The Pen Addict 199/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	199
Title:	It's Almost Like You're a Professional
Release Date:	April 6th, 2016
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 199
Audio File:	Audio Episode 199
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 199
Length:	7474 min <br />1.233 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 199. Today's show is brought to you by Harry's Squarespace and the Timber Twist Bullet Pencil Kickstarter. My name is Myke Hurley, and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: $199, I'm out of my mind.

Myke Hurley: One more to go, baby. I can't believe it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it's, uh, I'm like way too busy to even function these days, but $200 is right around the corner. But $199 is going to be pretty awesome in its own right, I think.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we've got a big show today, and yeah, I'm excited about it. Actually, there's some stuff in here that I'm excited to talk about.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, there's lots of stuff here.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, we should probably just dig right in.

Field Notes Notebooks

Brad Dowdy: You go first, because I'm anxious about our very first topic right out the gate.

Myke Hurley: So I received my sweet tooths.

Myke Hurley: I'd just say, like, this was the first one of my new subscription, and I just want to say this in case anybody at Field Notes is listening. Give me the option to not get more craft notebooks when my subscription renews. You've actually mentioned that before. Like, please, just let me check a box or something. Or just don't do it for renewing people. I'd have to throw them away or give them away. But, like, the people that I'm giving them away to already have stacks of them, because I keep giving them every time. Because I have so many Field Notes now, I can't keep them at home. You know? So please just let me stop getting them. But anyway, quick aside. This is a great, great edition for reasons that are completely different to what we would usually love a Field Notes edition for. It's very different. It has a great look. I love the foil stamping. And I'm really pleased that they chose the same colors as the paper, because it just looks different. Like, the easy option would have been to be, like, gold stamp on everything, right? But they chose, like, red, blue, and yellow, and I like that. I think that's a real nice touch. The paper is super thick and excellent. Obviously, I've tried everything with it, and I can't get anything to bleed through it. This is really great paper. And the perforation makes it something completely different. Like, I'm not going to use these, like, regular Field Notes. I'm going to use these for other things. So I already used one or two to leave some notes in the house. Hmm. It's kind of perfect for that, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, in lieu of a Post-it, for example.

Myke Hurley: Do you know what it made me wish that they would do one day? Is, like, a Field Notes with a little bit of adhesive on the other side of it or something.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. That'd be cool.

Myke Hurley: That'd be nice. That feels like it'd be super difficult to do. But, yeah, I really like these. I mean, look, one thing I don't like is that they just don't stay closed. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Mine's sitting on my desk, like, flipped open.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, there's nothing you can do about that. Like, so it's not a criticism because, like, the paper's so thick and I'm sure the perforations don't help. But I love the black staples, though. Yeah, this is a real fine addition, as I say, for reasons that are completely different. I don't know how highly this would rank in my top list because it's, like, so different to what I use Field Notes for. But I think this is another really great gift addition as well, maybe for people that don't usually use this sort of stuff. If Adina saw them and she really liked them, but I don't have extras for her this time because I didn't buy extras.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. All mine, baby.

Brad Dowdy: I'm pretty much with you. I mean, I think it's good looking. I agree both on the foil and on the perf. The perf is really, really great. It's strong and ripped straight out. I'm just not going to use it, the addition. I mean, I opened the three-pack, used the one I test with, gave the other two to the kids. They're running around the house with them, you know, making notes and things like that. So that's cool. But, I mean, I'm never going to reach for this notebook to use it for anything. So, I mean, I don't.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I wouldn't go that harsh. As I said, I would use it for different things to what I would usually use a notebook for or a Field Notes notebook for.

Brad Dowdy: Sure. No, and I think a lot of, I mean, obviously a lot of people are. And, you know, I think the perf is a great call. And I like it. The paper is really good.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, if they just did the colors, it would have been a mistake.

Brad Dowdy: Yes.

Myke Hurley: Like, if the paper was just red, red, yellow, and blue, I don't think it would have been as good an addition.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, it would have been.

Myke Hurley: But it's adding the perforation gives you a reason to have the paper be the way that it is.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right. And, you know, it's good. But, you know, I want to go back to your first point about the subscription. I think I'm at the point now where I'm just going to turn off my subscription. This was my first. This was my reboot subscription, too. And there's no. The quantities have gotten so high. And the perks are, I mean, nothing that really I need, you know, whether I get extra buttons or stickers or whatever they're doing at this particular time. To where I can just order them from Field Notes when they launch them, you know, order my two packs to two packs. And if for some reason there's a spectacular one order, you know, three or something like that. And, you know, skip the extra craft. Skip any extra goodies like this time was candy. I mean, you know.

Myke Hurley: I like getting that, though.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I understand where you're coming from, but I'm going to keep my subscription just so I don't have to go through the ordering process. Because I'm always going to want at least one set. I'm always going to want that. Even the ones that I know I'm never going to use, I still want them because I have a slight collector's mentality about this now. I'm not digging through and trying to get old ones. I have all of the old ones that I want. And I've been through that process, you know. Yeah. But I'm not going to fight or, like, I don't want to have to worry that I'm not going to get them. I just want to have them sent to me.

Myke Hurley: So, you know, I'm going to keep doing that. But as I say, I wish I didn't get those perks. I mean, I'm sure some people really love them, so I don't think they should get rid of them, like the extra craft. But I would like to say, don't send me the craft.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I do like you do. I give those away, especially to people who have no, you know, no, you know, they're not in this realm at all. Like someone who's like, you know, my in-laws or, you know, someone, you know, where they can have it and think it's, you know, kind of cool to have around the house or something like that.

Myke Hurley: But, yeah, there we go. So, yeah, thumbs up Sweet Tooth. I think they're still available.

Brad Dowdy: I'm sure they are. I mean, they'll be available. If they're not available in Field Notes, they're available at all the retailers.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they're not sold out yet. They're not sold out yet. So you can still go and get them. I recommend them. I think they're a nice...

Brad Dowdy: What is this edition count? Did they run this one lower than the previous one?

Myke Hurley: No, higher.

Brad Dowdy: Higher.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, they went with 30,000 on this edition.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting.

Brad Dowdy: Interesting.

Myke Hurley: I can't work that out anymore. The edition numbers are changing so rapidly.

Brad Dowdy: Well, just multiply it by three. 90,000.

Myke Hurley: No, no, no. I mean, like, why are they changing? So it went, like, 40,000 for Shenandoah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I don't know.

Myke Hurley: Didn't they do something with Shenandoah where they had to make their own of something?

Brad Dowdy: I don't think with that one.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: No, because that one just had, like, a thicker cover. That edition's great. I mean, that edition blows this one out of the water to me. But, you know, I'm particular about those things. Yeah. I actually bought extra Shenandoahs, and I hadn't bought extras in a while.

Myke Hurley: Oh, no. With the Shenandoah, they had to get duplex paper specially made for the covers.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. So the cover was special, but it was also specially made. So, yeah, maybe that was a quantity thing.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I expect that was a quantity thing. But they're all sold out, 40,000 of them.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, but they probably knew that... I would assume that they knew they didn't need to run as many of the Sweet Tooth, to be perfectly honest. I mean, they're business people. They understand.

Myke Hurley: 30,000 is still a really high standard edition. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: No, that's a huge, huge number.

Myke Hurley: And that's probably, again, because of the perforation and stuff like that. Like, run more because it costs more to make.

Moleskine

Brad Dowdy: Yes. Right. Yeah, manages the cost. Yep. You know, I talked about Field Notes a lot recently with my new buddy, Kevin Rose.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I listened to this this morning. All right, so you can keep trying to do this to me. The jealousy is real, but I got over it real quick once I started listening because it was awesome. So I listened to this this morning. I wanted to listen to it before the show. So this was the interview that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago where Brad was a part of Kevin Rose's podcast. I'll put a link to the blog post that you wrote about this so people can go and check it out for themselves. It was fantastic. I really loved the episode. I think that you did a good job. It's almost like you're a professional at this stuff. It sounded like you really knew what you were talking about. I could hear the nerves, though, in you. Got to say, I heard them.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I can talk fast. When I start talking that fast, it's like, woo.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. But you were doing a... You did a great job, though, naturally. Thank you. And it was fun. I loved some of the stuff. Like one of Kevin's first questions is, is there more than a Moleskine? And then I like that you went with Moleskine, right? You're like, come on, boy. I know what I'm talking about.

Brad Dowdy: Moleskine's allowed. That's one of the first things we did way back in the day was the Moleskine pronunciation. And that's what just stuck with me. But like, I can't say signo. I say signo.

Myke Hurley: I had this conversation recently at home because I can't remember how this came up. But we got into a conversation in my family about how it's pronounced, to which I kind of said, the actual official line is, there is no official pronunciation for this. Like, this is just how they do it. They don't have a real pronunciation.

Brad Dowdy: That actually makes me happy that they publicly say that. I mean, that's their stance on it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think that works. It's just like, let people just call it what they want to call it. So yeah, the episode was real good. I enjoyed it a lot.

Myke Hurley: I loved that Kevin Rose was clearly very interested. And he was asking you really great questions as well, you know?

Brad Dowdy: He was awesome. Like, I didn't know what to expect. Like, what will he know? But he was like, fully prepared for this. Had great questions. We recorded for like 50 minutes and he edited it down to like the 22 that we used. So we talked for a long while.

Myke Hurley: I'm not surprised.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And we actually talked a lot about pens and he took most of that stuff out because he wanted to keep it shorter in the end. But, you know, maybe we'll approach that again in a few months on the pen side of things.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And I also really liked that he thought originally it would be a nice 10 minute segment. It was like, boy, we're 109 episodes sitting over here. You can go along on this stuff.

Podcast History

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, we clearly have a problem.

Myke Hurley: And I have to say, right at the very end, and he said he was going to listen to the show. My brain exploded a little bit. Nah. Dude, I've got to say, I said before, a guy's a hero of mine, which makes all of this more embarrassing in case he is listening now. Which is going to make my next part even worse because this is something that I've been keeping in my back pocket for the last few weeks. I have a secret.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, how about it? So you guys who aren't privy to our show document, it's a great document. We have great notes and organizations to plan out this show. Then Myke has a little section here that says, Brad, don't click this. And I haven't clicked it yet. I stay true to my word. We do that to each other. Don't look at this before the show or something like that. So, yeah, I'm anxious to see what this is all about.

Myke Hurley: All right. So I'm putting a link in the show notes to an episode of Dignation on the 29th of June, 2006. Wow. Every week on the show, they used to do a listener write-in type thing for their t-shirts. So it was a really smart way to sell t-shirts. People would buy t-shirts, take pictures of themselves with a Dignation t-shirt on. And send in an email. And at the end of every episode, they would say, oh, who is our t-shirt person? Or they'd say winner, which is always like a joke of the show because you weren't winning anything. And if you click on that link, go to the video of 38 minutes. There's two subsequent links in the show notes. There's one which shows my email to them. And the second one, which I think you've clicked now before I was going to tell you to, is the picture of me. What? Nearly 10 years ago. Oh, my God. My Dignation shirt, which is shown in the video. And it's quite funny to go back and listen because you get to hear Kevin and Alex laugh about my name and such with the mic with the Y.

Brad Dowdy: We're going to have to end the show here because it's not going to get any better. Plus, I keep dying and I'm coughing. And it's amazing. This is great. This is awesome. This is the kind of stuff that you should remember. It's really great. I mean, it's embarrassing as I'll get out now, but it's still awesome at the same time, right?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I have been looking for this for weeks because I knew... You knew it was out there. I knew it was out there. And I knew... I remembered what the setup of the episode looked like. You know, because it was a video show, right? And I remembered it was Kevin and Alex sitting in a blue room. So I've had to check a bunch of episodes and I found it this morning. And I was so happy that I found it because I've been looking for this. Because this kind of means something to me now. Dignation was the first podcast I ever watched. And now I do this for a living. And I'm really happy that I did this because now I am in that episode, right? Like, it kind of... I don't know. Like, it ties it all up.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And when you say Kevin's one of your heroes, I mean, this isn't hyperbole. I mean, this is like, you knew at a younger age... I mean, you're still a young guy. But, you know, you knew when you started podcasting that there was a guy you looked up to. And that was doing things that you enjoyed. And you respected and liked what he did. And, you know, he has obviously blown up into huge, great things. And now look at you blowing up into huge, great things, too. So, you know, it's pretty cool to see all this kind of tie together. I like it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, it's real funny to me that it exists. And it shows that I have very little shame in these things that I'm willing to put it out into the world.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You're sending people in the chat room to their inhalers because they're coughing so hard. So, this is pretty amazing.

Myke Hurley: So, that will be in the show notes for people to go and check out. I encourage you to go and watch, actually watch it and listen to what they had to say because it was quite funny. So, yeah, you'll get to see...

Brad Dowdy: Do you want me to send Kevin links to those pictures?

Myke Hurley: Maybe he is listening now and has found it. You can feel free to send them to him if you wish.

Brad Dowdy: That would be funny.

Myke Hurley: To your buddy.

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Well, maybe we'll see if he listens. We'll see how that goes.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I can just live my horror.

Brad Dowdy: Nah, it's good. I mean... No, I'm... I'm very happy. We all have this stuff in our history, that's for sure.

Myke Hurley: At the end of the day, if I didn't want people to see this, I just wouldn't have put it in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is one of those things no one would have known unless you brought it out there. So, it's cool that you did and you can laugh about it now.

Myke Hurley: Nobody has ever mentioned this to me. No one's ever found it on their own. You know, this show is old now, right? Like, it's 10 years old at this point. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, nobody... I don't think there were a lot of people going back and watching the whole run that also know who I am. But now it's there and I've... It's out in public now so people can go and find it if they want to.

Kickstarter Campaign

Brad Dowdy: Amazing.

Myke Hurley: Let's take a break. I feel like we have to. I set up the show so we take a break now so we can calm down again.

Myke Hurley: This week's episode is brought to you by the Timber Twist Kickstarter campaign. The original Twist bullet pencil was conceived after John Fontaine started to see the work of Jay of Huckleberry Woodchuck and what Jay was doing to refurbish vintage versions of the bullet pencil. And for John, it was a love at first sight. The original Twist was launched on Kickstarter in October of 2014, was funded in early November, and started delivery by mid-December of that year. Then in 2015, they added some new colours to the line-up and continued to sell their products online and at a handful of retailers as well. But they have a new product. The new Timber Twist was the brainchild of a machinist at one of John's shops who thought the tube would look cool in wood. And something that I think is really cool is that the name, the Timber, was actually conceived by a friend of the show, Andy Welfly, after a call was put out to the erasable group to give it a name. The Timber's body is actually three different components. An aluminium eraser end, the aluminium bullet end, and a wood sleeve which is available in red cedar, mahogany, and walnut finishes. So that's light, medium, with a red hint, and dark wood in that order. Each wood piece is lathe-sanded and friction-polished, and the Timber will also work with all existing twist bullets, caps, and pocket-clip systems. So if you add any additions, you can kind of mix and match them a little bit. Like the original, the Timber Twist is a rugged, modular pencil point protector for every day carry. Each Timber Twist comes with three pencils and two erasers, and they're already cut, sharpened, and prepped, so you'll be able to be ready to go straight out of the box. Now, listen up, okay? This is a special deal for you guys, and I want to make sure you're paying attention. There's just under a week left of the Kickstarter campaign, and the early bird for this campaign has already sold out. But John and Jay have a sweet hook-up for listeners of this show. If you go to their Kickstarter page, link and instructions will be in the show notes, and you select the no-reward tier on their page, and you pledge either $38 for the aluminium or $40 for the brass, you'll get a Timber Twist at the early bird pricing. If you live outside of the U.S., you'll need to add $10 to each of those prices for shipping. So you just enter in the total price, $38 or $40, plus the shipping if you need it, and they will ship you out a Timber Twist. They'll take care of it. They just need to see the numbers, and they'll know exactly what you've done. Thank you so much to John, Jay, and the Timber Twist for supporting this week's episode.

Brad Dowdy: Can I brag on these guys for a minute? I would love you to. So I followed Huckleberry Woodchuck for a while. He's been a follower of mine, Jay, on Instagram, and I follow him on Instagram. He was making these handkerchiefs, and he still does, that I always followed. But then he would kind of intersperse all these old bullet pencils from the farm, the feed factory. Like Draplin talks about the Americana stuff where they had these feed books and these fertilizer books, and that's where they came from. Well, they'd also give you one of these bullet pencils to carry it with your book. And Jay would refurbish these and resell them, and it was really cool. And then when John got involved, I had no idea anything about John, but they collaborated on this first, the Bullet Twist. It's a killer product. They did a bang-up job. The all-aluminum barrel of the ones that I have are great. I actually have two of them. I have a red anodized and a blue anodized. And they look great. They fit in. The tip, the bullet tip screws off, so you kind of unthread that, flip it around. That's what pulls out the probably little more than a third length of a pencil. In this case, they used the Blackwing 206, which is awesome. You flip that around, and then you screw the back end back into the holder of the bullet, and you kind of have like a full-length writing instrument at that point. But you could just use the pencil out on the little short, nubby end if you wanted, but I always use it by screwing it back in. So then when he came out with these wood ones, I was like, well, dang, this is like really what I want out of that product. You know, it just looks great with the wooden pencils and the different wood. What is it? It's mahogany, walnut, and I'm blanking on the third one. Cedar. So they look great. He also has in, when I backed it, I backed it a couple weeks ago, I backed it with the brass tip. So the brass bullet, instead of an aluminum bullet on the tip, it's brass. So I backed it with the brass one. It looks really cool. I'm going to get the walnut. I think for mine, the dark with the brass. And you can use different pencils in these. They ship you three, like cut off, like ready to go black wings. And what's cool about this one, as opposed to the aluminum one, is they put the pink eraser in these, which I think looks better than the white erasers that they used on the aluminum one. And the racers weren't that awesome quality anyway. I haven't tested this one out, but it looks better, I think. And, you know, they knew that from the first one that the eraser is just so and so. So they they improved it here. So this is just a fascinating product to me. This is why shows like ours exist, I think, because like the community loves these kind of things. Like this kind of stuff doesn't happen like five and ten years ago when there's not Kickstarter and there's not a community to share in cool products that you can't buy at a store. There's not people being innovative and creative. And what John and Jay have done here is exactly that. They've taken an old product. They've made it better and then they've made it to the aesthetic that people like ourselves are drawn to. And when you see that happen, it just, you know, fills my heart. I mean, I love seeing this, you know, and I love supporting people who make things like this. I mean, it's a big deal to, you know, put your time and effort behind a project like this and get it out there. And they do a fantastic job. And I couldn't recommend this project highly enough.

Myke Hurley: So go check it out. All the links and information you need will be in our show notes. Relay.fm slash penaddict slash 199.

Myke Hurley: So you were obviously interviewed on Kevin Rose's podcast, but you've been all over the shop this week.

Brad Dowdy: I had a busy week last week. Like my schedule last week was just like book solid in all different times, time zones and all kinds of stuff. So I did I did two other really, really fun podcasts last week. One was something I got wind of about a month ago was asked to do by the Erasable folks, which we know is Andy, Tim and Johnny. Except it wasn't them who reached out to me. It was Caroline Weaver and Caitlin and Alex from CW Pencils in New York. And they had discussed with the Erasable guys about doing an April Fool's edition of the Erasable podcast and doing an all pen edition. And they asked me to be a guest. And I about died when she emailed me. I was like, this is like one of the most perfect things ever. Absolutely. I will do it. So we did that. We had a lot of fun. So that that episode is out, came out on April 1st. It was the big Erasable April Fool's joke, which is cool. And no, Caitlin and Caroline and Alex will not be selling you pens in the CW Pencil Enterprise store anytime soon. And then I had a different podcast with Martin from Glasgow, who has been emailing me and talking to me for a while. You know, kind of getting feedback like on podcasts and doing things. And he always said, well, when I'm ready to launch mine, I want to interview you and we'll talk about things. We'll talk about pen stuff, but we'll talk about other stuff, too. So Martin and I just had an awesome conversation on. It's called the Play Repeat Podcast. And if you haven't listened to that, I implore you to do so. We'll have the links in the show notes. You know, we talked about pens and paper and things like that, but we talked about a lot of different things. We talked about life stuff and, you know, other things I'm into like baseball and music and have these interesting discussions. And Martin did an awesome job interviewing me. And hopefully I'll be back on with him again because he's a pleasure to talk to.

Myke Hurley: Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, sir. So we have this next item. So I'm not going to I'm going to I'm going to fess up here. I've known about this since like, of course, January. Yeah, I don't have to keep it. I've been having to keep it secret this whole time. And I got to see images of it in L.A. because what we're talking about is the Joey Feldman Vaness Pens Retro 51.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, Joey lives out in L.A. So we were out in L.A. They were finalizing some of the artwork and, you know, showing me a few things and going over a few things. And from that time, I was blown away with it. And that was when we're just seeing like paper sketches and styles. You know, like I saw a print, like a large print that this came from. This design came from. And I loved it the minute I saw it. And then how they replicated it onto this pen is nothing short of stunning. And they whatever Retro 51 is doing, you know, we love them. I mean, as far as, you know, Myke and I are concerned, they can do no wrong. Yeah. But what they pulled off here is really spectacular. And I'm just a huge fan of it. And it's an original Joey Feldman piece. And I love Joey's artwork style. That's like an aesthetic that speaks to me. So I love how it turned out. And not only that, they made it so if you buy, there's two models. If you buy the one with the red clip, that's the higher end model. You get a print of the artwork that this was made from inside the tube. What do you think about this whole thing, Myke?

Myke Hurley: It's a stunner. I've pre-ordered the red one. I think this thing is awesome. And I tell you something now. You probably might know a little bit more about this than I do. But something I quite like is it's called Artist Series with Joey Feldman. So I'm hoping there'll be more of these.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I think we all are at this point.

Myke Hurley: This is just beautiful. I love it. I can't wait to get it. It's like a match made in heaven type scenario, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I ordered the red one as well. And I'm going to give that away someday to Panatic members down the line when it's no longer available. And it's kind of got that, oh, it's gone cachet. I ordered one to hold to give away because I'm evil like that. But there's no way I could turn this thing down. It's that cool. I really, really like it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I cannot wait to get mine.

Brad Dowdy: I cannot wait.

Myke Hurley: Do you reckon they'll be in Atlanta?

Brad Dowdy: That's a good question. It's on the edge. I mean, right now I'm going to say no. But if it is, I'm going to buy a black one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be down to the wire. Put it that way.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: And I can't say which way it's going to go just because it's going to be that close to delivery time.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Well, I'm very excited to get mine.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So Lisa's actually in the chat room. She says not sure. So that's how close it is. If Lisa doesn't know, nobody knows. Oh, wait. Lisa's here. Can we rewind? This thing is terrible. You know. Boo. Just kidding. Love you, Lisa. But yeah. And so it's in progress to be at the Atlanta Pen Show. I know. I sure as heck know that Lisa wants them there. So I know she's doing everything they can and Joey's doing everything they can to get them out. So Joey's signing all the inserts right now. So that's what's cool about this whole thing.

Myke Hurley: He's going to get hand cramp.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I know.

Myke Hurley: Talking about badass looking pants. What is the Mont Blanc heritage rouge en noir?

Brad Dowdy: So you asked me what it is. The easy answer is I don't know because I didn't really know about this until about the past week or so. Even though this was the one of the images that got Jonathan Deans all bent out of shape over at FPN when they took down some of the early release images that Mont Blanc asked them to take down these images. You remember this conversation we had about them. This was one of those pins. And I had never seen the images. I didn't go looking for them or anything before that. But I started getting now that they're properly released and the embargo is lifted and their pins are starting to show up in the Mont Blanc boutiques and catalogs and things like that. And people are actually getting them in their hands. I started getting images of these and my jaw dropped. It's unbelievable. This pen. You know, we kind of fawned over the Mark Newsom one when it came out. And it's still like a really good looking pen. This is a very traditional Mont Blanc. The Newsom one wasn't.

Myke Hurley: Well, except for one detail. But yes, carry on.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no. But this is this pen was designed after his after a historical shape and design that they used.

Brad Dowdy: The Rouge Noir has been around since like the early 1900s was when it first came out. And they started they started. It has this. I guess you're talking about the the serpent clip.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So the serpent clips also historical Mont Blanc. Oh, sure.

Myke Hurley: But it's not normal looking.

Brad Dowdy: Right. It's not it's not your normal Mont Blanc 149 that you see with the standard gold trim, black barrel and white snow cap on the end. That's the traditional one. But this is an historically historically based Mont Blanc. And it's even got it like one of the historic logos on the barrel cap etched into the barrel cap, which is a beauty.

Brad Dowdy: I'm all about this pen. This is going to be my first Mont Blanc. I've already I haven't put the money down, but I've asked one to be held for me. And if anyone's looking for these pens, I I talked to Anderson pens. They're a Mont Blanc dealer. So hit them up, see what they're when they're going to get them in. I know they're going to hold one for me. And this is going to be my first Mont Blanc. Which one did I buy, Michael Hurley?

Myke Hurley: Black one. Ding, ding, ding, ding. No, you got the orange one. Nope. Really? I didn't. Really? I was joking. No. Huh. OK.

Brad Dowdy: What? That seems to be what I get. So the first tweet I got was, hey, the new Rouge Noir is out. Which one are you getting? The orange or the black? And when I looked at them, honestly, it's not close. The black is way better looking.

Myke Hurley: Orange for me all day, man. Orange all day.

Brad Dowdy: The orange is really cool, but I love the orange cap, the orange finial on the black one. So it was, it actually was a pretty easy choice, to be honest, because the orange is, it's more of a coral than a straight up orange. If it was straight up orange with like some black features on it, I would definitely go that route. But I just love how that coral pops on the finial and the snow cap of the black that I thought it just even set it off a little bit more.

Myke Hurley: No, I'm all about orange. I'm not going to, well, I want one of these. I don't think I'm going to lay the $780 down to get one. Uh, maybe if I see one, it might change everything, but yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: This is a real looker.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And Carrie in the, in the chat rooms mentioned, mentioning that the coral is actually a limited run, but, um, you know, that doesn't change, change which one I'll buy. And the black one is actually cheaper to buy like $125. I think $675 for black, $800. This is us dollars for a coral. That sounds about right. So, um, yeah. So the coral has a little bit more features, but I just think I would. I would enjoy using the black one a lot more and the features aren't, aren't important enough for me to pay up for them when I would just enjoy using the black one more. And maybe I'd enjoy looking at the coral one, but I don't buy pens to look at, right. I want to buy the one that I'm going to carry around and use. And to me, that's the black one. That's the black one. So yeah, very cool.

Myke Hurley: If you are a backer of our Kickstarter campaign, you will have seen something exciting come your way in the past few days. You've had the, I don't know if it's the test or the actual run of the notebooks with the pen addict logo embossing. And oh my.

Brad Dowdy: So this tripped me out. It tripped Jeff and I out because we knew what we were getting. We knew what we were getting embossing of the pen addict logo for the covers on this cool, like textured cover stock card stock that we're doing for the covers for the members, for the backers notebooks. The way this embossing came out blew my mind.

Myke Hurley: I didn't believe how detailed it is.

Brad Dowdy: I didn't expect it to be that detailed. You see like the lines passing through little sections of the pen where you wouldn't think embossing would be able to happen. So this was, needless to say, I'm very happy with how this turned out. Not that I thought it would turn out poorly. I thought it would turn out very well. It just happened to exceed those expectations the way it looks. And they're going to be very, very cool. I'm being asked if the backers notebooks will be ready for pickup in Atlanta. I hope so. I'm, we're cutting it close. I'm hoping they're going to be ready the Wednesday before the show starts Friday. So that right now that's not in stone. That's, that's the hope and the plan. So, um, that would be super nice if they are, I'm crossing my fingers that they will be, uh, just like, uh, Lisa's at least enjoys retro 51. It's going to be right down to the wire on there. I think we're going to be able to get them though. So, um, I haven't seen a final all put together version yet. Um, obviously, or else I'd probably be able to pick them up. So, um, once I get that, I will share that out with the backers. Um, they came out brilliantly, could not be happier. Same. How that cover came, came out. It, it's, it's spot on in, in every, every which way.

Myke Hurley: Cannot wait to see them. Yep. All right. What's this life hacker post?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'm not going to talk about this too much, but I had several people tweet this to me. Um, over the past few days where they did a life hacker did a Moleskine versus field notes comparison. And I actually said, once I read the article, um, that, you know what, I'm really not even going to hardly go there because it's not coming from a place of like with much depth or with much experience in these products. So, and even the comparison, like their results were even like, uh, you know, I don't know, you know, maybe you can use one for this. Maybe you can one for that.

Myke Hurley: They don't really have much of an opinion, buddy. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: To be honest. Um, it's not, it's not a very helpful article. Um, it's not a very in-depth article despite being really long. Um, you don't, doesn't tell you much or you can't really base a lot of decisions off of this. Um, the, the author's range of experience was very, very shallow. Um, so, but I wanted to mention it, it, it's like for the most, most beginner type of person who's getting into this. Um, it might be good to just kind of get an idea of these things, but there was really kind of, you know, people in, in our community, there's really no added value for this article for the group as a whole, I would think.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. And it's not a slight against this person. It's just for our sakes, it's kind of not really an argument worth having.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's coming from a different place. Like honestly, and this is full self pimp. You would get a lot more out of spending 20 minutes listening to me and Kevin Rose talk about paper than you would reading this article.

Myke Hurley: A hundred percent.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Cause you even talk about this exact thing.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. Right. So we talk about, okay, why would this paper act poorly with this pen and things like that, that this article doesn't get into, except it says that it's not good for this. It's, it's just, it's kind of a superficial article. It's not a fluff piece. I mean, I think they tried, they're just not coming from a place of a, of a lot of depth of experience. It's so it's, it's, no, it's kind of a non-functional article for people who are listening to a podcast about pens.

Myke Hurley: Special, special crew, the special people.

Colored Ink

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. We're super special. Um, this, uh, this next one though blew my mind. Um, and you've probably gotten some links about this too. Yeah. And it's a, it's a Kickstarter for the golden ratio coloring book by Raphael Araujo. Um, I don't know what to say about this other than it's stunning.

Myke Hurley: It's too much for me, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's well, it's too much in, in lots of ways. It's too much in, um, trying to manage the coloring, like the results of this coloring is pretty amazing. Like people who did these colorings based on his drawings are really talented. Um, mine wouldn't come out that way, but I'd give it a shot, but it's, it's very expensive. Um, relatively speaking. So this is actually one that I'm going to hold off on as much as I like it and enjoy it. And I've almost clicked it. Um, it's basically like $40 for the coloring book to get it shipped to the U S which I don't necessarily need a $40 coloring book. Um, and if I want it later, maybe they'll reprint it later and sell it, you know, differently. But secondarily, like what you're getting at is, I don't know that I could actually physically color in these drawings, but it looks awesome. It looks so fricking cool.

Myke Hurley: I don't think I would know where to start with it, to be honest.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. But, um, let me just say it's done 185 grand so far. So it's doing pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I got that sent, uh, sent to me a bunch and I thought it's just spectacular looking on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. We have something that's craptastic looking and that's, um, one of the Esther Brook models that went up on mass drop recently. And I don't even know the model name or number of the pen. And y'all know where I stand on Esther Brook. If you've listened to this, um, podcast, any, any length of time, but, uh, it is the listener. I think. Excuse me. This one's called the N two.

Myke Hurley: M M for mother.

Brad Dowdy: M M M two. Okay. Okay. So this M two, um, kind of tried and failed on, on mass drop and it didn't fail because it, no one bought it. It failed because it's actually a piece of crap and everyone in the comment section called it out. So, um, none more so than friend of the podcast, Phil Olin, who wrote a blog post called Fester Crook, the modern Esther Brook, which I love that title. Um, he does a great post and our good old buddy, Robert Rosenberg, uh, ended up calling Phil. Does that sound familiar to you?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. For anyone who's not keeping track, that's the guy who now owns this company.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So if anyone who's listened to our show, they know how many times, uh, Mr. Rosenberg called me and I'm surprised my phone hadn't started ringing since last night when that post came up, but, uh, he, he doesn't really do online very much. So he'll have to be told that that post is up there, but, uh, he's too busy focusing on Phil right now to deal with me again. Um, because just like Phil, I don't really have any reason to answer his phone calls. If he would like to converse, um, on the record, any way, shape or form, uh, my doors are open any day, anytime. Just let me know, Bob, and, uh, and we'll knock it out. But, uh, right now the year happily we'll have you on the show.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. You know, if you want to come on the show, we can, we can make that happen. Oh, I know that's why I'm saying it.

Brad Dowdy: I mean, I'm welcome to have him go on the record anytime, but it's his job is to, to office obfuscate everything that he does, including the manufacturing of these pins, these M2s. There's a very high likelihood. These cost about two or $3 to make in China. And he's trying to pass them off as a $50 revamped Esther Brook. And it's embarrassing and he should be embarrassed and he should close up shop or he should do things right. And he's just a horrible businessman and a horrible person. And this whole thing's, it's really a joke. So at this point, and unfortunately, Bob is not in on the joke, uh, because he is actually the actual joke. And, uh, he can't seem to grasp that and deal with it in a proper manner. So, you know what? That's on him.

Myke Hurley: I love you.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, back off. I proposed to Phil in his comments section. I just saw that. I just saw that.

Myke Hurley: Somebody else to watch out for now.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. His wife, Phil's wife came on it and admonished me in Slack last night. So Phil's taken.

Myke Hurley: There you go. Today's show is also brought to you by Squarespace. The simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page, website, or online store. Start building your own website today at squarespace.com. Use the offer code Inc at checkout and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. With easy to use tools and templates, Squarespace helps you capture every detail of what drives you. Because if it's worth the effort, it's worth sharing with the world. And Squarespace will let you build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level. No coding required. They have state-of-the-art technology to help power your site, to ensure security and stability, and to give you all of the tools that you need to make your site look and feel exactly how you want. This is why they are trusted by millions of people around the world. Your site's going to look great on all sizes of device. They have great functionality like their cover page and their commerce platform to allow you to build great single page websites and to put stores on your site as well. They have 24-7 support. They have a dev platform so you can dig into the code and tinker with your Squarespace site if you do know the code, but you don't need to know it. You don't need any coding experience to use Squarespace. You'll get a free domain name if you sign up for a year and their plans start at just $8 a month. If you sign up for a free trial today, you don't need any credit card to do that. You'll be able to tinker around and play around straight away by going to squarespace.com. Then when you decide to sign up, make sure that you use the offer code INC. That's going to get you 10% off your first purchase and show your support for this show. Obviously, if you sign up for a year, you're going to get the biggest discount there. Bear that in mind. Thank you so much for Squarespace for their support of the Panadic Podcast and RelayFM. Man, Squarespace, they have been a supporter of ours from probably like episode 20. So thank you, Squarespace.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they're wonderful. They're wonderful to us. They're a wonderful platform to use. I obviously use them. I run commerce off of them for both Panadict and Nock and blogs, and they make my life easy. I have so many things to worry about, and that's not one of those things is what blog platform updates do I need to push today and what security things do I need to fix today? You don't have to do any of that with Squarespace, so they take all that off my plate, which is what I need.

Myke Hurley: So next week, we will be in each other's arms. I mean, I'll be in Atlanta.

Myke Hurley: We are sharing a room. We are sharing a room, and there'll be hugs like last time. So I wanted to know, what is on your shopping list for the Penn Show?

Brad Dowdy: So I refer to our show notes a lot, and it's a living document that Myke and I share, and Myke put this in there, and I thought this was a great idea. What's on your shopping list? Because we usually talk about that. What are we looking for at the show? And when mine was still blank this morning, right before we recorded, Myke started quizzing me. It's like, what's going on? You don't have anything on your shopping list for the Atlanta Penn Show. And I'm like, we're going to need to talk about that. So here's the thing. I'm buying that Mont Blanc, and that's like the entire budget for the Atlanta Penn Show. And it's going to be like at the exact same time.

Myke Hurley: You're buying it at the show, or no?

Brad Dowdy: Well, no. It's just, it's coming like now. Okay, good. Like within the next week or two, it's going to be ready for purchase. Like I haven't paid for it yet, because it hasn't arrived, but it's basically in route to Anderson.

Myke Hurley: Basically, my horror here is I'm scared you're going to have it at the show and what that might do to me.

Brad Dowdy: There is a high probability, again, that this might be my show purchase, because I might be able to get it then. No, no. I don't know for sure yet.

Myke Hurley: I really hope this isn't a Pro Gear scenario, because the Pro Gear was like a third of this price.

Brad Dowdy: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, I don't know when they leave for the show, but they probably leave like, they'll probably leave Wednesday. I don't know if they'll leave Thursday. It's because it's probably more than a one day drive for them. So if it shows up, I guess they bring them to the show. I didn't talk specifically about it, but that timeframe for me purchasing that pen is going to be like right around that time. So that's my Atlanta shopping list for the most part. So unless you sell lots of cases, this might be all you buy. Well, no, not even that. It's just what am I looking for these days to add to the collection? What do I need or want to, that I've seen differently to write with? I'm always interested to see what Franklin Kristoff has on offer there. They always bring some new things that they've been working on, some prototypes. I like to get in there and see what kind of cool stuff they have. I definitely want to see if, you know, Lisa's bringing any like inks from Bung Box that I don't have, things like that. As much as I talk to Lisa, I don't know what her current Bung Box ink inventory is like to, I don't know, have anything held. I have been working on something on the backend that I kind of need to remind another vendor about that they're supposed to bring to me and sell to me. But I'm not going to spoil that because it very well might not happen. That's the number one thing on my shopping list above and beyond the Mont Blanc. And if they both, if I'm able to get it, we can just do a whole show on it because it'll be that awesome. So I'm going to leave that out there. Huh? I'm going to leave that hanging out there because it's a really, really, it's, it's one of the most Brad pens on the market and it's not currently on the market. It's an old, it's an older pen. What are you up to? It probably wouldn't take, it probably wouldn't, no, it probably wouldn't take people very many attempts to guess at it.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: But I don't know. I haven't checked in with them in the past few weeks to see if it's still available and if they will bring it to me and allow me to purchase it from them. So we'll see. I will let you know, but that will be, those are the things I'm looking for at the show.

Myke Hurley: I have a small list. So basically what I learned from the last show is I'm going to buy things that are completely new to me. That, that was what I noticed last time that I didn't really know, having not gone to a pen show at this scale before. So I have a very short list of stuff that I really want and then everything else I'm going to set aside a budget, which I've not worked out yet that I'll be bringing with me, the things that I'll be able to buy when I'm, when I'm there. One of the things that I'm, I'm looking for is an ink, which is a rare thing for me to do to add an ink to my collection. So I don't really use a lot, but we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago, the Ackerman number 28, half-gratia grown. I don't even know how to say this. It will be in the show notes. It's a beautiful green. That's a must, that's a must have.

Brad Dowdy: So that is an awesome ink. Good, good choice there.

Myke Hurley: So I've not really added, as I say, I don't really add a lot of inks to my collection, but this one was like, wow. Okay. I want this.

Brad Dowdy: I think that ink is something else.

Myke Hurley: I don't remember how it came up, but I know that me and you were talking about it.

Brad Dowdy: When we had Aziza on, she was raving about it.

Myke Hurley: Right. Okay.

Brad Dowdy: And it's one I'd already owned and reviewed, but the way she does ink reviews just really sets things off. And that's when we really got deep on the 28. And that's probably what pushed you over the edge.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So that's what I'm going to look for. I'm trying to find a good link for that for the show notes, and I'm struggling.

Brad Dowdy: Okay. Well, I'll get you one afterward. She's got one on her page.

Myke Hurley: Okay, great. Yeah. Oh, I found a fan S. There you go. Yeah. Perfect. That would be perfect. Because that's, yeah. What a fantastic color.

Brad Dowdy: They should have that there unless they're sold out. I doubt they are.

Pen Purchases

Myke Hurley: Yeah. That's what I was hoping. That's what I was hoping. The other is a pen or one of two pens that I've had on my list for two years. And I made the decision that I was going to try and acquire one of these this year when I hung out with Mr. Thomas Hall in Release Notes, the Release Notes conference, when we spent some time together. And it's a Pilot MyU or a Pilot Murex. Okay. Yeah. I love these pens. And me and you have spoken about them in the past.

Myke Hurley: And I just need one. I think they're some of the most beautiful pens that I've ever seen. And there's just some, basically some slight design differences between the two of them. I think I'm more keen on the Murex. But, you know, they have their own thing. So, like what I like about the MyU. Is it MyU or is it NYU? Do you know?

Brad Dowdy: I call it the MyU. So, we'll say the MyU for now. I won't profess to know the correct pronunciation.

Myke Hurley: What I like about the MyU is that it's just all nib, right? Like it just. Yeah. It just all the whole pen. It's like fully integrated. Yeah. Yep. But I like the overall Murex design more. I don't like the way that the clip looks on the MyU, for example. So, I want to go there. I want to take a look at these. If there are any. I'm expecting I might be able to get one. It would be one of those cases of just looking around and seeing what people have. So, I'll be spending some time on the kind of the vintage tables. Seeing what I can come away with. I'm sure I will be having my hand held by Mr. Hall. When going to look around for these. Yeah. He'll have that on.

Brad Dowdy: He is not.

Myke Hurley: Okay. Because I know that he went down this route. Yeah. A while back to.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, you're going to have a hard time finding a Murex at the Atlanta Pen Show. It's not going to be impossible. But your options will be slim if you do find them.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So, you know, you just want to make sure you want to use them and test them out and make sure they're in good shape. And, you know, like Thomas can take a look at that. Like, I didn't expect to find a pen I bought last year, which was the old stainless steel black stripe.

Myke Hurley: Exactly.

Brad Dowdy: Pilot. You know, that was made around the same time as the Murex and Mew. Like, you don't expect to find those things at the Atlanta Pen Show. But the moment I saw it, my money was out because there's not going to be another one in there.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. So, that's my thing. I'm not thinking I'm going to find one. But if I do find one, I will buy it. Yep. Right. That's my thinking. It's like, because I don't usually go looking for them. I don't troll eBay for them because this is the type of thing that I think I would only buy if I could see it before I bought it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm with you. I prefer the Murex over the Mew by a pretty good margin. Although, I would like to add a Mew to the collection one day.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I mean, look, I prefer the Murex. But basically, what I'm saying is if I see any of them, I'm getting one of them.

Brad Dowdy: You're going to pay, you'll probably pay more for the Mew too. I think they, and especially if you can find an M90, that would be pretty cool. That's the revamped version that they did a limited edition of about four or five years ago. It's the same shape, size as the original, but a newer model. But you'll pay a pretty good premium for those, like $300, $400.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I would get one of those and I would pay that amount of money. Yeah. I just want one of this style of pen. That's what I'm looking for. Agreed. And I actually prefer the look of the M90, I'd forgotten about this, to the Mew. So, I would prefer to find one of these. So, we'll see if I can come across anything. If you're going to be at the show and you see one, you've got to let me know.

Brad Dowdy: After you buy it and say, ha ha ha.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. Basically, if you want to turn a quick buck at the pen show, find one, sell it to me.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah.

Myke Hurley: But there's one thing that's maybe going to be one of the rarest items at the pen show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. What is that? So, we have commissioned our good friend Joey Feldman. He wasn't here in the chat room a minute ago. To do a show poster for the Panatic Live episode 200. And not only did it turn out awesome, we worked with Joey to get some prints made to give away.

Show Posters

Myke Hurley: Uh-huh.

Brad Dowdy: Some signed limited edition prints of our show poster, which I explained to Joey what I wanted over email. And he delivered 100% exactly what I wanted. Like, he knew from what I was talking about and some things I showed him. Um, like, what the aesthetic I wanted for this. You know, I wanted to do something wild. Um, so the first thing I thought of was, like, an old punk gig poster. And explaining to someone, an artist that over the email. And them going, okay, I got it. And then delivering on that, like, the first shot, it's out of bounds. Joey did great work. So, we're going to have a few prints to give away at the show. And then we're going to have a few prints to give away to our Kickstarter backers. So, this is something we did for you guys and for ourselves because it's awesome. You know, I wanted some.

Myke Hurley: We should sign them with one of the Panahattarian Sharpies.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, Joey actually made space around each of our photos to have rooms for signatures. And Joey's going to sign them as well. And they're stamped with Joey's seal. So, these are, like, official, like, prints. Like, this is legit good stuff. And we're going to give some of those away. And I'm really, really excited about it.

Myke Hurley: I have been mesmerized by the drawing he did of me.

Myke Hurley: Because it's, I can't explain it, but he's captured me. Right. I don't know how he does it, but he does it. And I love, I just absolutely adore the way that he's drawn my beard.

Myke Hurley: Right. I think sometimes it does look like that. Yeah. It's just an incredible job. Absolutely incredible. And I can't wait to frame one of these bad boys and put it on my wall. So, yeah, this is like a Sex Pistols poster. And I guess the joke of the mule is because, as you can see, the party, the after party that this is the poster of, is sponsored by Montegrappa with their mule pen.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, this is going to be great. Brian has been a huge supporter of the pen addict and of the community and of other blogs. And he's a big fan of Fountain Pen Day. And he's a big fan of pen habit. And he's been super supportive as a company. He works for Kendra Industries, who's the distributor of Montegrappa. And he just wants to be involved in this community. And he's willing to put his money where his mouth is. And they're sponsoring this party. And I couldn't thank him enough for being involved. So that's where the Brad and the mule came up with. That was me and Brian coming up with the name. We said, OK, let's have fun with it. Let's come up with the name. So once we did that, I went back to Brian. And I said, you know, if we're going to do this kind of wild, I've got an idea for a poster. So I explained it to him. And Brian's like, yeah, man, do whatever you want. So this is what we came up with. And it's killer. Every time I open this thing, I laugh just in a good way because it's so cool. It's just freaking cool.

Myke Hurley: I'm looking forward to some tasty mules after the show.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, he hooked us up in L.A. And they were legit good.

Myke Hurley: That's why I'm excited about it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So, hey, one more thing on my shopping list. I'm doing a bunch of pre-shopping, apparently, because I forgot I'm getting another pen delivered to me while I'm there. Yeah. Yeah. Good friend. Good friend of the show and of the blog, Mr. Jonathan Brooks from Carolina Pen Company, who will be at the show. He's making me a pen. So we will go over all that fun in the next episode, if you will. So hopefully that one's going to be ready for the show because he's having to make it. But it looks like that's on track, too. So we're cutting it close with everything. But, yeah, I think all my show money is being spent before the show and being delivered at the show. So that counts, right?

Myke Hurley: Yep. That counts. That'll do for me. All right. Let's take our last break from another great supporter of the show and of a company that we're going to be getting faces full of in about a week's time. This week's episode is brought to you by Harry's. Have you ever asked yourself when you're in the drugstore, why are razors the only product that are locked behind plexiglass cases? And when you stop to think about it, it's because they're so overpriced that people are maybe more likely to steal them than other things in the store. People have been used to, for far too long, paying too high for razor blades. And this is why Harry's exists. They sell high-quality blades that provide a close, comfortable shave for half of the price that you're used to. They make their own blades. German-engineered five-blade cartridges that are going to give you a close, comfortable shave without cuts or razor burn. Harry's believe in the quality of their blades so much that they guarantee that quality. You will get a full refund if you're not happy. Over one million people have switched to Harry's. You should be one of them. Harry's razors offer a high-quality shave at half the price of what you're going to find in the stuff locked behind those plexiglass cases. And this means that, on average, an everyday shaver will save $150 a year on blades when they switch to Harry's. And you won't have to fight with the drugstores to get them out of the actual boxes and through the checkout. Because you'll be buying at Harry's. And Harry's does all of their sales online. You'll find what you need and be checked out within 30 seconds. And they'll be shipped to your door for free. Their starter set is a great deal. It's called the Truman, and for just $15, you'll get a razor, moisturizing shave cream, and three razor blades. It's time to stop overpaying for a great shave. Go to harrys.com right now, and you'll get $5 off if you use the coupon code PENADDICT with your first purchase. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com. Use the code PENADDICT at checkout for a special $5 off. Thank you so much to Harry's for their continued support of this show at RelayFM.

Brad Dowdy: So can I give a top secret pro tip about Harry's? Always. I learned this myself about one or two weeks ago.

Myke Hurley: Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: If you go to their shave plans. So I needed to order the shave cream that I like, so I was going to reorder. And I needed some blades, too. So I just normally go online, place my order, and they ship it. Then they had the link to their shave plans on there. If you click start for free on their shave plan, you can get a razor handle, a blade, a small thing of the shave lotion, the foaming gel, and like the little travel holder for the cost of shipping. So I paid like $3, and I got a new handle, a new blade, and all this stuff. And then I'm going to get the cream and blades that I went to order in the first place on my next order. It's practically, it's literally free.

Brad Dowdy: And I got one of the new handles. They sent me one of the new handles, too, with my order. I got the, they're kind of rubberized instead of the smooth, hard plastic. And it's really nice, but literally $3, there's no reason to not go sign up with Harry's today.

Brad Dowdy: I'm still kind of, can't talk about it because I don't understand how cheap it actually was for such a good product. But it's legitimately there. I went in and I paid them $3, and I got this whole package full of shaving goods. And then my subscription is going to start after that. It's amazing.

Myke Hurley: Hashtag pro tip.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I'll figure that out on my own when I was going to buy more Harry's goods. So, yeah, pretty cool.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, pretty clever over there.

Custom Inks

Brad Dowdy: Yep.

Myke Hurley: Got some ask EPA to round up this week's episode. First off comes from Carl. What do you think about the Tekka custom inks?

Brad Dowdy: I think it's a pretty good idea. We're going to see if they can deliver. What is this? So what Tekka does, so what they do is they basically take a hex code of whatever color you want, and they can match that into an ink.

Myke Hurley: That seems almost impossible.

Brad Dowdy: They can do it. And we'll put a link into the show notes of Matt Armstrong's review of the first two Tekkers that he got at Pinhabit. He liked them. He reviewed them. I've been talking to them, and I thought I had some samples coming, and then I hadn't heard from them in a while. So maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I picked out a couple colors for them to make for me. But I haven't heard anything in a while. And now that they're getting kind of out there, they're trying to ramp up production. Just like we always have trouble with production at Knock. Once you get your name out there, you've got to be ready to deliver the product. And they're running behind right now, so that's kind of hitting them. And I haven't bothered to email them. I'll figure I'll get my inks eventually, so I'm not too stressing about it. I think it's cool as long as they behave. I mean, I don't care how cool an ink color is. It better behave, and it better not mess with my pens. And when you're asking some guys to make a product that could be potentially damaging to a product that you own, they better deliver the goods. And that's what I think we're all waiting to see. And I have no reason to believe that they will.

Myke Hurley: When you say damaging, do you mean because you don't know what the inks might do to a pen?

Brad Dowdy: Right, because they're not a pen manufacturer, right? What is their testing involved? And they've covered all this, and they ensure that. But there's no sense in rushing to get a product that you'll be able to get once people see how this inks behave with different metals and different nibs and things like that. So I think it's a very cool idea, and I think it's a wait-and-see product. And as long as it delivers quality, there's no reason they won't be a huge success. I think it's great.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Could you get me the link for the pen habit? Because I can't find the review on this site. Yeah, no problem. No problem. I will get that. Thank you so much. So go check that out in the show notes, as always. This comes from Joe. We love old Joe. He's got a little baby on the way. I'm looking for an easy-to-clean, deep, rich black ink with permanent properties optional. Any suggestions?

Brad Dowdy: So we talked about this on Twitter yesterday, and I have a hard time recommending any deep, rich black ink with permanent properties other than the Sailor Nano Black or Kiwa Guro. What the exact name is, I can't think of it, but it's the Sailor Nano Black. It's one of the most smoothest lubricated inks I've used, and the black is pitch black and kind of glossy. It looks really, really nice. It's very easy to clean, but you actually have to use this pen. You can't let this sit for like two weeks and not use it because it will dry up in the nib, which is not a problem. It cleans right off, but you have to use this every couple of days, every two days, whatever. As long as you're using this ink, it's going to be perfectly fine. Your other option is probably something like Noodler's Heart of Darkness, which a lot of people are talking about in the chat room. I just posted a link in the Pen Addict Members newsletter to MyPenJourney, washed one of his Field Notes notebooks, and a bunch of the pages were written with Heart of Darkness, and they looked like they were brand new. So it's proven to hold up through washing, so that's a good permanent property. So those are probably your two choices.

Myke Hurley: Cool. Mm-hmm. All right, next question is from Shireen. It's Shireen, right? That's the correct pronunciation. Yes, I remember from last time.

Brad Dowdy: I know, she'll get on you.

Myke Hurley: I know. Favorite grind from Myke Masayama?

Brad Dowdy: You want to go first, or you want me to go?

Myke Hurley: I'm going to go with Curse of Italic for me.

Brad Dowdy: That'd be my number two. Number one, he does extra, extra fine, better than anyone that I've ever used. We used to call it the Thomas Hall Special, basically taking a European nib, or even a Japanese nib, and getting it ground to somewhere around Japanese extra fine, which is .2 millimeter, .3 millimeter. He does that better than anybody. That's my favorite nib grind by Myke. He also does it on the needle point that he provides to Franken-Kristoff on a steel nib. I love that nib. So his extra, extra fine grinds are my number one, and then Curse of Italic would be number two. I have several of his Curse of Italics. He makes a crisp Curse of Italic, so if you're not willing to write on your sweet spot, and the pen kind of turns a little bit on you, you're going to catch an edge. He grinds a very sharp Curse of Italic. I personally like that, especially because I use finer nibs. So in that small space, it's not so bad for me. And, you know, that would be my number two. Those are the ones I get by him far and away the most.

Myke Hurley: Okay, Joe wrote in and said, The clip on my Brechtra 51 seems to have, the tornado seems to have given up the ghost. Any way to bring its spring back? This might be difficult for me to try to explain, but I have done this. What you could do is try and find something, maybe like a very thin pencil or pen in circumference, and try and stick it underneath the clip and bend the clip back around on itself. So you end up bending the clip, but it will then stay strong. It will, like, be stronger again. It will clip back to the pen. Does that make sense?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, no, that makes sense to me. I just haven't done it before myself, so...

Myke Hurley: So you kind of distort it, right? So it's at your own risk, I guess, for if you want to do that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I haven't seen if the end of the pen's, like, screw all the way off, or to where you can pull off the clip separately and bend it back into shape. I don't even know that, because I've never had to do it.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So it's something to look at. But what you're saying will work. It'll be a little bit off shape, but the tightness will return.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, that's it. So you end up, you know, it doesn't look as good, but if what you need is the utility, then you're going to get that back again. Right. So that's something that I've done in the past. And Sarah has written in, what's the best shopping day for the Atlanta pen show if I can make only one day? This is a difficult question, right?

Brad Dowdy: It's not an easy question. It's not straightforward at all.

Myke Hurley: Because there's multiple answers to it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I would say Friday, probably around noon, even though there's going to be people in there earlier than that, probably between 9 and 10 o'clock, people will start going in. Not all vendors might not be set up by that time.

Brad Dowdy: So Saturday is the most busy day, and everyone's there. Everyone's shopping. Everyone's best goods are out. If I could only go one day, I'd probably try to go Friday afternoon, to be honest.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You should be able to see everything without the massive crowd that'll be there on Saturday.

Myke Hurley: Most people are going to be there, and you're more likely to get things that haven't sold out yet. You know, because in theory, if what you're looking for is just what's the best time to browse, maybe Sunday morning, right? Because there's nobody there, but everything's sold out. Right?

Brad Dowdy: Right. Let's be clear. They won't be sold out, but if two people are looking for a pilot Murex and there's only one, it's going to be gone Friday. It won't be there on Sunday.

Myke Hurley: I'm thinking quite a lot about just Franklin Kristoff for some reason. They were, right? All their stuff is sold out.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't want to put words in their mouth, and I don't know this to be fact, but I think they will hold some stuff back for at least Saturday. They'll put out stuff Friday, limited stuff, but I think they'll hold a little bit of it back for Saturday as well. I could be wrong.

Myke Hurley: I would be surprised. If Saturday is known as the busiest day, you don't want to have nothing to sell.

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So don't quote me on that, but that's kind of what I feel. But otherwise, I mean, Sunday is the most comfortable shopping day. You can take your time, spend some time wandering around the show, spend some time talking to the vendors, fondling the goods, if you will, and if you just want a more relaxed day. Saturday, you might have to elbow in to some of the tables and you might have to wait a second to get in there and get the goods. But if there's something that's not like a new modern pen that you know is going to be around Sunday, probably Friday afternoon, I would say.

Myke Hurley: And what if people want to see us?

Brad Dowdy: We're going to live there. Oh, yeah. I'll show up Thursday night. I probably won't leave the hotel until Sunday morning when I have a thing over at Nock with the Goulet. Jeff and I are going to take them around, give them a shop tour Sunday morning. So I bet I will be at the hotel from Thursday night all the way until Sunday morning and then back during show hours all day Sunday. Can I come on that tour?

Myke Hurley: Yeah. We will be at the Nock table. Basically, if you want to find me, look for Brad. I'll be next to him.

Brad Dowdy: So we'll either be at the Nock table, wandering around in the show, or we'll be at the Waffle House. Or we'll be at the bar. And the best part about that is all of those things are probably within 100 steps of each other. Yeah. That's why I love this show so much. It's not overly gigantic and everything is right there.

Myke Hurley: Yep. We will be at the Nock table. I hope you've got one of those lovely Nock t-shirts for me so I can make my body your billboard.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Jeff is picking them up today, so I'll make just see how they turn out. I think we... Man, I'm so busy. I forget what exactly we did on this. I think we did a little bit different design last year, or we either did the exact same thing. So how's that for helpful? Was that helpful? Perfect. That's all I need to know. It's either the same as last year or it's different. One of the two.

Myke Hurley: Very excited. So excited to see everyone that's going to be there. It's going to be a great time. You'll be looking out for episode 200. The audio of that episode will be up next weekend. We're recording on Saturday, so it'll be either up on Saturday or Sunday. Sunday the latest, so you can look out for that. We will be streaming live. We don't know of the time yet, but that will be on Saturday. But you can rest assured that we will be tweeting about it and posting about it in the Pen Addict Slack when we know the time. So you can come and listen to the three of us, me, Brad, and Anna, live on the show. And as we've mentioned before, there'll be a bunch of extra video footage along with the video that will come out in the following weeks for our Kickstarter backers. We will do this again next week, but I just want to thank everyone who makes this possible for us to do this every year. And I'm so excited that we'll be having our first ever RelayCon event as part of the Pen Addict live in Atlanta. So I think that about wraps it up for this week.

Brad Dowdy: You believe the next time we talk,

Myke Hurley: we'll be in person, right? It's going to be pretty beautiful, my friend.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm.

Myke Hurley: And I run into your arms in Atlanta Airport.

Brad Dowdy: That's right. I'll make sure to park at the International Terminal this time. Thank you. So we don't have to bus it back over. One more thing before we go. Benham in the chat room wanted me to mention the Pen Addicts Worldwide Facebook group. So if you're out there, we'll have a link in the show notes. If you're on Facebook and want to go talk to a bunch of pen people all over the world, I was prompted many, many times to set this group up. So I have, and there's like 500 people already joined it. So it'll be out there. And thanks for the reminder for mentioning it.

Myke Hurley: Go get involved. Mm-hmm. All right. If you want to find our show notes, as always, head on to relay.fm slash penaddict. And this time it's slash 199. But how could you forget? If you want to find Brad online, head over to penaddict.com and knock.co. If you want to find me online, I am on Twitter. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Brad is at dowdyism, D-O-W-D. D-Y-I-S-M. And we'll be back next time. Thanks again to Harry's, Squarespace, and The Timber Twist for making this episode possible. Until then, until Atlanta, say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.