The Pen Addict 22/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	22
Title:	It's The Hole Up There
Release Date:	July 12th, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	No guests this episode
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 22
Audio File:	Audio Episode 22
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 22
Length:	4242 min <br />0.7 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello and welcome to episode 22, all of the ducks in a row, if you're a bingo player, of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and all things analogue, the tools that we love so dearly. I'm Myke Hurley of 70 Decibels and I'm joined as always by The Pen Addict himself, the High Priest of Pendum, that is Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello sir, how are you?

Brad Dowdy: Wow, I don't know if I can live up to that, but thank you. I'm good, how are you?

Myke Hurley: I'm very well, it's rolled off the tongue, clearly I'm caffeinated on caffeine, I'm not drinking, because I'm only drinking water, I don't know why I'm buzzing, maybe it's just talking to you, Brad. It's that caffeinated water. It's that caffeinated water in Britain. We are sponsored, this show, by Hover, Simple Domain Management, and Squarespace, the best place to build an amazing website. And we'll talk about those during the show. Now, I'm going to surprise you with a quick question, sir. I'm going to put you on the spot here. Now, when we started using Bionic, obviously, new show, new notebook. So I cracked open a Doan idea journal that was given to me. It was sent to me by our good friend, Mr. Michael Ram. Yes. He sent it over to me, because I believe you gave it to him. I did. And he had lots of them, so he sent it to me. So I want to ask you, why is Doan the best? I want to get your opinion on this, because you say that you don't want to use paper by anybody else, right? This Doan paper is the stuff that you use. I've seen you say on Twitter that there is no paper like it. Why? I mean, I'm enjoying it. I'm using the spiral bound idea journal. It's fine, but I want to hear from you why it's so good.

Paper Items

Brad Dowdy: Well, I've never said it's the best. I've said it's the best for me. Right, okay. That's a big difference. Yes. Right. So what's important to me when I'm writing is that I don't have to think about the paper that I'm writing on. And whether that's, you know, with the paper, whether that's something that's aesthetically pleasing or performs well with the types of pens I use. You know, those are the types of things. You know, I want the paper to get out of the way. And what's funny about the Doan paper, it's got more going on on the page than just about any other paper I've ever used, right? I mean, for those not familiar, it's got a grid system and with lines, horizontal lines, thicker lines going across it. So it's a grid plus line system. And you would think, and to people that aren't, are used to a blank page or a standard line page that, oh my God, I don't know where to write on this paper. You know, there's so much going on. I can't figure it out. To me, it's almost like a calming, it's like a calming influence, mainly because I've used, I use grid paper my entire life. You know, when I was in school and things like that, I've always bought grid paper. And with the Doan, it gave me that little extra option of having the thicker lines every third grid. And with this, you know, we talked about having, buying things and using things that fit your style. Well, I don't write, you know, novels, okay? You know, I don't sit down at a desk, grab a pen and write for two hours. You know, this isn't that type of paper, at least for me. I mean, I, you know, someone may use Doan paper for that. For me, you know, I write notes in short bursts with diagrams, with check boxes, with all different types of things going on on the page. And shockingly, this type of paper works better for me than a blank type of paper. You know, I want some structure to where I have some guidelines. I think that's where the grid comes in, right? There's some structure to the page. But it's even more freeing than blank paper to me because when I'm writing on blank paper, I have to think about where my lines are going to go or where my boxes are going to go. And it's almost more pressure for me to use a blank page. Whereas with the Doan paper, I just don't, I don't feel any pressure to write when I use that paper. It fits me, it fits me, you know, it fits my eye looking at it. And it also, the quality of the page works well with the mostly gel ink pens that I use to write notes with. And, you know, on top of that, you know, things like specifically to the idea journal that you have, the construction of that notebook really stands out to me with the thick chipboard covers.

Brad Dowdy: You know, we're doing this podcast right now. I was not expecting this question, obviously. You just dropped it on me.

Myke Hurley: I did.

Brad Dowdy: I'm using the, sitting on my desk right now, there's two pads. And for my notes today, for today's podcast, I'm using the, the Doan, the large flap jotter, which is the, one of the newer items that Chad's created. Um, and then to the left of me is the Doan paper, um, the large, the, the legal pad that I use to do all the reviews, my, most of my reviews on penaddict.com on.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: That's, that's, that's the, those are the two paper items on my desk right now. So, I mean, I, I practice what I preach. I'm not, I'll never say, you know, that this is the best paper for someone else, but it's, it's the best for me because it, it, it, it feels right when I write. I don't have to think, I never have to think about anything when I write on this paper. It just, you know, it just works for me, works for my style.

Myke Hurley: Cool. I just wanted to, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So that, that reminds me, and I don't know if Chad Doan listens to the podcast or not, but we got to get him on for a, for an interview. I'm going to work on that.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, do that. I would like to, to hear from him. That'd be really cool from somebody who creates the products that you use.

Brad Dowdy: That'd be great. Yep. So, so what do you think about the, what do you think about it? I sense a little hesitancy.

Myke Hurley: I don't think I've used it enough yet. I've only, I've only used it a couple of times. Um, spiral bound is an issue for me because I'm left-handed. Yes, very much so. Um, so spiral bound can be a bit of a problem. Um, I mean, yes, it's inferior problem for left and right-handed people because it's down the center of the page, but most people write on the right page and then, you know, predominantly, um, I think anyway. Um, yeah.

Brad Dowdy: And I don't, I don't, I never write on the, the backup page. There you go. So I never, a lot of people don't.

Myke Hurley: Or, you know, what I do is I always start on that right page. So sometimes I miss pages out, you know, or whatever. Um, so that can be an issue for me, but I, I really like the, the style of it. I like the ruggedness. Um, it looks so different to the rest of like my Moleskine sitting up there. Right. You know, they're all like prim and proper in their black, um, finish with the little elastic round. And then you've got the hunky, like, you know, just big idea journal sitting there with its like rustic chipboard and all that sort of stuff. I like that about it. You know, it's cool. Um, I'm not a hundred percent sure what, how I feel about the grid paper. I like it, but I don't know if I prefer it to plain because I don't like lined.

Brad Dowdy: Yes. That's, that's my number one least favorite.

Myke Hurley: I feel constricted by lined, but with grid, because there's lines all over the place, it feels less constrictive. Does that make any sense?

Brad Dowdy: No, that's a good note. Cause I feel the exact same way.

Idea Journal

Myke Hurley: Because, because especially with the, the way that it's done in the idea journal, there's like so many different ways you can do it. You can use it like line paper. You can use that grid paper. You can just ignore it altogether because it doesn't constrain you to one line. So I feel like I have as much freedom. And I think I quite like the grid aspect because if I need to draw lines and squares and boxes, which I do quite a lot when I'm show noting, um, it works quite well. So I'm thinking about like for this stuff, for my general notepads, um, that I use for work and that sort of stuff. Um, and even like to an extent, the field notes that I carry around in my Pele journal stuff, I always want plain. I mean, I know field notes are grid, so that's fine for me. Um, but like the other pads that I have in there, I always want plain in those. But for things where I'm doing stuff like show notes, I think I do, I'm starting to prefer the grid. So I've been using field notes a lot more for it. Um, so I might consider moving over. They, cause I have one of the, um, the smaller dome journals, the utility journal, utility journal, um, and their field notes like, and I really like that. I like the size of it and stuff. It's really cool.

Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. Um, you know, I mean, Chad, Chad doesn't pay me to pay me to pimp his paper. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a paying customer, uh, just like everyone else. And he'll throw me some stuff to do giveaways sometimes when he does a, uh, a new product. But I mean, I, I, you know, I, I put my money where my mouth is with this product and I use it a lot and I don't know, it's, it works best for me. And that's, uh, you know, that's the big, the big challenge is, is finding those things that work best to you. And for me, I've, I've, this is one I've stuck with for, for years and I've tried lots of other things and, you know, the, about the only thing that's kind of, um, squeaked into the rotation is the, is the field notes, um, memo books. Um, outside of that, you know, I use, um, a little bit of Rodia at work and that's pretty much it. Um, it's, it's pretty much majority, um, don't paper products for me.

Myke Hurley: Cool.

Brad Dowdy: Cool.

Myke Hurley: So you do our first sponsor before we go into the meat of the show.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's do that.

Myke Hurley: So everyone's had their starters now and then the meat and veggies after this point. So this is the break between meals between, um, the, uh, what's the, what's the term? What am I looking for? Course. Ah, yes. The break between the courses. Um, this episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Everything you need to create an amazing website. So last week, um, I gave a real good overview of some of the features that Squarespace provides like rock solid hosting, easy whizzy wig site design, free custom domains, and much more. What I love about Squarespace and what I'm sure Brad loves about Squarespace too, um, is that our entire sites are managed through one simple cheap plan, one system, one product, one company. I don't have to pay a hosting company. I don't have to buy themes. I don't have to buy CMSs. I don't have to hire designers. I can do it all myself through Squarespace. Is that something that you love, Brad? It's all, all right there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, I've, you know, I paid my fee, you know, just like I bought an annual plan and that's it. I never have to worry about, you know, you know, do I need to hire a designer to do this when, you know, I have all these tools at my disposal or, you know, do I have to worry about hosting when they have the, you know, the hosting built in? And so, you know, do I have to worry about, you know, you know, if my site, you know, has a performance spike and do I need to, you know, you know, throw or I run out of storage, do I need to throw more storage at it? It's, it's all there. It's all included. And it's, it's kind of a no brainer.

Squarespace Discount

Myke Hurley: Exactly. Squarespace have two pricing plans. They're very simple and they outline them on their site so you can clearly choose what's right for you. They have the standard plan and the unlimited plan.

Myke Hurley: One is $10 a month. One is $20 a month if paid month by month, but you get a discount if you pay annually, which is $16 for the unlimited plan and $8 for the regular plan. And that is basically, you know, you're looking at the equivalent. So if you pay for it in one flat fee, then you get its equivalent of $16 a month. The unlimited plan gives you unlimited everything. You have unlimited pages, hosting, bandwidth. It's all unlimited. On the standard plans, it's all chunky. You get real great limits. But for me, the unlimited plan works because I never have to worry about anything. And if I get linked by, you know, some great site as we do quite frequently, we get linked. I mean, we're always getting traffic from the pen addict. You know, so if, if we have a spike, it doesn't shake a thing and I don't have to worry about it. And for $16 a month, like, what is that? It's nothing. And if you buy with the annual plan, you get a free custom domain as well. If you have any issues, they have fanatical 24-7 support. And they've really helped me out when I've gotten myself into a jam on a couple of occasions. They've helped Brad out as well with the support.

Myke Hurley: I really love Squarespace. I think you will too. Why don't you go sign up for a two-week free trial and check them out. And you can do that by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels.

Myke Hurley: And if you choose to sign up, I can give you a great deal. I'll give you 10% off your first purchase by using the coupon code 70decibels7. That's 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S-7 at checkout. Thank you to Squarespace. I tell you what, by now, that coupon code has become like a little jingle for me.

Brad Dowdy: You've got it down.

Myke Hurley: The way I say it, D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S-7. It's become like a, I say it so often. I say it on every show now. Although our next sponsor uses a totally different code.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I like that code. I know that one. That's a good one.

Myke Hurley: We'll talk about that in a minute.

Brad Dowdy: We'll tease that one.

Pen Discussion

Myke Hurley: So what is the main course? What do we have?

Brad Dowdy: The main course is I kind of want to, you know, I talk about pens a lot. And I get into depth on pens and, you know, various pens that we like and things that we use. And this is one that I want to kind of sort of do a review on, which, you know, I've never done like a straight review on this podcast before. I've certainly talked about tons of pens and gone in depth. And this is an interesting pen because it's a Kickstarter pen. And the thing about Kickstarter pens is not many people get to use them before they buy them. So since, you know, ever since the beginning, when like the pen type A came about and I ordered them, people always ask me, you know, how'd you like that pen? And, you know, things like that. And people start asking me about all these Kickstarter pens. And, you know, what do you think about this? I'm like, you know, I'm in line just like you are. You know, I've paid my money. I'm waiting for it to come in. And, you know, fortunately, as more people jump on Kickstarter to make pens, you know, they've contacted me and sent me samples. And I'm able to get some kind of early prototype reviews about certain pens. And I've never had so many people ask me about this pen called the Solid Titanium Pen Plus Stylus.

Myke Hurley: It's not a very inventive name, is it?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. You know, these are the guys. It's from the guys that did the PHX1 pen, Chadwick and Joe.

Myke Hurley: So they went, never mind.

Brad Dowdy: So they went from the cool little acronym for their pen, PHX1. To ultra descriptive. To we're just going to go Solid Titanium Pen Plus Stylus. And you know what? That's what it is. But I've never had so many people find a pen on Kickstarter and email me, tweet me, either, have you seen this pen? Have you seen this pen? Or are you going to get a review? Are you going to get a review sample? Should I buy it? Are you going to get a review? Are you going to get a prototype? I'm like, you know, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. When I saw this pen pop up, there's very few pens that I just jump in and back. You know, I need to think about it. Number one, it's expensive. This one's actually reasonable compared to some. But, you know, it's an expensive commitment. A lot of these pens on Kickstarter. But knowing Chadwick and Joe from their previous projects, PHX1, and staying in touch with them via email as they've launched different projects. Like they've had a neat kind of like a desk caddy to hold pens in. You know, they'd send me – you know, they always keep me informed on the projects that they're doing.

Brad Dowdy: And I was real happy with the PHX1 from a design and build perspective that when I saw this, I didn't know this pen launched until someone pinged me and said, hey, you got to go check out this pen. And then once I saw that it was Chadwick and Joe had done it, I was like, oh, click. And, you know, I ordered in. There was an early backer special. So I got in on that. So I had ordered and backed this pen before I had even talked to Chadwick and Joe about it. But then the emails kept coming. It's like, have you seen this pen? Are you going to try it out? So, you know, I finally – I emailed Chadwick and Joe and said, hey, if y'all are going to do any prototypes for this pen and, you know, you want to send one out for me to review, I would love to review it. I got people jumping up and down about it. It's obviously been hugely successful so far. I mean their goal was $30,000. It's up to $166,000 as of today and it's still got 33 days to go.

Myke Hurley: But they started producing them already.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they've started making – they haven't made their final – So in talking to them, just to be clear, the samples that I have are prototyped. You know, there's some tweaks that need to be – we just need to be clear on that, that there's some tweaks that need to be made. I think there's still some final version tweaking that they're going to do because I've had some – since I've been reviewing these, I've been giving them some feedback on some things I'm finding.

Myke Hurley: You're kind of a great test case for these people. Like, you know, send it to Brad. He knows what he's talking about. I mean seriously, like I can see why they would want to send it to you.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, what's funny is they're based out of Hong Kong. So the main selling point of this pen, just to jump to it real quick, is that it fits – so far what they're saying is about 30 different refills.

Myke Hurley: I'm not on their site now, and they've got some logos up, some that they picked out. So some of the key ones that they've got, Montblanc, Pilot, Bic, Cross, Waterman, Uniball, Schneider, Foray, Monteverde, Pentel, Duke, Otto, Zebra, Pelican. They're like some of the ones that they've picked out because obviously there's some big names.

Brad Dowdy: Right, and if you scroll down, you'll see a more specific list for those – the specific refills for those names that you just read off.

Myke Hurley: I don't see the high-tech C in there.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, well, it is, and I'll explain that.

Myke Hurley: I should just let you talk. Why am I getting involved here?

Brad Dowdy: But what I wanted to say was what was funny is like you're talking about them. They should send it to me, and he's like, I want to send you this pen, but we're in Hong Kong, and the way we're shipping it, we can't ship any liquid items, so we can't send you any refills. I'm like, don't worry about it. I've got every pen imaginable refill. I said, I think I'll be okay, which I thought was just kind of funny. I was like, yeah, don't worry about sending refills to me. I'll be just fine.

Brad Dowdy: But yeah, jumping straight to your point, you don't see the high-tech C. There's a catch. It does work with the high-tech C, but only the Cavalier refill. Okay? The traditional high-tech C, which a lot of these Kickstarter projects were built around, I think when I tested it out, it was something around the tip area of the refill didn't fit well with the design of this pen. But the high-tech C Cavalier, when I got these pens, that's the first refill I went to to fill in, to put into the barrel. And my comment to, you know, I'm working on writing up the review for the pen addict, and I've written some of it. It's certainly not finalized. But my comment in my written review was that this pen was almost made for that Cavalier refill. It fits so well. One of the things I wanted to see when I got this pen in my hand was how tight the tip opening is, you know, where the tip goes through the pen, where your refill goes through the hole at the end of the pen, right? I just call it the tip opening. I'm sure there's some official term for it.

Myke Hurley: I can't believe you don't know it.

Brad Dowdy: I'm shocked. It's the hole up there.

Myke Hurley: That's got to be the show title, man. That's the hole up there. Yeah, like how come I'm writing it down?

Brad Dowdy: That was my – I had a little bit of hacket going on in that accent too.

Myke Hurley: That's my hole up.

Pen Fit

Brad Dowdy: I am so anal about these pens that I don't want any gap or any play or any movement when you write. You know, sometimes pens are designed, especially retractable pens, when you press down the plunger and eject the tip, there's a little bit of movement in the tip. I don't know if you've experienced that. You know what I'm talking about?

Myke Hurley: Yep.

Brad Dowdy: And so, and then when you look at it, you feel that tip moving when you write, and then you look down at it and you can see some, you know, black space. You know, it's like a gap between the tip of the refill and the opening on the pen. Well, this Cavalier, I mean, it's like a deadlock seal. It's awesome.

Brad Dowdy: It's super tight fit. And like I said, it feels like, you know, and I didn't ask him this specifically, but it feels like this was the, the barrel was designed for almost for this refill. It fits so, so well.

Brad Dowdy: So once I got, once I got that high tech C Cavalier in there out of the way, I was like, okay, cool. That's awesome. It fits great. So then I just started ripping through, you know, I have a whole box of pens and a whole, you know, I, I sort out some of my refills like in Ziplocs and things like that. I just started breaking out everything. All right, give me this. Let me, let me see what I can fit in.

Brad Dowdy: Besides the high tech C, the Uniball Jetstream, the 0.5 and 0.7 refills fit in here perfectly.

Brad Dowdy: The Sino RT gel, the 0.38 millimeter fits in here wonderfully.

Brad Dowdy: The G2, it, Pilot G2, it fits perfectly. I didn't think I had one of the Mont Blanc rollerball refills, but I found one and it fits awesome. That's a great refill. Are you familiar with the, and this, this even, this predates the Pen Addict blog. Even there was a, a popular post, but I don't even know by who, but it was a Pilot G2 hack, you know, to fit the Mont Blanc refill into the Pilot G2. Have you, have you ever heard of that hack?

Myke Hurley: No.

Brad Dowdy: It's like an old, it's an old standby classic hack. And you see, I see it cropping up every now and then. People just discovering, it's like, oh my God, I can get, you know, a Mont Blanc for, you know, cheap, you know, because it, it fits the G2 barrel. So, well, this fits that Mont Blanc refill very, very well. Actually, I got, the prototypes I got, they sent me one of each of the three, the three builds that they're doing. It's a, let me get the names exactly right. It's a bead blasted matte black, bead blasted matte silver, and a high polished chrome. Um, and I have the Mont Blanc refill and the, the bead blasted silver. And it, again, it, it fits so well. It, it looks like it's made for it. I'm, I'm very impressed with how tight the tolerances are, if you will, on a lot of these refills. Now, I haven't tested them all. Um, and on their list, I did have issues with a couple of them. Um, and I'm working with Joe on, on some of those questions that I have. Like, I really want the Zebra Sarasa clip. That's a pen that a lot of us use, right? Do you, I think you use that, have you used that some in the past?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've got one. You sent me one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. And that's one I like a lot. Um, you know, a lot of readers of the Pen Antic use that pen a lot. I was like, oh, that would be great if I could get that pen into this barrel. It doesn't fit as well as some of these other pens. It comes, it ends up being a little short, if you will. So the way, the way this pen is designed internally, like in the barrel, there's a spring way up in the, towards the butt end of the pen. Okay. So that provides the tension for the, for the tip to come out and stay firm while you're writing. Well, based on the length of some of these refills, the tip doesn't quite stick out far enough. I mean, it's really, really, really close, but you can tell a difference when you have something so perfect as the high tech C Cavalier refill or the Mont Blanc refill that it looks like it just nailed it. You know, as far as dimensions goes, the zebra solar acid clip and the Uniball Sino 207, they fall a little bit short. And they told me, you know, since these are prototypes, there's some things that are going to be changing. And one of those things is that spring length and the spring tension to make sure they bring down the tip far enough. So it extends far enough out the barrel. So it looks normal when you're writing to give you a, you know, a good writing experience. I don't, I don't know if I'm explaining that properly. If you can, are you tracking me there on what the, what the issue is I'm seeing?

Myke Hurley: Kind of.

Pen Tips

Brad Dowdy: It's like, you know, when, say you have a conical tip, say like your Sarasa. Okay. So the tip has a cone, it's a cone shape, right? Or like an arrow.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: And then it goes, then it goes into a flat spot.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: You know, and normally when you click your Sarasa clip and you eject it, you can, the tip of the pen ejects just past that flat spot. Right.

Myke Hurley: Right.

Brad Dowdy: So it looks, it's visually appealing when you write. It doesn't feel like it's just barely poking out the tip. Well, it doesn't come out that far. It's, it looks a little bit awkward.

Myke Hurley: Okay.

Brad Dowdy: So I've let, I've talked to Joe about it and he said, yeah, that's something that they're working on. So I fully intend that they're going to, you know, work on that for that particular pen. And he said, there's a couple of them like that, that they're still working out some of the, some of the exact dimensions on. And they're going to, you know, they haven't made a final, a final master, master pen yet to build everything off, off of these. So there's definitely still tweaks being done, but it's really cool how they tried to make a pen that fits so many refills. I mean, that's what, that's, what's really people are raving about on this pen is like, man, look at all these, look at all these choices I have. And, oh, look, there's, you know, one of my favorites. Oh, there's another one of my favorites. I can just use this pen and carry around a pen case full of refills and just swap them out as I need. And that's the truth. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a really, really interesting project that I think they've, they've, from what I've seen so far in my limited time with this pen, that they, they've, they've pulled it off. I think, you know, there's several refills I didn't get to try, but it's really good. And that's, that's just the refills. That doesn't even, there's, there's so many other features about this pen just from the pen barrel. I mean, it's a titanium barrel. I mean, it's, it's really well, it's really well made. It's not overly heavy. It's kind of like a medium weight, medium weight pen. I don't know how to compare it to say like a, like a retro 51, maybe a hair lighter, something like that. Okay. You know, it's got a good weight. It's got a good balance. It's the, the cap, it, it threads on. So it's not a click cap. I mean, it's a metal pen. So it's not going to, you know, any kind of any type of click or snap. So it threads on the front and they've also put threading on the end of the pen. So you can post the cap just with one rotation of the threading. Now I found that that makes the pen a little bit long. You know, when you have, when you have caps that have to thread on the end of the pen to post. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast, right? You're, you're, you're used to, if you use a capped pen, you're used to taking the cap off and posting the cap on the end. Well, you know, the, the butt end of the pen usually goes halfway up the cap, right? It just kind of goes over it. Well, when you're using, doing a threaded, you know, a threaded posting, that's just the nature of the beast. It, it, it's a complete addition to the end of the pen. You know, you don't, you don't gain any of that space back. So it does feel a little bit long, but the weight of it is such that it's not uncomfortable to write with when it's posted.

Myke Hurley: Yeah.

Brad Dowdy: It's a little bit longer than like, probably take like a high tech C. And if you just imagine the, the cap being stuck on the end of the barrel instead of over the end of the barrel, that's about how long it is. So, um, and they've done, they've added some cool little features. So I, I didn't even mention this. It, it comes with a stylus on the end of the pen too. Um, I've got a review of a pen that, um, a company named Platinum made. Um, I'll, I'll have to look at it. I wasn't prepared to, to talk about it, but I just, I've reviewed it. I haven't posted the review on the Pen Antic blog and it's a little ballpoint pen retractable. It's, I got it off jet pens. Um, it's a platinum mini ballpoint with stylus. Basically it's a retractable ballpoint. I was like, Oh, this is cool. And I got the stylus and I wrote up the review. I used the pen for a while and the stylus is just horrible. It does not work worth a flip. You know, every touch was taken two or three touches and swipes weren't working and I was getting over it. It was very unresponsive. So I, cause the only other stylus I've used is the Cosmonaut, which, you know, that's not a pen, you know, that's just a stylus, which we both use and love. So I was anxious to try on this, on the solid titanium pen. I was, I didn't have very high hopes for the stylus. I was like, Oh, is it going to be as bad as that platinum was? And, and it worked right out the gate, you know, first touch, first tap, first swipe. And, and that's, that was on my iPhone with the, uh, with the OtterBox cover, which, you know, a lot of people use those. They can have a thick screen protector on that, which sometimes, you know, styluses have a tough time with and not this one. It, it worked right out the gate. I was very happy with it. Um, and you also have an option to unscrew that stylus and just kind of have a cap end for it. They made a, like a little screw, screw cap, just to kind of square off the end of the pin. Um, if you don't use, if, if you don't have any touch, a touchscreen device and don't want the stylus, there's a, a matching, a matching cap for you to put on the end. And they, they've added little finishing touches like the, um, you know, the, the periodic table of the elements, little TI, uh, symbol, like in the square, they've, they've, um,

Brad Dowdy: it's not an, it's not an engraving on the, on the clip. It's more like a, a stamped, uh, on the clip. It looks, it looks pretty cool. It's a very kind of minimalistic design and it's got that little stamp, um, on there, which is, um, very well done. The clip's sturdy. I, I mean, you know, they have a, they have a couple of tweaks to make as they finalize it. But, you know, if you follow their project on Kickstarter, you look at all the updates, you see how hard they're working at it. You know that they're going to, um, you know, nail this down right by the final, by the time the, uh, final pin ship. And, you know, they might even, if they can find some more refills to fit, um, fit on the list, they'll probably add those too, because, um, it, it, it fits a lot of pin, fits a lot of refills. Um, I did try, you know, I saw a lot of people in the, in the, in the backer comment section on the Kickstarter page, you know, asking what about this refill? What about that refill? I did try the standard high tech C refill and the standard Sino DX refill, and they definitely don't fit. Um, so, I mean, and they've been upfront about that in the beginning, you know, they say which ones fit and which ones don't. Those are always on the don't fit list. And I verified they're not even close. Um, I don't think it's even something you could hack and make it fit. Um, but, um, overall, you know, I'm, I'm very happy with this pin. I appreciate these guys letting me get an early look. And I know so many people have been asking me about it. So, um, you know, if you listen to this episode and you have more questions about this pin, you can, you know, hit me up on Twitter at Dowdyism or go to the pin addicts, pin addict.com. Slash contact, shoot me any questions you have. I'll try to answer them. If I have some other refills that you have that I haven't tested out, I'll try to test them out. Um, I tried to test out most everything I had. And, um, you know, if it was on this list, it pretty much worked except for the couple that I mentioned and they're still working on that. So, you know, it's a, it's a, this has been one of the better Kickstarter projects, um, that I've seen. And I, I've certainly never had so many questions about it. So I'm glad, um, I really appreciate Chadwick and Joe sending me these so I can at least, you know, answer some questions that people are having about backing the project. So, you know, I, I hope to have my pin addict review finished and posted by Friday, which is tomorrow. Um, if not, then it'll be Monday, but I think I can get it done for tomorrow. We'll see.

Sponsor Mention

Myke Hurley: Okay, cool. Should I talk about our second sponsor?

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, let's do it.

Myke Hurley: I'm really excited to have these guys sponsor. So it's hover simple domain management from hover, um, hover.com. Now I have in the past used other domain registrars and have always thought that this was the way it was going to be. You know, you want to sign up or you have to go through 25 steps to sign up. You have to see, um, race car drivers around the side of your page and you have to get emails every six and a half hours, uh, for the next 12 weeks after you register any domain. I thought the world of domains is a tough place, but such is life. But then I found hover. Now hover are awesome. I registered a domain with them. Um, I've registered a couple now, one just before we started and also one, uh, I did one a couple of days ago. And the process of registering a domain with hover is so simple. You can search for a domain or keywords, um, if you're not really sure of what you want to register, they'll tell you if it's available. If it's not, they'll try and suggest some domains, um, that you could choose instead. Or if it's like available for a premium price, then I have that there as well. They do transfers. So if you want to move from another provider, they will do that for you too, um, and help you move over. They do renewals as well. So if your domain's coming up for renewal, well, they'll take care of that as well. Um, it's extremely cheap pricing, uh, $15 for .com domains, um, to register $15 for renewal, $10 for transfer. And that's a year. Now that's excellent prices. They do .net, .co, .me, .info, .biz, .mobi, loads more, .xXX for you, Brad, if that's what you, if that's what you want.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. Panatic.xX coming soon.

Myke Hurley: Oh man, that'd be incredible. Um, they have, if, if you've got any problems, you've got any questions, their telephone number is right on the front of the page and they have a no hold policy. If you call them, someone picks up and it's a human. How crazy is that? Like, I can't even imagine a company where that exists. Like you call them and a human being answers the phone.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, that's ridiculous.

Myke Hurley: Let me talk you through the process of registering a domain with Pover, right? Um, and this was, I had not held on with them before. I was starting from scratch, didn't have an account. Searched for it. It was available. So I said, it was one from my brother. So blah, blah, blah, .net. Searched for it. It was available. Clicked buy. Um, said log in or sign up. Sign up for Hover. Put in my account information. And I bought it. And it was done. And I was like, what? Where? Why have I not been asked if I want email? Why have I not been asked if I want terrible web hosting? Why have I not been asked if you want to build a website for me? None of these things happened. And I was ecstatic. I felt like I hadn't even bought the domain. Because it was so quick. And I got an email. I said, welcome to Hover. Here's the domain you purchased. Here's the receipt for that. Who is privacy is included for free with every domain registered for no extra charge. I think that's awesome. I thought that should just be standard. But for some reason it's not. They don't spam you. They don't believe in upselling to you. Hover are a great company. They've got a great story.

Myke Hurley: I really think you should try them out. If you want a domain, just go and try out Hover. And I'm sure that like me, I'm transferring everything over there. I'm going to do it all. I'm going to take it to the afternoon. Make sure I've got all my affairs in order. So I don't accidentally lock myself in to the other people. And I'm going to transfer all my domains over to Hover. And I can't believe it's taken me this long to do it. I have a special deal for you if you want to try them out, which you definitely should. Go to hover.com forward slash Tally Ho. T-A-L-L-Y-H-O. Something else I love about Hover is they appreciate that I am a British gentleman. And you'll get 10% off if you sign up by going to that page. Or if you go to hover.com and use the offer code Tally Ho. T-A-L-L-Y-H-O at checkout. You'll get 10% off. If you want to get a domain at the moment, not only are you going to get a great deal. It also helps support 70 decibels. So if you like what you hear with us, you want to support us because sponsors help us continue to deliver these free programs to you every week. Go and buy a domain with Hover. It's going to be a win-win for everyone.

Myke Hurley: So, Mr. Dowdy, have you got anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

Top Five List

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I'd like to say Tally Ho. Tally Ho. That's awesome. I love that they do that. But, yeah, I got one quick top five list if we want to go over that real quick. I thought it was an interesting – I asked for people to send in their top five list, their favorite pens that they use and why they use them, a little blurb about them. And I said I'd read them on the show. So I got one this week. We got time for it real quick?

Myke Hurley: Yeah, go for it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's from a guy named Theo, and he's a lawyer. And I always like getting different perspectives from people. And what's great, Theo sent me a little blurb on why he uses the pens he used. So let me read that real quick.

Brad Dowdy: It says, I think I have a slightly different take on things, which is why there are only four. He only lists four pens. It says I'm pretty utilitarian, so I like to find the one. I like to find the one. I go to pen for everything. I realize that's kind of impossible, especially when you start really getting into pens. So my list is the top four pens I use, but I use them all differently, so they're not exactly interchangeable. I love them all for what they do, and I use them all a lot. And on a side note, because they're all purposed differently, they're not ranked. It's just my four go-to pens. So he's saying that I found all these pens that I like, and each of them do a different thing. And they all work perfectly for the tasks that I've planned for them. And I think that's pretty cool. So he's got the Pilot G-Tech C4, which we all know about. And he says this is my note-taking editing pen. He handwrites lots of notes at meetings and depositions and document editing.

Brad Dowdy: And he likes the fine line. And you know I love that pen. So that's a no-brainer. His second one is your favorite, the Retro 51 Tornado. He says I've got the Black Blacker version, and it's my show pen. It's the one I take to court and to closings. It's the one I sign contracts and pleadings with. Signatures look better in .7 millimeter than .4 millimeter, which is true. It's snazzy and sharp without being pretentious. Really, who needs a Mont Blanc? I'm so happy to hear a lawyer say that.

Brad Dowdy: Not as great for note-taking as the G-Tech C, but will certainly get the job done when needed. I love it. Probably not as much as Myke, but I love it.

Brad Dowdy: And he's got the Zebra F701, which are you familiar with that pen? I'm very familiar with that one.

Brad Dowdy: It's the stainless steel retractable knurled grip Zebra that you can find at regular office supply stores. It's not super hard to find. It's a really good travel pen, and that's what he uses it for. He said it's the one I throw in my carry-on on any kind of trip. I don't love ball points, but this one's not half bad. The barrel's really nice. It can probably work as a tactical pen in a pinch. It's an easy rider. It works about in any situation, and it's cheap enough that I'm not afraid to use it. And his last one is actually a tactical pen. It's the Schrade tactical pen. This is my rugged pen. I replaced the included refill with a fine Fischer space pen refill to improve its ruggedness. I typically keep this in my car since it has a glass breaker end, but it's also the pen I take backpacking and camping because with a Fischer cartridge, it can write anywhere. So that's it. That's a really good list. I like that he has particular uses for particular pens. They're set aside to do a particular job, and those are the ones he always has with him. So that's a really good list, and I certainly appreciate it, Theo.

Myke Hurley: Excellent stuff. So, Mr. Dowdy, where can people find you on the Internet?

Brad Dowdy: I'm on the Internet. That's on Twitter. If you have any quick questions that I can answer in 140 characters or less, please always hit me up at Dowdyism. I love having conversations on there. It's D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M. I'm happy to help, happy to answer questions. If you have any more longer questions or want to send me a top five list like Theo did, you can go to penaddict.com forward slash contact. And that goes right into my email inbox, and I reply to all the emails I get. It's sometimes not the same day, but usually within four or five days I get back to everyone, and I would be happy to hear from you.

Myke Hurley: Excellent stuff. I'm on Twitter. I'm iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you very much for listening to this week's episode. Until next time, bye-bye.

Brad Dowdy: Bye-bye. Bye-bye.