The Pen Addict 544/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 544 |
| Title: | Things Run Smoother On WNYC |
| Release Date: | December 28th, 2022 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 544 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 544 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 544 |
| Length: | 5656 min <br />0.933 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
Myke Hurley: From RelayFM, this is The Pen Addict, episode 544. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and Pen Chalet. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad.
Brad Dowdy: Hey Myke, how's it going?
Taking a break and personal updates
Myke Hurley: Good. We took a break, which we haven't done in a really, really long time. We had a week off, which is nice.
Brad Dowdy: Mm-hmm. Super strange, I will admit that. Especially since prior to that, I had recorded a guest episode, which I had pre-recorded like a week prior to the actual guest episode happening. So it's been like three weeks since you and I have actually talked live on the podcast. So how have things been in these past three weeks? You having a good holiday? You're all relaxed, refreshed, had a good holiday season so far?
Myke Hurley: Yeah, pretty decent. Pretty decent. I had a good Christmas. I did throw my back out two days before Christmas.
Brad Dowdy: Oh, man.
Myke Hurley: So, you know, just really compounding, because I don't know if you were aware, but I sprained my ankle before we went on vacation.
Brad Dowdy: That part I missed.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. So before we went on vacation, I sprained my ankle pretty bad, like two days before. And like, I'm still kind of like, that's, you know, mostly back to normal now, but not completely. Two days before Christmas, threw my back out. So, you know, I'm just like, I'm at, I'm just, all of these things, they're just getting piled into 2022, right? You just like, they're all in, right? And now 2023, I can just, you know, all this stuff's happened.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So you kinetic chained yourself right into a back injury after spraining your ankle, you know, probably, you know, favoring one side. Now you've thrown out your back because you've had to take care of your ankle. And yeah, that sucks. All of that stinks. So yeah. As someone who throws their back out about once a year, I don't wish that on anybody. It is bad stuff.
Myke Hurley: My issue was, I hadn't been working out because of the ankle injury. And then went too hard. I threw it out at the gym. Yep. So I wasn't listening to my body, which was telling me like, hey, you've probably had enough for today. No, that was not the case. So I threw it back out.
Brad Dowdy: Humans aren't very smart in that aspect, are we?
Myke Hurley: So now it's going to be even longer, you know, like probably another couple of weeks until I can start that again. But learned a valuable lesson.
Brad Dowdy: We all do it. This is a life lesson and you've learned it for probably the next year or two and you will do it again later. It's just the way it's going to be, right?
Myke Hurley: Although if you ask my wife, we can all say I've learned my lesson forever.
Brad Dowdy: Okay.
Myke Hurley: Between me and you, it's going to happen again. I'm going to do it again, you know?
Brad Dowdy: It's totally going to happen again.
Myke Hurley: I know who I am.
Reflecting on 2022 and early podcast episodes
Brad Dowdy: So hopefully you're back and better than ever in 2023. This week on the show, I kind of wanted to close out 2022. Love it. Not with some like huge grand topic. I think maybe we'll talk about like 2023 goals and planning and, you know, themes and all that stuff in next week's episode once the calendar turns. But I've kind of, I've kind of gone into like the nesting cleaning phase to wrap up the year. So we're going to do a big segment on that towards the end of the show today because I have been just like totally getting into like cleaning, you know, and organizing. And this is a good week to do that. So we're going to, we're going to approach those topics later in the show. So until then, I want to, I want to catch up on a few things that we missed over the last few weeks of not being live. Again, thanks to Myke Rohde for being a guest on the last episode we published, episode 543. Did you remember that Myke was the very first interview guest we had on the Panatic podcast over 10 years ago?
Myke Hurley: I did not remember it until you told me.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. I think, what was it? Episode 17. Did I put that in that show? It was something like that. Yeah, 17. Like episode 17, Myke Rohde was getting ready to launch the sketchnote handbook. And 10 years on, he was celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the sketchnote handbook. So what better time to have him back on, talk about all things sketchnoting. And it's still just going great with the whole sketchnote, you know, sketchnote infrastructure, I guess. You know, everything is moving along smoothly. And it was great to kind of catch back up with him. Introduced people to Myke who maybe haven't known about sketchnoting for the past 10 years. And what Myke's involvement is with, you know, sketchnoting the whole movement and what he's been up to. So that was fun. We really enjoyed that chat. It was great. I did listen back to our original interview with Myke. So I was listening to it and all that we heard and it came back vividly. Everything wherever Myke was recording, not you, Myke, the other Myke, Myke with an I, was recording was essentially like a downtown window room with like no like audio support. And it was just horns honking the whole time in the background. Yeah, because, you know, it's that point, you know, we weren't necessarily like completely dialed into our recording editing process. But it was very funny to listen to that compared to now. Hey, Brad, come on, man.
Myke Hurley: You can't say that. Do you remember the episode with the shower? No. We had, I'm not going to name names. We had a guest on the show. Yes. He was in one room, right? Yes. We could hear the shower in the background because they were in like a studio apartment. So like, look, you know, these things, like this is just what happens with guests, especially on this show who are not like, they don't have podcasts. They don't think of this stuff, you know? Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: So I was pretty confident that Myke was, Myke has his own podcast and his own podcast network and shoots videos for Sketching. I knew he was going to be dialed in this time. But yeah, that's what we did. That's what we did last time. You know, that's just what we do around here. Sometimes, Myke, you just got to go with the flow and look the windows down and turn the showers on.
Myke Hurley: Listening to the episode. You know, like Myke has done such an incredible job of building like a whole thing around Sketchnotes. Like it really is very impressive what he is, what he has done with that since that first conversation that we had with him, you know? Right. But like to the level that Sketching is. And what I also really appreciated was his honesty and the way he felt like when he started seeing other people do it and was like, no, this is mine. How dare you? And then was like, no, no, wait a second. Like, let's think about this. I just liked that he just spoke about having that process because I can understand what that must have felt like for him at the time. But because he was able to embrace the idea of this being a community thing, look where he is now. Where if he would have tried to lock that down, you know, not that you could have, but let's imagine that that was his like, he didn't want to share it. He wanted it to just be for him. And like his plan was he would just go to conferences forever and do these like on a fee, which could have been a route that he'd taken. He wouldn't, that Sketchnoting would not be as well known and as successful as it is now. So super cool.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I thought that was a very important part of the conversation. That's something that you and I definitely like believe in that idea of like promoting it for all. Right. You know, let everyone use, use these things. And like you could do an entire episode just on that specific topic about like, like, you know, you and I run businesses around things that we create. And, you know, how do you manage, you know, questions like that that come up and like that could be like an entire hour long conversation just on that topic. So it was great to hear that from Myke. And I, you know, just like you, I was like nodding my head the whole time. Right. Like, yeah, like that's, that's what we believe in. And that's why Myke's Myke was back on 10 years later to like talk about this because of what he's done. And that's hard to wrap my head around. Right.
Brad Dowdy: That I did overthink that a couple of times when I was writing the show notes and going back. I was like, really, I'm having to go back to like episode 17 or whatever it was to like re to re listen to this. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Yeah.
Discussing Relay FM's CMS and episode data issues
Myke Hurley: Hilariously though, because I just took a look at this in the Relay FM CMS. This was not the first now Relay show that Myke Grody was on. He was on episode 120 of Mac Power Users in January 2014. It's like six months before we had him on the show.
Brad Dowdy: Okay, cool.
Myke Hurley: And isn't that hilarious? Like how Mac Power Users has been around for so long. But like in 2014, they were on episode 120.
Myke Hurley: It's like an absurd thing to think about.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. It's like, I don't know. We could, I could get totally sidetracked, but like I'm super proud of all of this stuff. Like it's really cool that, that we still get to do this. And I try not to think about it too much because it's like, ah, this shouldn't really happen. But you know what happens, Myke? We do this for over 10 years and I end up reappearing on WNYC with the big radio antenna, Myke. I was back on WNYC right after we recorded our last episode. I think that afternoon. So a bunch of people have seen me talk about this.
Myke Hurley: I just realized, I think that that's an error with the CMS.
Brad Dowdy: What?
Myke Hurley: There was no way that it was 2014, right? That we had him on. It was 10 years ago.
Brad Dowdy: It was 2012. Yeah.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. I've got to file a bug report. Oh, yeah. His bug report's coming.
Brad Dowdy: I thought we were more equal on numbers with MPU, but I'm not sure.
Myke Hurley: Close.
Myke Hurley: Interesting. So it was episode, what, 17?
Brad Dowdy: I think that was the number. I'd have to go back and look at the notes.
Myke Hurley: For some reason, just that episode is dated June 2014. The rest of them are correct.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I don't know why. Do you know? So I noticed this. So we're completely due rail right now. We're off the rails now. So when I went to go listen to this, I had to go download it directly because it wasn't in order when I was pulling up the archive in Overcast. 17 was not in between 16 and 18.
Myke Hurley: So now that's making sense. I'm going to go fix that right now.
Brad Dowdy: Welcome to the pen addict. Hilariously. This is your show about-
Myke Hurley: Our CMS does not allow me to go back before 2014.
Brad Dowdy: You will probably break so much stuff if you try to move this.
Myke Hurley: I'm starting to see into the matrix here. I think this episode was amended in some way. And because of that, it's dated it. Oh, fascinating. All right. Interesting.
Brad Dowdy: You probably tried to take out the car honking or something like that.
Myke Hurley: No, I think I might have added Myke in as a guest, like manually added him in as a guest.
Brad Dowdy: When we had like the guest linking through the CMS, like guest pages.
Myke Hurley: Uh-huh. And then anytime I've done that, it looks like it's dated the episodes as 2014.
Myke Hurley: Interesting.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Marley's in the chat is correct in that I was prophetic in that like this week's about cleaning things up. It turns out we just didn't know we were going to clean up the podcast CMS. You know.
Myke Hurley: I'm making a note and I'm going to find a bug report in GitHub once this episode is over. Let's carry on with the Pan Addict, shall we?
Brad Dowdy: You know, things run a lot smoother on WNYC, Myke. I'm just saying.
Myke Hurley: How dare you? How dare you? You come in here, you know?
Brad Dowdy: Hey, you know, they say, Brad, you know, hey, why don't you call in at 107 and jump into this room and then the producer will get you. They'll prep you for like two minutes. They'll just get you in the queue. Check your audio. Yep. Your audio is good. All right. Allison's going to throw it to you in like three minutes. I'm like, sweet. That's how it runs. And then I'm just, you know, I'm over the air, Myke. That's just that's how the big boys do it.
Myke Hurley: Well, you know what? I love your public radio so much. You know what I mean? What are you doing here, huh? Why don't you go over to NPR and see how they treat you?
Brad's experience on WNYC and public radio
Brad Dowdy: So I was back on WNYC, which we had talked about after the first one. They said, let's have you back for a gift guide. You never know if that's going to happen. But sure enough, I was on the list and they said, hey, Brad, gift guide episode you in? I'm like, yes, I'm in. Just tell me when and where. And so we recorded that a few weeks ago. So if you want to listen to that, we have a link in the show notes. It's fun. This time we talked about last time how I never know what's going to happen. Like I can't prep for this, right? I have some gift guide ideas in my hand. But a lot of times, especially what happened in the first episode and same thing happened with this episode, Allison takes listener calls and then I just have to go. And like all of that was fine. But Allison got me this time in the beginning of our conversation. She does like this whole, you know, little setup on like the invention of the ballpoint pen. And she's like telling the story of like how the ballpoint pen was invented and things like that. So then she's like, we're bringing in our guest, you know, Brad Doughty from the Pen Addict to talk about pen gifts. So Brad, how was the fountain pen invented?
Myke Hurley: Jeez.
Brad Dowdy: And I'm like, I did not prepare for this. This is not on my list.
Myke Hurley: That was like, hey, Allison, let's take a trip to Wikipedia together.
Brad Dowdy: So I just had to pull something, you know, just out of the ether, you know, and it was essentially a question like that, like to start with. And then after that, I was like, please get me to the listener calls. They're probably not going to ask me that question. So it was really, really funny. And like that really put me on my heels from the jump. But hopefully I generically answered it well enough. And then we got into the listener calls and the rest of that was fun. It's such a fun thing to do. I'm super glad that they called and we can thank the office ladies again. Certainly is why this is happening. So anyway, in case you missed that, Myke, I have that link in there for you to go listen to. It's always a fun conversation.
Myke Hurley: You know, I haven't listened to it yet, but I want to. So I'm pleased you reminded me to do this today.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, yeah. They do a little they have a little embed to where you can just play like the certain segments of the day. And if I link to that, then you can see like the the embed for just that segment. And it was like, I don't know, 15 minutes or something like that. So real short, real short little deal. So it's always fun.
Brad Dowdy: Since then, I have been on and off on Panatic reviews just on the blog. Like, you know, we took some time off last week was my down week on the blog. So all the writers were off. I was off over vacation and things like that. So I wanted to get back into writing reviews. And so I published one Monday, which is a very interesting product. And we might have mentioned it on the show before just in passing. But Blackwing came out with a pencil extender and it's not normally something I'd just be jazzed to review. But I dislike this product's design so much. I was like, I guess I'm going to review this because I had very strong opinions about it. And by the time I get to writing the review, I kind of tamper those down a little bit. Like, I'm not out here to just like destroy products that are terrible. Like, if it's a bad product, like, I won't even spend my time writing about it. But this isn't a bad product. I just think it's a lot of weird decisions went into making this product. And I was trying to like wrap my head around why? Why does this product exist? I'm not sure I got there other than, you know, Blackwing wants to make sure everybody has some Blackwing accessories to use with their Blackwing pencils. And like, that's fine. Like, I even admitted in part of the review that if I was sitting in Blackwing's design office and we had this idea for this pencil extender, like, I would rubber stamp it. Like, I'd say, yeah, let's make this. But as a product, like, I like looking at products like this that just should not exist. This does not make their product better.
Myke Hurley: When I saw the image, like, yeah, when you get down to like that pencil that's like two inches, it's impossible to hold. So stick this like piece of plastic on the end of it and you can hold it like a regular pencil. Like, I saw it and was like, oh, that seems logical.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I mean, there's traditional pencil extenders have been around for as long as pencils have been around, right? Especially when, you know, back in the day when pencils were actually probably a luxury to buy like a single box of pencils, right? That would have been like percentage wise a very expensive thing. So you want to use it right down to until you can't use it anymore. So you tape a stick onto the end of it and you end up, you know, continuing to write. Where I had an issue with this is the visual of breaking up like an iconic design into something uglier, you know? Like they didn't improve. They didn't improve the experience enough to ruin the aesthetic of what is one of the best, you know, aesthetically designed pencils on the market. So I don't know. It's I don't really technically have a problem with it. It works. It works fine. If you're a Blackwing fan, you're going to buy it. But it just it breaks the magic for me. Right. And I don't like products that that break the magic for me. And Blackwing is is, you know, say what you want about the company and the brand and the redo of it. They've built, you know, a great brand off a beautifully designed pencil. And it's a product that I love. And then this just kind of breaks it for me. So anyway, I thought it was worth spilling too many words on over the holidays and putting out as a review. And yeah, it's just a thing. So I think what my end result was, I'm going to keep this product, but I'm going to make it mine. I'm going to, you know, put some designs on this and maybe make it a little bit more fun. Like if I'm going to use this in a pencil extender, a Blackwing pencil extender, like I'm going to draw on it or put some stickers on it and make it at least a little bit more fun than just looking at this black stick sticking out the back of my Blackwing. That really just kind of ruins it for me. So anyway, that's me overthinking the minutia of stationary. But I guess that's why we're here. Right.
Myke Hurley: Wouldn't want anything else.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. Yep. We also had a post, Caroline, who writes a monthly meet your maker post for the pen addict, featured John Tello in December from Hello Tello Studios and Tesori pens, which I'm a newfound fan of. Um, so I just wanted to point that out because a lot of people might be traveling during the holidays and you're running behind on content and we don't publish like a completely full schedule during December. So in case you missed that, this was a great, uh, interview. All of these have been great so far. I really appreciate the insight that Caroline gets from the makers. And, um, I just met John back at the Atlanta pen show this year. So it was cool to see, you know, learn more about his story over the year and then Caroline get it down in writing by the end of the year. So I thought it was kind of a, kind of a good bookend for me personally, uh, just learning about John originally earlier in the year and then having the opportunity to work with him a bunch, buy a couple of his pens, have him participate in, you know, help us raising money for St. Jude, his own, uh, charity raising at, uh, scripting new stories, which I supported. So it was a really cool, cool way to, to go out the year on, on the meteor maker article. So I appreciated that. I just want to let Caroline know and John know that, uh, that was pretty cool. I enjoyed that.
Myke Hurley: All right, let's take a break. Thank our first sponsor of this week's episode. And that is our friends over at Squarespace, the all in one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell your products, services, and even the content that you create with Squarespace because they have got you covered. It is so easy to set up a beautiful website with their best in class templates. You can customize them to fit your needs. It's as easy as just browsing the category of site or business that you have to, or that you want to create to find that perfect starting place and everything can be customized in just a few clicks. But I think we're going to talk about this later on in the episode today a little bit, but I've been changing kind of some of my, where I am online in my life. And so I thought I needed like a new, like I wanted to create like a new, like Myke Hurley.net kind of landing page. And I just went to my Squarespace site, created a new template, customized it, and within like half an hour, I had exactly what I was looking for. It was like kind of like a little portfolio of these are all the things that I make. So, so easy. Then if I wanted to, like you can, get blogging. If you want to put a blog on your website, they have all of the tools that you need to share stories, photos, videos, updates, and more. You can categorize them, share them, and even schedule your posts to make your content work for you. It's so easy to do, so expandable. You can set up a store. You can set up email campaigns. Whatever you want, Squarespace has the tools for it. So head to squarespace.com slash penaddict, and you can sign up for a free trial today with no credit card required. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code penaddict. You'll save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and show your support for this show. That is squarespace.com slash penaddict. And when you decide to sign up, use the offer code penaddict, and you will get 10% off your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of this show and all of Real AFM.
Brad Dowdy: On my Squarespace blog at penaddict.com, we had another guest post during the month that I think is worth checking out for a lot of reasons. Number one, Dennis, who writes at A Fleeting Ripple, is a new-ish blog over the last, I don't know, maybe two years or so. I've been reading a bunch of them. Does a great job. Really excellent writer. And I enjoyed their take on the vintage pilot vanishing point. Dennis had emailed me and said, hey, can I do a guest post on this that I want to do specifically on the vintage vanishing point? I was like, yes, please. Like, that was easy sell for me. And it's just a really good article. And y'all should all go read it because I actually learned some things that these very old vanishing points have a bit of a different filling mechanism and are not necessarily these modern pilot proprietary connections that you have with as far as, like, cartridges and converters go. So I thought that was interesting. So I learned a lot from that article. And if you want to go down the vintage pen route, I think a pilot vanishing point might be, like, a really good opportunity to, like, to say, you know, kind of broaden your horizons. Like, if you get, you know, if you have all of the bright acrylics or the interesting makers right now and you wanted to dabble a little bit in some vintage, like, a vintage vanishing point might be a pretty good place to start. And you actually don't even have to get into the vintage category with the vanishing point to find something cool. Like, the ones from the 90s, which Dennis is much older than that. But, like, the ones from the 90s, I wouldn't categorize as vintage. But they're a completely different pen than what the modern vanishing point is and some of my favorite designs. So I just wanted to put that in there as, like, hey, that's something to look at if you're interested in learning about, you know, where some of these modern pens that we use now came from. Looking at the vintage vanishing point might be a pretty fun place to start.
Brad Dowdy: Flipping the script completely is the Uni Kuretoga Dive, Myke, which I have covered ad nauseum here on this podcast. I've reviewed it on the blog, courtesy of my good friend Jacob, who sent me one from the first batch that was released in Japan. And there's two new colors of the Kuretoga Dive coming. And I like bringing this up because I've gotten so much feedback and people want to know about this pencil. And it's such an interesting concept from Uni. And I'm all about it, even though it's not, like, technically a great writing instrument. Like, if I'm going to choose a mechanical pencil, you're going to be hard-pressed for me to say, hey, this is just a great pure mechanical pencil. But it's such an interesting design. I'm all aboard on this concept, even though it's, what, $45, $50 and you can't buy them. I'm going to keep sharing this information in hopes that eventually Uni is going to start making enough of them now that they're adding two colors. So there is the original blue one, which was, like, this deep blue ocean color. They now have a very green, kind of, a little bit of a sea green type of color. I don't know what you call it. It's not like a bright green or a kelly green or a forest green. It's kind of a tealish green. And then, like, oof, they have an orange, an orange one. And these are plastic barrels. These are not metallic barrels. So this is, like, a shiny plastic barrel on the Kuretoga Dive that you cannot buy. Anyway, like, every time I talk about the Kuretoga Dive, I was like, this pencil is really cool and you can't have it. And that's been the theme of the Dive. It's been, gosh, when did this first one come out? I think it finally hit the market, like, last February. So we're not quite a year into this and people still cannot buy the thing, right? And after Jacob sent me mine and they were no longer available in Japan on eBay, they were going for, like, between $200 and $300, which just don't do that. Like, no one needs to spend that on a product that Uni is going to continue to make. And hopefully they'll eventually make enough of them to where anyone who wants them can have them. We'll start seeing some. So I think when you're going from the singular blue release that immediately sold out to adding two more colors to now have a three-color product lineup, certainly, Myke, you're making more of them now, right?
Myke Hurley: It is an entry. It is a permanent entry, if that was a concern for you before.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So, like, the Platinum Kuretos, which we'll probably talk about sometime next month because we're getting on, like, a two-year anniversary. Like, what has happened to that? Like, where is my next Kuretos? And that's... I don't think there's going to be one. I know. So it's getting to the point now where, eh, what's going to happen to where with the Uni Kuretoga dive, I was like, well, they instantly sold out. But this feels like it's going to continue.
Myke Hurley: Let me say, though, that's such an interesting one to bring up. Like, that makes a lot of sense to me of, like, the way people reacted to both of those pens. Like, the Kuretos and the Kuretoga dive, they're similar in, like, oh, here are these pens that, like, they do something different and people are excited about it and they're selling out everywhere. And people were doing for both, right? Like, paying way over market price because they wanted to make sure they have one. But, like, in... And I see what you're saying, right? About, like, don't do that because they'll make more. But they didn't make any more of the Kuretos. But that's because there was some fatal flaws of the Kuretos, right? That's why they've not made more of them because the Kuretos was cracking, right? In a bunch of them. Yeah, the feed. The feed, sorry. The feed was cracking. And so what that may have shown, which is what I thought at the time, was there is a fundamental design flaw with this product. Right. For whatever reason. And I think it seems to be that way because that must have, and I know it did, cost a lot of money in research and development, that product. And so there's clearly something wrong with how it's made or how they made it that they need to kind of go back and fix if they're ever going to bring it out again.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I did want to totally go down this path. But since I started it, it's really the shark fin on the barrel is where your finger grips it is the real design flaw. They had a technical flaw in the feeds cracking. Yeah, I hate the way it felt to hold because it was painful. The nib. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was holding out for version two forever. And the difference with the Kuretoska dive is they don't need a version two. They just need to make more of what worked the first time, which is different from the Kuretos in that aspect. So I guess I'm going to give them 2023 platinum to resurrect and V2 the Kuretos. But after that, I think they're just going to have to strike that line from the budget going forward. It must not be possible. And that was the great hope, right? The great hope with the Kuretos is that they're trying, and I appreciate them trying. And I think they're just going to nope out of it here pretty soon, right? I don't want to say it failed, but it didn't work, right? So. All right, moving on. One small update. And I'll talk about this more probably next month, like all the changes that I'm going through. And just like trying to get organized for 2023. And, you know, there's a lot of social media movement right now with the mess that Twitter is in. So I created a status page. I'm calling it the status page. And I've linked it to the Panatic blog top, you know, header bar, right? Where all the links are, where you can go to the shop and to the newsletter and things like that. So I have a link up there called status. And the reason why I've done this is because Twitter has always been a place for me to say, hey, I'm running late on stream. Or, hey, Myke and I are pushing the podcast by an hour. And that's a good place for people to see, you know, hey, we're Brad and Myke right now. Like, it's a little bit self-serving. And it's a little bit weird to say, hey, people care about where I'm at. But if I say I'm going to be somewhere at a certain time, I would like to let listeners or followers know if I'm not going to be there. So I created this status page to where I can just go and give an update and link it directly to the blog. So people can just go to the blog, click status, and it says, hey, here's what my schedule looks like for this week. It is fascinating.
Myke Hurley: I've never seen this before. I love this. This is really good.
Brad Dowdy: Yep. So, and, you know, I can, every Monday, I can put up a schedule. And then if something changes during the week, I just put in a new status and say, hey, today's stream is moved from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Boom. And people can just go to Panac.com, click on status, and see what the status is. So, yeah, it's, I'm happy to figure something out for this because I wanted to stop using Twitter for status, right? Because it's, not everyone's on Twitter. Not everyone cares. And I thought this would just be an easier place to find that kind of stuff. So, anyway, that was something.
Myke Hurley: I'm going to buy one of these and check it out. This is a really cool, I like this. I like this. Here's a tip.
Brad Dowdy: Here's a tip. If you like this, and if anyone listening like this, right now, and I'm not getting paid to say this, so these status.lol pages are $5 for a year, but they're going up to $20 for a year starting January 1st. So you should buy them now. I mean, $20 a year is a complete steal, but right now it's $5. And I signed up for it like a month or two ago because this is where I have like my shortened URL pages, right? Yeah. Like, you know, all my social media pages. And there's a lot of little tools that these OMG LOL sites have is what it's called, OMG.lol. But you can buy your own domain for $5 through the end of the year. The next year it goes up to $20 a year, which, like I said, I would instantly, from what I've already used this for and what I've already built from it, $20 a year is too cheap. So right now it's $5. So do it.
Myke Hurley: I signed up for it. I'm going to take a look at this. I wanted to share something I'm working on. Just I had a little idea the other day, and it's kind of like a thing that I'm focusing on for next year. I want to do more marketing around the theme system and Cortex Prime products. Like, I think I don't do a very good job with it, and I know that I could do more, but I'm not really sure how. So, like, I'm also looking at trying to get some help next year too. But because this kind of, like, I had an idea the other day. I was, like, I was doing yoga. So, you know, you always, I was trying to stretch out my back. You know what I mean? And I thought, like, you know, for a while we've used, like, it's mostly like a visual thing. So it's like the theme system, right? But our designer Simon who came up with the original layout was like, oh, what about if we just style it as, like, theme with, like, the M-E bolded? So it's like me, which we don't really focus on very much. But it's just, I think it's like a cute little thing, even though it's so you don't. And it's just like, you know, some people might think of it as the M-E system. Some people think of it as the theme system. Like, I think it works. And I was just rolling these things around in my brain. And I came up with be the M-E you want to be in 2023. And I was like, oh, I love the way that sounds. And I thought that, like, so we've had, we've marketed the product for a long time as, like, and it's the tagline that we use, which is helping you live a more productive, effective life. And it's very, like, productivity focused as an idea of, like, that the theme system can help you do your work. But I know I have, and many people use it as a way to help them be a better version of themselves. And so I'm thinking, like, this idea of, like, the M-E you want to be, I like that as, like, just a cute little thing to say. So I decided, I just made a little Instagram post and put it up. And I'm just, I just want to see how, if people react to it. And so, like, what I'm doing right now is, it's the same visuals mostly of one of our previous posts that we did talking about, like, the three-step system to a more productive, effective life. Like, the three-step system was the previous marketing line that we used. And so I'm running both of these as, like, boosted Instagram ads right now. Oh, nice. And I wanted to compare to see if, like, one of them seems to drive more traffic than the other. Yeah. Just as, like, and this is, like, me dipping my toe in the water. This is how I work, right? Like, I know this is the thing I want to do. And I know that I, A, don't have the skills to, like, effectively manage marketing, right? On, like, Instagram or whatever. Right. And B, you don't have the time, like, to do it effectively. But with anything I ever want to do, I always want to be the person that starts the work. So I have a real base understanding. And then if I want to progress it, then I'll find someone who's better than me to help. Right. So, like, I always like to kind of, like, understand that little part first. And so it's like, all right, I want to try and just dip my toe in with this a little bit more. And I have been, like, this past year. I've been running some Instagram ads and stuff. And basically I've come away that, like, it's very confusing to manage and, like, really hard to do. But there are people that understand what they're doing. Like, if you try and use, like, they have, like, two different ways you can advertise on Instagram. You can, like, boost a post, which is the easiest. Or you can use the, like, meta business manager tool, which is unbelievably complicated.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I gave up on that years ago.
Myke Hurley: It's so hard. And so, like, but there are people that really understand how to use that stuff. Right. So, like, I feel it for me to really get effectively what I'm looking for. I have to do this. Because with the Instagram boosting thing, all you can do is just, like, boost your posts. Right. And it's mostly the same outcomes. But if you want to create marketing that is not on your page, you have to do it through the meta business manager. Right. So, like, if I want to create just something for Instagram stories and just promote it to people on Instagram stories, I have to make that and upload it to meta's business tool to get it. Right. Because if you can't, like, promote story, it's, like, it's quite complicated. So, like, you know, whenever you see someone's done, like, a video thing that you're watching, like, a story, like, and it looks like a story, but it's an ad. Right. Like, that's done through meta's business tools. So, it's really complicated and very confusing. I accidentally got banned twice a couple of weeks ago. But I will say, like, I did a thing and they did not like it, but I got the bans over, like, appealed, like, or whatever. Like, I appealed them and they were like, yep, no problem. Like, so I was actually quite impressed by that. It's because basically I... It's more of an oops. Yeah. Gray made a video, right, about the Theme System Journal and we put it on our page. Like, we uploaded it to Instagram because, like, why not? And I was like, oh, why don't I promote that? Nope. They did not like that. Which I was actually quite impressed with because they obviously thought that I was stealing a gray video and uploading it. So, that's what I assumed was the case. They didn't tell me, but as soon as that ad was submitted, like, 20 minutes later, they were like, your account's been banned from advertising. Oh, here we go. And so, I appealed it. I explained to them kind of, like, why we were using it and they were like, yeah, cool. And then they let it run and then banned me again. And I was like, I had to contact them and be like, uh, you just said this is okay. And then they're like, yeah, no worries. So, they have good tools, I guess. But it's complicated and confusing. But, yeah, I've just started doing it. Go buy a Theme System Journal. It's the other thing.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I saw this yesterday in Instagram and I noticed it. Like, it was, you know, towards the top of my algorithm. I went in there, clicked it, be the me you want to be in 2023. I love that. Thank you. I've always noticed, I mean, from whenever y'all first designed the Theme System, always, the me always stood out in that. I thought that was a very important part of it, like, accidentally on purpose type of thing.
Myke Hurley: Some people like it, some people don't. I like it, but we don't push on it very much. I like it as a subtle thing, but we don't make it a thing.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. And I don't see it unless I want to see it. And if I want to see it, I'll see it. But yeah, it was. And just a little, my initial feedback when I saw the me you want to be, I initially went to severance, right? Like, if you've seen severance or if anyone's seen severance. Interesting. Yeah. There's a book in severance called The UUR. So, I initially was like, what is Myke doing?
Myke Hurley: There has been some conversation in my household, which I agree with about, like, that this is maybe too simple of a line and, like, it's not clever. Oh, I actually think it's clever. Me and Idina have lots of conversations about marketing, right? Yeah. She came from that world. Exactly. And so, like, we talk about it and she's like, I don't know. Like, it's a little bit, and I agree with her. It's a little bit, like, on the nose. But what I, the reason I decided to do it is, well, I want to see if this works with more people than what I think is smart.
Brad Dowdy: Yes. Right? Like, it's a push thing. Yes. Like, let's push this a little bit and see what happens. If it works, great. And if it doesn't, well, I've also learned something from that too, right?
Myke Hurley: A three-step system to a more productive life really works on me, but maybe that, and it works on some people, but maybe something as simple as be the me you want to be in 2023 works more. And, like, because what I'm also thinking about is, like, one of the other reasons came to my mind is, like, new year, new me, like, that idea. Yeah. I'm pushing on that, right? Like, a thing that I did in this one that I never usually do, I put, like, hashtags on it and stuff too. Like, I'm trying to, like, you know, sometimes you've kind of got to be a face what you're trying to do, you know? And this is, like, one of those things.
Brad Dowdy: I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you. We're very similar. It's like, do I really want to put 20 hashtags on this? And my answer is 99% of the time, no. But sometimes it needs 20 hashtags.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. And also, it's like, you can make the decision, but you know what you should be doing. And so, like, when I think about this, like, you know, I think about, like, Gray's theme last year was basically around, like, realizing that if he's going to be a YouTuber, he has to do the things YouTubers do, right? Like, it's part of being that role. Like, you know, making your thumbnails more enticing, changing them, right? So you can maybe trick the algorithm into sending your videos to more people. Like, that is what it's like to be a YouTuber. And I figure, you know, if we are trying to make a product and sell it to an audience, that is, the idea is larger than, like, more broad than just the podcast listenership, right? Like, I feel like at this point, Cortex listeners, they're either in or they're out, or they can jump in whenever they want. They know it's there. They understand. But I want more people to know about this than listen to Cortex, right? Like, I just want to get it out wider to the world. And so I've kind of got to push into these other little areas if I'm going to make that a thing. So, yeah. And this is all training wheels for our next product, which is ready now. It's all there, set. Nice.
Brad Dowdy: But I've just got to decide when we're going to put it on sale. Well, it was always going to be 2023 to begin with.
Myke Hurley: Yeah. Yeah. So, well, it wasn't. It was because... Oh, well, okay. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Well, six months ago, it decided that it was going to be 2023. 2023.
Myke Hurley: And so, like, this product, I think, it's more... So, like, the theme system journal requires, like, you've got to be in on the idea. Yes. To buy the thing. And I'm trying to cut out that middle part of, like, you've got to be in on the idea. It's like, this is just, I think, a nice thing that people would want. And so, I'm trying to, like, dip my toe into the marketing world more because I think we can make a bigger push on this second product. Right. But, so, yeah, this is, hopefully, it's going to be a decent 2023 for Cortex Brand. We're going to try and be the me we want to be.
Brad Dowdy: Nice. Nice. Love it. Since we're completely off the rails, we'll get to our final topic here in one minute. But my little nephew, over the Christmas holidays, we're playing a trivia game. And, you know, it was like a generational trivia. So, there's, like, you know, questions for millennials, questions for Gen X, all this, like, whatever. So, one of the more modern, you know, for the younger kids questions was, can you name, like, or what's the name of the most popular, like, science YouTuber or whatever, something like that. And my little nephew is, like, saying a couple names and he drops CGP Grey. And I'm like, it just broke my freaking head. Like, it just broke my head.
Myke Hurley: Did you try and show him how cool you were?
Brad Dowdy: No, no. I was like, what did you just say? I literally go, did you just say CGP Grey? And he's like, yeah. He's like, I don't know. I was just trying to get the answer. And I was like, yeah, that wasn't what I was getting at. So, anyway, it was just funny. He was being the me he wanted to be at that time. I guess so. It was great. All right. Let's talk about getting ready for next year real quick. And let's start with our friends at Pen Chalet.
Myke Hurley: This is a great way to get ready. Go to PennChalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. At the moment, I'm just going to tell you straight up. Ron said, tell everyone we're having a huge year-end inventory, as he called it, blowout sale. Yep. Now, I feel like if Pen Chalet are having a blowout sale, there's going to be some incredible deals available to you. They have the products that you are looking for from the brands that you love. They add new stuff all the time. They have sales all the time. But every now and again, you get one of these very special sales. They have, you know, and we're going to look at some of this stuff. I know Brad's digging in as we speak right now. Yep. Yep. But they have fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils. They have carrying cases and pen holders and refills and converters and everything you are looking for. Pen Chalet sell internationally with great shipping rates. They also do free shipping on orders over $75 in the US. Pen Chalet has low prices on high quality pens and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So go to PennChalet.com. P-E-N-C-H-A-L-E-T.com. A podcast link at the top of the website and use the password of Penn Addict. You will find some special offers there and get the code that you need to save 10% on anything at any time at Pen Chalet. Brad, what is catching your attention right now?
Brad Dowdy: Well, there's actually so much going on. I'm trying to decipher everything here. So on our normal page, you have your great deals. I am eyeballing the Diplomat E-Lox Ring Rollerball pens, which are really, really inexpensively priced relative to their fountain pen compatriots here. They're super low price. The Mayora is doing some really interesting materials and designs. It's a product I really like. They have a gold nib fountain pen, the Alpha K listed here for a crazy, like it's got to be over 50% off price here for a really nice gold nib fountain pen. Then you have your classics, your classic Visconti Homo Sapiens in here, which have a nice discount. And then what I'm trying to wrap my head around is all of the year end stuff on top of this. And I'm still just kind of fascinated with everything on this list. So the inventory reduction piece of this is like 10%, an extra 10% off of a lot of already discounted items. And there's a gift with purchase, like buying Narwhal pens, getting a free Odyssey A5 Tamoe River booklet and memo notebook with that. But I'm still going, there's so much here to kind of decipher. Like, I don't know that I can get it all in like one podcast segment here, Myke, but there is a lot of great deals. A lot of things you should check out. Just scroll through the list. So I'm looking at my little scroll bar on the window as I'm scrolling down this one page. I haven't made it like a quarter of the page down and I've already seen like 20 or 30 products.
Myke Hurley: So many inks available. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. So I'm not going to be able to refine this much more for y'all right now. Other than to say, you really need to go look at all of the great deals that are happening right now at Pen Chalet for the year end. It looks like you have till Sunday to get, uh, to get in on, on most of this stuff. So yeah, go check it out. Yeah. There's my, my, uh, my homo sapiens lava that I like the white one that I have. That's, that's cheaper than I paid for mine. So yeah, that's, that's a good, there's some good deals in here. So I'm just scrolling down and kind of oohing and aahing at what's a good deal. Ooh, the Y studio resin fountain pen. One of my favorites cheaper than I paid for mine. So yeah, there's some good stuff here. Go check it out.
Myke Hurley: Pennchalet.com. P E N C H A L E T.com. Our thanks to Pen Chalet for the continued support of this show. And Relay FM.
Brad Dowdy: All right. So I did kind of want to hit a mini topic here this week because what I've found myself doing starting Monday was taking this opportunity the last week of the year to get ready for the first of 2023. So this is normally a down week for a lot of people, you know, they're either on vacation or taking off work. You know, the gap between say like the Christmas holiday and the new year that week is usually pretty quiet on the business front, on the personal front. It's a lot of rest, recuperation. But some people, you know, obviously are working, working like normal. And this is a normal week for me. This is a full work week for me because I've been off essentially like the week and a half leading up to Monday, right? Like between vacation and podcast schedules and blog schedules, we took the lead up into the Christmas weekend as my downtime. So now I'm on starting Monday, right? So full schedule. So one of the things I started to do was to get ready for 2023. And from a stationary perspective, what all does that entail? So number one, I'm kind of looking around at what I am actively using. What, you know, fountain pens do I have inked up that need to be cleaned, right? What notebooks on my desk need to be stored and put away? What old planners from previous years need to be audited? What planners for the new year need to be set up? You know, things like that. So like the main things I got done just on Monday, and I've been doing a little bit every day this week. So on Monday, I have essentially two desks I work from in my house. Where I'm sitting at right now is my streaming and podcasting desk, right? So I have a lot of accessories, a lot of things right at hand, and a lot of electronical equipment on here. So this is one desk. And then I have kind of like a separate writing and work desk in my bedroom. That is near my photo setup for taking photos. And that desk tends to get a lot of storage because I'm usually in here on the stream desk, you know, podcasting desk. I will just work here a lot of the days because I'm already spending hours of here on most days anyway. So my other desk ends up being storage. So I started cleaning it up. I literally got everything off of that desk that has been building up over the past several months, right? And this is the week to do that, right? To give you that fresh start into 2023. Hey, get all the stuff off the desk that you don't need. So in relation to that, I cleaned a bunch of fountain pens last week in preparation for wanting to ink up a bunch of new pens to start the year. That's just kind of something I want to do. Just gives me this fountain pen refresh. There's a bunch of pens I haven't been using, a bunch of inks I haven't been using that I'm really desperate to use. It's like my fancy Namiki that I haven't been using for a while. That's going to be the first thing that you can get inked up. My Elbowood Pocket Master, my celebration pen from earlier this year. I got a nib grind on it in San Francisco and I haven't really used it that much, right? So because I've had so many other pens and inks and everything rolling through. So I'm thinking about what pens I'm going to ink for 2023. In order to do that, I need to clean up a bunch of ink pens. I have two pens inked up right now. So, or two pens that I'm actively using inked up. My 823 Fujiyama Blue, you know, the Bunga Box 823 and the Pen Addict Bennu anniversary pen. So those I kept inked up. Everything else got cleaned out because I'm about to ink up probably six pens like this weekend or next week sometime. Then I really wanted to get my planner set up for 2023. I think we'll dig into that a little bit further next week. So next week I want you and I to talk about like our 2023 plans, ideas, goals, planners, specifically stationary things we're using, things I'm anxious to like get underway for next year. So we'll talk about that. But I was setting that up for 2023. So it's really been a productive week on the organizing, cleaning, separating out, storing, deciding on plans for all of my stationary to, you know, you can do it for any day. But, you know, obviously the first of the year is a really good break, breaking point to just kind of start something new. And what I want to do is start with a clean desk and a clean pen case and a clean notebook. So I've been doing all of those things this week to give me kind of a head start next week. And this goes for like digital cleanup too, right? Like I organize my notes in Ulysses to better utilize, you know, the different topics I'm covering, the type of content I want to create. So I spent some time digitally cleaning too, Myke. So like that's important. And this is a good time of week to get all of that stuff organized and get ready for 2023. So I'll be doing more of that this week. You know, I'm, I have to clean up this desk that I'm sitting at right now. It's got too many notebooks and too many pens sitting here from things that I've used and things that I've shown on stream or on the podcast. And it just kind of builds up like all the cruft builds up and like I'm looking at two ink bottles and some, you know, some pens that need to be stored away and just stuff that doesn't normally live on this desk needs to go. And now's the time to do it. So I just wanted to bring that up. So hopefully everyone can get ready for a great 2023 in the stationary world, get, get writing, get planning, get motivated to use the things that you have. And yeah, I am getting myself ready and getting excited for the new year.
Desk organization and productivity goals for 2023
Myke Hurley: Yeah. I'm in this space too of like trying to clean up my desks and trying to find new organization. Like for me, it's mostly the keyboard stuff, then the pen stuff. Like I feel like I got my pen stuff pretty taken care of. However, saying that, I now remember that I have not unpacked my Alex drawers in the new house. So when we were moving out, because I have those, those large, like large chest of drawers, right? Where I can put my pen stuff in it. I took all of the stuff out and like put it in bags, backpacks. So the pens would be safer. I've unpacked some, but most of it is not. Like my field notes are unpacked, that kind of stuff. But I have tons of pens in a few backpacks that I need to go through and sort through. Oh God, I don't even want to think about that. But here at the studio, I'm like working on just tidying some of my desk stuff up a bit. And next year I want to get, I want to do a bit of a refresh at some point for the studio, get some shelving in here or something to kind of just give me a bit better storage for some stuff. Yeah.
Brad Dowdy: Yeah. I have all of those tasks need to be done and they tend to fall down the list from like whatever is the most important thing we're doing right now. And with me, like I always say, like I just, everything stacks up on my desk like vertically. So I end up having these piles of stuff and I just, okay, let's take this pile, let's break it down and let's get, let's put the things where they're supposed to be instead of creating these huge piles of stationary and notebooks and pens and randomness on my desk. All right. Is that it for this week? I think that's it for this week. So next week, new year, Myke. Yep. Be the me you want to be, right?
Myke Hurley: In 2023, baby. New year, new us. Let's do it. If you want to find Brad online, go to penaddict.com, spokedesign.com, twitch.tv slash penaddict. What else? You need to tell me now. What else?
Brad Dowdy: Man, that's, that's, that's really good. Like I'm still on Twitter at Dowdyism for now. Like that's a good place to like see when articles get posted and things like that, but that could be changing soon next year. So I think we'll, we'll figure out maybe a new outro next year to kind of, kind of nail down like all of the places. So maybe there's just be one place you can go to find all the things. And right now, penaddict.com is the best place to go. Everything that I do is linked in the navigation bar up top. And that's where I am.
Myke Hurley: You can go, you can go to mikehilly.net and you can see everything that I'm up to and go to themesystem.com, cortexmerch.com. Thank you so much to Squarespace and Pen Chalet for the support of this week's episode. Most of all, thank you all for listening and being around with us throughout 2022. And we cannot wait to join you all in 2023. Happy new year, everybody. Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.