The Pen Addict 278/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	278
Title:	I Failed You, Myke
Release Date:	October 11th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 278
Audio File:	Audio Episode 278
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 278
Length:	7171 min <br />1.183 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 278. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet, Harry's, and Blue Apron. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined, as always, by the wonderful Mr. Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: Hello, Myke Hurley. This is an odd podcast time for us, which I know you're going to hate me saying because it's not going to post for like two days.

Myke Hurley: You've broken the fourth wall already. We've only been recording for 20 seconds.

Brad Dowdy: Right, and I knew you would be very against it, which is why I'm doing it, but I'm struggling at this recording time at 3pm Eastern on Monday, October the night. 3pm Eastern, and he's struggling. It's 8pm. I'm struggling mentally.

Myke Hurley: I haven't had dinner. Here I am, with you, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Well, it is 100% my fault that we're in this time schedule crunch. And I'm just having, it's not a physical thing, it's a mental thing. I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around, this is the time we're recording because it's early, right? So we're traveling this week, which we'll talk about in a minute. And then we already pushed it back from 9am to 3pm, which was my fault. And it's just, you know, Mondays, just why does anyone want to do anything on Monday anyway? I mean, Mondays, never fun, never good. But, yeah, so, you know, this is definitely the highlight of my day so far, so let's make it a good one.

Pen Addict at Night

Myke Hurley: This is like pen addict at night for me, right? Like, I mean, I never record when we're in the evening, so I feel like I should be wearing, like, a smoking jacket and have, like, a whiskey or something, you know?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Our old recording time was 4pm when I was working third shift.

Myke Hurley: Yep. That was when I was also working, when we both had jobs, we had to record at a weird time.

Brad Dowdy: So it's probably been two years since we've done this time, and I gotta say, I don't like it. So let's not adjust our schedule to this time frame. What do you think? I can live with that. Okay, deal. What else can you live with?

Myke Hurley: We are going to be back together again for the third time this year, which is a wonderful thing. Later on this week, we're going to be recording a very special episode with the crew of Field Notes. So we're really excited about that. We had some great questions come in. I think we're looking really good. It's going to be a really, really fun show. We're going to be in Chicago together, and we're going to be recording it at the end of the week. We'll be posting next week as normal. We also are going to be taking part of a kind of a get-together party meet-up open house that Field Notes are putting on, which we're so, so thankful for them for doing. It's going to be on Friday, October the 13th. So you're going to be able to come over on the most spooky day other than Halloween, I guess. From 4 p.m. to at least 7 p.m. at the Field Notes HQ. They're going to be bringing in beverages and refreshments. If you're in town, if you're going to be in Chicago for any reason, come by and say hello. It would be amazing for you to be there. I'm going to put a link in the show notes to a Facebook event that they've set up where you can find out more information. You can get all the address stuff. And also, if you're interested in coming, just mark that as so on the Facebook page so they're going to be able to know how much they need to be getting in refreshments-wise. So, yeah, we'd love to have you. It's going to be great. We're really excited. As we said before, we have very, very, very limited space for the recording of the show itself. But this is open to all. So if you're going to be in town, please, please come by. It would be fantastic to see you. And it would be a great way for us, I guess, to thank the crew at Field Notes by having a great turnout. Because they've really gone above and beyond for this. And we're really, really thankful for what they've been able to help us put together. And I've got to say, this is, I don't want to hype it up too much, but this is maybe up there in the most excited I've been for a recording of the show. Maybe since the first time we did Atlanta. I'm really excited about this. Because this is something me and Brad have been talking about trying to put together literally for years. So we're really, really excited that we're going to be able to record this episode for you. And we're doing everything we can to make a great video as well. Stephen Hackett is going to be there on hand making a great video that will be available to our wonderful, wonderful Kickstarter backers who are also responsible for helping us make this happen. So thank you to all of you as well.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so last week I was saying I was nervous about this. And now that's turned over to excitement. Now that we're pretty much here, you know, we're, you know, I'm doing the Chicago touristy thing for a couple of days, you know, with the field notes thing mixed in between. And I'm finally ready. I feel like the, the, we already have the show notes ready, most for the most part for that show. I think it's going to be a good, fun event. But I love talking to Brian and Jim anyway, I could talk to them for hours. So yeah, I'm, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm ready.

Myke Hurley: So I got a new pen.

Brad Dowdy: You did. And once I read this in the show notes, I just kind of went, oops. Because there's actually a story I added to your, to your story in the show notes. So I'll, I'll let you take it from here.

Myke Hurley: Listener Cliff wrote, like sent me a message and he said to me, I have a Baron Fig experiment. I live in the UK. I don't want it. Do you want to buy it from me? And I said, yes, I do Cliff, because this was the Baron Fig, the green Baron Fig pen that I love the look of. The bright green one. It sold out immediately. I couldn't get my hands on it. And now I have one never been used. I love this pen. I love the way it looks. I mean, I really like the Squire anyway. It's a great pen. It uses the great refills that I love. This one has, I don't, this isn't, this is a Schmidt refill, but not the one that gets typically used in the Retro 51, right? This is.

Brad Dowdy: No. Well, yeah, it's the 8126, which is actually the better one in my book. It's the finer, it's a little bit finer tip. It's a 0.6 millimeter instead of 0.7. The difference is 8127 versus 8126. And that's the difference. So. Well, look at you. But this is green. It's an awesome green. It's like nuclear fallout green type of thing. It's awesome. It's definitely one of the best looking things they've ever made. I love that pen. Big fan of the Squire. And I failed you, Myke, because when this first came out, I said I was going to give you mine. Because I already had a Squire that I use. And do you remember that conversation at all? Yep. I do now. Yeah. And I completely failed. And the funny thing is, I was going through some of the stuff on my desk this weekend. And I found the tube that it came in. And the Squire was still in there. I was like, oh, I've got to give that to Myke. And then, you know, I was going to bring it to Chicago. But now I'm not. Huh?

Myke Hurley: Oh, man. I would have taken it. If you don't want it, I'll still take it from you. But if you want it, you can keep it. Because I got one now.

Brad Dowdy: No, maybe I'll give it to Steven or Federico or someone else there who wants it. Yeah. But yeah, I was going to give that one away. Because I like the gray Squire a little bit better. The knob on the end doesn't have, like, this gap in it. Like, they have these little teeny gaps in there now. Which is a super nitpicky thing. But it's one of my super nitpicky things.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I kind of wish that they didn't have that. That is frustrating. Like, it should be seamless and it isn't.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, that's the design of the pen, right? I mean, it should be, like, this seamless thing. But for those, not everyone likes the retro 51s that we rave about. But if you like that style of writing, the Squire is an excellent choice. I love that pen. Sure is.

Baron Fig Pens

Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, my bad on that, Myke. I'm sorry I cost you money and didn't give you this pen. But we'll give it a happy home.

Myke Hurley: Okay. We can do that. We can take care of that.

Brad Dowdy: Because I feel bad I didn't give it away. Like I said, I was. Especially to you. I don't know. Maybe I should give it to the listeners or something like that. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. So, I wanted to bring up an article that my friend Jonathan Deans wrote, I guess, over the weekend. I just read it today. So, I don't know what day he published it. A couple days ago, I guess. And it was on one of our favorite topics for quite a long time on the show. And that's the Black Amber Lamy 2050th Anniversary Edition. I just put this in the doc this morning. So, I don't know if you got a chance to read it. And like Jonathan's post, they're usually, you know, long. You got to sit down and read it for, you know, 10 minutes or so and figure out what he's saying. But he's essentially kind of getting into what happened. Like trying to put his spin on what he thought happened with that edition and why Lamy kind of failed at that launch when they had kind of the world in their hands. They could have really, really knocked something out of the park here and it completely flopped. And so, he was just kind of breaking down between, you know, limited editions and, you know, his very economical style of writing. His sensibilities being in the economics business, you know, trying to figure all this out. And the short version is, his conclusion is that Lamy has a marketing problem. And I kind of agree with that. Like I don't, I never think of it, think of a large company as different entities within the company, right? I think of Lamy made a decision, not Lamy manufacturing, Lamy marketing, Lamy design, you know, those type of things. Like I never think of it that way. But that's why I enjoy reading his posts because he does think of it that way.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's like an interesting one in the technology world where you have Samsung, right? Like so Samsung make phones that compete with Apple. But Samsung also have a display division who supply displays for Apple's iPhone, right? So like it's a, that's always an interesting one that comes up in my other world.

Brad Dowdy: Right, exactly, exactly. So I still am flummoxed by this whole thing. And I think Dr. Dean's kind of is too. But what really confuses me is that they do have some successes in marketing. And I look at it in the Asian market, which is where they're turning their focus a lot as a company, redoing their distributors across the world, pulling, I guess, some availability, like with the nib issues, the EF nibs from the Western market and moving to the Asian market. And I look back and I was thinking as I read the article, well, what successes has Lamy had? And do you remember the Lamy line friend series that I went cuckoo over with the bear and the duck and the bunny?

Myke Hurley: I saw those, I saw something I forgot to tell you. They had them, a table had them at the London Pen Show. They were like £120. I was like, don't even. Yeah, that's the aftermarket price. It was either £80 or £120. I can't remember the exact amount. I was like, it's not worth it. Either of those prices, that's ridiculous. It's a Safari, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, the original cost was premium, you know, but I think it was in the $60 or $70 US dollar range, if I'm remembering correctly. But that was a huge win for Lamy and it's still going, right? They killed that. And I wonder if it's just lack of knowledge of a lot of these other areas across the world and regionalizing some things. Like a lot of the Japanese pens, you know, do a lot of, you know, Asian things, Asian only, you know, productions. And then they'll do, like Sailor did, a North American release. Like Lamy, you know, I'm not saying they need to do that, but they've done some very cool things in Asia. Why don't they do more of that? Like, what are they, where's the gap there in the rest of their product lineup?

Myke Hurley: Priorities, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it is. Well, they're going where the business is the hottest, right? Mm-hmm. So, you know, one of the, the other thing he, he talks about is their product lineup as a whole from the lower dollar to the higher dollar. And I want to read this one paragraph. There's a lot of paragraphs and a lot of sentences I could take out of this. This is one I took out. So this is from the post directly. It says, you could even argue that this surge is tailor-made for Lamy. Much of it's fuel. He's talking about the fountain pen as a thing in the world that we live in right now. Well, as, you know, that little surge in fountain pen buying. Much of it is fueled by younger people, from high school through to young professionals who value quality products, appreciate functional and minimalist designs, and are willing to make frequent purchases in the $50 to $200 price range. That almost sounds like a description of Lamy's target market, so they should be selling hand over fist to this group. But apart from the $2,000, they aren't. Their product lineup simply doesn't cut it, and many of those users find themselves more attracted by Pelicans, Pilots, and Twisbees. Instead of aspiring towards high-end Lamy's like the Dialog 3 and Emporium, they yearn for a Conan bulk filler, Pelican M800, and Pilum Custom 823. So I think he's absolutely right. Like, Lamy's high-end is non-existent, and as a company, I almost think they should just eliminate it. Unless they're going to do something really interesting and do something different than what they've been doing. Like, the Emporium was not a good pen. There was a couple other high-end pens that they do, and by Lamy high-end, we're talking in the $200 to $300 range. They just, the Scala, I think, was one of them. And the Dialog 3 is consistently, you know, talked bad about.

Myke Hurley: I do not remember the Emporium. I do not remember this pen.

Brad Dowdy: So they don't really do well playing in this market. They should almost refocus and do more of the Lamy-Line Friends collaborations, right? I mean, I just think that's such a young and fun thing to do. And if they're not going to really put the efforts into the expensive end of the lineup, like the Black-Amber failure, well, can they do something on the lower end that makes it more intriguing? Like the Lamy Aeon. I don't know if that's going to be the winner that a lot of people think it is. I'm kind of on the other side of the fence. I don't think it's going to be much of a winner, but I do think the price is good. Like Jonathan thinks the price is probably too high for the Aeon. I don't think the price is bad. I just think the design is not compelling. It's, you know, you can get a black pen or you can get a silver pen, and it's kind of just a Lamy like everything else. You know, could they have done something more fun with that? And that seems to be where Lamy is kind of falling flat in my book. They don't seem like they're having very much fun doing what they're doing. And they can't get behind themselves as a company and push that because it's not exciting. You know, we are an online community. You know, we look at these things all day long. We change our minds quickly when the new shiny toy comes out, and the new Lamy never has that new shiny toy. They're not playing in the market that we're shopping in. And it doesn't mean they have to, but it's also an interesting business decision if they don't at least do something. And I've been, it's been probably, what, a year, year and a half since we've really questioned the direction Lamy's going. And this was a good look at it by Jonathan, and I suggest you all read it and, you know, come up with your own opinions. But I generally agree what he is saying across the board. But it's just like you want to get up in there and, you know, kind of shake them and, like, you know, check yourselves, look at what's going on. But at the same time, they know more than we do, right? That's always the way I look at these big companies. Like, I want to tell these companies what to do. Yes. But they have the data, right?

Myke Hurley: This is an incredibly useful thing to remember. I mean, we all get stuck in it. And, you know, my life is commenting on companies. Like, that's what I do for a living, right? Like, I talk about companies. But it's so easy to forget that, like, they know their business, or at least they should know their business better than I do. And you would expect that they have the data to back up the decisions that they make. You'd expect. Right. Right. But I've also worked inside of a huge company and know that it doesn't always work that way. Sure. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. I think a lot of us have had that experience, too. It's like, you know, so it's hard to say definitively what's going on. The appearances say, boy, this is really weird what they're doing. And are they going to make it? But I guess it all remains to be seen. You know, we'd like them to do more cool, fun things and, you know, continue to succeed and ride this wave of popularity and resurgence of fountain pens and writing as a whole has. But, you know, the past year of actions doesn't exactly have any, it doesn't give you much faith that they're going to fix any of that. So we'll see. We'll see. Because there are companies out there that do do it right. And they'll eventually just leave Lamy in the dust. And I'd hate to see that. I don't think that's going to happen. But I'm not exactly compelled by what they're offering me here in the past year or two.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take our first break for today?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I hope Pen Chalet doesn't have a Lamy deal.

Pen Chalet

Myke Hurley: Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Pen Chalet. They sell authentic, amazing rollerballs, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils and so much more. And they have all of the favorite brands that you want to buy from. They have very fast and reliable customer service. They run special discounts twice a month and close out specials every two weeks. They do free shipping on orders of over $50 in the United States of America. And they also sell internationally. Brad just saw the offer. With very reasonable shipping rates indeed. Pen Chalet really believe in the best satisfaction they can give. So they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their low price, high quality pens. They have all the accessories you're ever going to want. Pen Chalet are the place to go. Go to penchalet.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password pen addict for this week's special offer. And to get your hands on the code that you need to save absolutely anything at 10% off. Absolutely anything, I should say, at Pen Chalet. So anything that you ever want to buy, go to Pen Chalet first. Get the 10% code. Not only do they have great prices and great customer service, you can also get that 10% off anything that you want. This week's special offer is the Lamy LX Fountain Pen and the Lamy LX Rollerball. Let's talk about this, Myke. They have exclusive discounts for pen addict listeners. Once you go to the secret page and add the discount to checkout, the prices are for the LX Fountain Pen $39.94 and the LX Rollerball $34.99, which are great prices for, I think, very cool looking pens. I don't know what Brad's going to say.

Brad Dowdy: So I will tell you, it's a very good pen. The problem was when they introduced it, it was terribly priced in relation to other pens in their market. This is the problem. So what Ron has done is he's fixed that and given you the price that it should be, right? So that's the thing about Lamy is I want them to succeed because I love their products. The Lamy Safari is one of my favorite all-time pens. I use it all the time. But just like we talked last week in my top five list, the Lamy 2000 fell down the list because it never changes. Well, they tried to do something cool and unique with the Lamy LX. Well, I won't say unique because they made them in the iPhone colors, gold, silver, steel gray, and rose gold.

Myke Hurley: Which I maintain was an absolutely genius move.

Brad Dowdy: It was, and they sold really well, but they butchered the price. You can't make the exact same pen that you sell for $30 cheaper. Well, okay.

Myke Hurley: We're getting, okay, sorry, Ron, we're doing this inside of your sponsorship now. No, I think this was a smart move because by making the colors the way that they were, they were trying to attract a certain consumer. A certain consumer that don't know how much Lamy Fountain pens cost. They just see this pen, which is the same color as their iPhone. It's $70. It looks really nice. I think they're made of aluminum, right? They're like the aluminum ones. So they pay $70 for them, right? Like I think it was a smart pricing move because they were attracting a very specific consumer.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I mean, that's fair, but the people who are into these things look at this and all they have is questions, right? But how much do they care about that? Like Lamy are a mass market brand. Right. I mean, I care about it in the whole of the business model. The individual that they were marketing this pen to didn't care about it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You know, but I mean, look, I care too, right? Because obviously I do, but I'm trying to think of their priorities as a company. And I think for this specific line, I think they made an interesting pen and they priced it at a price point that they probably have succeeded on. Or if they haven't, I still can see why you would make the decision that they made to price it at this point. But anyway, this is a moot point if you are a listener of this show because you can pick them up for fantastic prices. Just under $40 for the fountain pen, which is a really great deal for, I think, a very attractive pen. So you can go and check that out today.

Brad Dowdy: You should totally buy this pen at this price. If this pen was this price when it came out, I would be screaming from the mountaintops how great it was, right? Because it's all relative. So this is perfect. If you've been looking for the Lamy LX, this is the best price you're going to find. And Ron does this all the time. He makes awesome deals on great pens. And this is why people like shopping at Pen Chalet. So thank you, Ron, for doing this.

Myke Hurley: Penchalet.com. Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show and Relay FM. So you don't want to skip those ads because sometimes there's some nuggets inside of them.

Brad Dowdy: So next time you should maybe move the document around so I don't get into trouble right before we go right into Ron's ad. Because our shtick is that I don't look at the ad before. And there's no way it was going to be Lamy. No way.

Myke Hurley: Well, I would say that that actually made for more interesting podcast content. Sure.

Brad Dowdy: I would agree with that. And that's the thing is it's all relative. That's how important price is in this market. And that's why people like myself had a huge problem with the Black Amber because they weren't offering a compelling product at a huge, huge premium to things that are very, very close to what they had already. So. All right. Moving on. That's enough for today.

Myke Hurley: Brad Dowdy Pencil Superstar.

Brad Dowdy: So this is a new thing, huh?

CW Pencils

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So out of the blue, a new pack of a set, a sampler set goes up on CW Pencils, who I believe that they're going to be opening their store again soon, which I'm really excited about. I'm so pleased for them that they've been able to get all that sorted out. I'm really, really excited to see what the new location will look like.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're moving today. So they're shut down today. So they're moving.

Myke Hurley: I'm really, really, really, really happy for them. And I can't wait to see more. And the next time in New York, I can't wait to go and see their new digs. But you've worked with the lovely folk over at CW Pencils. And you've created a sampler set of pencils, which sold out immediately.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So this was really fun to do. And when Caroline and Alex first approached me with this, I was like, instant yes. It's like I couldn't reply fast enough. Like, yes, I want to do this. So, you know, I put together a bunch of pencils that I've enjoyed from my, obviously, I won't say limited, because I've certainly tried more pencils than any normal person would. But not the depths of my good friends at the Erasable Podcast, who are the true pencil kings. And, of course, my friends at the RSVP Podcast, who, Les, being one of the hosts, I just opened a huge envelope from her today with, like, 10 other pencils. Because she was talking to me online about the Mitsubishi 9850. So she sent me, like, 10 pencils that I didn't have a single one of them. So that was awesome. Thank you, Les, for sending that. So I clearly don't know everything about pencils. And I don't pretend to. But I do know what I like. And I do know how those things relate to pens and things like that. So this is a list I put together, you know, of a bunch of pencils I've tried that I really enjoy that I think other pen people would like. So that's how the list came about. You know, they had other sets together. And they asked me to do this. And they sold out of them so quick I couldn't even get a blog post up. Like, Alex emailed me. She's like, oh, my God, it's already sold out. You may want to hold off on your blog post. I'm like, yeah, okay. I will. They, like, ran out of a couple of the pencil models from the list. So, yeah, this was really fun. And I'll have a short little Q&A with them on their blog sometime soon. They're a little bit busy right now. But they've done a bunch of community member posts on the CW Pencils blog. So I'll have a Q&A I did with Caroline coming up soon for that. And you'll notice my new avatar on Twitter and Instagram. That was a picture. They needed some pictures for the blog post. So I took a new picture. And that's now my avatar because I think it's kind of fun and funny.

Myke Hurley: It's carrying on the pencil theme. I think it was maybe last week we spoke about the modern fuel mechanical pencil, maybe two weeks ago. Yeah. You today published a review of one. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So this is one of those posts I enjoy writing because I got to experience the, I guess, the life cycle of a product. It's going to be perfect from the original release, which I didn't really enjoy. getting to see all the changes actually happen and then a new model come out that I do enjoy. And, you know, that's a little, I feel kind of selfish saying that, like I'm making it about me, but, you know, I get these emails all the time. I get these products all the time. They're just like, I don't want anything but your honest feedback. So, you know, when I got the first pencil a year ago, the 1.0 version, you know, from Andrew who does the modern fuel design, I told him I didn't like it and here's why. And that doesn't make him change anything, but he gets that, gets feedback from a lot of places, right? It's not my feedback. It's not important. It's like I talked before, it's the collective feedback. And he takes that stuff to heart as a lot of product designers do. So you understand what other people are using these things for, how they use it, how they feel when they're using it. And what can I do better? Like we all do that as makers, right? So he came up with the second version, sent it to me. And he, he's always been like super open, like communicating. He's like telling me everything that's going on over this past, I don't know what the timeframe, a year at least. And he's like, the list of changes he made on a steel barrel mechanical pencil is fascinating. The most fascinating thing that he did is he completely engineered his own mechanism for a pencil. That can't be an easy thing to do. Like, I don't, I'm not an engineer, or I don't, you know, know about the technical aspects of that. But just looking at what he made, it seems crazy, like what he made for that mechanism. And he has the different sizes, you know, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9. I really enjoy using this pencil. The reason why is because I fell in love with a 0.9 millimeter lead size, which I would have never bought for myself. Wait, who are you? 0.9 millimeter. Who are you again? So there's clear reasons why. Like after you do it and realize that you like it, you realize like all the things that happened that made this change in you. So for me, it was using woodcase pencils more, which we just talked about. Yeah. Yeah. You don't, you don't, you don't write a fine line with any woodcase pencil. I don't care. I mean, you can get the, you know, 4H and up.

Myke Hurley: It lasts for seconds though, right? Like no matter how much you sharpen it to, it won't last.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Unless you're just way, way up on the hardness scale. And, you know, and I've enjoyed writing with pencils like that. Secondly, I got the stainless steel barrel for this pencil, which my original 1.0 version was aluminum. And we talked about the lightness and the balance and how people would use these pencils and things like that. Well, with a heavier pen pencil, I don't care what it is. I need to have a thicker line because of the way you use a heavier pencil. It's hard to write a fine, small, slow motion, fine line with a heavy pen or pencil. So with a heavy pencil like this and the wider lead, I just, it just kind of worked all together. You know, like the feel of the stainless steel barrel in my hand was heavy, but it was balanced and it worked better with a nine millimeter mechanism as opposed to a five where I would have this heavy pen and I'm writing really, really small like that. So then he did other things like he made a retractable tip. Like I didn't even think that was a consideration for this type of pen for someone to make. And that was the first thing I noticed when I didn't know it was, it was coming when I received the pen to test and I took it out the package and took it out the sleeve and clicked it. And I was like, Oh, the tip retracts. I was like that. I mean, that hadn't been sold right there. That's an important thing for mechanical pencil fans. So I say all that understanding that this is a pencil for very few people, you know, this is not going to be, you know, your every, every day pencil that someone's just going to grab and pick up and go to town with. But for that very specific set of people, it's going to be perfect. Just like I find the pen type B to be perfect for me, even though it doesn't really work for a lot of people. This one really works for me. It works for a lot of people though. I do say that knowing that he's got like over 70,000 and backing on the Kickstarter right now. And the last one was like 130. So he's clearly doing something right, striking the right notes with mechanical pencil fans and making a really, really quality pencil. So I enjoy this pencil. So this one's going back to him today. And I've backed, uh, I've backed the exact model that he sent me the prototype on the stainless steel model. They're very expensive. Like I really want the titanium, but I'm not paying $130 for that. So I paid, I got on the early, early bird for the stainless steel. So it was like 60 bucks, which is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination for a mechanical pencil. But I like supporting makers and I like using things like this. And, uh, I just think it's a really cool project and knowing what Andrew has put into making the product better year over year. I can get behind

Myke Hurley: that pretty easily. That's the story, right? Yep. It's what we talk about all the time. The great story,

Brad Dowdy: that great story is right there. Yep. Yep. So I have a bunch of new products we're going to talk about, but you added one in the notes that I'd actually seen a week or two ago and then forgot to put it in the show notes. So I'm glad you did. Where did you, where did you see this link originally? Uh, somebody sent me on Twitter. Okay. So this is new sailor products. Yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of the text on these pages is graphic based. So I can Google translate them, which that stinks, but you know, I get it. It's the Japanese sailor site, but they have new lineups of the 1911 and new inks. And I want to say not new pro gear slims because all the, of these seasons progress slims are available already. They've been out since last year, but the 1911s with the white caps on them, these are really new, Myke. What do you think about those? I like them. Like again,

Myke Hurley: I'm not, I don't think I'm, I'm ever going to really, I don't think the 1911 is my thing. Um, I much prefer the pro gear, but this is as close as it would get for me for an 1911. I really like

Brad Dowdy: the white caps. I think it's a nice addition. Right. I mean, I said the exact same thing in refill this weekend when I was talking about sailor limit additions. I'm just not a 1911 person, but these are the best looking ones that I've seen. If I was, I mean, this has me as close to pulling the trigger on a 1911 as ever before the blue one and the, the, I don't know if that's two blues or a blue and a purple, but even the pink one is fantastic. I mean, yeah, those look great. We'll see what they're all about when they launch. I'm sure they're launching soon and it looks like they're going to have matching inks with them. It looks like they're doing some higher, I'm guessing higher ending because they're fancy packaging and smaller bottles and they'll probably charge you the same price or so. I don't know. So we'll see. We'll see how this goes, but any sailors, my favorite ink brand and looking at these color samples, it looks like a bunch of colors I already have, but we'll see. We'll see if I can mix in some new colors. I'll certainly try them, but yeah, this is Lamy needs to take note of this. This is what we talk about all the time, right? There's companies that get it right. Sailor's one of them, you know, and is it fair to compare those, you know, on an apples to apples basis? Probably not, but man, it seems, Sailor seems to make it so easy by, you know, rotating their products so frequently. They have a classic silhouette and they do cool things with it. Why can't Lamy do that? They do that with the Safari and the All-Star and that's pretty much it. So, you know, take note. Lamy's coming to Asia in a big way, so maybe we'll start seeing something. Maybe there's hope to be had. You just can't get off this horse today, can you? No. No, it's fine. I mean, it's all relative, right? It's all relative because you want to see them do well. I want to see them do well. That's all I want, right? Mm-hmm. I know. It's as simple as that.

Myke Hurley: I know. It's like, I can't think of the phrase, but it's like, I mean, you just want someone to do well in spite of themselves, you know? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

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Brad Dowdy: How do they know when I'm traveling to sponsor the show?

Myke Hurley: They just know. They just know. Harry's are in tune with you, man. They know you. They get you.

Brad Dowdy: So here's my packing toiletries kit for Harry's. I use the Harry's dop kit, which is, I've had that for a couple of years now and it's held up extremely well for all the trips I take. It's fantastic. And I'm so anal retentive about forgetting stuff. When I pack, it's already sitting on my counter and I don't leave for two days because I have to put all the stuff in there. And I have a specific travel razor handle that I keep in there. I keep the Navy blue rubberized handle is my travel handle. And it's got the kit. It's got the cover on it. And then I have the travel size shave creams that I bring for that. And so I leave the big bottles at home. So they make it easy for me to travel with. And like, I'm going to look clean shaven and smell good on Friday when it's time to record at Field Notes. And that's all thanks to Harry's. Stop messing around. Get started

Myke Hurley: shaving with Harry's today by claiming your free trial offer. Just go to harrys.com slash penaddict and get started. All you need to do is cover the shipping. Thank you so much to Harry's for their continued support of this show and RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: So I did a thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, you've done a thing. I've been seeing through the grapevine that you have gone ahead and done what you do every year.

Hobonichi Tech Show

Brad Dowdy: I didn't last year. Okay. So I held off on the... Did I last year? I might have. I probably did last year.

Myke Hurley: I think you did. I'm the worst. We're talking about the Hobonichi Tech Show. Yeah. And Brad has gone ahead and got another one of these planners, these diary planners that he is going to pretend that he'll use for the year. That's exactly right. And then dump off for a week. But this year, Brad has upped it a notch and bought all three sizes because that will help. That's what will help. That's what you needed. You needed all the sizes. That was what was going wrong before, I think.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, that's what you do, right? If your planner app is not going well, you go out and buy the new version of things.

Myke Hurley: If it doesn't work, try and try again and then spend more money and try again. That's how it goes.

Brad Dowdy: So I'll have you know, I will not be using the Tech Show. Okay. Okay. But I'm using the giant size one cousin. So let's rewind this. Let's rewind this. I did buy three Hobonichis. I shouldn't say buy. I ordered them through my partnership with JetPen. So I didn't exactly pay for them. And people should know that. You know, full disclosure and all. So when I say buy, y'all should just assume I probably get most stuff for free, although I do buy plenty, which is what we're going to talk about later. I bought all this stuff. Anyway, the Hobonichis where I wanted the current models to take pictures with for the new NotCo stuff. So I needed the cousin for the A5 because that's what it's built around. Then I needed the Techo for the A6. So I wanted the current year planners to take pictures. And then I just threw in the weeks because I wanted to see what it was like. But then I got all these and I was like, well, it would be kind of sinful to not at least use one of them for me for, you know, go through the year and be able to have like current pictures with like current, you know, usage patterns. And seeing as I have failed two years with the Techo, I don't think I've made it past March. That may be an exaggeration even.

Brad Dowdy: I've definitely made it into February. I'd have to go back and look and see how far, but yeah. So I want, I'm going to try and not use the Techo and not use the weeks and I'm going to go for the big boy, Myke. I'm going all in on the cousin and I just, I'm already overwhelmed. You haven't even got it yet. Have you? Oh, I've got it. Oh yeah. Oh, cause you've got the 2017s. No, no, no, no. These are all 2018 models. Just got them last week.

Myke Hurley: It's weird that they ship them now. It's very early.

Brad Dowdy: They've always, September 1st has always been their launch date. I don't know why. They're just getting ready for the holidays. They start January, do they? Um, some of them have the not full page calendar that starts earlier. Okay. So, but usually the full page layout starts in late December or January, but then like some of this, the general planning calendars, like the month per two page kind of layout, you know, some of those might start early, but still, yeah, they're, they're out early. They always are. Um, you know, I'm already setting myself up for failure, which I shouldn't do, but it's, it's definitely a thing. This is the Hobonichi Techo. The one that I failed at twice. And the one I'm not going to use is the best planner on the market. I will tell you that right now. Um, and that's why I'm not using it because I've tried it and I failed at it. So I'm going to try this bigger one, see if I can do some other things with it, some different than normal things with it. Um, and see how it goes. It's a really impressive journal. When you get it in the hand, it's huge and it's really well made and the paper's awesome. So it's really cool. The weeks is a really neat layout, but it's full of what I think is, is wasted space. They have, it's supposed to be a thin weeks planner with your, if you're, your basic, um, fold open, you know, if you open up your notebook, you have seven slots for your seven weekdays on the left side of the page. And then like a blank, you know, gridded page on the right for notes. So your whole week is on that open, you know, two page layout. But what the weeks does is sticks another 68 pages of blank pages in the back. I was like, well, that's not really what it's for. I would think, but I mean, maybe people use those. I'm sure, I'm sure people use those notes, but it seems to be overkill for me. So that's actually my least favorite. The, you can get a Midori, um, weekly planner that's blank and you can fill out your own dates, which is one I actually use a lot, um, that I would prefer over the weeks. The Techo, I still think is kind of the best for everybody planner. And the cousin is just kind of a beast. It's the beast mode of all the, of all the planners. So of course, that's the one I'm going to attempt to use and we'll have to see how quickly I get flogged, but I'm going to go for it, Myke. I'm going to do, I'm going to make something out of it.

Myke Hurley: I'm intrigued to see how it works for you. I mean, honestly, I don't know why you're continuing to try. Like it is, I know why you bought these for the photos.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Right. I wasn't planning on doing a planner at all this year. I was going to skip it. And I was like, well, you know, this is all of the justification stuff that we do as consumers, right? We're listening to a podcast about pens. This is the story of our life, right? All these justifications why I need these things and I don't need one of them. I need three, right? Need. So what do you need, Myke? Do you, you don't, you don't use a paper planner, do you?

Myke Hurley: No. You know what I, what I need or what I, what I want is a Hobonichi Techo Weeks without any of the diary stuff in it. That's what I want. Yeah. I want a traveler's notebook sized notebook that has Tomoe River paper in it. That's what I want. Well, yeah, you should, uh, you should try the weeks.

Brad Dowdy: But I don't want the diary stuff. I don't, I mean, it's not fixed. It's not fixed diary stuff. It's just blank. It's not, you don't have room for like a diary page. Oh. Like on the, on the scheduled date. Okay. I'll bring, I'll, I'll pack this to Chicago.

Myke Hurley: Bring it. I need to see this. I feel like I've never fully understood the Hobonichi Techo. Please bring them. I need to see them.

Midori Weekly Calendar

Brad Dowdy: So, the week's layout is the best layout for me. But I don't like exactly how they made this one. I, I prefer the Midori weekly calendar better. Okay. This is good. This is a really, really great layout.

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah, I'll bring them. I'll bring them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I need to see them. I feel like I never really, yeah, I feel like I've never really gotten the full grasp of the way that the notebooks are, that these books are laid out. So, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The Techos and the Cousins are the, the really impressive ones. The weeks is kind of stuff, something you've probably seen before, but with nicer made and better paper.

Myke Hurley: But that's all I want though. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: But check this out. I saw in the Panadix Slack today, there was a Space Invaders weeks version.

Myke Hurley: No, I know what one I want. And it was, I know what one I want.

Brad Dowdy: And it was kind of rad.

Myke Hurley: I want the Earthbound one. Okay. The Mother Earthbound one. My gosh. They, they do them every now and then. This, this 2018 one is simply stupendous. Like, it is a work of art. It is. It's the best looking one. That's the one I want.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. They're not expensive. They're not expensive.

Brad Dowdy: So, we'll see. This is going to be, this is, this is one of those, this is the, one of those challenges, right? And I'm terrible at challenges of this magnitude. It's not my thing. I'm a, I'm a prime example of failure when it comes to the consistency and commitment challenge. So, not my thing. But what I am not a failure at, Myke, is spending money. I bought three pens that I wanted to talk about.

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: On this show. I was ready to talk about them last week and we just got so overwhelmed and we knew we were having a quick turnaround. And this first one is one you've had quite a long time before I received mine. And that's the Franklin Christophe Model 20 with the Tabaldi finial that our good friend Thomas Hall and Franklin Christophe worked on together. It was a charity project that they collaborated on and they raised over $10,000 for various charities. How cool is that?

Myke Hurley: Very cool. And I'm using mine today and I absolutely love this pen. I love it. It's fantastic. I think I got a bold nib and it's glorious to use.

Brad Dowdy: So, like you, I absolutely adore this pen. And it's like one of those things that's hard to put your finger on, right? Because it's, you know, it's the clear demonstrator look, which I like. And it's kind of gray tinted, would you say? Yeah. And it's the Model 20 Franklin Christophe, which I very much enjoy. I like that shape. And it's a slip cap and I've eyedroppered mine and mine has a clip and just everything about this pen is right. And one of the comments I wanted to make is I ordered it with the fine Myke Masuyama steel Curse of Italic nib. That may be my favorite stock nib out of any company on the market. And it's a little bit unfair because it's kind of specialized, but it's a stock item for them. And, you know, it's a standard size nib that I can fit into all kinds of other things. If I could just order one nib online, even though it's expensive, that's the one. I mean, I just freaking love how this nib is and writes. It's perfect for my handwriting. Just perfect. And to go along with the look of this pen and the Tabaldi, you know, I took a terrible picture of it on Instagram. I had some really bad lighting. I was like, I'm gonna make this as bad as possible and it still looked good. Yeah, I can't say enough about this pen. Super enjoying it. I already have people wanting to buy it off me. They're like, if you ever get tired, if you ever get tired of that one, let me know.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've been using this as a surprising amount, like more than I expected I would be. Yeah, I absolutely love this pen. I'm really, really, really happy with it. Oh, but you got the full size though, right? I did. Yeah, see, I got the pocket because it's the first one that I've had.

Brad Dowdy: So people are still waiting on the pocket size, I was told. So I think they should be ready soon. No, no, they're all, you know, going through the workflow.

Myke Hurley: So mine was like the demo pen, right? So it's been handled, it's been pictured, like, you know, they spent a lot of time with mine, but I'm very happy with it. I absolutely, absolutely adore it. So thank you to everybody involved.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so that's great. So that one came in last week, two weeks ago, and it's definitely been my most used pen ever since.

Myke Hurley: That's a great picture, you know, the one that you took of the Tuvaldi with the shadow and stuff. Oh, yeah. Very moody. I like it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it was super awful, but it came out good. You know, it was one of those things I was sitting at the hair salon, actually, while my daughter was getting her hair done. And so I brought something to write with and the sunlight was over my shoulder through the blinds. And I was like, well, I got to do something with this because it looks terrible and it's going to be, it's going to not come out well. And that's right up my alley. That's on brand for me. So I went for it. But the next pen I got in about probably been more than a month ago, and it's taken me forever to ink it up because I wasn't sure what ink I wanted to put it in. But now that I did, I love this pen. I've kept it on my desktop uninked just to handle and look at. It's the Woodshed Pen Company Cracked Ice that I backed on Kickstarter. So he's a small maker in South Carolina, you know, does different pen turning, uses different materials. I ordered, I backed on Kickstarter one called Rubies and Violets, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Beautiful, Brad. It's stunning. It came out so good. Yeah. So I remember us talking about these when it came out because I liked the Nebula one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, because I didn't know what to expect. I'd never heard of Woodshed. I had a couple people send me the link and I was just compelled by his Kickstarter offering. It was like his third Kickstarter. I felt pretty good about it. And the style of the pen, style and shape of it came out really well. It's kind of long section. So your fingers stay clear of the threading. Mine has a black nib. So it actually looks really good with the black undertones between all the, all the coloration in the barrel. I'm just enamored with it. It's a really, really good pen and it was a really fair price. I want to say it was like 125, 140, you know, right in that steel nib acrylic ballpark area that you can get a lot of pens at. Just really good work. The finishing is good. The threading is good. Like I said before the section, I'm really happy with the length of it. So it fits my hand good. And it's just really pretty to look at. And I inked it up with Bung Box Imperial Purple. And that fine, that was, I didn't want to put a pink in it as much pink ink as I use. I was like, I can't put a pink ink in it. And I wasn't sure it's hard to get something else in there. Other things that I use like orange, like I wouldn't put an orange ink in here. Blue didn't feel right. Blue, black, green didn't feel right. And it finally hit me the Bung Box Imperial Purple. You know, I'm not gonna lie. I nailed that one. So that's kind of the perfect matchup for me. Yeah, that's a good match. Good match. So the last pin I ordered was another Kickstarter project, you know, and we talked about it last week or a couple weeks ago. And we said we'd table the full discussion till this week. It's the shown design clip pin. You know, I love Ian's work. I know you love Ian's work. I was concerned. That's not really the right word. I was not really sure I wanted his pin with a clip. Would that work? You know, because I carry his regular shown design 01 aluminum pin in my pocket. Unclipped, you know, it doesn't have a clip. He, I mean, he nailed it. This is a, like a shorty type clip. It's so good looking, so strong, fits everything, fits the size and shape of the pin. I'm actually really happy I got this because I was hesitating because of the clip and I'm so not used to using his pin with a clip, but this is super great for, you know, other types of carry, you know, putting it in a bag or backpack, you know, clipping it to a shirt or a pants pocket. You know, I always just carry mine loose in the pocket and I'm fine with that, but this is, uh, I'm really happy with it. You know, his fit and finish is always right on the money and he did something cool with this. I didn't necessarily follow the Kickstarter. So my apologies if all this information was available to the Kickstarter backers and I just ignored it. He did some really nice packaging with this. And I have a picture on Instagram where I showed the inside of the packaging. You open it up and the pins like attached to this cardboard insert and it's pre-printed with shown design as logo. Then it has all these boxes that Ian wrote in, like it's pre-printed boxes, say customer model, date of purchase and retailer. So like he wrote in customer, Brad Dowdy, the pin addict, and then the model O2BL and the date of purchase and retailer, you know, Kickstarter. So I thought that was a really neat touch. It was all handwritten in these little boxes. And then what I didn't expect when I picked up the pin off this card, there was a notebook under it and it wasn't just any notebook. It was a shown design, right notepads collaboration with in black and silver. And it's just fancy. It's awesome. And the right side of the page is line and the left side of the page is dot grid. Like the, uh, Baron Fig did the work play edition, which is probably the best edition they've ever done. I think with lines, I think it was, was it blank on the right and dots on the left? I think it was blank, but this one's lined on the right dots on the left. It was just a nice added touch. I did. I'd forgotten that that was going to happen. So when you don't see it, when you open up the box to check out the pin, then you lift up the little card and I was like, Oh, there's a notebook in there. So like all the packaging was made to work around this. And then I lifted up the notebook and there was even more, he'd written me a note in the back and the bottom of the box, which, uh, that was, uh, that was Ian. He's a cool dude. So really happy with how this pin turned out. Um, I think it will be making the trip to Chicago with me. So I got, I got to figure out what pins and paper I'm carrying to that, uh, to this here little event we got going. So yeah, I'm really happy with all three of these pins that I've been using kind of just religiously in the past couple of weeks. You know, I use a lot of pins on a daily basis and these worked out well. And these were all projects I backed or, or, you know, purchases that I, I paid for myself. So I'm really happy when, uh, it works out that way that, Hey, I paid for something good. And so this was a no, no, three, no doubters all worked out really well for me. The last item I added to this little section, Myke was a big surprise that I got from jet pins and just one of my standard jet pins, you know, boxes of awesomeness. I got this more on spiral notebook and it's just your basic craft cover. Looks like a school notebook, kind of what I would call a school notebook. It looks like a, something a student would use. And I saw how thick it was and I saw it was a Mormon and I was like, Oh, this looks great. I definitely want it. I would have no clue what it's going to cost. Cause a lot of times I don't see the price on these things when I get them in advance. The Mormon paper is some of my favorite. I don't know if they're using the same paper they use in their larger, um, notebook lines, but this notebook is less than $6 and it's 80 pages and the paper is amazing as well. It's like, did they make a mistake? Like this doesn't seem like a Moramon thing. You know, I'm glad it's so inexpensive relative, you know, granted it's not your going school supply shopping standard spiral bound notebook that you pay less than a dollar for, but six bucks for this quality of paper kind of boggles my mind. And as I checked, when I was putting the links in the show notes, they're completely sold out at jet pins, which makes sense because it's kind of unreal pricing on this thing. So I appreciate that they did this. I'm going to get a lot of use out of this notebook. It's just kind of one of those notebooks you take. That's just kind of like a beater notebook, you know, throw it in a backpack and go and just takes notes as you need. And for six bucks, man, I've got zero complaints and I don't understand how they did it. And it kind of, it doesn't really hurt their other products because they have, you know, better covers and better binding, but man, this is an impressive, impressive product. This is a small entry point. Yes. So I get asked always during the summer, I am a student. I want a nice paper notebook, but I can't break the bank. Well, I just got that answer where I've never really had a definitive answer before. Other companies have done this, but they're usually like 30 sheets. This is like a full size 80 sheet notebook. It's, it's fantastic, just fantastic. So you should all buy it.

Myke Hurley: Today's show is also brought to you by our friends over at Blue Apron. They are the number one recipe delivery service with the freshest ingredients. Blue Apron's mission is to make incredible home cooking accessible to everyone while supporting a more sustainable food system at the same time. They set the highest standards for their ingredients whilst building a community of home chefs as well. For less than $10 a meal, Blue Apron will deliver to you seasonal recipes with fresh, high quality ingredients to help you make delicious home cooked meals in 14 minutes or less. Every single meal comes with a step-by-step, easy to follow recipe card and pre-portioned ingredients. And by shipping the exact amount of each ingredient required for a recipe, Blue Apron is reducing food waste as well. They have a freshness guarantee, which promises that every single ingredient in your delivery will arrive ready to cook or they're going to make it right for you. It's way too close to dinner time for me, Brad. I hear you. What are you cooking? I'm just really concerned about having to read these meals next because like they're so good and I want to eat them right now and my stomach's already rumbling. Like I just, how do we get away from me talking about their incredible new recipes? Okay. Right now you could cook food like cheesy chicken and black bean enchiladas with salsa verde. I'm done. I'm done. I gotta go. Spiced cauliflower and pepper with jasmine rice and cilantro yogurt sauce. I have developed a real taste for cilantro. It's what we call coriander here in the UK. I know it's one of those things that people are not too sure about. Like some, like Idina hates it. She can't go near it. Oh, I love it. She just can't go near it. But like I have developed like a real flavor for it. So I'm a big fan. And maple gravy smothered, oh my God, pork chops with steward collared greens and sweet potatoes. My word. There's no weekly commitment for Blue Apron. You get deliveries when you want them. Check out this week's menu and get three meals for free with your first purchase with free shipping as well just by going to blueapron.com slash penaddict. You're going to love how good it feels and tasty creating incredible home-cooked meals at Blue Apron. So get started today with blueapron.com slash penaddict. We'd like to thank Blue Apron for their continued support of this show. Blue Apron, a better way to cook.

Brad Dowdy: You know, as you were talking about it, I just want to make one thing clear. You don't have to add anything to these meals. They give you literally everything down to the exact spices to cook it with. You're not pulling things from your cabinet or having to go to the store to get any of these. They're not like sending you the protein and telling you what to cook around it. Absolutely everything.

Myke Hurley: All pre-portioned. Really, really nicely done. Really nicely done.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's hit some Ask TPA on what has turned out to be quite the long show. I've been long-winded this episode, but these are not too long, so let's knock them out real quick. So 24 hours, 100 miles. Seems to be an interesting Twitter handle. I'll have to check that one out. Do you ever feel guilty for not using a pen or guilty you're using a non-fountain pen? Do you want to tackle this one first?

Myke Hurley: Guilty for not using a pen, definitely. If you spent a bunch of money on a pen and you feel like you maybe don't use it enough for whatever reason, either it's not your favorite or you've got an ink in it which isn't useful all the time. I get that feeling. I typically always use fountain pens, so I don't feel guilty for not using them. If I'm not using a fountain pen, I'm using a Retro 51, and I have absolutely no problem using those.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, so I'm kind of on the same page. I do feel guilty not using a pen, either one that I've purchased that I don't use, or if for somehow I've left the house and didn't have a pen on me, I will feel a little bit guilty sometimes. That is like, dude, what are you doing? You need a pen. Why didn't you bring one so you don't have to use whatever you end up with at the bank or wherever? Or guilty, you're not using a fountain pen. I never feel guilty about that because I use so many non-fountain pens. That's a non-issue for me. This isn't a fountain pen show, right? I don't run a fountain pen blog. I am into absolutely everything, so I never have guilt on using a gel pen, roller, highlighter, pencil, so no. No fountain pen guilt whatsoever. All right, the next one from, yeah. I'll let you pronounce that one. Suicism. Suicism, all right.

Brad Dowdy: What do you think of the JetPens Mini Aluminum? For a $15 starter, experience is phenomenal. Is it a generic of a different brand? I'm guessing it's a white label from somewhere. I don't know what specifically. It's a really good pen. It's a little expensive if you have to put it up against the Pilot Metropolitan. I mean, it's as simple as that. It doesn't mean it's not a good pen. It's a really good pen for what it is, but you're in the Metropolitan price range, and if you tell me, Brad, these are my two choices, I'm going to tell you Metropolitan every time.

Myke Hurley: Partly because the clip is disgusting and the logo is abhorrent on the JetPens pen.

Brad Dowdy: I don't think the clip's disgusting. The clip is terrible. The clip is terrible. I don't know why it looks like that. It's a little funky. It's a little funky.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's not good. It's not good.

Brad Dowdy: Totally fine pen. I'm sure it's white labeled from somewhere. This is an inexpensive barrel that they were just able to get their branding on.

Myke Hurley: I might have the answer for you here, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: All right, what you got?

Myke Hurley: From the JetPens page. It's a joint project between JetPens and Regal.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, okay. I knew that. So Regal comes to the pen shows. Yeah, now that you say that, I totally knew that. Look at me. Silly Brad. So Regal, if you've been to pen shows, you've probably seen Regal there, and they do some other pens, and they start right around that price range. It's like a slimline pen. I'm picking the Metropolitan every time and twice on Sundays.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, me too, because the Metropolitan looks nice.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. And you know how much I love JetPens. I mean, my gosh, I used to work for them, but I'm not picking that pen over a lot of pens in that price range. It's just not happening. No way. So I'm not as mean on the clip, though, as you are, Regal. It's terrible, man. I'm just kidding. It's so bad.

Fall Inks

Brad Dowdy: All right. Pat Hannon wants to know, what inks are perfect for fall? I need to load some pens. Luckily, we have a perfect answer for you. At least I do, because Kelly, I think it's Kelly, at Mountain of Ink, she's put out two fall ink palettes so far, one called Autumn Trees and one called Fall Sunset. This is exactly where you want to go. I am fascinated with this Autumn Trees post because it's so freaking perfect, not to mention it has one of my favorite inks ever in there, which is the Papier Plume Sazerac. You know, I can't really, you know, knock anything that has a Sazerac in it, but just look at these posts, Myke. How great a job does she do?

Myke Hurley: Beautiful. Like, wonderful. Like, to pair them with the pictures and then to, like, you know, like, there's, like, this beautiful tree sunset picture here and then, like, the really, I assume, high-quality scans of what I'm assuming are coloring.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it looks like it. Yeah, so, like, five stars all around. My gosh, yeah. Kelly's killing it at Mountain of Ink. She's already done 100 ink posts, Myke. My word. Like, she must post, like, three, four, five times a week. And they're all, like, intense. Yeah, very, very high professional.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: So, good job. Good job by you, Kelly.

Myke Hurley: By color, by brand. Yeah, really great job. Fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But when I think of fall, I definitely am in that orange, yellow, brown, red palette. Every now and then, you throw in a purple. If you get the right one, I think a purple will fit into these autumn colorways. But when you look at what Kelly's done here, I mean, just go for that. Pick any of those colors. They're fantastic. All right. The next one is from Miriam. She says, So, here's my issue. I decided to join the Inktober challenge with a little twist. I draw on gray paper and use both black and white ink to create some really awesome light and shading. I use a fountain pen for the black ink, but for the white ink, I use either a Uniball Signo white gel pen or a bottle of opaque white ink that I apply with a fine brush. I like the waterproofness of the white gel pen, but I run out of ink quicker than I thought. It's frustrating having to buy gel pens in bulk while I can just refill my one fountain pen over and over. Is there a rollerball or gel pen or similar that's refillable, or is it possible to disassemble the Uniball and refill it with a syringe? So, you can get a rollerball style pen that takes what's essentially a fountain pen ink cartridge, and you can syringe fill those cartridges with your bottle of opaque white ink. So, Pilot V-Series is probably the first one I'd go to because it's the cheapest and the best. You can, gosh, I don't even know the exact name of it, but it's essentially a refillable rollerball pen designed around Pilot's ink cartridges. Now, those cartridges are proprietary, so your first batch of cartridges you have to buy from Pilot, but it ships with one, and you can just refill it, empty it out, clean it, refill it with your white ink, and use it in that pen. That's the one I would pick. Jay Herban and Kaweco both make similar type things, but they're much more expensive and do not work as well as the Pilot one. So, that's definitely the way to go if you want to keep the white ink in a rollerball pen without having to buy tons of white gel ink pens. All right, last one, Myke, and it's a picture. It's from listener Yevgeny, who, is he in the chat room today? He's usually, he's in the morning, the morning chat. Morning crew. Not pen addict nights.

Pen Addict Chat

Myke Hurley: The pen addict night chat room is wild.

Brad Dowdy: These folk are crazy in here. They're not on their initial coffee high. They're scaring me away, Brad. They're scaring me away. Yeah, the afternoon crowd is on it. So, I'm going to read this ass TPA that he sent on Twitter, and this was a handwritten one. He says, Brad, I was wondering if you or Myke have ever used Organic Studio Aristotle and what your thoughts were on it. This was one of those few times that I couldn't find it on the pen addict. P.S. Sorry about the chicken scratch. Never apologize for your handwriting. That goes for anybody, including Myke. Not when it looks like this. Yeah. I mean, please. It's pretty good. So, I haven't bought any of the new Organic Studio. So, I forget. I think it's Tyler is the gentleman behind Organic Studio. And a few years ago, he was making inks. And I was all in buying several of those inks. And I think Jules Verne was one of my favorite ones. And he did one called Blue Merle. And I use those. Still have those inks in my collection. And then he took a couple of years off to go to school. And now he's back making inks. So, this is kind of the resurrection of the brand. And I haven't bought any of the new inks. But I will say Organic Studio Nitrogen was like the ink of the summer. It would sell out because it has this crazy sheen. And shout out to Evgeny. He's in the chat room listening. So, he's there. He was stealthing us, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Uh-oh.

Brad Dowdy: He's in stealth mode trying to work. But he was actually not working and listening to us. So, I haven't tried the newest batch of Organics releases. But I plan on it. Because I like the ones he did before. And it's been a few years since I've purchased one. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. So, I will add that to the list. And I'm actually going to pass on the Nitrogen. Which I'm not really compelled to have that much sheen. Like, I love sheen. But that's like 95% sheen ratio. I would rather have something like... I'm wondering if this is... Yeah, this is the Aristotle. Looks like a blue-green that you use on this note. And that actually looks more up my alley than something like Nitrogen. So, yeah. There you go. So, I'll be trying the new Organics Studio. It's just something I haven't gotten around to yet. But... And that's a wrap, Myke. I'm going to see you in Chicago in like a few days. You sure are, my friend. You sure are. I'm very excited. We went for years not ever meeting in person. And now I can't shake you.

Myke Hurley: You can't get rid of me. No. It's too late for you now. You can't get rid of me. I'll never get rid of you, Myke. I know. Thank you.

Brad Dowdy: You're stuck.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm. All right. If you want to find our show notes for today's episode, there's a great place for that. It's over on our website. You can go to relay.fm slash penaddict slash 278. But it also should be in your podcast app of choice. But they're always there if you need them. You can find Brad online at penaddict.com and knock.co. He is penaddict on Instagram. Dowdyism on Twitter. I am imike. I am YKE. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors, the fine folk over at Blue Apron, Penn Chalet, and Harry's. They help support this show, as well as you do, of course. We'll be back next time with a very, very special episode recorded live in Chicago with the crew at Field Notes. We're super excited to put that episode together for you. Cannot wait for you to hear it. I hope that we'll see some of you as well later on this week over at the open house at Field Notes. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.