The Pen Addict 171/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	171
Title:	They Make Me Cross
Release Date:	September 7th, 2015
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 171
Audio File:	Audio Episode 171
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 171
Length:	5454 min <br />0.9 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 171. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Build It Beautiful, and Harry's. An exceptional shave at a fraction of the price. The Pen Addict is a weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that you love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr Brad Dowdy.

Brad Dowdy: What's up, mate? How you doing, buddy? Good, good, good. I'm recovered from my trip to Las Vegas, somehow. I'm not sure how I'm recovered, because, you know, the schedules get so out of whack. My schedule's hosed to begin with, and then when I mix in the time change, even though it's only three hours, I'm just all kinds of whacked out. But I got a good night's sleep last night. I feel like a normal person today, which is about all I can ask for.

Myke Hurley: I am incredibly caffeinated.

Myke Hurley: Because, so, you know, a little inside baseball that nobody really cares about. This, I'm going away on Wednesday, so we're recording today's episode, then next week's episode, and then I'm recording analogue straight after. So I've got a three-hour block of recording today. Luckily, it's the only stuff that I'm doing today, but I want to be super hyped up, so I'm on my second coffee of the day. I usually only have one coffee a day. So, right now, my legs are jittering. I'm all over the place. I'm locked in for a great show.

Brad Dowdy: So I usually have about, I'm about a half a pot of coffee guy, and I cut that down to about a quarter pot today, because more inside baseball. I go to work tonight back from vacation. So at about 5 p.m. Eastern, I will be getting into bed and trying to get like a four or five-hour nap before I go into work. So I limited the coffee intake. Normally, I would drink about twice as much as what I did.

Myke Hurley: I can't nap, man. I have no idea where you do it.

Brad Dowdy: It's tough. It's tough. Well, I figured out. I don't have much choice. Sometimes I just lay there. Sometimes I crash. But, you know, when I lay there, I think about what we're going to talk about on this episode, though.

Myke Hurley: Good.

Brad Dowdy: So I should keep my field notes or pencil and paper near the desk. Your dream channel. Yeah, my dream channel.

Roshizuku Pronunciation

Brad Dowdy: So we got some follow-up from last week. You know, we talked about the pronunciation, you know, with the Roshizuku stuff. And, you know, we actually got some really good follow-up on that, because I was saying I was having a hard time. I think after that episode, I was thinking I was having a hard time with the TS sound, and I got some emails on how to make that. So that was really good. But one of the things I did get dinged on the pronunciation for was Aussie. I'm saying that wrong. Did you know that?

Myke Hurley: I don't even know what that is. What are you saying?

Brad Dowdy: Australians. Australians. Oh, Aussie. You know, we talked about the, yeah, you say it better than I do. It's more Aussie. Yeah. Aussie. I say it Aussie, which is very incorrect.

Myke Hurley: You know, I probably didn't even recognize the word you were saying, because it doesn't sound like anything I know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. So I got dinged, and, you know, they were gracious enough to let me in the Facebook channel, the Australian Fountain Pen Lovers Facebook channel.

Myke Hurley: Still can't believe they let you in there.

Brad Dowdy: But they said that I'm only allowed to stay if I correct my pronunciation, and that it's Aussie. I should say that better. And I would also like to note that the Australian accent is greater than the British accent. It's denied. I promise I wasn't put up to that. Well, maybe a little.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I think you definitely were. That was your payment for getting in.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that was my payment for getting in. But it's true.

Myke Hurley: Let's move on.

Brad Dowdy: All right. So the Hobonichi was released. The 2016 Hobonichi was released last week. And I just happened to be online. I didn't think about it. It's not like I marked the calendar. I knew it was on September 1st in Japan. But I happened to be online at work in the middle of the night when it did go live. So September 1st, 11 a.m. Japan time. I didn't, you know, don't hold me to my math. But it was around 2 a.m. 1 or 2 a.m. here, Eastern time in the U.S. And I was following, I had already committed, I'm going to go Hobonichi Techo again this year for 2016. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But what was funny is when, you know, people were logging on to order the Techos and, you know, the cousins and whatever accessories they wanted, the site couldn't handle it. The site was literally overwhelmed and crashed. That doesn't surprise me. Did you see any of that going on?

Myke Hurley: I had no idea this was even happening. Nobody tells me anything.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So it was, I got a huge kick out of that. I enjoyed it because everyone was freaking out a little bit. I mean, it's not like there were some of the covers that sold out. But I think, I don't know if they restock them, but you were just watching stuff like fly out of stock. It's pretty amazing that in this day and age, people can crash a stationary website to place an order. I think that's, I found that.

Myke Hurley: It doesn't surprise me, though, because I expect that this site is relatively low traffic throughout the rest of the year. And then, so they scale for that. That's how they run their business. And really, they should be, I mean, they're clearly not doing a good enough job of scaling the site up when they know they should be because they have a timed release. You know? Right, right. This is nowhere near the same kind of thing. But when we have like a new show or something on Relay, we just throw as much money as we can behind the site and then scale back appropriately.

Brad Dowdy: Right.

Myke Hurley: You know?

Brad Dowdy: You front load. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And so I'm sure they didn't even consider that, but I was just dying laughing the whole time. I was like, this is pretty amazing. I mean, I was thoroughly enjoying it because all I wanted was the Techo anyway, which isn't going to sell out. I didn't have to order it that night. You know, it's not going anywhere because I already have a cover I'm going to use for it. Oh, right. Okay. But I was watching the, I was just watching the Twitter and the, I think I was in the slide. I don't know. I was in all the channels I could see all this and people were getting, were getting a little bit ticked, you know, that it was just, you know, a little bit overloaded. And I don't know if some of the covers were limited and that was the reason, but I'm trying to see if they had new stuff this year. I don't know enough about the history of the whole system, but the, um, the Hobonichi Techo Weeks wallet size. I don't know if that was new this year. I don't remember it from last year, but it was pretty cool. Um, it's, it's, uh, um, you know, it's like a thin, what you would see like a, you know, like a pocket daily calendar thing. Um, it looked pretty interesting. I mean, I didn't get it. I almost bought the cousin, which is the larger size, but I think I wanted to stick with the smaller size. One, just because I don't want to commit to all that open space, right? The larger size is an A5, the smaller size is an A6, and you just have more space on the page. And that's intimidating to someone like me, um, you know, to fill up the space, right? You know, I only made it like a couple months in my last, uh, Techo. And plus I have the cover for, um, the A6 size anyway. So I'm going to give the, the Hobonichi Techo A6 size a full go again in January, 2016. I've got some wicked plans for that. We'll talk about next year. You know, maybe that can be, you know, we'll check in once a month on how I use my, uh, Techo because I'm sticking with it this time. There's no doubt.

Myke Hurley: See, I look at this and I want one, but I just don't think I would use it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Well, I, so I tried in 2014, right? And I failed. I know more than three months that I make it. It was probably more than like two. And so 2015, I knew, well, you, you failed pretty hard last year, Brad. And, uh, so let's not make that mistake again. And I didn't feel the need for it last year. And I didn't miss it. You know, every now and then I was like, you know, I could use something for a little bit more, more planning, but I didn't really miss not having it. Having it next year. I've got like different plans in my head on how I want to use it than I've done in the past. So I'm going to give it, give it the, give it my full attention this year. And well in 2016. And, um, I I'm looking forward to it. It's like, I missed it. Um, it's, it's such a neat item to use. It's very well done. Um, the paper is obviously awesome. The layout is perfect for me. Um, they're actually translated more of the Techo into English this year. Um, you know, they had like a, um, modified version. Like the last one I had was more of a modified. It still had some Japanese in it and things like that. I think this is like a full English version, um, this year. So that'll be interesting to see in some different features like that. So it's, it's pretty good. I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I know a bunch of people use it. I, I follow, uh, I look at that hashtag on Instagram all the time and it's, it's pretty slick how everyone, uh, uses theirs. Mine won't be, uh, as artistic as a lot of the ones that I see that just, you know, make my jaw drop. Um, but, uh, otherwise I'm excited to get it in hand and get it going again.

Myke Hurley: You make me want one, man.

Brad Dowdy: I just, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I hear you. I mean, you know, I talking with you, I don't see where, uh, I, I don't see where it's a fit for you. Right. At this point, but maybe, maybe you're, you're way deeper into things like OmniFocus than I am too. So you, you have a, you're very more systematic about that than I am. Mine's almost more like a, um, notes and reminder capturing. I don't know how to use the depth of it.

Myke Hurley: And for my, for my tasks, they have to be digital. I have to have them sync.

Field Notes

Brad Dowdy: Right. Right. So, all right. So as much as people obsess over the Hobonichi, you know, people obsess over the field notes and our friend Jenny at three staples, she made like the greatest field notes post, um, ever. I'm going to go ahead and claim that.

Myke Hurley: This is the thing is some criminology type stuff.

Brad Dowdy: You know, this is the field notes post to end all field notes posts. It's called field notes, item numbers. All right. And you think, okay, very simplistic, you know, to boil it down, you know, field notes makes all these products and you know, you of course tag them by an item number, you know, the very first craft, you know, um, memo book that they created. And I'm not looking at the number, so I don't know. It was probably field note. Yeah. Field note zero one FN dash zero one. So what Jenny did, which is what all normal people do is cataloged every FN number that field note has released for every product ever.

Brad Dowdy: That's not strange at all.

Myke Hurley: No, it's just a regular thing to do.

Blog Post

Brad Dowdy: Regular thing to do. That's what I do on the weekends. This post is amazing. I loved every minute of this post. I learned so much. She's like tracks how like there's missing numbers and there's like confusion and you know, like, you know, I'm looking at the, uh, just the colors edition packet of sunshine doesn't have an item number, you know, and it's just, it's hilarious in all the right ways. Um, it goes down to the add on items, you know, like when you got like the coasters or the tattoos from the sets, right. Um, those have like, if the, uh, if the Ales was FN dash 20, the coasters are FNC dash 20C, you know, it's, it's, it's madness putting all this together like a puzzle. And, um, I can't, I can't imagine the time she took to put this together. And it's just, um, it's fascinating. You know, I, I tweeted at her once when I read this and I just couldn't wipe the grin off my face as I was reading this. I couldn't wait to share it. I couldn't wait to talk about it. And, um, I don't know, I find this stuff just so interesting, you know, and I think that's, you know, all of us that listen to a podcast about pens, you know, a lot of us can find that this type of minutiae, just fascinating. Like what's, what's the nuts and bolts behind this thing. So how, how did you, did you go down this rabbit hole?

Myke Hurley: I was, I kind of glanced through it, read a bunch of the stuff that she was talking about. I didn't read it completely. Cause it's just, you know, it's a lot of part numbers basically. Oh, sure.

Brad Dowdy: It's a reference. It's a reference post. It's not like a literary post, right?

Myke Hurley: This is one of those things that it's like, it's awesome that you put it together, but now it will live. Right. Right. It will be a living document now. Um, I did want to mention though, like, uh, that Ginny's Instagram, three staples Instagram is just stupendous. Yeah. Uh, like if you are a field notes fan, you should be following her Instagram. And I'm going to put that in our show notes as well for this week, because I don't, I don't recall better pictures of field notes, uh, than what Ginny takes. She catalogs everything so beautifully. Uh, it's definitely worth following.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And that translates over to the blog too. That's what first got me, uh, attracted to it. It's like, she, she was just great design. Like, yeah, she has a great, uh, I, great design aesthetic, um, beautifully done website, killer, um, Instagram feed. And if you're even remotely interested in, you know, the field notes at all, you should, you should be following because, um, she, she's got it down pat and I love, I love seeing this. So it's a great blog. It's a great, um, resource. And, um, it's just exceptionally, exceptionally well done. And thank you, Ginny, for being, for sharing this content. You know, it's amazing. And everyone should, uh, should, uh, point their browsers that direction.

Myke Hurley: You bet. As we record this, still no announcement of the new book. Seems like it seems like it's a little bit late, right?

Brad Dowdy: I got, they sent the teaser out last week before I went out of town. And when I got back in town yesterday, um, I started going through my old emails to see if I missed it because I thought it should have based on their teaser. I thought it would have been released last week. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Cause that's how they usually do it. Right. A few days beforehand, they send out the, like the shipment notification. Right. Right.

Brad Dowdy: So I wasn't totally, you know, following everything while I was gone. And I, it hit me like when I returned that I didn't see anything from field notes in my email and I didn't hear anyone talking about them. And I was wondering, did I miss something? And it turns out I didn't. So I guess, uh, I guess this week we'll see. You know what?

Myke Hurley: I'll be getting my hands on this week.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. Are they, are they for sure doing it? I've seen, I've seen stuff. You've seen the magic. You've seen the magic. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: So I just want to say straight up, please don't ask me anyone to get the books. Like I don't want to, I don't want to have to, to get into the picking game with people. Uh, let me see if I can get more than one pack. If I can, then maybe we'll do something. But I mean, if you get more than two packs, that's what I mean. Yeah. The pack for you first off, first and foremost pack for you. If I can get any more than that, then maybe we'll do something like a giveaway on the show. But yeah, I really don't want the burden of, of picking up packs of people because I know that they've actually at XOXO have gotten a lot more, um, diligent about that. Cause when I went the first year that I went, I just picked up a stack of them. Like they would just say, just take them. So I did. But now I know that they're a bit more diligent about that.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So last year you were essentially assigned one gift bag, if you will, one swag bag, and it contained one pack of field notes. So if you wanted any more, you had to get them from other people who didn't want them.

Myke Hurley: You see, cause when I went, they just had tables full of the stuff and they just gave you a bag. They'll just fill it up. And I was like, can I take like 10 of these? And they're like, yes. I was like, great. And I did.

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right. So after the end of the show, they ended up, field notes ended up releasing like a one time shot. Here's the extras. You know, if you're on, they sent it out to the email list and they were gone within like an hour or two. Yeah. They made them out for the public. So, you know, we'll see. Um, I'm interested to, uh, to see them and, and hear all about them. And hopefully, uh, hopefully Mr. Draplin will be there this year and you better go say hi to him and give him a hug.

Myke Hurley: Yeah. I know. I'm pretty sure Kudor's going to be there. I don't know about Draplin. I never met him, but, but yeah, I've seen a little bit of what these books are going to look like and, uh, people are going to go crazy for these. Seriously. Awesome. Yeah. People are going to go mad.

XO Discussion

Brad Dowdy: Cool. Cool. Cool. Well, we're going to talk more about XO later in this episode, cause I have some, uh, some questions about you, about that for, uh, for you. So, uh, yeah, let's, uh, let's talk about one of our good friends though. That's probably also traveling with you to XOXO.

Myke Hurley: You bet. This week's episode is brought to you by Harry's. For many of us, shaving can be a pain. It can be a pain on our skin. It can be a pain on our wallets. And this is what Harry's is here to do. Harry's is here to give you great, high quality, high performing blades crafted by their own factory in Germany at a price. That's going to feel good on your wallet. They basically, Harry's was created by two guys who wanted a better product without having to pay an arm and a leg to get it. Harry's will ship razor blades and all their kits and stuff. If you need it for free to your front doorstep, they're not going to load a bunch of shipping charges on at the other end. And they offer a high quality shave at about a fraction of the price of other big branded blades. About half price. In fact, for example, their starter set, which you will get moisturizing shave cream or foaming shave gel, three razor blades and a razor is only $15, which is fantastic. And in a minute, I can tell you how you can get that set for just 10. On average, an everyday shaver who uses Harry's products saves about $150 a year. And with Harry's, your satisfaction is guaranteed because that is something which is of the most importance to them. Now, I know that my co-host, Mr. Brad Dowdy, is a big fan and user of Harry's products. So, Brad, could you just tell the listeners why you love Harry's?

Brad Dowdy: Well, aside from being an awesome product that works better, it works better than any expensive razor that I've used in the past, you know, trying out some of the big brand names and their big fancy blades with all their marketing behind them. It's a flat out better performing razor. And it's better looking and it's cheaper. It's kind of a no brainer. But the best thing that they've done recently for me, since I'm I'm full on Harry's lover now is they've gone to the big size of the shave cream and aftershave lotion. So now instead of ordering like two or three small bottles, I can order like one one big one big bottle and and free shipping on top of that. So, yeah, I'm hooked. I'm done. It's over. Harry's. I love you.

Myke Hurley: You see, I've having stayed in the same hotel room as Brad. I know he actually just covers his face in this stuff like he just pours it all over his face. So bigger sizes are definitely better than him. Our bathroom in Atlanta really, really smelled great when Brad got out of there because he uses Harry's products. You can experience a clean, close, comfortable shave of your own with Harry's. Go to harrys.com right now and they will give you five dollars off if you use the coupon code penaddict with your first purchase. It's all one word penaddict. That's H-A-R-R-Y-S dot com. Coupon code penaddict at checkout for five dollars off for you to start shaving better today. Thank you so much to Harry's for the continued support of this show.

Brad Dowdy: So you're a Star Wars guy.

Myke Hurley: I am a Star Wars guy. I got one of those little BB-8s here, the iPhone controlled ones.

Brad Dowdy: I know. I missed the release when they came out. I'll have to go check them out. That happened when I was out of town. I'm definitely a Star Wars guy and we talked about the different promotions that they have. Moleskine's had the Star Wars in the past on the journals and I always talk about my vanishing point. I call it the Stormtrooper just because it's got that white and black, but it wasn't actually a Star Wars model. But Cross has teamed up with Star Wars with, I guess, Disney too for one of the Cross promotions for the movie coming out later this year. Mm-hmm. And I've seen the Cross Click gel pins pictures out for a while. And the Cross Click, I have never used one. They've actually got some decent reviews of just the standard click, not necessarily the Star Wars model. But they have Stormtroopers, C-3PO, Darth Vader, I think were the three click pin models. And they run about $45, which I can kind of see, you know, that looks pretty good. And, you know, I've known about those for a while. But the big release this week was the Cross Townsend Fountain pin, which also comes in a Darth Vader model, a C-3PO model, and a Stormtrooper model. They're gold nib pins and they are sticking it to you.

Myke Hurley: What on earth? I knew that these were around, but I didn't see the prices? Yeah. Holy crap.

Brad Dowdy: They are, I don't know what they're thinking, but this is ridiculous. So the fountain pen model with a gold nib, either fine or medium point nib, $575.

Brad Dowdy: That's asinine. I'm sorry.

Myke Hurley: I understand this, right? Because this is price-wise the type of stuff, type of money we pay for similar types of pens, maybe. But they don't look good. Yeah. No, they look fine. The overall design of the pen is not attractive to me in any way.

Brad Dowdy: Well, they look fine to me. They're not, like, putrid. You know, I think they're fine-looking designs. They're not $575 fine-looking designs. It's ridiculous.

Myke Hurley: You know they're selling a rollerball for that price as well, right?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. The $450 for the rollerball, which is even worse. Yeah. That's literally worse.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, because it's going to have the same refill as the 30. Well, I've got it in pounds here on Goldspot. So it's 360 quid for the Cross Townsend rollerball, or £36 for the click. Yeah. Like, that increase is insane. Because the clicks, they look cool, right? They've got a bit of extra design to them. Like, they've got, like, C-3PO or Stormtrooper written on the side, and they've got a little logo on the clip, like a little emblem on the clip.

Brad Dowdy: I would buy one of these.

Myke Hurley: But there is not. If I was a millionaire, I would not buy any of these, like, £460 versions of these things. This is a joke. This is a joke.

Brad Dowdy: It's a joke. I'm glad you're on the same page as me, because it's kind of embarrassing.

Brad Dowdy: It's funny reading the marketing. And this is on, we're looking at this on Goldspot, which, you know, Goldspot's a sponsor of the blog. So, you know, I, of course, love them. I'm fans of them. But I think they're essentially using the copy from Cross. Like, one of the sentences, these writing instruments are the epitome of luxury. And your pen looks like C-3PO. It's not the epitome of luxury. I mean, I know he's a gold. None of it matches up, right?

Myke Hurley: Because Cross are like the executive pen, right? They're like, they're worse than Montblanc, in my opinion. Because Montblanc at least has some cool design to them. But Cross pens are just boring.

Brad Dowdy: No, Cross pens are not in the same category as Montblanc, which is what makes this so bad.

Myke Hurley: Well, they try to think that they are. But I mean, like, it's the same idea of, like, the executive pen, right? You know, like, oh, I need a fancy pen. Like, when you go to these stores, like department stores, at least here in England, you go to department stores, Cross and Montblanc are in the same cabinets.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, really? Yeah. I could see that. I guess they do have some high end, but they just don't, they're not competitive in quality and, you know, as related to price. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: I guess I should have made that a bit clearer.

Brad Dowdy: So the Darth Vader cap features a red Swarovski crystal on top that symbolizes Darth Vader's iconic lightsaber. Let me see if there's, like, a C-3PO, anything on his pen.

Myke Hurley: No, he's just all gold.

Brad Dowdy: These are just terrible.

Myke Hurley: Not a joke, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Oh, just C-3PO theme design details. Which, yeah, the click pens are better designed than this. The Stormtrooper one actually looks a lot like my vanishing point, which I paid a premium for, in theory, right? Yep, yep.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, Stormtrooper theme. So, I mean, like, my vanishing point looks better than this pen.

Hot Take Markdowns

Brad Dowdy: It's asinine. I mean, I understand marketing and cross-promotion, but this is just, there's going to be some hot take markdowns happening on these after the holidays. These will be flying off the shelves at about half price. Oh. I wouldn't pay half of it for this. No way. Darth Vader one would be the only one I'd consider. Definitely not the C-3PO one.

Myke Hurley: I like the Stormtrooper click.

Brad Dowdy: Stormtrooper's cool. Yeah. Now, the click, I'll probably buy one. It's just kind of cool.

Myke Hurley: Well, because if you said you wanted to try one out anyway, you might as well get one of these guys.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. People have been asking me to review the... I won't be. Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Because I don't use these types of pens. Like, you know.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. But I'll get a click for sure.

Myke Hurley: Maybe if they made, like, a 500-pound mechanical pencil, I'll look into it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Maybe if you, like, when you, like, cap the fountain pen, it, like, engaged a lightsaber light, like, out the top of it.

Myke Hurley: Or if it just went... Yeah.

Myke Hurley: Then, then, now we're talking, Cross. Now we're talking.

Brad Dowdy: Cross, cross, cross. I don't know what you're doing here. You make me cross. I don't know what you're doing here. So, we were talking about this in Slack, and someone asked about the vanishing point, and I mentioned my Stormtrooper one, and asked about the durability of it. I think they mean probably from the relation, or from how it handles, you know, taking a beating, the exterior barrel. Yep. Because the vanishing points are really made for portability. You know, it's a, it's a great desk pen, but you're going to throw that in your shirt, and your pocket, and your jeans, and whatever. They get dinged up and chipped. They just do.

Myke Hurley: They're also, like, you know, the, the, the little door, that hide, that, like, protects the nib. Like, all of those pieces are fiddly, like, finickety pieces that could very easily get damaged.

Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. But for as much as you use and abuse them, they're very durable. Sure. You know, it's not like the first time you take it out, you're going to have this massive chip off of it. It takes, my black... They are built like tanks. Yeah, they're built like tanks. This is an eventual durability thing, not an immediate durability thing. Sure. Like, before I sold my black mat, and I used the hell out of that pen, I didn't have a single chip out of it. You know, you could see, like, some rub marks, you know, where you use it a lot. But, like, the mat was flatter, if you will. But there was no chip stings out of it. But I've seen other people who pocket them all the time with their keys that, you know, chip the paint. So, in the grand scheme of durability, it's really good. But if they do, I mean, they just chip and wear and things like that. I mean, they just do. So, I don't know if that answers the question. I forget who that was. Might have been ethosophical. Asking. They're extraordinarily durable. But the way you use them dictates what it's going to look like. So, I think that's probably a common and a fair assessment on that. All right. So, we have an email follow-up from the Atlantic handwriting article from last week. You know, the ballpoint pen killed cursive article.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: And it's from Todd, who I met at the DC Pen Show, who writes that one pen, the blog. He had a disagreement, but it wasn't as much as a disagreement with what I was saying, but more of an alternate view of it. And I thought it was kind of interesting. So, I want to read you some of this, some of his email. So, Todd says, So, I'm going to disagree with you a bit with your take on the Atlantic article about handwriting. I suggest the point Mr. Geisbrecht is making is a bit more subtle than what many folks are taking away. He does make the point that in a post-fountain pen world, cursive has fallen by the wayside. He also mentions that the decline in cursive can be tied to the rise of word processing. And as you and others have accurately suggested, cursive's removal from school curricula has not helped either. But that's not the extent of Mr. Geisbrecht's article. His broader point is one about tools, old and new, and the techniques we deploy in their use. With respect to pens, being the tool, and writing, being the technique, he argues that there is an incompatibility between the modern pen, like ballpoints, and the old-fashioned grips and writing styles we implement when using them. As a result, the average person is less efficient with ballpoint pens than maybe they could be. So, digital word processing, which already has certain advantages, seems all the more appealing. However, if we have a better understanding of the grips and writing styles more amenable to ballpoints than handwriting, literally writing by hand, not cursive, could be more efficient, and therefore a more attractive alternative to digital word processing. We use different writing tools today than we did 50 years ago, yet the techniques we show young kids learning to write are identical to those taught when fountain pens were the only game in town. It is this mismatch of modern tools with vintage techniques that has, according to the Atlantic article, unknowingly contributed to the rise of digital word processing at the expense of writing by hand. He finishes by good gravy. This may be the nerdiest thing I've written in quite some time, and I'm a high school chemistry teacher. But I thought that was an interesting point, Myke, which I didn't get out of the article. It's that we have these tools available, and we're kind of, I guess it's a mismatch between how we currently use the tools we have available with what we were taught when those tools were initially created, right? The tools have changed, but our process for using those tools has not changed. And I thought it was an interesting perspective. You know, I don't know whether I disagree or agree with that, but I didn't think of, I hadn't considered that ever, right? Can you see a point where we, being people in this era, you know, people of our age, that are really attached to their digital mechanisms and tools and toys have a, are doing a bad job at using the pens and papers because we are not, you know, conforming to what might be a better writing style grip that, you know, these old fountain pens taught us how to use when we were little. But nowadays, you know, the pens aren't made that way, and there's some adjustment that needs to be made.

Myke Hurley: I think it's 100% possible that over time, like just the natural ebb and flow of things means that people are just going to be less used to using these types of tools, right? Like you see it already, people use digital stuff. Like for kids in school, in so many ways, it makes a lot more sense for them to use computers and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. I just think it's the natural flow of things and the pens that we use, the more fancy pens, as they become less used, they become more expensive, which makes them less likely to be purchased. But the stuff that's used, there's a market for, like ballpoints, because they can be made cheap, so people bought them cheap. And now they continue to be cheap, so they'll be the ones that continue to be used by people. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, it does. And it's right. And those people aren't going to be thinking about the things that we're thinking about when they're using those pens. Right? Yep. So, you know, there's no, like Todd doesn't propose a solution. I mean, I think he proposes that there's a different way to look at the problem. But I don't, I wouldn't even know what the solution would be. You know, are we holding, you know, are we using pens wrong? Are we teaching kids, you know, to use things the incorrect way, you know, based on, you know, old teaching systems and things like that? So, I don't know, it was something interesting, and I thought it was worth the conversation on, because I thought it was an interesting perspective, for sure. Yeah. And I can see that. And it definitely made me think about, like, how I use pens and how I write and have I changed over the years. You know, I do cringe, and this could happen today, it could have happened 20 years ago. I do cringe when I see really bad handwriting grips, like some real, like, overlaps and some, you know, some just really poor, poor grips that, you know, these poor folks didn't get taught the right way. And it's going to affect them long term, but they've just, you know, they've just modified their style to how they grip the pen, right? So, it doesn't matter anymore. But I do cringe when I see a really bad grip on a pen. All right. So, I should have talked about this when I was talking about the Hobonichi, but our friend Ryder Carroll with the Bullet Journal, and if you back the Kickstarter project, you know about this, because you got the email last week that we did. The blog's finally finished for the Bullet Journal. He's updated everything. It has a lot of different ways. It has, of course, the how-tos on how to do the system, how everything works. But the neatest thing that I thought that came out of and what he was trying to do is he has a library of how different users use Bullet Journaling for different things. Like, there's things, you know, there's like a food log where someone has created the modifications of the Bullet Journal to fit their food log. And then, you know, how to move the data between months and things like that. And then the blog I found to be very interesting because it's taking actual users of the Bullet Journal who have committed to the system and how they break down the Bullet Journal to use in a more efficient way. So, if you haven't, you know, if you've never heard of the Bullet Journal, it's good to go check out just to see if that's a system that works for you. I don't know. I'll have to use some type of system in my Hobonichi just because I'm at least like a, you know, like a tick box and checks and arrows type of guy when I am, you know, using like a dated calendar. It obviously doesn't work, you know, specifically for Bullet Journals, but I do take some of the symbolism and, you know, key points of something like the Bullet Journal to morph into my own system. So, I just wanted to point that out that that's out there for everybody now to see that everything's up and running on the Bullet Journal. Cool. Very cool.

Myke Hurley: Take a break. Yep. This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace. You can start building your own website today at squarespace.com and you want to use the offer code INC at checkout to get yourself 10% off. Squarespace. Build it beautiful. With Squarespace, you can build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of your skill level. No coding experience required. They have intuitive and easy to use tools that make it super simple to make your website look and feel exactly how you want. Squarespace power all of their sites with state-of-the-art technology. This ensures security, stability, and feature updates as well. They keep everything nicely updated and make sure that you're always at the forefront of new technologies. Like, for example, when responsive design became the thing, Squarespace made sure that all their templates worked on all manner of devices. And they look fantastic and you can see your lovely content fantastically designed and presented no matter what device people are looking at your website from. Squarespace are trusted by millions of people around the world and it's easy to see why. With their features and their benefits like 24-7 support with live chat and email, their rock-solid fast hosting, their great templates which I mentioned and they have tons of those and there's a way of adding more and you can really adapt them and customize them to your own desire. They also have stuff like their commerce platform which allows people to add stores to their Squarespace site. And even their cover page functionality which allows you to build great-looking single-page websites. If you look at all of that stuff, which is just a mere sliver of the features and benefits of Squarespace, you can see why so many people love and use them. Squarespace plans start at just $8 a month and you can sign up for a year and if you do, you'll get a free domain name. They have monthly plans and annual plans but if you sign up for an annual plan, you'll get a free domain name as well. So you can give your fancy new website a fancy new name. So you can sign up for a free trial with no credit card required and start building your own website today by going to squarespace.com and you can play around of it before you sign up for a plan. But when you do sign up, make sure that you use the offer code INK to get 10% off your first purchase. You'll also be showing your support for this show by doing that as well as getting that 10% off. Thank you so much to Squarespace for their support of this show and RelayFM. Squarespace, build it beautiful.

Brad Dowdy: So before we get into our next topic, I was reading back through the chat room. Did my good friend and sometimes guest poster to the pen addict, Mr. John Bemis, aka JTower42, say that he bought all three of the Cross Star Wars fountain pens?

Myke Hurley: I didn't believe him.

Myke Hurley: I think he's telling the truth. Can I start writing for the pen addict? Because clearly you pay very well.

Brad Dowdy: Full disclosure, I don't pay John. I pay John in virtual hugs. But I do pay the regular writers, yes.

Myke Hurley: Well, I want to do whatever he does.

Brad Dowdy: I know what he does and I don't want to say it, but it's awesome.

Myke Hurley: Is he a millionaire?

Brad Dowdy: I must be. He could be. He could be. But yeah, so John, I want that guest review of those pens when you get them and have time to play around with them. That will be awesome.

Traveling Pens

Brad Dowdy: I can't believe that. That's shocking. All right. So we're going to talk about traveling with fountain pens because it hit me after I got back from D.C. and I told you I was going to fly with fountain pens. Did we ever really like get into like what I did? I don't think so. I don't think we did. I think like after the episode, I realized that I didn't talk to you about, you know, flying with fountain pens. And I did it. You know, I took my plan was to since I'm going to a pen show, I wanted to take some pens and I wanted to take them inked up. And I wanted to experiment on the plane how things would work with flying with fountain pens. And so I took a cartridge fill pen, took a piston filler pen, and I took an eyedropper pen in a converter fill pen. So I kind of had one of each of the filling systems. So I had them all filled up with ink. I had them in my brass town in my backpack. And then inside the brass town, I took a Ziploc bag that had a paper towel in it.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So what I did was when I got on the plane, got my seat, I took out the brass town, took the pens out of the brass town, put them in the Ziploc just, you know, in case they did blow up or leak or whatever. Put them in the Ziploc, you know, around the paper towels and stood them upright in the seat back in front of me. Right. So they were sitting there vertically in a Ziploc bag in the seat because, you know, I was going to throw my backpack on the ground under the chair in front of me anyway. So I didn't want you definitely know. I definitely didn't want them laying flat or upside down or doing anything weird. Um, so I had zero issues, not a single drop of a leak on any of the four pens that I did that with. Um, I took them out. They didn't explode on the plane. I got to the hotel room. I reloaded them back into the brass town, looked in all the caps, everything looked around the seams. There was not one drop of ink anywhere. So it was like hugely successful, um, traveling with fountain pens, like literal zero issues. You know, I did take the extra precaution of separating them from, you know, just throwing them in my bag under the chair in front of me. I wouldn't do that. You're just asking for, you're asking for it to leak. Then, you know, you want to carry them vertically in the seat back. I could have just left them in the brass town, but I didn't want to stay in it, um, if it did leak. So, you know, I, um, I, I, I took them out of there, but that was the only like precaution I took. Um, otherwise it just went perfectly well. And, um, you know, for Vegas, which is where I just went, um, there was not a pen show, unfortunately, but, um, there was plenty of other shows out there. I didn't take any fountain pens. I just took one pen. I took, um, the Sunderland MK1 prototype. It's got a pilot juice refill. I had no problems with that. And, uh, I just took, uh, um, like a pocket notebook. I told, I said last episode, I just finished one of my knock pocket notebooks and didn't know if the new field notes were in. And I'd take that and they weren't, but I did get a new notebook in, um, it's from a company called story supply. And they're going to become launching a Kickstarter pretty soon. Um, it's a really nice notebook. It's a three and a half by five and a half, uh, pocket memo book side stapled three staples. Um, it feels like 70 pound paper on the inside. Um, we'll have a link in the show notes to, to the page because their Kickstarter is launching soon. So they sent this to me in advance. Um, it's ivory colored paper gridded, and it's got a couple of, uh, a couple of darker gridded lines in case you wanted to, um, you know, um, section off the page for, for different tasks, things like that, which I kind of like the look of it, but it performed really well. The paper's really nice. And, um, they also are going to do a thing where if you make a purchase, they also supply, uh, books to kids in need. And, um, you know, uh, you can, you can read about that all on the, uh, all on the page. We'll have links. So, so pay attention to that when it, when it comes up to Kickstarter. Um, you know, they, they just asked me to check out the blog. They didn't ask me to say anything, you know, about them. They asked me to just check out the product. Let me know what I thought. But I mean, it's, it's, it's really good. Um, their logo is killer. I love it. And, uh, they did a good job. So on the notebook, so look for that one coming to Kickstarter. So for Vegas, I kept it simple pocket notebook, one pen and done. So now you're getting ready to fly a much longer flight than I am from Atlanta to DC. What will you do Myke for pen and paper carry traveling from London to Portland for XOXO?

Myke Hurley: I'm not going to do anything special. Uh, you just reminded me. I'm going to take the only fountain pen out of my bag. Um, I'm going to take a retro 51, a couple of field notes and I'll take some mechanical, a mechanical pencil, probably the, I think I might swap the Colt pens out for the roturing. No, I'm going to keep the Colt pens in there. Yeah. I'll take a retro 51, uh, some Sharpies and a couple of field notes notebooks. That's going to be me. I'm not going to do anything special. So I don't need any fountain pens for this trip. Um, particularly cause I'll probably be using a pencil for any notes that I take. Right. Because that's who I am now. Uh, I like it. And I don't want to take, I don't want to take the lava just because it's, uh, got some sentimental value to it now. I don't want to lose it. So, uh, I'm going to keep that one here, but I'll take the, the Colt pens mechanical pencil with me. I think, I don't know. I'm struggling between that and the roturing. I'm not sure what I'm going to take now. I'm going back and forth on it, but I'm going to, I'm going to take my fountain pen out my bag. I'm going to do that right now before I forget, Brad. So you're going to hear me now getting my bag. Cause I will definitely forget to do that. And then I'll end up with ink everywhere, which I don't want to happen. You're a chicken. Because I'm not going to do anything special to protect it like you did. Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: You're a total chicken. So I want to clarify, I did get asked about that. So what, uh, uh, Keith Weir asked what happened about the pens touching, you know, cause I have a, when I took them out of the brass town and into the Ziploc, I, I very much took that under consideration. Keith, what I did was took about, I wrapped up about four paper towels in a roll and I've laid one pin in and then rolled it some and then put the other pin in and rolled it some so they never touched. So I got your back, man. My pens didn't touch.

Myke Hurley: You're a very special egg. Yes, I am. Uh, I'm actually decided I'm taking the Colt pens because I can retract the pipe so it doesn't stab me in the leg.

Brad Dowdy: There you go.

Myke Hurley: And then I got, I'm probably going to have to change these field notes out, get some fresh ones to put in there. I like to have fresh notebooks on a trip like this.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's cool. And you'll actually, I was surprised at the amount of pens and paper, um, I saw, um, at XOXO last year. And, um, there was a lot of sketchnoting going on, which we're going to talk about more in a future episode and, um, you know, it's, um, it's cool. I would just walk up to people, you know, that I saw writing and drawing and say, Hey, what are you doing? You know, like, you know, I'm a, I like seeing, you know, your drawings. Can I check them out? And there was some really cool stuff. So, and, but, you know, like for you and kind of like for me last year, like the, the quick accessibility, quick draw of, um, you know, uh, pen or pencil in a small notebook is, is kind of key for bouncing around XO. So that was certainly good.

Myke Hurley: Thanks for reminding me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brad Dowdy: Um, real quick, before we wrap this, this little travel section, Phil Lee wants to ask, do you have to put your fountain pens in a bag with other fluids for security check? I did not.

Myke Hurley: That'll be under the milliliter count.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I didn't carry any ink.

Myke Hurley: Well, unless you're taking a Visconti, that might be a whole set.

Brad Dowdy: That might, that might go over the, the, the size limit.

Myke Hurley: But you'd have to do that for ink bottles, but under no circumstance, really, should you be taking bottles on planes in my, in my feeling, but Hey, people do stuff.

Brad Dowdy: What are you going to do? What are you going to do? So anyway, so that, that's our travel tips. I had zero problems and Myke is a chicken. So that's what we've determined. I'm a chicken. All right. So let's wrap this up on a question. We got getting ready for this episode. We talked about pen tears in the past, um, and ranking, you know, what are not necessarily, well, I guess it would be our favorites, but you know, there's certain things about, you know, pens, um, that you would never get rid of or never consider getting rid of. And what inks, the question was, what inks would you put with those tier one pens? You know, what are your, what's your ink tears? What's your absolute must go to inks? If I had to clear out the closet of every ink that I owned and just pick out my favorite bottles to keep. And those are the only inks that I could use. Um, I came up with a pretty short list. Um, these are in no particular order and it's definitely pilot of Roshizuku Shinkai. Um, that's maybe my single favorite ink. It has a challenger, maybe two challengers, um, which I'll mention in just a moment. Um, the second ink I listed was the Sailor Yamadori, which I really, really love the color on that. And I love the performance of Sailor's inks. Um, the third one I put down was Bung Box 4B, which is the Bung Box blue black. Um, that's a competition in competition with the Shinkai. It's got some really cool shading to it. Um, I love that. The fourth one I put down was the Roaring Klingner Scabiosa. I love that color, that purple and, um, the effect it has on the paper. When you put that down, it's a beautiful ink. It's a great, great color. And the last one I listed, which is really challenging the Shinkai for my number one ink is the Mont Blanc JFK, which that even surprises myself how much I like that ink. It's, it's probably the most simplest blue black out of the two other, out of the three that I listed between the Shinkai and 4B. But it's the most, that makes it the most traditional looking. And for some reason, you know, which is why I like all blue black inks. For some reason, that super traditional old school blue black just does something to my brain. I love that color. And that's how this JFK, um, comes out on the page. They market it as like a navy. Um, but it's got some gray in it. So it makes, it makes it more of a blue black. And I just love the color. I, I'm fascinated with the Mont Blanc JFK now. Um, give it, give me some more time with it. And, uh, it may jump Shinkai. So it's probably like Shinkai JFK 4B or my three blue blacks. Then I have the, the bright, uh, blue green of Yamadori. And then the purple of Scabiosa. If I could just have those five inks for the rest of my life, I'd be pretty satisfied. I wouldn't be wanting, uh, really for anything. So what about you?

Myke Hurley: Just quickly. Your website is ridiculous.

Brad Dowdy: Why?

Myke Hurley: So I'm Googling to add to the show notes, right? Yeah. With all these inks that you're mentioning. Uh-huh. And your, the pen addict is always in the top results. Like above stores.

Brad Dowdy: Sweet.

Myke Hurley: So there's just pen addict links for every single one of these now. Your reviews.

Funny Story

Brad Dowdy: Do you have time for a funny story?

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: So I'm flying back from Vegas and I'm sitting, I think I'm sitting in the airport and I'm looking through Instagram and I posted, oh, it's like my goodbye Vegas post. You know, I had like the Paris Eiffel Tower, the hotel, we're saying goodbye Vegas, whatever. I get a comment in that thread about, I'm not looking at it right now, but the, the guy says something, you know, related to pens and, you know, oh, said, well, you're out there for a pen show. And I said, no, just for pleasure. And, uh, but you know, the Las Vegas pen show needs to be a thing. And then he replied back, said, by the way, this is Chris from work. I Googled best pens and I saw your name in the byline. And I was like, oh my God, this is really weird.

Myke Hurley: You've been discovered.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Several people, a lot of people at work know, but he's actually a pretty new employee. Um, so it was funny and I was like, oh my God, that's pretty crazy.

Myke Hurley: It's always scary when people find you, man.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah. So it was a trip, um, but I enjoyed it. He's a nice guy. And so, uh, now when I go back to work, we're gonna, we're gonna talk pens. I'm gonna have to bring him some pens to try out. So he's a pen guy, clearly. Yes. He's a pen guy. So that, that was, that was, uh, that was my funny story about, uh, Google and finding me. So I'm, I'm quite easy to find, um, if, if you're looking for me, I'm not hard. All right. So let's, let's get to your, uh, your ink list. What do you got?

Myke Hurley: Mine is super simple. And any long time listener will know all of these, uh, Hiroshi Tsuku, uh, Fuyugaki and Konpeki. So the orange and the blue, and I'm adding Jeho Bon Emerald of Chivor in there, uh, because I think it's really pretty and I like it a lot. I have to say though, uh, well, I would want to qualify this a little bit. But so I picked up my Karas customs that I kind of modified, right. To use the other day. And I'm doing it right now. And the ink is not flowing very easily. Oh, it is 100%. Is it clogging up in there?

Brad Dowdy: Okay.

Myke Hurley: So that is a word of warning. Like I haven't used it for a couple of weeks. Like I'm trying it right now. I used it two days ago and no ink is coming out of this thing.

Brad Dowdy: Hmm. Okay. So yeah, that's how the, like the stormy gray was, um, for me.

Myke Hurley: But if I give it a little shake, right. I can get it flowing, but, and it's flowing fine now, but this is not a problem that I have with other pens that are sitting in here. Right. So I've just picked up the pro gear. Definitely haven't used the pro gear in the same amount of time. No issue. Flowing straight away.

Ink Bottles

Brad Dowdy: Right, right, right. So I did ink up my bottle of Emerald of Chivor just before this episode. So I don't have really time for much thoughts. I haven't, haven't used it yet, but I am getting, I am getting a lot of the gold. In the page. Um, I would like to see a little bit more red in the sheen. I'm using the TWSBI, uh, eco with the medium nib. So it flows really, really well. Getting a lot of gold, not a lot of red. So, um, I just haven't had time to play around with it to really comment on colors. Beautiful. Color comes out really good. I want to, uh, find a way to get some more red out and, uh, I'm gonna work on that, but I wanted to give it a run in the, in the TWSBI eco first, just because I can see the ink and it settles really, really quickly. Like if I set it down for even a couple of minutes, it settles fast. That gold settles fast. So you got to shake it up before, before you get going.

Myke Hurley: Shake it off. As a Taylor Swift would say.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Myke Hurley: Something like that.

Brad Dowdy: All right. Let's shake this episode off, mate.

Myke Hurley: Sounds like a good idea. If you want to find the show notes for this week, you want to head over to relay.fm slash pen addict slash one seven one. If you want to find Brad online, he's at dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M on Twitter, pen addict on Instagram and over at pen addict.com as well. And I am at I Myke I M Y K E on the Twitter and the Instagram. Uh, thanks again to our sponsors this week, the great people over at Harry's and Squarespace. And we'll be back next time. Until then say goodbye, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Goodbye, Brad. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning, Good morning