The Pen Addict 494/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	494
Title:	The Centre is Twisty
Release Date:	December 29th, 2021
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 494
Audio File:	Audio Episode 494
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 494
Length:	7474 min <br />1.233 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 494. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet and Squarespace. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. What is that? You can't even see me. I'm not even like funny looking or what did I do?

Myke Hurley: Hi, how are you? Happy nearly new year.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we're not even supposed to be here today, right?

Brad Dowdy: Well, we're on that road now, baby. We're on it. We are on it. We're hitting that 10-year 500 mark.

Myke Hurley: Nothing's gonna stop us now. This has been part of the road to 500 is the transition towards music as part of the show. Gotcha, gotcha. That's unfortunate. Speaking of which, did I ever tell you what I tried to do for you for episode 400? I don't remember if I told you this. Yeah, that I tried to license that music. Yep, yep. And they wanted like thousands of dollars a year for it.

Brad Dowdy: But the way you told me the story was like they kind of considered it, and then they came back with a really outrageous price.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it took... What was the name of the song again?

Brad Dowdy: It's All My Little Words by The Magnetic Fields.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there you go. And I wanted to try and get that... I don't even remember why it was. I think it was like your dream theme for the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought it would be a good intro music. Like I contacted the publishing company and they just... It was... The terms that they wanted were wild. It was like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So much money and only up to a certain amount of downloads and then we'd need more to give them more money. And it was like, yeah, this isn't... It just sounds nightmarish. And it was kind of funny that after that message, because I like emailed them a bunch of times before they got back to me. And then I just ignored that email because it was just like felt like a joke to me. And then they kept emailing me afterwards. And we're like, what do you think? Do you want to do this? It's like, no, this is not happening. I don't know if they tried to like hardball me or whatever, but I was just like, this is so far out of the realm of what I was willing to pay for this. Like if I was willing to do like, I don't know, a sum of money, maybe like, I don't know, like a grand a year or something, which I would do.

Brad Dowdy: Or even like a fixed one-time thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, but it was just like, it was all the terms that they wanted.

Brad Dowdy: It's just like, this is not, you know. Yeah, music publishing and licensing sounds just like a nightmarish job. Yeah. Like just trying to track all that stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. The best thing, by the way, if anybody ever needs to license music for anything, I use a company called Epidemic Sound. And they're great. Like it's a lot of like indie musicians and stuff. And they put their music on Epidemic Sound and you can license it and you can license it like across multiple avenues. Right. So I have like podcasts and my Twitch stream. Like if you ever watch my Twitch, this is where all the music comes from. And all of these artists, they publish their music on Spotify and Apple Music and stuff, which is fun because then some of my wonderful keyboard club viewers have created Apple Music and Spotify playlists of the songs that I use. And you can like listen to them. But yeah. Anyway, so it gets you around a lot of the music license and stuff. Nevertheless. Hi, Brad. Hey. How was Christmas?

Brad Dowdy: It was good. How was yours? Did you get any stationary gifts? No, never do. Yeah, same.

Myke Hurley: It's like I never get stationary gifts or technology gifts because why would anybody that truly loves me would know that that's too hard for them to try and attempt, right?

Gifts and Stationery

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I always put this in here every year because everyone wants to know, right? Everyone wants to know, oh, what pens or what did you get for Christmas? It's like literally no stationary ever for years. It's just not how it works these days. Unless there's very rarely once in a while I'll ask for like a pin gift. Yeah. Right. I remember, gosh, probably five years ago for Father's Day or something I got. I picked out a pin for my wife to get me. And that's kind of like the last kind of gift pin that I've ever received. Like it's just not my move. But what I love, it's like we talked about it on Twitch yesterday as everyone else telling me what they got. And, you know, everyone's just getting in. It's fun to see so many people getting into fountain pens. Like someone got a Pilot Metropolitan in their stocking and they said like this is the greatest thing ever. And that just makes me so, so happy. You know, it's just really, really cool. So to see, you know, people really getting into this stuff and able to have, you know, some cool gifts during the holidays and, you know, get them into some new things that they maybe wouldn't buy themselves. Like a fountain pen or a calligraphy set or some random notebook. And it's very, very, very cool. So I did give a gift of stationery this year, Myke, to my wife, who I think I've mentioned on the show before. Her favorite pen, and it's not close, is the Pentel Energel. The standard Energel as you get from the store, the 0.7 millimeter gels. Because a couple of years ago, they started making them in some better colors that she really likes. Like teal and navy blue and purple and some cool colors like that. And so she just loves how they write, loves that they're retractable, and loves the colors. So Pentel of America back, I don't know if you remember this, on the St. Jude raffle stuff. They gave, they had a new 20-pin set that they donated for us to raffle. And my wife tried to steal it back then, right? She's like, oh, this is for me, right? Like these are my pens. I'm like, no, we're doing this to raise money for the kids. This is mine? Thanks.

Brad Dowdy: So I bought that set for her for Christmas. I think it might have been her favorite gift. She's already like cracked them open, decided what color she likes the most, and labeled one for work purposes already. I'll put a link in the show notes I just put on Instagram. Oh, that's fantastic. Because she has pen thieves at work, like as we all do, right? Anyone that works around other people, you cannot leave your favorite pens laying around, or they will vanish like in a split second. So she has labeled her, she has gotten the label maker out and put her name on the pens. So, you know, it's... Just to confirm, your label maker here is in Comic Sans, is that right? I'm gonna, I'm not gonna commit, I'm not gonna confirm or deny that. Once I saw that, I was like, oh boy, where did this come from?

Myke Hurley: I am about 97% sure that that's Comic Sans.

Brad Dowdy: I am too, and it's not my work label maker, because it's out in the shipping department, and it is not set to Comic Sans. But when I saw that, I was like, this is gonna be an issue.

Brad Dowdy: But she doesn't care. She just doesn't want people, maybe she thinks people will be embarrassed to use it, not because of the name, but because of her font choice. So, anyway, it's a hunter green, or a forest green color, which they don't normally do. So, if someone steals this pen, I mean, they're going down, because you can't just buy this color off the store shelf. Plus, it's got her name in Comic Sans on it. So, you better, hands off, buddy.

Brad Dowdy: That's amazing. So that's the deal. So that was her favorite present. And, you know, her and my daughter were, like, going through all the colors on Christmas Day, trying to figure out all the new colors that she didn't have. And it was just cute, and I loved it. So, anyway, that was kind of the only stationary activity we did for Christmas, but it was well worth it. Well worth it. So thank you, Pentel, for showing me those, and I was able to grab a set for myself. Next up, we're gonna be talking a little bit this week. I'm gonna be talking more next week about my planner setup for 2022.

Myke Hurley: Please, I want to know more about it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but I wanted to kind of lead into it this week with a few planner topics, a few little short topics. Chronodex 2022 has released. I am never not going to link what Patrick Ng does at his Scription blog for creating and releasing the Chronodex formats for free. I remember he had a little challenge getting them out last year. They were a little bit late, but he is ahead of the game this year. So he does six months at a time. You can go to the link we have in the show notes. Look at the Chronodex images that he always puts on there, which are mind-boggling of... It's a mind-boggling system, right? Like, I couldn't... Can't even really describe it. Yeah, it doesn't really work for me. Yeah, you have to go look. I would be scared to even attempt this, but people love it. It's complete Instagram fodder. Like, it looks better than any bullet journal.

Myke Hurley: Maybe the best way I could describe it is aesthetically pleasing time blocking.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's a good way to do it. But for those who aren't familiar with it, it's in a circular format, almost like a clock face. You know, hence kind of the name. And, like, I've never really read the rules to attempt to understand it because it looks like I would have a panic attack trying to manage it. But it's really great. And he does this for free. Like, he puts these out for free in the formats for you to just print it out on your own paper and build it. You know, a lot of people will print them out and make them for, like, their traveler's notebooks. I know that's what Patrick does a lot of times. So, and he's just one of the good ones. And I always want to send this out there in the world because I know he puts a lot of time in it. And I just want to make sure it gets shared because he is super cool. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Secondly, you dropped in a note here that I have started my Hobonichi. Yep. So, here's the problem with that, Myke. I really want to start it more, but they don't allow me really until January the 1st. So, I'm a little bit…

Myke Hurley: Is it condensed?

Brad Dowdy: Like, the end of the year part? No. So, like, the one that I have is the Hobonichi Cousin. And it's essentially three distinct sections. So, you have your monthly layout, right, which is your month calendar over two pages, right? You open it up. You see a month. Okay? So, that's the first section. Your second section is a weekly section over two pages, right? So, this is a, you know, what, a pretty good-sized section where you see a vertical week split over two pages. So, they started that on December 27th, this Monday, because it rolls the end of the week into the first. So, like, they had to cover that week if you're going to start it on January 1st. And then the bulk of the book, you know, probably three-quarters or at least two-thirds of the book is one page per day. And that one page per day is fixed for January 1st. So, like, that's the first day.

Myke Hurley: So, you can do the weekly planner part, but you can't do the daily part. Right.

Brad Dowdy: And it was driving me crazy.

Myke Hurley: Which one did you get, by the way? Which flavor?

Brad Dowdy: It's the A5 Cousin, which is the single big book for the full year. Like, there's different models where you can get, like, the first six months or the second six months. Or you can get the Techo, which is the A6 size, which is the smaller. So, this is an A, like, your traditional A5, probably. Like, you have the Crossfield, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Like, the Nanami Crossfield. It's, like, a little bit bigger than that as far as page count, I think. Okay. So, think of it like something like that, but a little bit, maybe, like, another hundred pages or so compared to your Crossfield. So, it's a pretty sizable, chunky book, but it's all in one. It's not split into six months and six months.

Myke Hurley: So, it's just straight up Hobonichi...

Brad Dowdy: Cousin. Cousin. Cousin. Yeah. I forget what the split version is called.

Myke Hurley: It's really hard to find them. Because they have Techo, Cousin, and Cousin.

Hobonichi Planning Products

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: So, it's original.

Myke Hurley: Yes. No. So, there's still... Okay. So, like, I'm trying to find... Basically, what I'm trying to do right now is find a link to put in the show notes. And every single link has taken me to the Techo.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Because that's the classic. That's what got this started. You know, the whole Hobonichi has a thing was the Techo. Even though these other products existed, what made them popular was the singular, smaller, A6 Techo. Mm-hmm. So, you really have to look up the Cousin. I can find the links for you to put it in there.

Myke Hurley: I think you're going to have to, man. Because I'm on their website and I can't even find it. The entire website is just Hobonichi Techo for everything I can find. I can't even find it.

Brad Dowdy: You're on the 1101 site? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I'll find it for you. They usually have, like, a breakdown. So, it's A5 size Hobonichi Techo cousin. Well, that's day free. Yeah, there are all kinds of split. They're... You know what? It's not listed in the header. So, I wonder if it's sold out.

Myke Hurley: This is the issue that I'm having. The header only has Techo up there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like, it's all it has. So, now... Okay, I'm on the site. We're doing this live.

Myke Hurley: Is it day free?

Brad Dowdy: Hobonichi... It's... No, it's original. Original? So, they're calling this original. Um... Okay. Yes.

Myke Hurley: Because now it says Techo original.

Brad Dowdy: But that's A6. See? Yeah, this is frustrating. I know, I know.

Myke Hurley: This is why they need that friggin' map that you... It's too confusing.

Brad Dowdy: I will tell you the split volume one is called the Avec. So, the Avec is the first six months and the second six months. So, you don't have a big chunky book. It's not a Techo, right? That's what we're saying? I mean... A Techo is a general term as well. Of course it is. Mm-hmm. So, I can't really say. So, here. I'm going to click on Cousin.

Brad Dowdy: All right. One page per day. A5 size. Techo. So, Techo is generally just like the planner, the word for planner. But everyone calls the small one the Techo and everything else by the other name. So, I found the link for you. All right. So, this is the one we're doing. This is what we're doing right here. So, it's the A5 Cousin.

Myke Hurley: This is way too confusing. I love this in the live chat in the Discord. Catherine says, I'm getting flashbacks of Myke and Brad building Lego.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, man. That's true.

Myke Hurley: But you see... That is true. All right. I've gone to this page and it calls it the Hobonichi Techo Cousin, which is what you said you didn't have.

Brad Dowdy: Because you got to... I have the cousin. So, I'm using the term Techo to talk about a specific model which is not factually correct. So, I can blame you for this confusion? Sure. I'm down with that. Good. Because Techo just means like... I think Techo just translates like into diary. So, it can be like a product name and a descriptor. Right? Right.

Myke Hurley: Yep. And this is why you have to have a buying guide.

Brad Dowdy: And they have. They usually do when they launch. Yeah, they do. They usually do like a big... You know those maps? Like city maps? Yeah. You know, like the... That you get at the government office. It's like, hey, here's the city map.

Myke Hurley: But now it's like a big grid thing. And like, I'm going to put that link in the show notes too. It's honestly... I find it scary. Like, the amount of information. Yeah. But, hey, if you build a product which is really flexible and customizable, this is kind of what happens when you end up with a line. Because they've ended up with a line. It's like, this is product creep. And I'm not complaining. Like, this is actually a good thing. But, you know, I...

Brad Dowdy: It's intense. Yeah. Yeah. They release like the roadmap a good month ahead of the product launch. So, people actually have time to figure out what they want to buy.

Brad Dowdy: Every year. So, like in August, we'll get like a map of, you know, we'll get the chart. Right? And then that's getting you ready for the next month when it's time to order. So, you actually know what you're doing when it's time to order. Right? It's become a thing. It has definitely become a thing.

Myke Hurley: I mean, look, all of it's worth it, right? Because at the end of the day, you end up with a fantastic product. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which you have.

Episode Length Discussion

Brad Dowdy: It is. And so, we'll talk about it more next week when I can actually get into the meat of the book. And I start using it. So, we'll save that further discussion next week about the internals and how I'm using it. Cool. But I'm very anxious, which is why I keep fidgeting with the early days, like the pre-January 1st days that I'm allowed to use. I keep fidgeting with them because I'm anxious to write something on the 1st, which I could start. So, that's a whole topic we'll talk about next week. What about you?

Myke Hurley: Well, I've got my theme system journal set up, which is a product that you can just start whenever you want. You don't have to wait for the journal to tell you when you can start. Because it is, in essence, much more of a simple product. Obviously, this is a product that I make.

Brad Dowdy: You don't have a roadmap for ordering?

Myke Hurley: Don't. At least we don't. Yeah. Who knows what the future might hold? You know, as I was saying all that stuff a minute ago, I was like, is this my future? This could be my future. I don't know where it's going to go. But I think there's a possibility of it, especially of all the ideas I have in my brain. I've got a cool idea I want to tell you about when we're not recording later on. I want to see what you think about it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you already had another idea that I haven't seen come to fruition yet that I really want. It's going to happen this year.

Myke Hurley: Okay. I'm hoping by the end of January, I'll be able to place an order for that product. Brand new product, not theme system related. Cortex brand product. So yeah, I just wanted to plug the journal for a second. It's available now. We have stock. Now we have more stock on the way. So you can buy with confidence. If you know, I know in the past, the journal's gone out of stock. You can buy with confidence. If you want to buy with extra confidence, you can subscribe. And we keep stock for the quarterly subscriptions, right? We do stock management. So we make sure they never go out of stock. So if you subscribe, you'll always get one on a quarterly interval. But the theme system journal is a product that helps you with your yearly theme. It helps you stay on course. It helps you be more productive and achieve what you're looking to achieve. I built this book over many years of trial and error. I'm really, really happy with the quality of the product at the end. And I think that many pen addicts will too. I would say, you know, like for pen addicts, it does a good job with basically anything, right? Yep. And, you know, but things will vary. You know, if you use like really sloppy inks, you might struggle. But outside of that, I think it does a really good job with basically everything I've thrown at it. And I've thrown everything that I own at it. And I'm happy with it. Yeah. But yeah, really, it's all about the theme system. Like the system of the idea of basically it is a, you know, loose structure. And it just allows you to kind of spend some time reflecting every day. And we give you just enough structure to give you something to keep coming back to. So you don't have to come up with it on your own. And if you want to read a little bit more about what that is, you can go to themesystem.com. And it's all laid out there. We put examples and stuff on the website. So if you've maybe thought about it and you haven't tried it out before, or maybe you tried it and bounced off, this could be a time to come back. Because we're about to enter a new year. So we really appreciate it.

Brad Dowdy: Two things. Two things. One, will you put a link into the Cortex podcast where you talk about your themes? Yeah. The most recent episode. That needs to go in the show notes for everyone to go listen to. I have not listened to it yet. So do not spoil me. I plan on doing that before next week. Secondly, do you start a fresh theme system journal no matter what on January the 1st?

Myke Hurley: Yes. Because you write your yearly theme in it, right? And we have space for people to write multiple. But I always start a new one. Because also, I always have a lot of them. So I'm never like, you know. But yeah, I like to start a new one at the beginning of the new theme time. That would have been my assumption.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So I don't even start one January 1st. I started mine like two weeks ago. Okay, fair enough. Right. Basically, you know, like when we recorded the show, I'm like set on what my theme is. So as soon as we recorded the show, the next day I set up my new theme system journal. So mine was set up a couple of weeks ago and I started it. Love it. So go check it out. All right. This episode is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. You know Pen Chalet. They have all of the products that you need from all of your favorite brands. Whether you're looking for something from Pelican or Pilot, maybe Sailor or Kaweco. Whether you want a mechanical pencil. Maybe you want some refills. Maybe you want some inks. Maybe you want a beautiful fountain pen, ballpoint. Whatever it is from whatever company you're looking for, go to Pen Chalet and check it out. Here's a couple of great reasons. Every couple of weeks, they have new discounts. They're doing closed out specials and adding new styles of pens all the time. They sell internationally with great shipping rates and they get free shipping on orders of $50 in the US. So that's really like an easy thing to do with Pen Chalet to get to that price because they have so much wonderful stuff. So go right now to PenChalet.com and click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password Pen Addict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Right now, they have a year-end inventory reduction sale with tons of great deals. But of course, there are some special deals for Pen Addict listeners. Isn't that right, Brad?

Brad Dowdy: This is maybe the longest list I've ever seen on here. I haven't made it to the bottom yet and I've been looking for a while. So there is all kinds of sneaky stuff in here. So as I'm going through this list, again, I have not made it to the bottom of this list yet. The, where'd it go? The Mayora Aventus fountain pen is a really, really cool fountain pen. This is the company that spun off from, one of the companies that spun off from Delta, which we spoke about last week. The price point for these pens, I think, is lower than even I bought my last one for. So it's like, with discounts, it's crazy good. There's a Pelican 205 petrol in here that's on sale. There is something that I never, two things I never see on sale. One, the Lamy 2000 ballpoint in the, what do they call this? Like the Texas, like the light colored model. It's like a wooden model. Yeah. I forget the exact name of it, but it's on sale for like, it's normally not even that available. They also have Lamy 2000s on here, which never go on sale. The actual fountain pen version. The actual fountain pen version is cheaper than I bought mine eight years ago. Something like that. Right? So like, I think I paid more for mine six or eight years ago than they have it listed for right now. And I still haven't gotten to the end, y'all. Right.

Myke Hurley: Retro 51s on here too. Like ones that I'm surprised that Ron even has stock of and they're putting them on deal. I haven't even found it. And 3776 centuries.

Brad Dowdy: So the Kenshu, like the final version of that series, the 3776 Kenshu is the one that they took all the design elements of the Kung Fu and the Shi Yun and all those and morphed them into one pen. This was an anniversary edition that was very expensive and now it is discounted. Yeah. Retro. This is, I haven't finished the list yet. It's, it's crazy. Y'all should go check this out. I'm going to check this out again after the show and see if there's anything I need to check out. Like these Montegrappa Elmo fountain pens, which is, that's a pen model that I love and they changed the shape of it. So I wanted to check out the new version of that. They've kind of upgraded the previous Elmo, which I loved and kind of like fancied it up a little bit. So I want to check those out for myself. So yeah, great, great deals at Penn Chalet right now for y'all to check out.

Myke Hurley: All right. You can go and check them out for yourself right now. Go to penchalet.com, P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website and enter the password Penn Addict to get your hands on those deals and 10% off anything at any time.

Brad Dowdy: Next topic, Myke, I am sure Matthias has been yelling at me privately. Like I haven't talked to him, but Matthias, our good friend at Blystiff and at stationary.wiki made a post on December 23rd that I've been holding until this podcast to talk about. Like I didn't share it on, I didn't like fawn over it on Twitter. I wanted to, I didn't, I didn't put it in my misfilled links on the weekend because I wanted to talk about it with you and make sure that, that you saw what Matthias did for us for the, the blog post is nearly 10 years of the Penn Addict podcast and it's kind of not what you think. It is a chart. Matthias has charted the time lengths of all of our episodes for the entirety of the run of the podcast. What would you like to say about this?

Myke Hurley: Well, I love the work. It's fascinating. It's interesting to me. This stuff is always interesting to me. I don't know what happened between like 2016 and 2018 because it feels like there was a bit of a swell in episode length. But I'm pretty happy that, you know, from 2017 onwards to now, like we're pretty consistent with episode length, which is, which makes me feel, feel good. Like, because one of the things that you could see is that like over time, the episodes get shorter, which would suggest that we're running out of stuff to talk about. And I don't think that's happening. Like the trend, there's like that blue trend line has gone down a little bit, but that, I don't know, that feels pretty stable between 60 and 70 minutes, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like Myke and I, I mean, it's, it's kind of an unwritten rule, but we talk about it from time to time. We would like to hit about 55 minutes on every episode, knowing that we always go about 60 or maybe like 63.

Myke Hurley: This is for me a one hour show. And I feel like-

Brad Dowdy: This is a one hour show.

Myke Hurley: More than that is too much, I think. Yeah. If on a consistent basis.

Brad Dowdy: But we also couldn't hit 45 minutes if we tried.

Myke Hurley: No. Even when we tried, we don't never do it.

Brad Dowdy: We can't do that. We's like, okay, we need a quick one today. 58 minutes, right? It's like, I got a hard stop at 11. Let's go and let's do about 45. It's always 58. It just is. It's really cool to see. I do remember the beginning, like we had like 27 minute episodes and 32 minute episodes. And I was like, there's just no way we could do like less than 45 minutes now if we tried. But we're pretty locked into that 55 to 65 range. And I'm really happy about that. Like I feel good about the length of show. That's kind of how you and I lay out the show, like trying to fit those blocks into that. If I know we're going to run short, you know, I'll ask for a little bit more topics or have some more STPA and things like that. But I love the consistency that this is. And that plays a big role. And I think why people enjoy the show, they know they're going to get me and you for about an hour every week. And we're going to cut up about pens and, you know, then we're going to move on and we're going to do it again next week. And we never overload the topics too much to, you know, to just, you know, to have like an hour and a half show one week and 30 minutes the next week. Right. It's very well balanced and I'm very happy. I was very pleased to see this. So thank you.

Myke Hurley: What you could say is after you do 494 of something, you get kind of consistent with it. I'm not going to say good at it. I think we're good at it, but I don't want to speak for other people. But we've worked it out by this point.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Like I can do, I can pretty much, when I write a show doc, I can time it in my head. What that we're going to hit like the hour mark.

Myke Hurley: Watch this episode end up being like 42 minutes long or something.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think so because this next topic, Myke, is broken my brain and it's, I'm a, I'm flummoxed. So, um, friend of the show, Craig Mod, I just like saying that he's really not, uh, I just want him to be. So like, I'm, you know, I'm, that's the new year's resolution, you know, like talk about the things that you want to happen and they'll just magically happen.

Manifesting Future Projects

Myke Hurley: What do they call that? It's like, um, it's like putting something out in the world, but it has a name, but I don't remember what it is. Like when you, you put something out into the world and hope that it happens.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. There is a word for it and I'm blanking. I'm blanking. Manifesting. Manifesting. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So, you know what, Brad, we just manifested that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So future friend of the show, Craig Mod, I follow, I'm a, I'm a member of his, I'm subscribed to him and follow him on Twitter. So he posted this, he posted this link on Twitter, an intriguing Christmas present from IA, which we'll get into IA in just a second. The notebook for writers where the guides disappear, leaving nothing but plain, clear, aligned text. Do you want to give the IA background for people who don't know? Like just the general overview? I mean, I can, but I figured you might be even be better.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. IA, um, what is, uh, now I want to remember what, what it actually stands for. Is it Intelligent Architects? Maybe. I bet I don't even know. I think that's what the IA stands for. Um, but I don't remember. Anyway, IA have been around for a really long time in the kind of app space. Their main product, uh, is something called IA Writer, which is a mostly Markdown focused, um, text editor.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That was my first big boy writing app when I got a Mac. And it is for a lot of people.

Myke Hurley: They've been around for such a long time. Yep. Um, that I'm trying to find, I don't know if, I actually, I don't know if IA stands for anything anymore. Um, but I think it used to, you know what I mean? Like, I think it used to stand for something. And then over time they've, they've kind of moved away from that a little bit. Um, but they are like a company that does a bunch of things. Like they are. Digitally. Yeah. They are a consultancy company. Yeah. Um, and they work with a lot of brands on strategy, design, code, and that kind of stuff. But they also produce their own product, which is IA Writer. And that's like their product that they put out to the world. And it's a really, really nice, um, seemingly simple, but full of features, uh, text editor. I think they were one of the first that did like, um, uh, syntax highlighting in a Markdown editor. So structure, like in color and stuff. And they've had, they had, they've made some, I don't even remember what it was, like some weird moves in the past where everybody got mad at them for a while, but then they came back and everyone was cool with them again. But anyway, IA Writer has been like a consistent, uh, really good text editing application.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. And one thing you can do, this, this is not a digital podcast, but one thing I have done once I moved off of IA Writer for my writing is they actually allow you to download their font for free. The, um, I forget the name of the font and you can import that into like your other writing apps. If you like, yeah, they made a really, they did a good job. So I use that font pretty frequently. So anyway, Craig is obviously buddies with the IA people and they sent him this notebook. And normally those things just pass my eyes and go, okay, thanks for the notebook. This one is different in that it has raised, it's a lined notebook, but the lines that we would normally think are printed are physically raised on the page. And I'm having trouble with this whole, with this whole concept until I see it in my hands because like Craig's text, and I, this is from the, from the packaging, the guides disappear, leaving nothing but plain, clear, aligned text. So you basically have blank guidelines that you can see as you're writing. But the theory is that once the words are on the page, those things vanish from view, not like physically vanish, right? They're, they're scored into the book as, as best as I can tell, right? The lines, is that a fair way to say it? These lines look scored into the page, but by the time you write and have a full text page, you just, you stop visually seeing. It's not like the lines are like physically vanishing. I don't, I don't see how they could physically vanish when they're scored into the page. I am desperate to get one of these. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I don't really know what it means. Like my, my thought was like, does it change the composition of the page? Like as you write on it, does it like weigh the page in such a way that the, the lines actually disappear? Like I couldn't tell, right? Right. I don't know. They've said like it's made for fountain pens as well, which is just like a bananas thing

Brad Dowdy: to say. Like, yeah. So like everything that is happening here is like really breaking my head. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So it's a product that they are working on making commercially available.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I thought at first, the way Craig was talking about it, like, Hey, we just, you know, I made this for like their best customers or whatever. It's actually going to be a physical product.

Myke Hurley: Something I can't tell Brad is how big it is from these images.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It looks, I'm going to go with smart sized Myke. Like I don't know exactly what size it is, but I'm just going to assume it's smart sized.

Myke Hurley: Is that when, did you mean that they make it up as they go along? Like, yeah. Like the system journals. Yeah. A5 ish. You reckon it's just a five ish. I mean, I would hope so if it's a writer's book. My concern would be that it's pocket size.

Brad Dowdy: And I don't think that's the right. So it looks like it's five by seven to me. Yeah. Just looking at how many lines are on the page. It may be shorter than that. It may, it may be like B6 ish. I don't know. We'll see. Um, but yeah, it's whatever it is. It's smart size. It's, it's, uh, you know, well, we'll, we'll, you better believe I will, I will handle that bit of information once we physically get, once I physically get one. Um, but it doesn't look to be a five size. It looks to be smaller.

Myke Hurley: So here's what I'll say right now. This looks like a notebook built by a design agency. Yes. That's not always a good thing. Correct. We'll see. This feels very concept-y, right?

Brad Dowdy: And we'll see. So this is going to be one of those times where I'm actually like, I'm going to reach out and try to get one where I don't normally do that.

Myke Hurley: But around the time that they do decide to make it commercially available, they will want to have it in your hands if they believe.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I'm just going to order one if it becomes commercially available, but I'm actually going to, I haven't emailed them yet. I've just put myself on the mailing list and look at all the stuff. Like they didn't, they don't look like they're ready to send, but I'm going to attempt.

Myke Hurley: When you see a product like this and you put yourself in the mailing list, do you use an email address where they could recognize you? Nope. Oh, interesting. That's not the move I take. Like if I'm signing up for like an app beta or something, I will use my RelayFM email address in the hopes that they recognize me and give me the access.

Brad Dowdy: Obviously, when I directly email them, it will definitely come from the pen addict. If I'm signing up to a newsletter that I know is going to be more of a general newsletter, right? So like, that's how they say, sign up for our newsletter and we'll say, you know, when this is going to launch. I put it in, I direct that type of content into my feed bin. So I have a feed bin address that comes into my RSS feeds. So that's how I read newsletters.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, no, I will always try and do the like, I want you to like, please notice me kind of thing. Oh, yeah. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah. I'll do that differently. Like if I ask them. As someone says in the chat, the do you know who I am technique.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Which is exactly what it is. But subtle. But subtle. And you don't say, hey. You just send it from that address, but you don't say, hey, I am this person. You just say, hey, you know, I notice things you think. Yeah. So I'll try to get one. So we'll see. I'll shoot them an email. They don't know who I am from Adam, but, you know, maybe I can get ready for the long term follow up on this. Well, I can I can pull some strings in the relay chat and bet I could get some contact, some legit contact information.

Myke Hurley: I would say, yeah, you probably could. I that's generally not my move, though. I reckon Federico probably knows them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't roll that way, though. So. But you could. But I could. I could. I'm I'm tempted more than this because it's so different. And what they're telling me doesn't add up. Yeah, I can't walk it out. And I want to see it for myself. And but they're like. Yeah, this isn't just like a one off thing we're trying. Like they're like in like we're going in on this. And I want to see what the deal is. So, yeah, there you go. All right. Semi related notebook news. My plotter interview went up on the plotter website. I had a really fun time working with them in the kind of like a private beta test of the plotter. And part of that program was doing an interview with them to be published on their website, which is now upped up up up. It's now up on their site. I linked it on the penatic blog for those to read. It's a fun interview. It talks about like, you know, just my general background in stationery. But it talks about some of my thoughts on the plotter. And I don't know. I enjoy talking with April very much. They do a really good job. It's one of the most pleasant experiences I've had ever, like working with like a pre-launch product. Like they were very thorough and very diligent and, you know, knew exactly like the type of questions to ask. And we're very good about the whole process. And I think it's a really neat product. The thing is, and we're going to talk about this probably when I start talking about the Hobonichi, is how I'm going to use the plotter going forward. Right. That's the question I'm at right now. Like these last two months have just been a disaster as far as productivity and efficiency and actually working. So I'm ready to get, turn the calendar and get into a better work cycle and see how the plotter fits into that. But I think it's a great product. And I thought it was a fun interview and wanted to share.

Myke Hurley: I like that they called you a stationary therapist. Which I never heard. I really appreciate as a phrase.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I could get into that. Right. Because it's like content creator. You know, that's like just like, it's almost like a creepy word these days. Right.

Myke Hurley: I mean, it's the problem with it is it's too, it's too simple because it's so broad. Right. It is. It is. But I do like that there is a word for it. Like I like the content creator exists.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. I make content. Right. Yeah. I make content. Like I'm not denying that. But like, I don't know. I just tend to say I talk about pens on the internet and that I lead with that. And then we just figure out from there.

Myke Hurley: Like something that I may be trying to say sometimes that I like is that I am a professional communicator. But that's about as broad as content creator. But it's just something that I like to say.

Brad Dowdy: But stationary therapist, I can get behind that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You are a stationary therapist. Yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So I'm good with that. So.

Myke Hurley: All right. When you need to set up your new website for stationary therapy.

Unboxing Segment Introduction

Brad Dowdy: That's the last thing I need is another domain that I'm not using.

Myke Hurley: Well, when you eventually decide to create a new one, which is literally only a matter of time, go to Squarespace because they are the all-in-one platform to build your online presence and run your business. Squarespace really have everything from tools to make websites and online stores to managing them with marketing tools and analytics. They've got the whole kit and caboodle. You are covered with Squarespace. You can combine cutting edge design with world-class engineering. That's what they do. Right. So you get all of that. So basically with Squarespace, you will get yourself free unlimited hosting, top of the line security, award-winning 24 seven customer support, domain name registration options, SEO and email marketing tools, beautiful templates that are instantly customizable with just drag and drop tools and clicks. So you can customize the look, feel settings, the products you have on sale and more in seconds and everything is optimized for mobile. And they have great iOS apps where you can look at all of the stuff behind the scenes, but also make edits to the site. They really are amazing. Squarespace will let you turn your big idea into a new website. Whether you want to promote your business, publish a blog post, create a portfolio, announce an upcoming event and so much more Squarespace are the place. Me and Brad have been using Squarespace for over a decade now because it's so easy. I know when I have an idea, when I want to put something online, when I want the world to see something, I could just spin up Squarespace website. I can get it done super quickly and get it out to the world. One of the things I love is something you will benefit from is their free trial. If you go to squarespace.com slash penaddict, you can sign up for a trial. You don't need to give them your credit card information and you can build your whole website and make sure that it feels right for you. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict when you sign up for a plan and you will save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you sign up, use the offer code penaddict to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the penaddict and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: Can I give Squarespace a shout out for their support as well? They do a good job. Like, you know, not everything goes perfectly all the time. And sometimes you have like little foibles you need to figure out. And I had a comments issue crop up all of a sudden. And I don't know why. And where people couldn't leave comments. So I had people test. I collected that information, put it in an email to Squarespace. Squarespace. They looked at it and they didn't just give me the stock. Like, hey, have you turned it on and off again? They looked at my information, said, do this. And I did that and it fixed it. And then our ticket was closed. Like, that was it. That was our communication. It wasn't like, okay, I've tried all these things and that didn't work. What's the tier two thing? Like, they took my info. So they said, press this button, do this, and tell us if it worked. And I'll be like, yep, that worked. Thank you. The end. Like, it doesn't get any better than that. So I appreciate their support is generally helpful like that. So it's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: All right. All right. New segment on the show. Mm-hmm. Myke unboxes things. Yeah. And I am very anxious to see what's about to happen here.

Myke Hurley: We don't really do this very much, which is kind of surprising, really. But I think it's just because we're both just too excited when new stuff comes in. But I had something arrive today. I thought I would keep it for the show. I believe it's my drill log.

Myke Hurley: All right.

Myke Hurley: I haven't opened the box yet.

Myke Hurley: Watch it not be. That would be great.

Myke Hurley: Oh, it's some socks. So I got my knife here. By the way, I love my James Brand knife.

Brad Dowdy: It's a good. They do good stuff.

Myke Hurley: Do you remember that? I bought it a really long time ago.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I lost my little bitty one, my little pen knife that they make. Right. It's about an inch long. And I've lost that because I love it so much and would carry it around.

Myke Hurley: I actually also, by the way, so I own the, what's the name of the one that I own?

Myke Hurley: Oh, man. I'm looking on their website now, but now I can't find it.

Brad Dowdy: Well, now they have more. When we were buying them, it was like one.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Knives, product knives. Now they had a bunch when I bought mine, but now they do have way more. It's the, not the Carter. It looks like it, but it's not the Carter. The Folsom?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Folsom is the original.

Myke Hurley: So that's what I have. I have it in the green, but I just bought the Draplin orange and black one. Oh, nice. Yeah. I couldn't not buy it. Because I have a few of them and it's so cool. And Stephen has, because he's done two of them. The Elko, which I think is the one that you have. Mm-hmm. And he's also done one of the Folsom ones. And Stephen bought both of them, I think. And they look really good. Yep. And I have the Folsom one at home. I'm at home today. But I wanted one for the studio. And so now I've ordered one of the DDC ones.

Brad Dowdy: Perfect. So good. Now you're going to make me go look after the show.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they're really great. They're really, really great. Yep. So. Highly recommended.

Brad Dowdy: It's now an EDC show. I guess so. Although this drill log, if this is actually a drill log in the box, that could be a weapon.

Myke Hurley: I mean, I'll find out. I have no idea. All right. You ready? Let's do this thing. Let's do this. All right.

Myke Hurley: Do you hear this? Probably not. Yeah, barely. This is like some serious tape.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Then it must be because I made the same comment when I opened mine.

Myke Hurley: It's like structured.

Brad Dowdy: It's like band-aid tape. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Where it's like got cross fibers, but it's soft like a band-aid. So this is totally the drill log.

Myke Hurley: It's really. I was really impressed with the tape too. I did a whole Twitch stream where I was just messing with the tape.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I've got some foam. Oh my God. There's so many boxes. Yes, it is the drill log.

Brad Dowdy: All right. You must have bought a lot of pieces, parts.

Myke Hurley: I think I did.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: I think you bought like the kitten caboodle type of thing where I already had a bunch of the stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Let me check. Yeah. It's just some paper. Okay.

Myke Hurley: Very nearly stabbed myself. Good. That's fine. All right. I've got some paperwork here. One is a little thank you card. One is how to maintain my drill log.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: I'm not going to read that. Who maintains pens? Am I right? Not me. I mean, they sent that to the wrong person.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

Myke Hurley: So I've got a writing paper block and it says present for you on it.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. I have that right here on my desk.

Myke Hurley: Thank you. And then I've got three little boxes.

Myke Hurley: Should we start with the little boxes?

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Yes. I know what one of them is. I don't know what the second one is. You must have ordered something extra.

Myke Hurley: We'll find out. All right. One is...

Myke Hurley: Okay. That's one nib.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Oh, did you get two nibs?

Myke Hurley: Well, I have the double-sided pen, so...

Brad Dowdy: Oh, well, there you go.

Myke Hurley: So I thought two nibs would be important.

Brad Dowdy: Well, there you go. Yeah. Makes sense.

Myke Hurley: So then I got the other nib.

Brad Dowdy: So you have a 0.5 and a 0.8 nib. I believe I... Yes.

Myke Hurley: I believe I went with the two sizes. Mm-hmm. That was what I wanted. But again, this was a complicated thing.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm going to stop right here and say that I still can't believe you back this. Because this wouldn't have been a topic... I mean, a product that I would have picked for you. I got my color puddle. Oh, it's also cool. That's what I was wondering if you got here.

Myke Hurley: The color puddle is a lot smaller than I was expecting the color puddle to be. Yes. But this is a serious piece of metal they've got here. This is one of those things which is way heavier than it should be.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So it's about... For those playing at home, it's about the size of a roll of washi tape. But weighs... I don't know. It weighs a lot. As much as like a roll of pennies.

Myke Hurley: Oh, and it comes with a little pipette thing so I can...

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: Has it got the weight?

Brad Dowdy: So a color puddle is like a... It's like a little ink holder to where you can have like six different colors of ink in a little container on your desk and where you can dip in and out of the different colors.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's that. It comes with a little thing so I can refill it. I guess.

Brad Dowdy: I'm not going to try the color puddle. Like a little ink palette. Like an ink palette. Right.

Myke Hurley: And now I guess this one's going to be the pen.

Myke Hurley: Oh, it's in a box in a box.

Myke Hurley: Oh, Brad, it looks good. I got the black with the kind of orangey grip section.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yeah, I would say that's orange, not red. It's nice. Like, it's very nice.

Myke Hurley: So I got the one that's like twisty.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: They have all the names, but it's complicated. Sorry.

Brad Dowdy: But just the center is twisty.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So I guess I can just put these on somehow. Mm-hmm. Oh, are these caps? Wait.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So you'll unscrew. It is a capped pen, right? So the nibs do have caps over them. So you'll unscrew both black ends.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And then you'll dual-wheel lightsaber it.

Myke Hurley: And can I screw one? Yeah, I can screw one cap onto the other. Nice. Yep. Nice. I will say, again, I've forgotten a lot about this product, honestly. Mm-hmm. I'm surprised it's capped because it's not like it's going to dry out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but it also protects the tip. Like this was the best design. Right. This was the best designed non-standard. I'm going to call it a handle.

Myke Hurley: I don't remember if you said this. You probably already did. But like my brain wants to put my fingers on the place where I should not be putting my fingers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. Like that's the only part I want to touch.

Brad Dowdy: It's an inch. It's more than an inch probably counting the threading of the nib. It's a long nib.

Myke Hurley: Okay. I can immediately see a problem with this. Okay. It is both too small and too big.

Myke Hurley: So if I don't cap the, if I don't post the cap, it's too small. Yes. Where I have to hold it.

Brad Dowdy: If I post the cap, too big. You will get used to the too big. Okay. Because it's not heavy. No, it's not.

Myke Hurley: The balance is good.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. So that one works the best when it is posted. Like I said, this design that you got is my favorite design. Yeah. From a functionality perspective.

Myke Hurley: I think that was why I ended up going with it. Like we were talking through all of the different ones. And this made sense to me. Because I remember I wasn't going to back it. Because they didn't have this at first. And then they added it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I got to test all of the shapes and the barrel shapes. Except for the elongated straight barrel. Which they didn't make until after the campaign started. Which I ended up getting. I got the elongated one. Because that's the only one I didn't have. But the one that you have is my preferred barrel. Okay. Especially for dual wielding.

Myke Hurley: I'm opening the writing paper block now.

Brad Dowdy: All right.

Myke Hurley: Okay. This is just a pad of paper. Why did they include this, do you think?

Brad Dowdy: It was some add-on. Like I didn't even realize it was coming in the box. And when I was opening it, the chat was telling me that this was like some kind of like bonus thing. That value add. Yeah. Whatever.

Myke Hurley: Like thank you. We made more money than expected. Yeah. Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: It was one of. What do they call those on Kickstarter? Stretch goal. Yeah. But it wasn't a stretch goal. Because I don't think they told anyone.

Myke Hurley: I mean. Because it wasn't a thing. I don't think. Like if we make this much money. Right. Right. This is the kind of stuff you can do when like you overperform to the point that you.

Myke Hurley: You've made some extra money in your margins. Yeah. So you can put some money back in.

Brad Dowdy: Thank you. It's a nice block of paper I'll keep on my desk. I haven't tested it.

Myke Hurley: Pretty thick paper.

Brad Dowdy: It's nice. It's like 150 sheets. It's a. Yeah. It's a chunky block. It's a brick.

Myke Hurley: It's no joke. So what? Should I go get some ink now then?

Brad Dowdy: I think you should. And then we're going to have a conversation. So you go do that.

Myke Hurley: What kind of ink shall I get? Is there.

Brad Dowdy: Do you have a recommendation for me? That's a great question, Myke. I don't. So we're going to have a problem. So grab at least two different brands, if not three. All right. So we want to look at brand. And or style. Will I go get some ink? Grab. Okay. You have a shimmer ink, right? Surely I do. Yeah. Yeah. If not. Grab a normal ink and a weird ink. At least.

Myke Hurley: Cool. BRB.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So Myke's going to BRB. And here we're going to find out the biggest challenge that all of us drill log owners have is finding an ink that works. So we're going to circle back on this in a future podcast. I told Myke beforehand that I am going to have to work on a list of compatible inks because I'm already getting emails. And I know Jacob went through this in the beginning. Like there are ink consistencies that work well with the drill log and that do not work at all with the drill log. So there's going to be, we're going to have to make a master list of some kind for drill log users of drill log friendly inks. So we're going to have to work on that as a group. So I remember one of the first inks I grabbed might've been Shinkai and it would not attach to the nib to get a good ink flow. But then I've had other inks that just grab on and just, you can write, you know, a half a page or so with it. So we're going to work on that. So we'll, we'll have a, we will eventually get to a drill log master list. So is Myke back yet? Did he find any inks? He has not. So he only has a few inks. I don't know if y'all remember last week or two weeks ago, Myke has like three inks. So this is going to be a struggle for him. Although he could probably carry them in one hand where me, I would have to relocate into the closet of doom and grab one of the 200 plus inks that I have. So we're going to test brands and subsets of brands and figure out what works the best. I'm most excited to try and I haven't yet. I'm back.

Myke Hurley: My home office is a disaster right now. So that took a little bit longer than I expected.

Brad Dowdy: So let me finish the one statement I was going to make just so there's a continuity there. I was telling the listeners, the thing I'm most excited to try for myself is my iron gall ink collection. So I'll be looking forward to testing those. So my explanation, Myke, is this is going to be a challenge. We're going to have to make a master list of some kind of what inks work and what inks don't because there's going to be some complete rejection of inks on this tip. They're just not going to flow right on the nib and then you're going to find something that's going to be perfect. Do you also have a way to clean the nib like a glass of water or something?

Myke Hurley: I brought a microfiber cloth. Is that not going to do the deal? Am I going to need water?

Brad Dowdy: Probably want a little bit of water because they stay in the grooves. The ink stays in the grooves. So you're just going to want to swirl it around.

Myke Hurley: BRB times two. All right.

Brad Dowdy: So as Myke BRBs, I have the long barrel with yellow green anodized drill log. I have not tested this yet because I'm going to sit down with a bunch of inks and try to determine what's the best brand. I think Jacob referred to the surface tension of the ink and I don't know how to measure those types of things. That the ink that you dip it into has to have a good surface tension to actually attach to the metal and allow it to flow down the drill log, the little grooves in the drill log to the page. So we're going to have to figure that out. Not all inks are going to be good.

Myke Hurley: Myke. Okay. Well, I've returned with some ink. All right. Should I start with the 0.8 or the 0.5?

Brad Dowdy: 0.8.

Myke Hurley: All right.

Brad Dowdy: And what ink?

Myke Hurley: Do you want to know the inks I brought?

Brad Dowdy: I do.

Myke Hurley: I've got three. I've got Mont Blanc Lucky Orange. I got Emerald of Chivor. The Gioban Emerald of Chivor. Is it Emerald of Chivor? Did I pick up the right one? Yeah. And Carla Inks Foxy Neon.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Do you remember those? Let's start. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do Lucky Orange in order. Lucky Orange, Carla, J. Herbal.

Myke Hurley: All right.

Brad Dowdy: So that would be, if I'm guessing, that's going to be in the order of performance that I would think, but I have proven myself very wrong in my ink testing that something I think is going to be good is not.

Myke Hurley: How submerged does it need to be?

Brad Dowdy: All the way. All the way? Up to the, yeah, get up to the top of the grooves because what you'll find is the ink starts working its way down the grooves. You will actually, as you write with it, you will visually be able to see some of the the grooves. Chad is asking me to stream it when I do my ink test and I will.

Myke Hurley: What do I do about the ink that collects at the bottom?

Brad Dowdy: Just kind of tip it on the edge of the bottle, right? Yeah. Just kind of, you know, you don't necessarily need to wipe it off, but you want to get the bulk of it to run off.

Myke Hurley: Oh, my God. This feels amazing. This is beautiful. This is weird. Right? It's very weird. Because the ink flows inconsistently in a way I am not used to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And you'll get, you will learn as you're writing with it that you can rotate it. I just did that, Brad. In the clockwise way.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Because I had, I was, the ink wasn't flowing, so I rotated the nib.

Brad Dowdy: So gravity will help the flow down those channels, right? There's channels in here and a little twist actually makes a difference. So what you'll eventually find is you'll want to find the ink that will allow you to write several lines in one dip.

Myke Hurley: Like, I've had inks. I'm writing way more than I expected. There is, this is performing vastly better. So it started out really inconsistent. Sure. Like, the flow was weird, right? And it was almost like there was water on the nib.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because the ink was also spreading on the page. Right. Because it was too much. But now I am writing really consistently and it looks like a regular nib. And I'll say the feeling, I've got a panel book today in front of me. The feeling of the nib on the page, I'm using the 0.8, right? It's very smooth. And yeah. Like, if I had this in a fountain pen, I'd be very happy with the way this feels.

Brad Dowdy: Good. So now you need to remember.

Myke Hurley: Does not work with the nib flat down on the page. Like, easily. Like, I have to have some kind of slant on it.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So like, the ink has to travel down the grooves and then down those notches and then into like the cone grooves, the lines. So there's actually a flow to this ink, right? That's why you see the glass nibs have that swirl on them, right? They hold ink and then the ink also travels down as it's getting pulled by the page.

Myke Hurley: So I would say on a panel book, I reckon I could fill half a page.

Brad Dowdy: Then, so what we would now want to know is Lucky Orange is a keeper. So like, that goes on the good list.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Because it's flowing pretty well, pretty consistently. I kind of just run out. So I kind of, I divide the pages into three when I write and I've filled up a third of the page, like of a vertical. So I reckon I could maybe do, let's say like a third of the page, not half because it's run out now.

Brad Dowdy: And based on my experience, I'd say that's a reasonable output. And then you just dip it again and you keep going.

Myke Hurley: So I'll say my initial impression from using the ink is it performs way better than I expected. And I, I've thought I would need to be refilling way more than that. All right. So I've rinsed it off now, dried it off. Dry it off. Yep. My only concern for me personally would be having an ink bottle open all the time.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, for you, yes. Because I would be worried about that for you as well.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But surely that's got to be a thing for a lot of people. Ink is not a thing you want to spill. Right.

Brad Dowdy: But when I'm using this, I'm going to be dedicated. Right. True. True.

Myke Hurley: Like I never spill over my drinks.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Like I'm going to take 30 minutes to do this thing with this nib and this ink bottle open and then close it up. Right.

Myke Hurley: And I guess if I was going to be doing this as a thing, I would end up knowing where the ink bottle goes. Like the ink bottle has its place.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And you're going to want, like, if you're really writing and you're not thinking about it as much, you just want to pick, like, once you found a good ink, make sure it's like in a good bottle. Like, to be honest, as much as I love Robert Oster, you're going to tip one of those over if you're not paying attention. Oh, I would never do that. Because they're too light. Like, yeah. Where, like, the Mont Blanc Lucky Orange is a small 30 milliliter glass bottle. It's short and stubby. Right. It's not going anywhere.

Myke Hurley: Like, I hate refilling from Robert Oster bottles. I'm terrified of them.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Because it's like, I've done it. They take two hands. It takes, like, three hands, honestly.

Myke Hurley: I've done it many times where I've caught one. You know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I've mixed up the Emerald of Shavuor.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: And sticking with the 0.8?

Brad Dowdy: I think, let's do all 0.8s.

Myke Hurley: All right.

Brad Dowdy: Because, so we have a baseline.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: My expectation is, I didn't think Lucky Orange was going to be that good. My expectation is that the Emerald of Shavuor should be very good.

Myke Hurley: Brad, I got a problem. What? I can't submerge it because the opening is too short on the bottle. It's too narrow. I can't get the thing in.

Brad Dowdy: The grip of the dual wield is wide. Okay. Well, if you can't tip it or anything, then we can fire that one.

Myke Hurley: Can I screw this into the cap?

Brad Dowdy: No.

Brad Dowdy: No.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I don't think I'm going to be able to use Emerald of Shavuor.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. That's fine.

Myke Hurley: The opening isn't, it's not enough. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So like my, the shape of my pen is more traditional, but yours has almost like a wider grip section.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean.

Brad Dowdy: I will, I can test that one. I will, I will get Emerald of Shavuor for my testing.

Myke Hurley: I've been able to dip just the very end. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: Kate's saying you could use the puddle, but let me tell you about the puddle. That's a whole other ammo. I did not enjoy the puddle.

Myke Hurley: Because the puddle only allows for you to dip the very tip of it in, which I've done, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. It depends. So the puddle is for like real, like legit, like artistic type of writing where you're mixing a lot of inks and just going back and forth just on the tip of the drill log where the tip is just going in and out and switching inks. And it'd be a very colorful, useful thing for anything but writing because you're not going to get the writing. And Kate, you'll see it when we show pictures of the puddle. It doesn't even, it barely gets past, barely gets like halfway up the cone. So it's really like a dip and write and dip and write and dip and write.

Myke Hurley: I've been able to get this to work to the point where I've been able to get ink on the very, like about all the way up to the top of the cone part. So I'm writing of Emerald Chavor right now and it's performing just as well as the Mont Blanc. But I don't see any shimmer in it.

Brad Dowdy: That's fine. You might when it dries. It's also a thin line, right? Thin lines meter how much shimmer you're going to see.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And that's run out now. I would say I got like a quarter of the amount of ink down on the page as I did when I could submerge it fully. Okay. So I'll tell you right now, using that puddle, that would drive me mad. Yeah. For me, I just thought it'd look nice and would be a nice desk trinket. It is. Especially considering the weight of it. That makes it like, I'm actually pleased I bought it for that reason.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, it's really cool.

Myke Hurley: It's like it feels like a good fidget toy, but it's not fit for purpose.

Brad Dowdy: It's not for writing. It's for art, in my opinion.

Myke Hurley: Which I think is the point, because what it reminds me of is the, I don't remember what it's called, but the art is like the wooden thing that you put your thumb in. A palette.

Brad Dowdy: Palette. Well, yeah. But yeah, I know what you mean.

Myke Hurley: That's what it reminds me of. All right. So that was Emerald of Chavuil. So the last thing that we're going to try is one of the Kala Neon inks. I have the pink.

Brad Dowdy: So this is a pigmented ink, which is different than your Lucky Orange, which is standard water-based dye-based ink.

Myke Hurley: Honestly, like one of the reasons I wanted this Drillog pen is for inks like this. The type of ink that you do not want to leave in a pen.

Brad Dowdy: Right. And that's what I was saying, like my Iron Gall inks. I want to test them because I'm anxious. Because I would like to have a bottle on my desk of Iron Gall ink capped when I'm not using it, but to uncap it and just use my Drillog when I want, that will be really, really exciting for me.

Myke Hurley: All right. It's laying down very thick immediately.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It does take a minute to kind of get its correct line width, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But like the ink is like raised off the page. That's a lot. Yeah. But it, oh man, this is fantastic. This is great.

Brad Dowdy: So you're having good, once you get past the initial bulk of the ink, which it's unavoidable, right? Like it's going to be heavy in the beginning. You want a consistent writing for several lines and that's how you know it's going to be probably.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I'll say with this ink, it has settled in, but it is still a little bit more than the Mont Blanc, like just the amount of ink that comes onto the page. Right. But this is allowing me to use an ink I otherwise couldn't use. And I really like these neon inks. I'm going to tell you, Brad, I'm into this.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I'm shocked. So what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to figure out what works the best. Like you were going to come across an ink. You're going to dip the nib in there all the way up to the top. You're going to put it on the page and it's going to write half a word. And you just got to go, you know what? That ink is not going to work with this nib and just set it to the side until you find one that does. Right.

Myke Hurley: What inks did you find that were like that?

Brad Dowdy: I need to get them back out. I haven't tested in a couple of weeks. I haven't tested since I got my new pen model in.

Myke Hurley: So here's something I've noticed with the neon. Right. So it's used. It's gone about the same distance as Mont Blanc. However, the tip is still really pink. Like there's still ink on this, but it's not flowing down.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So that's the pigmentation. Yeah. Right. So every different ink chemistry is going to handle this nib differently.

Myke Hurley: Big success for me. Good. I really like this thing.

Brad Dowdy: I think it's going to be fun for you to do like some short notes and writing with. Once I find, once I do some ink testing, I'm going to try to write in my book copying that I failed at in November, but I'm still working on. Yeah. I'm going to see like what it's like to write like several pages with a same ink and kind of get some good testing. But I got to test inks first.

Myke Hurley: What a super cool looking thing this is too. It's cool.

Brad Dowdy: It's cool. It's not for everybody, but it's cool. It's cool. It's like this, this reminds me of when the pen type A and B came out. Right. Like it is really not for everybody. Like not everybody should go buy this thing, but the people who are into this kind of stuff will probably like overly like it. Right. You have to be really, really like it.

Myke Hurley: Quite committed to pens and inks before you even start this process. Like, you know, like for me, if there were inks that, like if I didn't have inks I couldn't use, I wouldn't want this. Because this is not a better experience than my best fountain pens. Right. No, no, no, no. It's different. But it's because I have a selection of inks that I'm not comfortable putting in my pens.

Brad Dowdy: But I want to use them. So not an ease of use product. Right. This is a difficult to use product.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I mean, you've got to have water around. You've got to have a cleaning cloth. You've got to have all this stuff, right? Like just around, which you otherwise don't typically need.

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: Yep. This is cool.

Brad Dowdy: Good. I'm glad you like it. So there'll be more experimentation. I will come up with a good list and we'll try to get other people who have drill logs to come up with a good list of, hey, this line of inks works the best. So there's some work to do on that front because I know there's some frustrations out there right now.

Myke Hurley: I want to try it. I'm going to use the puddle too, though.

Brad Dowdy: You should try the puddle. And you will immediately see the challenge that you have with it. I tested it and I gave up really quick just because I didn't see a way out.

Myke Hurley: Because the thing is, right, like if I just committed to one ink, I wouldn't need to clean it off every time. Right. Right. Like because you would just be like, all right, I'm done for the day. I'm out of ink now. I'll put it away. And then tomorrow I'll dip it back in the ink again and I'm good. Yep. But if I use the puddle and wanted to change, I'd have to also keep cleaning materials consistently around too. Because if I'm using like a black ink and a red ink, as soon as I dip the nib in into the red, it's going to turn the ink black. Because it's still going to be a little bit left on the... Yeah. Right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The puddle is not for the way you and I use pens.

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: But like Nick Stewart, who like I follow religiously and manipulates inks, like he's going to be all, like he would be all over that, right?

Myke Hurley: Well, also like if you...

Brad Dowdy: Or Anna would like just manipulate stuff.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, somebody who has a creative journal experience, right? Mm-hmm. So like I'm thinking of like Bujo, right? Yeah. You're sitting down and you're spending your time. But you could have one pen and six inks and you just got to have a little vial of water or whatever. And you can do all of your colors and all of your layout with just the one pen. And you've got this little thing here. That's cool. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm... I would tell you, I was, you know, like listening back to the show, trepidatious about this. I wasn't sure if this was for me. I think this product is for me. I like it.

Brad Dowdy: Good. Good. Well, I hope so. I hope you continue to experiment with it. I know I am. I'm really just getting started.

Year-End Reflections

Myke Hurley: I've realized why opening things on the show is a bad idea. Well, not a bad idea, but a complicated.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. Whenever I do unboxings on Twitch, I always have to like clean up afterwards because there's stuff everywhere. All right. We have blown Matthias' line chart out of the water with this episode. We're going to start the upward swing on the median line after we have this length of a podcast. So we should probably wrap it up here. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So this is going to be the last episode of the year. So happy new year to everybody out there as we move into 2022. We wish you prosperity and happiness and health as we move into the next year. And obviously as well, I hope that you'll come back as we are on the road to 500-495. It's going to be our next episode. Brad, did we decide on something we were going to do for episode 500? Of course not.

Myke Hurley: Why would we ever do that ahead of time, Myke? We should probably think about that. We should probably put some brain cells on that because it is really close.

Myke Hurley: It's coming up real soon. It's coming up real soon. And we were into February, right? Because then it's- Yeah. Because don't forget as well, that's also our exact 10-year anniversary of working together on this wonderful product. Crazy. So thank you, product. I don't know why I called it a product. I looked down at the drill log and then said product. So there you go. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Pen Addict. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 494 to get the show notes for this one. There's a lot of good links for this episode, so you might want to check them out. But also your podcast app of choice should also have them listed in there if you're using a good one. If your podcast app of choice does not have the show notes, I recommend you try out a different podcast app. You're using a bad one, if that's the case. Because I think even the bad, even the ones I would typically have considered the bad ones have the links now. So if yours doesn't, I recommend trying out something else. The official platform apps will at least get the full podcast data feed. Like Spotify does it now. Apple Podcasts does it now. But we recommend Pocket Casts, Overcasts, Castro. Basically, all of the apps that are linked on the episode pages, they are the ones that we recommend. So you can try it out for yourself if you're not trying it already. If you want to find Brad and Glein, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com. Brad streams multiple times a week at twitch.tv slash penaddict. He's penaddict on Instagram, dowdyism on Twitter. I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. And we'll be back in 2022. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Bye, Brad. Hello?

Brad Dowdy: Hello? you