The Pen Addict 264/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	264
Title:	Redacted
Release Date:	July 5th, 2017
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 264
Audio File:	Audio Episode 264
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 264
Length:	6262 min <br />1.033 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is episode 264 of The Pen Addict. My name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Brad Dowdy. Today's show is brought to you by Pen Chalet. Hi Brad Dowdy. Hi Myke Hurley, how are you? I'm good, I'm mixing it all up today. I'm saying things in all different orders, trying to keep people on their toes.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah, it's good. We like to keep people on their toes and, you know, keep them guessing, keep them wondering, keep it new and fresh. You know, we are...

Myke Hurley: What's gonna happen next?

Brad Dowdy: We are. We are known for our newness and freshness, right? I mean, that's what we do. That's how we roll. So, yeah, it's new and fresh in my house right now. Actually, fresh isn't the word I would use to describe the lack of air conditioning in the Georgia heat. So, hopefully that I can make it through this podcast without passing out. That's my goal for today. I have a large glass of water here and we're gonna knock this baby out before I keel over.

Myke Hurley: I believe in you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You got faith in me?

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Kickstarter Updates

Brad Dowdy: Good, good. Well, I hope the listeners have faith in me because the natives are getting restless on the pen addict Kickstarter. It's just been a large gap since our next phase of the pen addict Kickstarter, which we haven't done before, right? We've been able to, like, solve or finish our Kickstarter projects, you know, kind of in one shot. And this one drags on a little bit farther. So, we still owe our Kickstarter backers a Sapelo pen envelope from Knock. And we owe them a video from the upcoming Washington, D.C. pen show. And we owe them another video from the Field Notes experience in October. Is that what we're calling it? I'm gonna go with that. Yeah, experience is good.

Brad Dowdy: So, people are asking and wanting updates, and rightfully so. So, the production of the Sapelo should hopefully be complete this month. That's the plan. My original shipping date was August for that. It's looking good. I'm going to get the final sample probably next week. Just, you know, we like to, we're definitely work with our manufacturer for, we're, like, at a triple check level for our products, which is good. Like, I'm happy to do that, but that does make everything take longer. But that's okay. And I think this is gonna be done, like, this month and hopefully ship in August. So, I think we're still on track. And I will send out some pictures once I get this final sample in, because it'll essentially be the production sample. Everything good and in place. You know, hopefully it's, hopefully it's correct, and they don't have to make me another one. But, and I anticipate it will. And I think everyone's looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it, because I don't carry this case regularly, but I think it's a pretty cool case. And it'll fit right in my Lanier, right in the front zip. So, looking forward to that. And then, of course, we have DC coming up. That's not far, Myke. This is not far away. So, it'll be a good vlog for you, because everything will be new, and everyone will want to see what the new DC is gonna be like. Because the location moved, and we weren't even sure that it was gonna happen. So, it's been kind of a nightmare, but we're ready. And I know a lot of people are making the trip to DC. So, we're ready for that in, I think, about four weeks. So, I think we'll be good. And then we'll have more on the field notes, part of the plan later. So, we still have a lot to work on for that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm getting excited and anxious about the show, which I think is good, right? Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, exactly. It's good to be anxious about it. I don't mind, like, my work and schedule and planning anxiety, because I know if I do all that up front, the actual event will be fine. So, I usually don't sweat events. I just sweat the lead-up to them. And I'm okay with that, because then I don't have to sweat the events. Although, I'm sweating a lot right now. That's a different way. Sorry about that. But if you wanted to cool down, one way to do it would be a really nice crab boil and write notepads. Man, they caused me problems this week with the awesomeness of their Chesapeake edition. So, have you seen pictures of this? I know you're not a subscriber or anything.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have. I have.

Brad Dowdy: One or a thousand?

Myke Hurley: No, it's the word, Chesapeake. Like, my brain can't truly wrap around that word, and I say it differently every time. Do you know what I see? Cheapskate. That's what I see. Whenever I look at that word, my brain says, Cheapskate, the Cheapskate edition.

Brad Dowdy: Now, Myke, you're going to get me in trouble already. Why? What did I do? I didn't do anything. I know. I'm just playing. You're saying I'm calling it Cheapskate. I love this edition.

Myke Hurley: It looks beautiful. It definitely doesn't look like a Cheapskate edition, but it's just that word. I'm not familiar with Chesapeake. I don't even really know what that is.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's a region in Maryland, Chesapeake Bay, off the coast, and it's known for its blue crabs, crab cakes, crab boils, and they did a really, really cool addition. It's got the gold foil stamped little blue crab on the back. The cover color has the color of the blue crab, the pencils that came with it, or the orange part of the crab. I mean, this is a cool, cool addition. This is a really outside the box while being like completely simple and classy looking addition, which is what Write Notepads does really, really well. Everything that they print is very classy and beautiful, but it's got this cool factor like In the Pines was just this fantastic addition. I think this Chesapeake addition is too. They even sent a crab shell cracking mallet out to people, which is just cool. I mean, they like to have fun. I love this addition, and I haven't broken it out to use it yet, but I will here pretty soon.

Brad Dowdy: It's cracking me up because I just think it's funny, but at the same time, it's awesome, right? It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. So, yeah, it's good stuff. So, I'm going to have to – you know what? When you come in August, I'm going to bring you some Write Notepads to let you start using them because they're really good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I want to try them out. Like, I haven't been able to. And, you know, I'd looked at it before, but as I said, the shipping is relatively expensive to get them over here, and I don't really need more. Sure. Like, I don't need more notebooks. I have so many notebooks. I have notebooks coming out of my ears, but I am keen to try them. It was like the same with Story Supply. Like, I'd always kind of wanted Story Supply, but didn't want to ship them, so I waited until I was at a show, met the guys, and bought some of that stuff, right? And I'm really happy with it, but I don't need to order more notebooks of any kind because I'm kind of set on that front.

Brad Dowdy: Right. You will really appreciate what Write Notepads does once you start using them.

Myke Hurley: The one thing that I really like about them from a visual perspective is the way that they do the binding. I think that just looks real pretty. What do you call that?

Brad Dowdy: I don't want to say the wrong word. I don't know the exact word. I don't know if you call it perfect binding or what. I don't know the exact terminology for that.

Myke Hurley: They just say glue bound in their stuff, which is what I would call it, but I feel like that's maybe not, I don't know, like it's not nice enough of a term.

Brad Dowdy: I feel like there is a phrase for this. Right. Well, they're the actual printers, so they're putting it all together themselves, so I would go with their terminology.

Myke Hurley: But one of these, I feel like they're simple, like they're being, like they're just being practical, like this is what it is. Right, like how I recently found out that stapling is actually called staples, right? It's called thread binding, right? It's called stitching. Stitching, that's it. Which doesn't make any sense to me. So I assume that glue bound is not the fanciest term that they could use.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, thread binding is different than staples, but staples in printing are called stitches. So they're actually stitch bound, like a field notes, which we'll talk about in a minute, because you got yours as three staples, but they're actually three stitches because they come in a wire spool. They're not stapled. I feel like it's just pedantic at that point, isn't it? Technically, they're not staples, even though they look like staples. Well, you've already called it the cheapskate edition, so.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't mean that, though.

Brad Dowdy: So what are you calling this next edition of a thing in our show notes that we both want to talk about? What are you calling this one? I'm going to let you go first.

Myke Hurley: What am I calling it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, say the name of it.

Myke Hurley: Oh, I see what you mean. I thought you wanted me to give it some kind of like... No. Some kind of conclusion before we begin. The Nemisu Ixion, I'm going to go with. Yeah, I think that's how we said it in the video. Yeah, I mean, because really the X sound should make a Z sound, but you can't with, you know, you call it the Ixion, which I don't think is right. Like Ixion would be better, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Right. For this. I think that's how it has to be. Right. Not that they're asking us, I mean.

Nemisu Pens

Myke Hurley: Maybe they should, you know, like branding consultants. We've spoken about Nemisu a bunch. Like me and you have bought both of their previous Fountain Pen Kickstarters. It was the Nova and... Orion. Was it the Orion? I believe so. I'm looking at their page right now. It's broken on Kickstarter. I'll tell you the page is broken.

Brad Dowdy: The only one that I haven't bought from them, which is probably the best looking one, is they do an Ebonite... Nexus. Is it the Orion? It's the Nexus. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. There's not an Orion? No, there's no Orion. The Nova, the Nexus, and the Xeon. All right. So, sorry whoever called something the Orion, and I don't know what it is. If nobody has, then we're going to take that name. I'm pretty sure that's a rather popular one.

Brad Dowdy: Unlike the Xeon, but the Xeon is a fantastic looking pen, don't you think?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I found it just after last week's show. A couple of listeners sent it to me, because they actually launched it relatively recently, I think.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think it was probably the day after our last episode.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Oh, yeah, because not only have people sent it to me, I'm on their mailing list. That was how I kept it.

Brad Dowdy: Actually, I think it was, it might have been during the episode. I think by the time we hung up, it was in our Twitter feed, something like that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, and I think we've both been impressed with Namesu's work, right? Because the first pen of theirs, the Nexus, it was good, but it had some faults. Like, the grip section wasn't very comfortable. And then they went and improved on it with the Nova and actually made a really fantastic pen, right? It was effectively version 2 of the design, because it had a lot of the same design cues. Now, the Xeon is a completely different design. Like, it's very, very different design cues, very different coloring. They're looking at different materials. I think that this is a fantastic-looking pen, like a really, really classy-looking, fancy, nice pen for a price that I can't fully wrap my head around. Their pens are very cheap, considering what they look like and the materials that they're made out of, I think. Especially when you compare it to stuff that's also in the same price class. So, they're doing, like, early birds for £30 and an aluminium version of the Xeon for £33. I mean, that is, I think, a genuinely fantastic price for what is a very good-looking pen made out of good materials.

Brad Dowdy: And from a good company.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, if their track record holds up, from a company that knows how to make this stuff.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Yeah, so my first thoughts, and well, before I get into my first thoughts, I would just want to prove that I'm not completely insane. Glenn, in the chat room, says the Nexus became the Orion. So, this is all the same.

Myke Hurley: Ah, they gave it a different name after they... Yeah, after the Kickstarter. Ah, okay. Yeah. Look at you. You're just a fountain of knowledge, Brad.

Kaweco Sport

Brad Dowdy: So, yeah. As soon as I opened this page, I was like, wow. Like Tony says in the chat room, it looks like a giant Kaweco Sport, and it kind of does, but it's not a short pen. That's what I like about it. No, no, no, I like it. So, it looks like a combination of the Kaweco Sport plus the Pilot Kakuno, which is what I really thought it looked like with the smooth barrel and then the faceted top. And then, like, the Keras Custom ink in the section area with, like, the two-tone. So, it's like a real mashup of a bunch of pens that I like. And I don't understand the pricing either, which is good. Like, they're making these pens. They've done it several times before. They know how much it's going to cost them. And for 30 pounds, it's just a no-brainer. And that's going to be 40% off retail, which the retail price will make more sense, right? Up in the, you know, probably, what, 50-pound range? Something like that. So, that would be more like, oh, okay, this looks correct. The Kickstarter pricing is just crazy, crazy good. And what's weird is I think I might actually go for the navy and brass model because it's so different than anything.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I'm so, I'm really, really conflicted because they have a bunch of different options and you kind of choose towards the end. I guess it's like a backer kit thing where you can choose different colors of the aluminium finishes, different section colors, different finials, and different nibs. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time with my choices here. I'm very drawn to the navy, but I'm also very drawn to the idea of black with brass section. Right. And a black steel nib, like I think that would look really good.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, yeah, I like this a lot. I like this a lot, a lot. With these type of Kickstarters where there's lots of materials on lots of barrels, in the past, I've almost always gone for titanium, but I'm kind of tired of that. And the price is much, much greater with titanium for, you know, reasons because the metal is more expensive and the nibs are more expensive. So, I've gone into like the standard aluminium route.

Brad Dowdy: And this one allows you to have options with the aluminium barrels, you know, having the brass finials and grips. And it's just, I'm really happy with how this looks. And, you know, I've always been a supporter of what Nemisu has done and they always deliver a great product. They certainly do. I'm looking forward to this one. So, I'm excited about it. And they're blown out their goal. They've already, you know, they had essentially a $20,000 goal. They're at $67,000 and there's 26 days to go. So, it'll be a six-figure project by the time it's done, I'm sure. So, congratulations to them. And I look forward to getting the pen. And you're going to have to go make a visit to them one day. Yeah, they're in Edinburgh.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I will say, we get so many questions from people like, I need a good pen for graduation. This is actually a really good option, like their products in general. Because they make really good looking stuff out of nice materials for not crazy amounts of money. Like, once they go into production, they are more expensive. Right? Like, the Orion aluminium is £40. Right? Do they have rollerball options? Fountain pens? They, I don't think they do any on their store anymore. It looks like it's just fountain pens. Because they've done rollerball pens in the past. That's what I thought. Yeah, but it looks like they just sell fountain pens directly. But yeah, I would recommend these. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Because it's worth it. Talking about blowing out gold, I just want to super quick, just give a bit of follow-up on the Pano book. Yeah. Just because they're at like $106,000 right now. Which is incredible. But I provided some ink testing for them. Like, some bleed-through testing. So, in case, because I've had a lot of people ask me this question. So, I just wanted to include it in the show notes. You can kind of get an idea. I used a bunch of different pens and I scanned the page, front and back. Just to kind of give an idea about what the bleed-through looks like. Again, like, as I say, it does bleed through with some of my thicker stuff. But I think it does an honorable job, honestly.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah, congratulations on those guys. That's crazy. That just goes to show that their customers, coming from that designer more aspect, you know, of their customer base, like, really likes that product. I think a lot of their customers aren't Panatic listeners, obviously. No, no. You know, they're just studio neat fans and they like that style. Yep. You know, that's just the following they've built. That's what it's come from. That's what impresses me the most. To be able to turn that, get that kind of turnout for this project is awesome. I'm real happy for those guys. Yeah, me too. I'm genuinely thrilled. Genuinely, genuinely thrilled for them. Yeah. So maybe you should buy them a Game of Thrones pen as a reward for doing such a great job. So I read your Game of Thrones pen review, right? Are you still doing that thing where you're a hero for not watching Game of Thrones? It's not about being a hero.

Myke Hurley: But yeah, I still haven't watched it. I still haven't watched it. And it was really funny to me. Like, I understood about 50% of the review. There are words in here that I can't even pronounce because they're these character names, I assume. Or house names from Game of Thrones. This is becoming a big thing in my household right now. Oh, does Idina watch? She is obsessed with Game of Thrones. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: She's a good person, unlike you.

Myke Hurley: So she started watching it before we met. So she'd already kind of got up to speed. And a friend of ours was in the same boat as me. Had never seen it. And then in the last two weeks has watched all of it and loves it. Right? So this is becoming more of a thing in my house where she's like, just watch the show. And I, you know, I stand by my reason. I don't want to spend all this time investing into a show where I know so many major plot points. And she's like, well, our friend. So our friend knew them as well. And she said she really loved it. But like, I'm just not going to do it. I have not got the time in my life to invest into watching Game of Thrones alongside all of the stuff that I genuinely do want to watch. Like, I'm just not interested in it. All right? So get off my back. Anyway. So the Game of Thrones Montegrappa pen. The reason I wanted to bring it up is I think that, as you mentioned in the review, these are good looking pens, which can be a really difficult thing to do when there's kind of branded content in the way.

Brad Dowdy: Especially for Montegrappa, right? I mean, they're known for like way over the top. Just like too much. Yeah. Yeah. Like too much going on. This makes my eyes hurt level type of nonsense with a lot of their branded pens. And in this one, I think they delivered. I think they nailed it. You know, they went up to the edge, right? I mean, but they didn't like fall off the cliff and do some Stallone nonsense like they've done in the past. Like they made, you know, different pens for the different families in Game of Thrones and incorporated, you know, in the series, you know, each house has like its own banners and its own colors. So it's kind of a perfect setup for a pen. You can take these colors and you can take these designs and you can take these quotes and integrate it into a single pen for a single family in the show and match all the colors and the designs, like the clips, like I'd reviewed the Targaryen pen and, you know, the, the head of the house is, is the mother of dragons and it has this dragon clip on there. And it's just ridiculously cool. The only kicker is they're still very expensive. Like, I mean, it's $350. They're steel nibs, which is fine. I don't have a problem with, I just have a problem with $350 in general for a pen that's really good, but it's not going to crack like my top 10 or 20 pens, but I can see these. I think they already are. I think they've been very successful because they delivered a really good representation of the show. And like we've said before, Montegrappa is not known for toning it down in their pens. And if you think, if you're not familiar with their products and you see these and you're like, oh my God, these are crazy. This is nothing. Can you give an example? Can you think of like an example of something that's, that's way out there? They've done some pirate stuff recently. That was along the line of the Stallone stuff. I didn't go back and look, but you can just look at like every year there's one or two branded options that just come out and you're like, wow, that, that is a pen, isn't it? So.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Okay. I found one. Oh my word. Okay. Yeah. Like I'm going to put this in the notes just so people can see it. I've also put it in the chat room for our live listeners. This is bonkers town. I don't know why anyone would want to use this. I can't imagine it being comfortable to hold in any way. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You want to grab it. You do, you do you want to grab it.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. You do you. That's why I'm impressed with what they did here because they could have gone overboard and they didn't. Yeah. They took it to the edge. They didn't get completely stupid with these and they came out really good. Like the Stark design is really good. Um, the Baratheon, which will be the lowest seller is the best looking one of them all. Um, they're just fantastic looking and they did a really great job with the design of these pens. I really love them. I don't have any use for them on my desk. You know, that's kind of my, you know, purchasing. That's my inflection point. Like I'm not going to waste money for a pen. I'm not going to use. It doesn't mean I don't like the pen, right? This was a very enjoyable pen. Um, it's just very expensive for me to not use it. So I'm not going to own one, you know, sending this one back. This was on loan from my friends at Goldspot. And then, you know, I, I, I just, I really liked the pen. Um, it's, it's, I'm surprised I liked it as much as I did.

Myke Hurley: Are you allowed to tell the story of what happened to these pens?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. It's public. It's public now. So, and I don't think I included that in my review, but when I originally, but we talked about it when I, you know, the, out of the different houses, you know, they asked me which one I wanted to review. I said, I want to review the Stark pen, um, because number one, that's my favorite family in the house. I mean, in the show. And I think it's a really good looking pen. It's white and silver has the wolf clip. And, um, I just think it's really great looking. And they're like, yeah, that one's going to be a few months behind the other ones because all of the Stark fountain pens got stolen from the Montegrappa warehouse. So no one got Stark fountain pens for like two months after they got all the other ones. Like we're talking like real mission impossible style kind of stealing, right? And it was just the fountain pens. It wasn't the roller balls or ballpoints, which are available in these. And, um, they're like, yeah, we'll get you the Stark, but, um, it's going to be a couple months. I was like, okay, we'll just go with the Targaryen. I'll go with that. So I thought that was kind of funny.

Myke Hurley: I can't even imagine why you would do that.

Brad Dowdy: Like what were they expecting to get? Is that going to be a big black market for these? How would you fence those? Because that's it. Like that's the only one of the thing and they stole all the things. So how do you get rid of those?

Myke Hurley: I love that they got the whole of them as well. Like that's what I love about it. I think the most they got all of them. It's just fantastic.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's great. It's great.

Myke Hurley: So, yeah, I mean, it's great depending on hoping that, that, that Montegrappa had all the insurance that they needed, right?

Brad Dowdy: Like, you know, it was a funny story when they told me that I just died laughing. Then I confirmed it with, uh, with Carrie at Kenro and he's like, yeah, that really happened. I was like, oh my God, that's, I mean, it's, it's sad, but it's hilarious at the same time. Just the story of it, but hopefully it all worked out in the end. I don't know whatever happened if they ever caught them, but I think they just had to, you know, to go back in, manufacture, manufacture them all again. So they were a couple months behind. Field notes.

Myke Hurley: The field notes are in. I got mine.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: Um, I was surprised that the, the patch is in every pack.

Brad Dowdy: Same here. I didn't realize that, um, until, uh, I'd saw a friend of the show, Dave Ray's Instagram feed and he's like, oh, I got these and whoa, there's a patch in every pack. So does that mean there's no subscriber extra? Do you think so? Is there patches in the retail? Which I don't care because that's a lot. I mean, that's a patch in every pack is kind of a lot.

Myke Hurley: The reason, yeah, the reason I mentioned it is because if they have done that, which is what I think they have, that's, that must be a significant added cost for them. It's, it's an interesting thing. How many units are there?

Brad Dowdy: Here we go. 80, 80,000 unit thing, right?

Myke Hurley: Unit time. We love our unit time. Can't believe I haven't looked at this already. I hadn't looked at it either. 30,000 packs.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So 90,000 books, 30,000 patches.

Field Notes Patches

Myke Hurley: A patch included in each pack. They're giving the patch to everyone.

Brad Dowdy: That's insane.

Myke Hurley: That's real.

Brad Dowdy: That's a really interesting choice. And you know what? When I opened mine up, these patches are impressive. They are tight. Oh yeah.

Myke Hurley: These are no, like, this is no messing either, right? Like this is like super great embroidery. Like Adina, she like picked up the pack and she was like, oh, look at this. Like she, she was really impressed by the patch. So, you know, that, I think that's, that's pretty impressive because that is an added cost with no added price. I mean, I guess maybe, right?

Brad Dowdy: So again, that fits into the new retail price of $12.95.

Myke Hurley: It might be that they, this now fits in the margin, right? Because this edition may have not been as ambitious to create as the other ones since they have increased the pricing, right? This may have been a less ambitious print run. So they've maybe been able to put these in. So that's interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So they have that extra room to play with in the pricing for charging more. I mean, I mean, that's worth it to me because the patch is very impressive.

Myke Hurley: Very. So I'll say, look, I feel about these kind of as I thought I would last week. I think they're really nice. I like them. Adina really likes them. She likes them a lot. So she's probably going to get my pack. They're nicer in person. The effect on the cover is great. The cover feels nice. I'm just not blown away by this edition, but it's a very nice edition. I could see this edition could, I expect, tickle the fancy of many people. I think the theme just doesn't do it for me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I got an email that I didn't share with you, but it was saying, you know, they agreed with your sentiment and, you know, it was coming from the female perspective. And she's like, you know, it's a very masculine, everything they've been doing recently has been very masculine, like the utility edition and the campfire edition. And, you know, that goes along with that Americana vibe and she understands that, but she's, she's like, you know, I would like a more, you know, feminine side of their company to show through sometimes. You know, and I thought that was a very valid criticism of the brand.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, I struggle with the classification of masculine and feminine. Yeah. But I mean, I would, you know, maybe just say that they're kind of going more towards the outdoorsy doing things with your hands type feel when not everybody is inclined that way. I think that, that, that feels like more of a comfortable way to say it for me personally. Um, but, but I understand, I understand the, the criticism, but I really do think that like, this is what the company is. They are this like, right. Do it yourself outdoorsy. Like that's the brand, right?

Brad Dowdy: It's their brand. It's their themes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So I understand that. So, but, but I do understand that like there have been additions like Snowblind and Ambition and Arts and Sciences that don't necessarily push towards the, these are the notebooks that you keep in the workshop. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Well, like the space, the space stuff, I think, you know, I think those are a good representation for like everybody.

Myke Hurley: Or like Black Ice, which was just purely, it's a beautiful addition, right? Like it's, you know, it's a pretty addition. But yeah, I can, I can understand the general criticism of like, if this isn't your bag, the union might not like that, but. Right.

Brad Dowdy: Right. So, yeah. You know, I definitely can see that. So, yeah, it makes sense from a perspective, you know, which is why there's lots of notebook companies and we all choose to support the ones that fit our style and aesthetic. And, you know, there's, there's lots of things. What do you think? You happy? I'm happy. I mean, it's not going to be like a top 10 all time edition for me, but I think it looks great. I chose the, the one I'm using is what's it called? Night. I'm using it. So the dark one with the orange grid. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I do like the, the grid colors being different. That's nice.

Grid Colors

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. Solid edition. It's just not, not going to be in my top 10.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I saw this article today on Buzzfeed that was sent to me. I'm surprised only once so far by Chris and it was, it was posted yesterday on July 4th, which might be why it kind of snuck by. Uh, but it's 19 things to stationary addicts do that nobody else does. And it is a true to life, uh, listicle from Buzzfeed. I feel all of these things. Should I run through them? Um, yeah. Run, you can run through them all. I don't know if they, I don't think I, I don't think I want to do that. Cause that's also the whole point of the article. What do you agree with the most and disagree with the most? So the one that I disagree, the agree with, I should say the most is refusing to start a new project without buying a new notebook, which is point, point number three. Um, and I will say point number seven, which is feeling a twinge of panic when someone asks to borrow your pen because I'm prepared now, right? Like I will have another pen for them. So like no one's going to get the pen that I'm using. I've got a pen for them. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: The two that I found to be the most truthful, even though I don't necessarily do them, I think they are so true. And that's, it's a definitely a stationary person's thing. It's number 17 is buying more than one diary in a year because you accidentally missed a few weeks, stopped using it and felt compelled to replace it. That is the truth. Um, you know, I don't do that, but I know people who do, and I have considered that in the past and that's a, that's definitely a thing. So, um, that one's pretty crazy. And in the ones about, you know, getting extra excited about starting a new job or going back to school, I mean, that's a fact.

Myke Hurley: Oh my God. Every time I got like a new promote, like a promotion, I was going to a new office. It was like time to go to the stationary store and I'm buying like stuff I'm never going to use, but just in case.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Um, the one I don't think is that big a deal is number nine, feeling super passionate about line width and refusing to buy a notebook that doesn't accommodate your line preference. I mean, I'm very adamant about my lines, but I don't think it's that big a deal. Like the new right notepads are lined. I'll still use them. You know, that's not like a deal breaker for me. So yeah, that one's not a totally a thing.

Myke Hurley: All right. Should we take a break?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's do that. We got, we got plenty more to talk about here.

Myke Hurley: Well, we sure do. Today's show is brought to you by our friends over at Penn Chalet. Penn Chalet have all of your favorite brands and all of your favorite writing implements. Whether you're looking for roller balls or fountain pens, ballpoints and mechanical pencils, you can find it over at Penn Chalet. They have all of the refills that you need, all of the carrying cases that you're looking for. If you're going to a pen show every now and then they have one of those big pen wallet dealio things, the folios, they're real great to get if you're going to be taking a bunch of pens anywhere. You know, we were talking last time about, um, was it Tessa who was moving? Mm-hmm. And they're really great for moving. I found that out, like getting one of those big leather folios. That stuff's really great. Yes. Penn Chalet are always doing discounts, great discounts. They have closeout specials. They run special discounts all the time. They have great reliable service, fast shipping. They sell internationally as well with very reasonable shipping rates. And if you're in the US, you'll get free shippings on orders of over $50. They offer high quality pens at a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Go to PennChalet.com. That's P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. Click the podcast link at the top of the website. Enter the password PennAddict for this week's special offer and to get the code that you need to save 10% on any order at Penn Chalet. This week's very special offer. You can get a Monteverde Prima fountain pen at 50% off plus the 10% coupon. And if you buy one of these Monteverde Prima fountain pens, you will get a free Monteverde green ballpoint pen as well. So huge discounts and free stuff. That is what you get this week from Penn Chalet.

Brad Dowdy: So you get a fountain pen and a ballpoint for less than $40. Yep. That's crazy. That's not bad. That is not bad at all. God, and they still have this Lamy Pure ballpoint that I keep not buying, but I keep wanting to buy. Maybe it's time to buy it. I can get you 10% off, you know. Did you scroll down this list though? But before you tell me how to get 10 more percent off, scroll down this list and tell me if anything stands out to you. So there's a pen that I've, I won't say I've been wanting because I don't want it, but a pen I have been aware of for a few years. It's called the Visconti Penifrina and it's Visconti's retractable, you know, vanishing point style. Oh yeah. A fountain pen. Apparently there's a rollerball version of this, which I've never seen before. I mean, it's crazy expensive. I'd never buy this in a million years. But the pictures of these pens are so cool. I just don't know how useful they would be. I just like looking at them because they're so wild. Zero love for this pen. Yeah. Like, yeah. So Dan, Dan Smith, the Nib Smith had one in, uh, one of the fountain pen models and he took a bunch of pictures of it cause he'd never gotten to hold one before. And it's just amazing. Holy moly.

Myke Hurley: Have you seen the rainbow one? This is not in the office. This is not in the office.

Brad Dowdy: No, no, no, no, no, no. That's the fountain pen. The fountain pen rainbow one is the one I'm talking about. It's insane. I just didn't know there was a rollerball and Ron has a rollerball. He does have the Porsche design fountain pens, which I've always been hammered by. Those are nice looking.

Myke Hurley: If you do want one of those rainbow ones, you get 10% off of it, which will go a long way on a pen that costs nearly $2,000.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: They're insane. Wow.

Brad Dowdy: They're insane.

Myke Hurley: Thank you so much to Pen Chalet for supporting this week's show. I'll just say that right now.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Pen Chalet. And, uh, I love looking at this pen. You know, one of these days, maybe I'll get to try one, but I will not own that pen. Mark it down. No way. If you want to try some Pelican pens, the Pelican hubs are coming up. Do you remember these from last year, Myke? Remember the, I have, uh, Pelican gets, you know, people in cities all around the world to get together. Oh, Pelican parties. Pelican fans. Yeah. Yeah. They send out some swag to a bunch of parties and everyone kind of gets together around the same timeframe. I think it's over a week or two span, depending on the area you're in. But if we have the link in the show notes to go to sign up for your local hub, you can even, you can run one yourself. You can sign up for one that is nearby. I have not been to one of these. And one of these years, I'm gonna have to do it. I know Joe from the gentleman stationer in Nashville. I know he's part of that one. And, um, you know, there's some people in the Slack room that are hub masters for their cities. And it's always a fun event to read about. There's always, um, great pictures. And, you know, some people have sent me some pads from, you know, that Pelican sends out. And I was scrolling through the hub list. I think there's 131 of them right now all over the world. So wherever you're at, you can probably find one that's close by. That's a lot. And Pelican provides like a lot of swag. I know last year, I, did they send the ink to everybody? Like the limited edition ink? That would be, you know, not just, you know, like one bottle for everyone to try, like in the swag bag for everyone. I mean, that seems kind of insane. That can't be right. Is it? That doesn't sound right. At least if they did it, it must've been as tiny bottle. Yeah. No, no, it was the full size bottle.

Myke Hurley: So how did they afford that?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, um, I know that must, that can't be right. So maybe they sent like Tony saying, uh, you know, they were, there were pads, cartridges, bottles, all kinds of stuff. No pads. So yeah, if you should, you should go follow this link, see if one's around and, you know, check it out because, uh, Pelican, Pelican really goes all out for this event and it's growing every year. I'm looking at some of these signups, like the New York one has like 60 something people signed up. You know, most, a lot of the other ones have 20, 30, 40 people signed up. It's kind of crazy. So yeah, very cool. So this is something I didn't know existed until I put a shout out in the Slack room for any, uh, anything we needed to talk about this week. And one of the Slack members created a website called Fountain Pen Companion. And you can, you can go to fountainpencompanion.com, but the quick link is fpc.ink and it'll send you over there. It's essentially an ink database for you to track all your inks, to share your list with other ink junkies, um, and compare, you know, do you want to send samples? You, are you trying to try out an entire range of ink? Who has these other inks? You know, are we a match? Can we find like samples we can share with each other? It's just kind of a neat tracking tool, um, that's being played around with. And I think it's a really good idea. What do you think about this, Myke?

Myke Hurley: If you want to track your ink, then great. It's good to have a tool for it, right? Like, yeah, I can track my ink just based on opening a drawer.

Brad Dowdy: Uh, yeah, you don't have a lot of insane. Like a lot of us are. No. So yeah, I think this is really cool. And, um, it's a gentleman named Urban, I believe in the, in the Slack channel. And I think you can even if, I know a lot of people who are really into ink and tracking everything that they have, they have spreadsheets. And I think he'll even like import Excel files into your, you know, your user account for this. So I think it's just a, a kind of neat thing to see the community creating things like this just for fun, just for other people to use because they think it'll be useful. I think it's kind of great. Don't you?

Myke Hurley: Oh, definitely. I just like seeing people make tools like this. Like, I think that's great. I think it's fun.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I get emails saying, Hey, I'm thinking about creating this app or creating, um, this website. Do you think people would use it? And I'm just like, absolutely. You know, even if only a few people use it, number one, it's hopefully fun for you to create and explore and experiment. You know, what skills you, you need to have to build these types of sites or these apps. And number two, it gives us something fun to check out, talk about, share, um, with the community. And that's, that's why everyone, you know, loves pens and ink and paper and pencils so much is because it's really inexpensive to get into. And you can share it with other people like really, really easily that are into the same type of thing. So it's very cool. I like it a lot.

Community Awareness

Brad Dowdy: All right. So this next topic is an interesting one and I want to bring it up. And I think everyone in the community is aware, but our good, good friends at CW pencils are having building issues where their retail shop is in New York city. And it's not just them. It's like the whole strip of shops that are in this one particular building. They don't have the specifics, but they put a note out. Let me read this real quick. If you're not familiar, it says, dear friends and neighbors, we have temporary closed due to a serious safety issue with our building. We're working with our landlord to get this resolved as soon as possible. In the meantime, we'll hope you'll continue to support us online at CW pencils.com where we'll be operating as usual. We'll post update on social media as needed. Please get in touch. If we can help you with anything, thank you for your love and support. Finally, your friends at CWPE. This is where I think our community thrives and does great work when there's people that support us, support bloggers, support, you know, customers run amazing shops, do wonderful curated work. When we can go out and help them when they're probably getting hammered by not having this retail storefront open because I know it's a popular destination. It's summertime. There's a lot of people vacationing. I don't know that it hurts the bottom line, but I, my guess is that it would greatly. And it sounds kind of open-ended, like they don't know exactly what's going on. So all I can say is I'm not telling you to go spend money. I don't like telling people to do that. But if there's an opportunity for you to support CW pencils online, if you're needing something, if there's something you've been looking at it now might be the time to pull the trigger. Like if you have, you know, a wishlist or a cart or something filled, you know, it's, it'd be nice to make sure that they get through this A-OK. I have every feeling that they will. I hope so. I hope it's not too big and I hope it gets resolved quickly. But that's got to be scary. As someone who owns a small business, I don't know if I would be able to sleep at night. I would be scared, quite honestly. This is a scary thing to have a retail shop where you cannot go physically, open the door and let people come in and purchase things because your expenses are not going away while this is happening. So anything anyone can do to support them, I hope you do. You know, it's a, it's a good thing to look at, you know, if you're shopping for any new stationery, especially pencils. I think it'd be pretty cool to support them any way we can and, you know, and hopefully they'll get through this and come out on the other side here unscathed. But yeah, it's, it's, it's scary. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I hope that it's, it's whilst serious, not so serious that it is disruptive to them in the long term. And I hope that they're able to get out of it and get things taken care of shortly. Um, and I hope that they will be back somewhere and then I can go visit them when I'm in New York in August. I hope that it's all resolved for them before then.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure they'll let everyone know, um, you know, as soon as possible.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm going, I'm going to go shop there. I think we got to. Yep. All right. So we had another list, um, that appeared in our inboxes and our, our Twitter feeds. You know, when you threw up that Buzzfeed one, I was like, well, I guess everyone's not very busy this summer because Wired did an article for, uh, it's titled, oh, it's a fountain pen buying guy, but it's called ink different with these seven sensibly priced fountain pens. This is kind of a weird article. Um, and Wired has always been very good on the stationary front. Like I remember, I still follow, um, Adam Rogers who still works at Wired, you know, years and years ago, I worked with him when I was at jet pens to put together, you know, like products and articles and, and things like that. He's a really good follow on Twitter at jet Jocko. If you ever want to follow him, he's a good guy. Um, he didn't put together this list, but, um, it's decent. Like I like, I like, you know, the platinum preppy is number one and I can't really argue with that. It's like three, four bucks.

Myke Hurley: Well, there, there, there, so there are a bunch of answers on this list, which are mine and your answers to the question, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. I just wouldn't include things that are, well, that are the, the numesine for one and the Parker urban for two wouldn't make any of our lists just because they're a little bit odd. They're a little bit more expensive. They're not in the case of the numesine. I don't think their quality control is up to par. The Parker I think is more expensive. You know, there's not a TWSBI eco on here, which is my glaring omission. I do like the fact that they included the Muji fountain pen because it's very popular. I don't have one or use one. Actually, I think I do have one. I don't use one, but I think it's fair because everyone really likes the Muji brand and they do some, some good quality stuff. And the Kaweco classic sports on there, which I think is a great pen. So I don't know that I would change a lot, but there are a couple of questionable, questionable entries on here that I think could have been like, if you see a TWSBI eco in this roundup, it's going to really stand out. You know, I think that would be a strong choice.

Myke Hurley: I think I would struggle to get seven though, right? Like I can see how pens like the Muji and the, the Nemecine get in here because I don't know. I mean, you know, I would agree. I would swap out one of them, but I think I'd start to struggle.

Brad Dowdy: Well, then I'd swap out, I'd put the pilot Kakuno in there would be my other one. Oh, that's a good one. I would put out the eco. I put the eco and the Kakuno in there. That's kind of like, and I think that would be a pretty good top seven. I actually wouldn't have been opposed to seeing the pilot varsity in there, which is their disposable fountain pen. It's not a great pen, but it's kind of a good gateway pen for people who've never used a fountain pen. They're about three or four bucks. You can get them, you know, at office supply stores. I wouldn't have been opposed to seeing that in there. If you're going to put the preppy in there, I think the varsity is a good choice. Even though I would, I would pick the preppy first. I would have the varsity in there as another really, really low cost option. If you weren't going to do the eco or the Kakuno, but it's a good list. It's cool to see this on wired. You know, I like, you know, the seeing stationary, you know, out there in the bigger picture kind of way. So it's very cool.

Retro 51 Tornado

Brad Dowdy: All right. I think, gosh, we, I think we got all our topics covered. Let's hit a few Ask TPA and then, and then I think we, I think we have a show for today, Michael. Good. Before you melt. Yeah. Before I melt. That is true. So it's actually, I guess since I've been talking and thinking, well, someone, I guess we could, thinking is arguable, but my mind has been off it. So, uh, good.

Myke Hurley: We'll just do this for four hours then.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so let's find, let's find Tommy song, a gel ink refill for the retro 51 tornado. This is a constant question we get, and there is no perfect answer because there's no perfect gel fit other than I think Monteverde's, but they don't come in a very fine tip size. So you have to hack it. And there are plenty of hacks that you can get a gel ink pen. And our friend of the show, Jimmy Reeks, um, has a website called pins and planes where he writes, and he has a pin hacks post. And looking through that for the retro 51, you can use the Uniball Signo 207, Uniball Jetstream, the Pilot G2, or the Pentel inner gel with just by just trimming the ends of the barrels to get them fit. So those are the kind of the ones you want to look at. Um, if you're not going to go for like a, a, a Monteverde kind of stock refill, if you want to use one of your favorite gel ink pens and you can get the finer tip size, those are the ones you just kind of want to match it up lengthwise to the existing Schmidt refill and trim off the ends until you get a good fit in there. And that's going to be the best, best thing to do for your retro 51s. I actually haven't done this yet, which I need to do that because I like them. Um, and I, I, I like the Schmidt refill as it is. So I don't tend to change them because I have gel ink refills and every other pen. So I might as well keep that in there. So I've never really gotten into that.

Brad Dowdy: Do you, do you keep all the Schmidt refills in your retros or do you hack any? You don't never change it.

Myke Hurley: Never, ever. I love that refill. It's my favorite refill I've ever made.

Brad Dowdy: I change them into the 8126 from the 8127, but I don't worry about it.

Myke Hurley: I consider that a perfectly canonical, um, change outside of that. I feel like you're doing some kind of horrific surgery on a beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: So Myke says, don't hack your retros, right?

Myke Hurley: I really don't think you should, but if you don't like it, I get it. But I really think you should keep it in the Schmidt family.

Brad Dowdy: All right. All right. Fair enough. All right. Yesterday's pens wants to know, and we actually got a, uh, a similar question to this in the Slack room. Would you prefer one fountain pen for $1,000 or four to five fountain pens over time to total $1,000? Do you want to take a stab at this first? Cause I have a pretty clear answer on this.

Myke Hurley: So do I, four to five over a period of time. Like I, I wouldn't want to just have one pen that costs that much money. Um, I would prefer to stack it out. Like I have done, I'm happy with the route that I've taken over my pen buying history so far.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So I totally agree. I think you will get more enjoyment out of your writing if you had three or four or five fountain pens over time, because you can try different nib sizes. You can have three of them inked up with three different ink colors. You can try different brands. I, I think four or five pens to total $1,000, I think is a really, really great way to go over the longterm because you could have like a pilot eight 23 and a Lamy 2000 and a sailor pro gear. And you can have all these, there's so many good pens in the $200 range, you know, give or take, you know, $50 that you would end up with three or four or five pens that you will seriously enjoy. And I think you will enjoy them more than a single $1,000 pen. So that's my take. Now, the problem is when you don't stop and there's a podcast for that. It's called the pen addict. You should come join us. Hi, how you doing? Hey, it's been. Zero days since I've purchased a pen.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So this is a hard one. We're going to throw this to the crowd. I have a thought, but I don't know that it's accurate, but I think it's a really good question. Any advice for a fountain pen ink to match the color of the Statue of Liberty right on the knife edge between green and blue? So the first thing that came to my head was Diablo Mint from J. Herban. It's a really bright, light green, but in the minty kind of thing. You know, it's that, that copper green. I don't even know what you call or that. Call that color. But yeah, so we're getting like in the chat room saying Diamine Soft Mint. So I'm thinking around that same type of color. Do you have any idea? Like, I don't use that color. That's not a color that appeals to me. I can't say how accurate that is. I have two issues. For a match.

Myke Hurley: One being the fact that, you know, I don't have an extensive ink knowledge. The other is I've never seen the Statue of Liberty. So, you know, I'm familiar that it's green, but I've never paid that much attention to the color.

Brad Dowdy: Well, you've seen the Statue of Liberty retro 51. Well, sure, but not in person.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. I mean, you know, Canalea pens makes, makes pens based off photographs. You know, I've seen photographs of things that look pretty accurate. I've never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, but I've seen a picture.

Myke Hurley: I'm obviously being silly, but, but the, the, the real answer is I couldn't tell you the name of more than one green ink.

Brad Dowdy: So. Yeah. Well, I think I'm on the right track. The, uh, the chat room saying Diablo Mint, Diamine Soft Mint, Sailor Kobe number 13, um, KWZ Mint. Menthol green. So you want to kind of, you want to kind of get in that range, a lighter, softer green, uh, more in the minty green. So start looking in that category. So, uh, so yeah, um, Myke's no help. He's, he's claiming, um, he's claiming, um, British royalty rights instead of Statue of Liberty. I don't know what that means. All right. I absolutely love this last question because I've gone mental over this. It's a very simple question and it's very hard to answer in my opinion. And our good friend, Tony Scullum Breen at everyday commentary says, and he's a lawyer, I need a good pen for redactions. So, the conventional wisdom in my head says, okay, Sharpie. That's what redactions should be used for. But is it really? And what paper are you using? And is it typed? And can it be washed off the page? Are you getting, are you talking about first generation paper redactions or photocopied after redacting redactions? I think this is a very deep question that should be simple, but I don't think it's even remotely simple. You know, can you see the letters on the back? Will the chemical composition of the ink allow the cartridge ink on the sheet to show through after? I wish I had the perfect answer. I think it would be some sort of pigmented black ink pen almost, or even like Sailor Nano black fountain pen ink. But I don't know. I don't think this is a, am I taking this too seriously? This is all I've been thinking about, that I don't have a great answer for this, because I think it's on like 50 different levels of what you really need.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, this feels like a risky one to give an answer to, right? Because there are so many permutations, there are so many potential slip-ups for where this wouldn't work. It feels to me like there isn't a really a good answer, right? Like I assume that there are probably not many tools that you can use to do this effectively.

Brad Dowdy: So I think like Sharpie on the front end, then photocopied is perfectly fine if you're handing out photocopies. But on the originals is where I don't have a great answer. And I think that's why I enjoy this question so much, because I think it's extremely, like you could go wrong on this pretty easily. And we've all seen things on the internet that have been redacted that people have backed out, you know, in certain ways. So I'm open for emails and tweets on this, and I'll pass them on to Tony, because I don't have experience with it or have tested it, and I don't think it's a straightforward answer. Nope. But that's why I love the question so much, right? It's an amazing question, because now I have to think about all these different things, and that's how obsessive we are over pens and paper, that we want to get the right redaction pen and not have any issues going forward with it. So, yeah, wonderful question. I'll find out some more for you, Tony, but absolutely love it.

Myke Hurley: I would like to just say at this point that the Pen Anic Podcast is not responsible for any failed or missing redactions, provided to your paperwork. That was, wow, you're a professional podcaster.

Brad Dowdy: That was tight.

Myke Hurley: I got an official statement from my legal team.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, good. That was quick. That was quick. So let's redact a lot of what I said in this show, because I'm having heat stroke, and we'll look forward to next week. So we'll just call this episode redacted. Sorry, I got all my notes. I know where I'm cutting you out.

Stationery Wiki

Brad Dowdy: All right, mate, get us out of here. And I know you're going to shout out to the Stationery Wiki in the closing. And I want to say, Myke, do you know that we have our own page now? Like, there's a Brad Doughty page. Oh, they did it? And a Myke, they did it. They did it. I love this.

Myke Hurley: Somebody sent a tweet to us, and we're like, oh, the most wanted pages are the Myke and Brad pages. And I was really genuinely heart-warned that there was only one more request for you than me. I cannot tell you. Like, I was just expecting to get to the end of that tweet, and it's like 75 million people want to know who Brad is. And four people are interested in a page from Myke. That's how I thought it was going to happen here. So I'm very, very pleased for that.

Brad Dowdy: So I know who did mine. Let me give him a shout out. I've got to pull up the tweet now. Spencer. Spencer did mine.

Myke Hurley: I would like to give a huge thank you to whoever fixed the number ordering on the index page. Somebody's fixed it. Because that drove me bananas, and now it's done. Look at that. Oh, look at that. So what I like about this. Oh, man. Someone's really going with this history. Early life and education. Yeah. Early attended George Queen's sixth form. How do you know that about me? Yeah. Wow. Trust me. Is that on my Wikipedia page?

Brad Dowdy: I don't know if you know Brad Dowdy, but I have a page on Wikipedia. You're kind of a big deal. You have a real big boy page. You and Jimmy Wales go out for drinks.

Myke Hurley: We do. No, that's not on my Wikipedia page. Interesting. I don't. Honestly, I don't know how that got on there, but okay. I mean, yes, it is true. But everything else that's on my page here, I think, is taken from the Wikipedia page, which makes a lot of sense.

Brad Dowdy: Well, I have no Wikipedia page, but they did pull out some stuff on there for me. So, yeah. It's very cool. So thank you, everyone. Who's doing this wiki?

Brad Dowdy: It's pretty amazing. Yep. We talk about, we rave about the community time and time and time and time again. I'll never get tired of talking about the community around Stationery. Just being great people and coming together and put a resource together like this that's time and labor intensive just shows a lot to the character of the people in this community. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who listens and works on things like this and keeps it fun for everyone else.

Myke Hurley: I love the running jokes compilation, which has begun.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, there's a booger sucker sentry. Oh, God. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: On the PenEdit page, for example, Brad shocks Myke with an obscure fact about a pen. Myke is shocked that he can temporarily erase friction ink.

Myke Hurley: I'm not a fountain pen expert. Brad Dowdy. That's right there.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Love it. It's amazing. All right. Get us out of here. I'm sweating to the oldies here. All right.

Myke Hurley: So you want to go to stationery.wiki for the wiki. You can tweet at us with the hashtag AskTPA. So submit questions for us to answer on the show. There is a subreddit, which is r slash penaddict. If you're interested in that, you can sign up. There's a small community building there as well. Me and Brad are online on social networks on Twitter and Instagram. If you want to find us both on Twitter, I'm at imikeinyke. Brad is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. Brad is penaddict on Instagram. I am imike on Instagram. And you can find Brad's other amazing works over at penaddict.com. You should go sign up for his membership newsletter so you can get refill in your inbox every Sunday. Saturday or Sunday, is it, Brad? Saturday mornings. Saturday morning. I tend to read it on a Sunday. So that's where that comes in my brain. It's my favorite. Continues to be my favorite newsletter for any membership that I have. And I'll say that to anybody that asks me. It is fantastic. I love it. I absolutely love it. Thank you. Brad does such a fantastic job of it every single week. There is literally zero reason for not subscribing unless you don't have the money. If you don't have the money, that's okay. But if you do have the money, then you should be giving Brad your money. And go to knock.co so you can give more of your money to Brad in exchange for goods in a real kind of like just a medieval setting of, you know, you have money, you exchange the money, and then you receive a nylon bag. I think that's pretty medieval. Transaction has taken place. That's what Game of Thrones is all about, right? It's about exchanging money for nylon bags. That must be where you like it. I know everything that happens. I know all the plot points. Yeah. We have gold coin bags for sale for sure. Brad, summer is coming. Oh, summer is here, buddy. Let me tell you.

Myke Hurley: Thanks for listening, everyone. Thank you to Penn Chalet for supporting the episode. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.