think it's so useful. But for a planner, especially some of these like tiny Hobonichi planners, the ability to be able to erase something is helpful. But I like maybe in, in, in more of a way than like, if you had just like an A5 notebook, you just cross it out. Cause you've got like infinite space. Basically. You just keep going to the notebooks empty. If you're like, if you have a paper calendar, right. Mm-hmm. You know, Hobonichi. Well, as you say, if, if an appointment changes, you could cross it out, but now you've got no space to write the new thing in. Yeah. Sorry. Maybe I can see it there, but it's just, I don't know. Maybe just the thing that bugs me is just like, I just don't find it a great experience. Like it's just really not my thing. Um, but I'm pleased that it quite clearly seems to be other people's thing.

Brad Dowdy: And that's why I enjoy it. Right. Because this shouldn't be a thing in, in our little stationary world. It's actually a huge, gigantic thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it's fascinating. Uh, one last thing. And I, it was kind of a throwaway comment. Uh, maybe two last things in, in my review, the traditional ball knock. This is the barrel. I want the G2 to go to, and I don't know why they don't do it. Because it's such a good barrel. Um, I don't have a picture of it in there, but I've, I've linked to it. It's just a basic retractable pin barrel that if I wish, I guess they are just, they're just stuck with the G2 it being so popular, um, that they don't want to change anything with the little, you know, earwax bit at the end of their refill. They want to show that off to everyone, I guess, but this is such a good pin barrel. I wish they would convert the G2 to this. Um, I think it would go over well. Um, and secondly, um, it was definitely like a, a, a sub tweet in there at one of my least favorite, uh, brands. You don't have to use a particular notebook or paper to have success with the friction. If you want to try the friction, it will erase on any paper. You don't have to have a special notebook, uh, that likes to market itself as special. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But if you put it in the microwave, Brad, do you know what I mean?

Brad Dowdy: To the moon, baby.

Myke Hurley: To the moon, baby.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

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Article discovery and discussion

Brad Dowdy: Had an interesting article come across my feed right as we ended last week's show. I think it's been out. Yeah, it came out February 8th. So a week ago. From Edison Pen Co., who makes some of my favorite pens. I think a lot of people who listen to this show are familiar with Edison as just one of the good, great pen makers in our space. And I want to read this article. It's not very long. And the title of this article from Brian Gray, the owner of Edison, the title is A Price Reduction in the Production Line. And seeing that title come across your feeds and everyone starting to share this with you, it's like, this is really interesting in the current state of events that we live in.

Myke Hurley: You got one of the words wrong?

Brad Dowdy: Brian, you got a typo here? I need you to check this, please. So let me read. I'm going to read this, Myke, because it's pretty short. And I think it gives some good insight about the state of the market right now. So it says, Hi, pen fans. I wanted to announce that effective immediately, our production line will see a price decrease. The price for any of our production line pens with a steel nib has been $169. The new price will be $149. A few factors are driving this. For those of you who remember, these pens were originally priced at $149 when we first started offering the production line about 12 to 13 years ago. Then in 2018, we announced a price increase to $169. This increase was driven by many factors at that time. Much more expensive overhead when we moved to a very nice and spacious commercial location, having outgrown our location at home, a large investment into a lot of new machinery, and hiring more employees. Since this price increase in 2018, we have accomplished more than a few things that have allowed us to reconsider production line pricing. Over the years, I've been able to optimize all aspects of programming for faster assembly line production regarding our newer automated machinery. We've also been able to streamline our manual assembly line process. We've had the same fantastic employees for a minimum of five years each now. Frankly, all of us have honed our skills for faster production while retaining high quality and committing fewer time-wasting mistakes. Finding employees that have previous experience in pen making isn't exactly easy. It definitely takes a long time to develop expertise in this field. I'm thankful to say that all of us here have become very highly skilled pen makers, which makes everyone here very effective at what we do. Our overhead costs have been reduced a good bit since we now own our commercial building rather than renting our space. The bottom line is that our cost to manufacture, the production line has gone down. We feel that adjusting the retail price accordingly is the right move.

Myke Hurley: I don't really know what to say about this. What I'll say is this is awesome. It doesn't make sense to me. Appreciate you, Brian. I will say, and I'm not saying this is the reason, this is great marketing. This is great marketing, whether it's intended or not. I don't believe that's the intention, but it is good marketing.

Myke Hurley: It's not free marketing because you've reduced your products, but for a period of time at least, people will have a greater feeling about Edison. I know I do. I've gained additional respect for Edison with this. This is wild to me because they could just say, hey, we're committed to not increasing our price. That would do half of the job here. That would do more than half of the job. Right? I really appreciate in this the level of detail as to why this has occurred. Right? I love that detail, but I would have said you should have just fixed the price. But awesome that you decreased it. That's also great. And considering the amount of detail in this post, I'm very confident that they know what they're doing. Right? That this is totally fine for them because they seem to have really got their heads screwed on correctly. So much respect to Edison Panko for this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it was really neat to see. And just a little bit of the driving force. The production line is actually a very... That's the retail arm of Edison Panko, right? Like if you buy something from a retailer who had... Like Edison has maybe... I didn't look at it before. Say four or five pin models that go to retail. That's the production line. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: It's called production line. I know that there are obviously production lines. But they have what's called the production line. And they have the signature line. Right. Obviously, the signature line is more custom, right? Right. And different. And then you've got the production line and more complicated, I assume, to produce. Yep. The production line depends that they can produce in large quantities and stock them all over the world. The Menlo and the Comet are the two models.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. In the past, like one of my favorites, the Beaumont, has been in and out of there. The Perlet has been in and out of there. You know, it depends on... They change the production line from time to time. Not like a very high rate. But, you know, every year or two, there might be an addition or subtraction there. So, yeah. That's the retail arm of it. Like if I go up to see Brian and Andrea at a pin show and I'm looking at their table and I'm picking out the specific material that I want with a specific filling system that I want, it's probably going to cost me like $300 and something. Which, like, is fine too, right? That's what those pins go for. But I have several production line pins that I love. And I think this is a great way to get more people into Edison pins. It's obviously, like you said, it's a very good bit of marketing for people to consider this. I think it's a great... It's an unbelievable price point. Yeah. For pins, like I focus a lot of time and effort in this price range in fountain pins because that's... This seems like a really big upgrade price point for people, like in like $150. Yeah. And, you know, like Edison's always been there, even at $169. And they're right there with like Franklin Kristoff and, you know, some of the other pin makers that we, you know, shop at.

Price adjustments in the pen market

Myke Hurley: But now it's an automatic, easy recommendation. Like you've just fit into the under $150 bracket, which is like, that's the new starter price, right? Of like, I want to get a nice pen, right? It's like, yeah. $150 is where you're starting now. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Because we used to be at like $125, $140, maybe $150. Now we're like $169 to $199.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So under $150. Again, it's also miraculous to me that like they've reduced their prices on the product line that they surely have the smaller margin on, which is what goes to retailers. Right. It's just like, this is wild.

Brad Dowdy: This is wild. Yeah. I like, I read it several times with like several different hats on. Like, okay, I'm going to read this with my consumer hat. It's like, yay. And I'm going to read this as my manufacturer hat. It's like, wow, that's like impressive. Yeah, this is serious. Things like that.

Myke Hurley: I mean, of all of the companies that could do this, it makes sense to me that it's Edison because they are the OG, I feel like. Right. Like of this type of pen, which now so many companies do, they have been around doing it for longer than anybody else. Right. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, Franklin Kristoff's, I'm sure, been around that long. And there's probably like, you know, some, some, some, a few other ones, but that list, it's a very small list to your point. And they're considered, you know, definitely one of the OGs. And I, I just thought it was worth shouting out because that's not the news we usually see coming across our feeds these days. Right.

Myke Hurley: No, I think this is more worthwhile talking about than all the price increases. Yeah. I agree. Because like price increases are inevitable in general. Right. Like. Yeah. As time continues, prices will go up. Like that's just how it goes. And especially right now, because material is more expensive again and shipping is expensive and like all this kind of stuff. So I just think it's, it's incredible. And my hat is off to them. Like, bravo.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Bravo for sure. So go see them at a pen show near you or check out their, check out their stuff online. We have links in the, in the show notes. Um, speaking of pen shows real quick, I don't have a lot of details on the new California pen show that just took place this past weekend, but I wanted to give them a shout out. Because I've had an outsized number of people reach out to me at how good of an experience they've had, um, at the California pen show. So this was a new show that replaced the old LA pen show, a new promoters, new location. So people were obviously curious, Hey, how would this play out? And everything I've heard has just been positive. Like some, you know, people I've solicited answers from some people have reached out to me just blindly saying, Hey, I was there. We had a good time. Um, you know, it was lots of positive feedback and I think it's going to be good. So, um, yeah, I wanted to point that out. If you have any feedback on the California pen show, Kimberly's going to have her write up. She was there. She will have a review up on the blog soon, uh, for her experience. I haven't talked to her too much other than, yeah, she had a good time just like everybody else. And, um, that's always real positive when you have a new, a new show, even though this was a, you know, traditional market for a pen show in time of year. Um, it's great to see so much positivity around it. Um, one note that I did want to put in the show notes for people to read, um, unrelated directly to the California pen show. Um, one of the vendors, um, Arushi pen had their car broken into like at a restaurant, you know, outside of the pen show, um, after the show was over. And I have a link into, uh, their Instagram because they pretty much got everything in their car stolen, like their luggage, which their luggage contained their pens and their pens that they sell are very expensive. So, um, this is a, a heads up to keep an eye out. If you see anything, um, you know, for, for these pens showing up on the market, they're very unique and very expensive. Um, you know, who knows, like, you know, if anyone even knows what these pens are or would be selling them, but this is a, uh, something I just wanted to shine a light on in case you see anything weird in the market. Um, so, uh, I, I hate to hear that, uh, for, for Jason and Arushi pen.

Myke Hurley: So, uh, hopefully, uh, sometimes these thing, things feel targeted. This one doesn't. Yeah. The way they, because they, they describe it all the luggage, right? Like, you know, I've, we've seen stuff, unfortunately over the last year or so where people have had like pens stolen from pen shows, like maybe someone will steal something from the table or whatever. Right. But this one feels more like somebody saw luggage in, in the parking lot and went for it and maybe didn't really know what they were getting. Yeah. Um, but it's just so, it's such a shame because these kinds of things, like, obviously this is somebody's livelihood, right? That's exactly right.

Brad Dowdy: Like, these are small retailers we're dealing with. Even someone that we think is large, like Edison, who we just talked about. Yeah. It would be devastating to them just even as a small business. And this is even smaller than that. So, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's tough.

Myke Hurley: And, you know, these kinds of things can deter people from wanting to, to, to come to shelves and stuff like that because you're putting such a risk on the line. Right. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The travel with travel with inventory is, is, is always a tough thing. Like that's always, you always have to worry about that type of thing. You know, when you're traveling with just a high dollar amount of inventory, it's tough for sure.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Shout out of the week, Myke. This is, we're, we're kicking it old school here, but in a new way. Aziza at Gourmet Pens was probably one of the first, uh, blog of the weeks. You know, Aziza is an OG pen blogger. Um, one of the best, one of just an awesome friend, an awesome person and an awesome, um, stationary, uh, content creator. And now has a podcast. So I wanted to make sure everyone knows about the Gourmet Pen Podcast. I think they've got 10 episodes so far out there. Um, Aziza is doing a great job, um, with Gourmet Pens. Expanding the shop. Myke, I don't know if you saw this Bennu pen that she collaborated with Bennu on, the, the true unicorn, uh, Bennu, which I wanted to shout out specifically. Um, it's, it's currently sold out because it is so awesome. Excellent. In the best way possible.

Myke Hurley: I will immediately, when seeing this in the show notes, send it to friend of the show, Kathy Campbell. Yeah. As I always do. Anything that is these kinds of colors, I send it to Kathy, whether she likes it or not.

Brad Dowdy: This is like the legit unicorn. It is like all of the things. This is sick. This is so good. Like, if you're going to do it, go all the way. All in, baby. This is all the way. And I love it so much. So they're, they're perpetually sold out. But, uh, Aziza like is rotating inventory. Right. They're, they're, they come in and out. So you're, you'll have an ability to get one. They're not going anywhere. They're just not always in stock. So check that out. Subscribe to the Gourmet Pens Podcast. Go follow everything that Aziza does over at Gourmet Pens. So I, I appreciate her friendship and I, I hope to see her on the road soon. And, uh, you know, maybe we'll, uh, we'll have a, we'll have a podcast chat. Maybe we'll do a live pen show podcast chat with me and Aziza one day. That would be fun. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. You may have heard by now that you should be using a VPN when you connect to the internet, when you're on like public Wi-Fi's, norway phone networks that you're not sure of, that kind of thing. Adding in an extra step, that kind of sounds like a hassle. Like, do you want to have to turn this thing on and off? Well, if you knew how easy it was to protect your connection with ExpressVPN, you'd be doing it already. ExpressVPN is the easiest way to browse safely, securely, and better. It's so simple. So on the Mac, I have it on the Mac, right? Mostly I have it on my iPhone too, but it's where I find myself using ExpressVPN on my Mac the most. It just lives in my menu bar. I go up there and I click it. It's very easy to spoof my location if I want to be able to access content, either home content when I'm abroad or vice versa. Super fast. And you can stream HD videos. Awesome. Loads of VPNs might slow your connection to the point where it's not even worth trying to connect. ExpressVPN doesn't lag or buffer. You can stream videos in HD with no issues. ExpressVPN gets rid of all the things you hate about VPNs. It is a VPN done right. You just open the app, click a button, and enjoy instant protection across all of your devices. The fact is, once you connect to ExpressVPN, you don't even know you have it on. Your connection is secure, your data is encrypted, and you can spoof your location so you can access content available outside your region. This is why it's been called the best VPN by CNET and many others. Right now, go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict, and you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. That is exprssvpn.com slash penaddict to get three extra months of ExpressVPN. One last time, expressvpn.com slash penaddict. Thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of this show and RelayFM. Let's do some Ask TPA questions. I'm wondering, Brad, if we should rename this.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. A little bit. What do you think?

Myke Hurley: I mean, just because now we don't use the hashtag, right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Just with a hashtag thing. Still, people will just randomly shoot me an email, hey, I have an Ask TPA.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, so we can keep it if you want, but I'm just saying it's available. We could call it Ask the Pen Addict, right? It's up to you. I'm just saying it is a possibility for us now. We did Ask TPA before because we wanted to shorten the character limit for if it was going to be a hashtag on a tweet, but it doesn't need to be anymore because I think majorly now people even email them to hello at penaddict.com. Or what I prefer is if you go to penaddictfeedback.com and fill out the feedback form that we have. There's also one of the first links in your podcast app, so you can always find it there anytime. It's all on our website, on the Pen Addict website. It's a great way to send in feedback to us. That's where I pulled in a bunch of these questions that we have today. Just a thing that I was thinking of.

Brad Dowdy: No, I was giggling so hard because your change offering was we could just call it Ask the Pen Addict. I mean, that's literally what the acronym stands for.

Myke Hurley: I know, but I'm just saying it doesn't need to be Ask TPA, right? Because we don't call the show TPA. We never refer to it out loud as TPA or anything like that. So it could just be Ask Brad because frankly, nobody wants my answers, which makes sense.

Brad Dowdy: That's not true because I'm going to get you in this first one here. So let's tackle this while we think about it. So if you want to rename this segment of the show, send us a penaddictfeedback.com.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, if you have a good suggestion for a name, I'm not saying we will rename it, but the option is available to us. If you have a suggestion for a name.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, like Tony says in the chat, we'll just call it Brad. We'll get to it eventually. Maybe that's the question. Maybe that's the segment. All right. Let's hear this one because I need your feedback on this.

Essential stationery items and stockpiling

Myke Hurley: This comes from Eric who says, What are the stationary things you really cannot imagine not having? The items you have stockpiled to make sure you never go without. For me, it's Toroco Design Enigma Notebooks and Platinum Blue Pigment Ink. I think I'm set for a couple of years and damn glad considering the roller coaster that Tomorrow River Paper has been. Truth. Truth. Truth.

Brad Dowdy: So I want to take this. This is a really good question and it's actually kind of difficult and it goes into how I think about products anyway. And for you and I, I want to eliminate pens from this list because the stationary things you can't imagine happening is the M90. And I say that because you have two of them. Yeah. Right. You have a main one and you have a backup one. Yep. And this is why. But I don't think that necessarily counts for this. Right. And like I have my, like my pilot Murex would be like the same thing for me. I have two of them even though they're like different styles. It's like, yeah, I'm good. Like Murex is not going anywhere. But if I'm thinking about it from something that I might even use more frequently, say a paper or an ink. Ink is what actually got me off of thinking about this. And this is going to relate to the next question that we have.

Brad Dowdy: But I used to hoard ink because I was worried that number one, I like it so much and two, it would go away and I couldn't get it anymore. And then guess what, Myke? There was 8,000 other inks that came out that I liked just as well. Like I didn't need to overdo the ink buying because there was always something reasonable. I will say there was one ink in the past few years that I did buy extra of, but only because I was using it so fast. Not that I was, you know, worried about it going away. If it goes away, it'll go away. And that's the, you know, the Platinum Mount Fuji Blue Black, which I like better than the regular Platinum Blue Black. The Mount Fuji Water Blue Black is one of my favorite inks of all time. And it's a very limited edition. This is the one that came out with the Curie DOS, if you recall, at the same time. So yeah, like I bought cartridges and two bottles of that. And I use the heck out of it. Like it goes in all my Nakayas. It just goes in everything. It's one of my favorites. Outside of that, like I really try not to overly buy something because I want the ability to explore something else coming down the line. And the last thing I need is five of a notebook when I'm going to buy 10 other notebooks as it is. Right? I don't need five of one sitting around. Same thing with inks. I don't need two or three bottles of a particular ink of a blue black when there's going to be new blue black ink coming out tomorrow. And I might enjoy more. So yeah, I can't think of anything that I can't imagine having that's not pen related. Like there's a couple of pens that I can't imagine not having. But outside of that, can you think of anything else?

Myke Hurley: Well, I mean, it's kind of cheating, but not like I made two products that. Yeah. Right? Like the Theme System Journal and the Psychic Notepad, they partly exist for this reason. These are things that I really want in my life. And so the way that I can make sure that that's the case is to make them. Right? Yeah. So they're always there. For ink, I have this feeling about ink, but I don't allow myself to stockpile it. Right. But it's something that I feel like I have a few inks. So like Mont Blanc, Lucky Orange is one. A lot of the Sailor Ink Studio inks. Like these are ones that I want to buy multiple bottles of them. But I think to myself, all right, it will probably still be available. Lucky Orange is not the case. But I am of the mind of like, I'll try something new. That's kind of how I always come to this of like, yes, I will run out of this. But rather than buying five bottles and keeping them forever and probably never getting through them, I'll try and get one at a time. But if I can't, I'm going to move on to something else.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That's where I come at this from. Yeah. And that's where my situation is different. Like part of my job is trying all the things. So I try not to get like tied into one. I will say the one product I do miss that I can't get anymore is, and you mentioned it, stuff you make, is the Notco note cards. Like I still probably need to find a way to do something with that because that's one of, that's a product I actively miss because I don't have it anymore. That might be a list of one. That might be the only thing that I miss. So, yeah, there you go.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that sucks.

Myke Hurley: Thanks, man. I don't want to, don't make me think about that possibility, right? This is not something I want to consider.

Brad Dowdy: I need to re-add it to the list because I gave up when I couldn't get the, I tried, right? I've talked about this. I've tried to redo them and couldn't get the same paper. So now it's like I must have to start from scratch and it's a little bit more intimidating.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Next question is sort of related to this, but not exactly, but it's some of the same ideas. So hit me up here.

Exhaustion with special and limited edition fountain pens

Myke Hurley: Sarah says, I'm starting to feel exhausted by the constant barrage of special and limited edition fountain pens. It feels like pen companies release their next must have pen before the last one has even finished shipping. My stationary budget stays maxed and it's hard to tame the feeling of FOMO when I see everyone's beautiful photos and videos. And it always feels like if I don't buy this pen, there will never be another one this good. And the cycle continues. How do you deal with the constant onslaught of new products?

Brad Dowdy: So the fact, and I say that it's a fact that I had to convince myself is that there will be another good one this good eventually. So it's okay to not have this one. Yep. And that took years of me buying like literally everything because there's never going to be one as good. And then all of a sudden I would do it again because, hey, look, there was one that was as good and I buy it. And there was one that was as good as I buy it. So now I've actively been able to stop because I know for a fact there will be another one this good. Pen, ink, paper, pencil, whatever you want to talk about. That's why related to the previous question, I don't stockpile the things because absolutely for a fact, even like if you take the extreme of Tomoe River paper, like I've said before, no one's ever going to make this exact paper. And that's okay because there's going to be something out there that's just going to be as good, if not better for you in the long run. And you'll find it eventually. So I've never worried about having to stockpile things. But FOMO is one of those things we talk about pretty frequently because like you and I will talk about, we'll see all these things and we'll talk about them and ooh and ah over them. And you know, 95 times out of 100, we're not buying them. It's fun to look at because, you know, we talk about new releases here. But like I've gotten over the fact that I have to have all these pens because I know when the time comes and the budget's right, that I'm going to be able to find something really awesome for me. And even if I missed or skipped, you know, the last 10 of the thing that went by, like the 11th one is going to be pretty dope and I'm going to be pretty happy. So I've gotten that through my thick skull. It took a long time to get there, but I am super comfortable not buying the thing now and just waiting. So yeah, but that took, it took years to get to that point. I'm not going to lie, Sarah. It is not, it's not easy because we're, we're in a very visual hobby, right? Where we see a lot of things and they, they just check all our boxes. It's like, Ooh, look at that color. Oh, look at that nib. You know? Oh, check out this notebook. And like, I'm the worst, right? I'm the ooh and ah guy, like constantly. But I've got to the point finally to be able to just say, yes, that is amazing. And it would be perfect for me. And I don't need it today. So yeah, that's just kind of how I've looked at it. And it was a process to get there. I just had to stop and realize once I convince myself that tomorrow there's going to be something just as awesome and I can wait, then it, then it's been easy for like the past several years to just not buy everything.

Myke Hurley: So I, like one of the things for me that really changed this was that idea of like feeling like I understand what I like and once I really understand what I like, not feeling the need to buy everything. But that took, like you say, a long time. I had the same stuff of like same process of keyboard stuff. So like there, you know, the keyboard stuff works in group buys, right? So like you go in on a pre-order, pre-orders can take a long time. But when, you know, back in like 2020, early 2021, I was doing one of these group buys every month. And now I'd maybe do one every three months because I'm much more aware of what I like and what I don't like. But it takes that experimentation process. And I don't recommend that, you know, I recommend people try and take that experimentation process as slow as possible with their budget. Like Sarah is saying, right? Sarah has a budget and the budget stays maxed. That means that Sarah, you're probably still like working out exactly what you like and what you don't like. I think that there is a lot, there is like a tail. Then you're in a long tail scenario where like I'll add something new to my pen collection every few months now, at most, rather than every single month. Right. Or a few weeks. Like Brad says, like I've been, we've been looking, watching this stuff long enough to know like, yeah, something seems amazing. There'll be another one that comes along. Like there just will be. It probably won't be the same, but something will. One of the good things about keyboards though, is if something's successful, they run it again. Yeah. Right. So like that, that's one of the things of like, you might see a keycap set that you really like and you missed it. But if you wait long enough, if it was successful enough, the designer will do another run of it. But that doesn't really happen the same way in pens. If something's limited, it kind of stays limited. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And you made a good point that there are phases of all of our levels in the hobby. Like if you're new, you're kind of like a little bit timid and trying to find things out. And then once you kind of, you know, cross a certain, certain threshold of figuring things out, then you were like, well, I just need to try all the things now. Right. But it's like, Hey, look at this. And then you kind of reel it in eventually, like you're saying to figure out, okay, this is exactly what works the best for me. And then you're able to like manage it a little bit better. So yeah, it's tough, Sarah. Like there's, there's no doubts, but I just implore everyone to, to not overspend, to stick to a budget and to be patient because like, you're going to have more opportunities than you think.

Myke Hurley: Definitely. Rob says, my wife and I seem to be in the slim minority who really do not like Schmidt refills. So the retro 51, I guess also, you know, mark one or insert your other pen here that takes this. Yeah. We love the pens, but hate the refill. It constantly skips for both of us and is a terrible writing experience. However, I think the tornado support a Parker G2 refill as well. Any suggestions for good refills of nice color options? The ones from retro 51 are only blue and black.

Brad Dowdy: So a few things. I actually don't think it's a minority of people who don't like the Schmidt refills. Like I get why people don't like that refill for like all the reasons Rob saying, although I don't have like a skipping or terrible writing experience. I happen to enjoy them, but other people don't like just really how wet and wide the lines are. Like they can be super annoying on, on certain papers. And like, I get that people don't like that refill. Um, I don't think it's necessarily a minority, um, case my favorite, um, type of refill to use for this is the, um, Oto flash dry, which is a needle tip, um, which I think looks funny out of the retro 51s conical tip sometimes, but I use it because the refill is so good. It's a 0.5 millimeter. It's only in black. Um, there aren't a lot of great color options, which maybe Rob's looking for, um, Monteverde does make some gel refills that are in the G2 international size that you can find. Like they'll have blue, black, and orange, and purple, uh, things like that, that you can find. And that's kind of the, that G2, the international G2, or as we call it, the Parker style refills, they're very restrictive in color options, right? It's just not a very common thing because most of the time those refills are just blue and black ballpoints. And that's what most people make them. So Monteverde does a gel option. They have maybe eight colors, something like that. I've used the blue, black pretty successfully. Um, but you're not going to get just a huge, huge range there, but I would look at that. If you want to try a cool black refill, I would definitely recommend the Oto flash dry. It's just one of the great refills period. And it fits that Parker style, international style, uh, G2. Um, after that, yeah, it's, it's, you're pretty limited. That's like, that's one of the challenges, uh, for this category of pen and always has been is you're kind of refill limited. You don't get all of the broad gel ink options, um, that you get into other types of pens.

Myke Hurley: If you would like to send in a question for us to answer on a future episode of the show, go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can leave a question there, or you can email them to hello at penaddict.com. Uh, if you want to find Brad online in the meantime, go to penaddict.com and spokedesign.com. You can go twitch.tv slash penaddict three times a week. Brad is penaddict on Instagram and what is your Mastodon?

Brad Dowdy: Uh, penaddict at mastodon.social.

Myke Hurley: Penaddict at mastodon.social. I'm on Mastodon now. Yes. Which is a change for me. Recently, I've wanted to be where, I want to be where the community is. The community is there. I want to be there. Uh, I want to have a presence there. I want to share what I'm up to. Um, I've found some real, uh, understanding about myself and my social media habits and I'm building something around that going forward about how I use these types of things, but I still want to be where everybody is. So I have my own instance. So I'm I Myke at Myke.social on Mastodon. Uh, you can check me out there if you would like.

Brad Dowdy: Real quick aside. Yeah. If, if anyone has any like Mastodon questions, let me know because I am like super not like I am, I'm a tech nerd, but not in like a details level, right? Like I like to try all the toys and check out all the bells and whistles. But if you're like intimidated by Mastodon, don't be. It's, it's, it's dead simple to join and participate. Yeah. Um, so don't be intimidated by like all like complicated. Yes. But you don't need to be intimidated by all the, like the panic articles of like, oh my God, it's so hard. It is dead simple.

Myke Hurley: Once you signed up. Yeah. And there, there are some weird parts, but you'll just get used to it. I'm still getting used to it. Like, but there are for sure. For sure.

Brad Dowdy: But again, it's a, it's a not to totally derail, but like you said, it's part of the broader social media adjustment overall. Like I need less, like I don't need all of the things. And that's been a good place to participate that in micro.blog. So yeah, it's great.

Myke Hurley: Uh, thank you so much to express VPN and Squarespace for the support of this episode. But as always, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time. Until then say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Bye, Brad.

Myke Hurley: Bye.